Chapter 69 What is it (Part Two)
Li Xi chuckled and asked, "What, are you getting angry? Mr. Wang's body is right outside! Should I bring it here for everyone to see? Is Immortal Venerable Chu truly unable to save him, or does he simply not want to save him at all?"
Li Xi's outburst was quite loud, and most people inside and outside the house heard it. They all began to look at Chu Jianshan with disapproval. If he continued to defend Cheng Yuan, the situation might not be pleasant.
“Master Li,” Jiang Yan advised, “Your words are a bit extreme. I trust my junior brother’s character. He has no connection with Linyi Sect. If you continue to speak rudely, don’t blame me for being impolite.”
Li Xi, having been rebuffed, snorted and turned away.
Jiang Yan looked at Chu Jianshan again. Her emotions had just surged and her breathing was still a little unsteady. She whispered to him, "You know that everyone has long had reservations about Cheng Yuan. Now that Qinglan is dead, if you insist on protecting him today, I'm afraid I won't be able to protect you... Please don't put me in a difficult position."
"Senior brother..." Chu Jianshan said in a trembling voice, "It really wasn't him, I beg you to believe me."
"So what if I believe you?" Jiang Yan looked at him with red eyes: "What I want is to make everyone in Changjin Mountain believe you, and to make the whole world believe you!"
Yes, Chu Jianshan lowered his head and remained silent. Such a technique of controlling people from a distance had never appeared in the world before. What made him think he had it? And what made him think he could guarantee that Cheng Yuan was innocent? Qiao Yi was trying to force him to make a decision.
Jiang Yan took a deep breath to calm herself down and said, "I know you two have a deep bond, but for now, we can only abandon him. I promised Qinglan that I would protect you. As long as you admit that he did it, I have a way to make sure that no one has any complaints about you anymore. You will still be the glorious Immortal Venerable Chu."
Chu Jianshan stood there quietly, his lips trembling slightly. A thousand words were stuck in his throat, but he couldn't utter a single one. Tears welled up wildly in his eyes, and with each blink, it seemed as if his emotions were about to burst forth.
"I promised him I would never abandon him again..."
Jiang Yan sighed, no longer in the mood to argue with Chu Jianshan. He ordered his servants, "Take Cheng Yuan to the prison. No one is allowed to see him without my permission. Linyi Sect has oppressed Changjin Mountain for so long, we no longer need to tolerate it!"
Then, as if he had made up his mind, he said firmly, "Cheng Yuan, the young master of Linyi Gate, will be executed on a chosen day to comfort the spirit of the lady in heaven."
"No!" Chu Jianshan stopped Jiang Yan, who was about to leave, and pleaded, "There are still doubts about this matter. We can't rush to a conclusion. Senior brother, please give me some more time. I will definitely be able to find out the truth!"
"Give you time?" Jiang Yan found it somewhat ridiculous. "I can wait, but can Qinglan?"
He pulled Chu Jianshan over, forced him to kneel before Chu Qinglan's corpse, and roared, "Look carefully! This is your own sister! She is my wife!"
"For the sake of an outsider from Linyi Gate, you're willing to let your own sister die unjustly?!"
Chu Jianshan closed his eyes, not daring to look anymore. He knew that the situation could not be resolved peacefully, so he turned his knees to face Jiang Yan.
Jiang Yan asked, "What are you doing?"
Chu Jianshan said, "Cheng Yuan is my disciple. No matter what mistakes he has made, it is ultimately my fault as his master for not disciplining him properly."
Jiang Yan nodded with a wry smile: "You really are his good teacher. Are you trying to take the blame for him now?"
“No,” Chu Jianshan explained, “I want my senior brother to hand Cheng Yuan over to me for three days, just three days! I will give everyone a satisfactory answer after three days.”
Li Xi interjected again: "Is what Immortal Venerable Chu said true? What if you found some other false evidence or secretly let him go in these three days?"
"Then I will commit suicide to atone for my sins."
When Chu Jianshan said this, everyone fell silent, for everyone knew the weight of his vow.
“Okay.” Jiang Yan was the first to agree: “As long as you can give me a result and give everyone the answer they want, I will let bygones be bygones for today’s matter.”
After Jiang Yan finished speaking, he turned and left. The servants carried away Chu Qinglan's body and followed him away.
The huge room was suddenly left with only three people. Chu Jianshan was still kneeling on the spot, stunned, with the bloodstains on his right sleeve still wet.
Bai Qianfan lowered his eyes and asked, "Why bother?"
Chu Jianshan remained silent, looking at Cheng Yuan who was still unconscious beside him. His bloodied index finger bent slightly and rubbed against Cheng Yuan's face, as if all his strength had been drained away. After looking at him for a long time, he finally managed to squeeze out a few words from his hoarse throat.
He asked Bai Qianfan a question that seemed to come out of nowhere: "Which lasts longer, love or hate?"
Bai Qianfan paused for a moment, then replied, "I don't understand what you mean."
Chu Jianshan said to himself, "Qiao Yi has always hated me. Although I don't know where his hatred for me comes from, it makes him so persistent. If Cheng Yuan also hated me, would he be able to persist for longer?"
Bai Qianfan sensed something was off and quickly said, "I'm telling you, don't do anything foolish. This has nothing to do with whether he hates you or not."
Chu Jianshan said, "But if I don't make him hate me, he definitely won't be able to live. He's capable of anything to avoid implicating me."
Bai Qianfan lowered his head and said nothing more.
Chu Jianshan staggered to his feet and beckoned to the servants outside the door. His voice was extremely weak: "Take Cheng Yuan to the prison. Don't give him water or food, and don't tell him what happened. Also, blindfold him and don't let him see any light. Starting today, give him thirty lashes every day with a whip dipped in salt water."
"Yes!" The servant acknowledged the order and left.
Depriving him of water and food, and whipping him with salt water—it's not worth being so cruel to a vicious criminal. Bai Qianfan was about to say a few words of advice when he saw him turn around and leave Tinglan Pavilion, dragging his swaying body.
Chu Jianshan took off his outer robe, which was almost half soaked in blood, leaving only a thin inner garment. He walked alone on the pebbly path of Tinglan Pavilion. Most of the flowers, plants and trees around him were destroyed. Some houses were still on fire. The sky was burned with a hole. Floating sparks flew with the wind to Chu Jianshan. The smell of burning and blood rushed into his nostrils.
Chu Jianshan felt nauseous almost instantly and vomited while leaning against the tree trunk, but his hands kept trembling and he couldn't support himself.
He looked up ahead. The road was still long, winding and stretching into the distance. He continued to stumble forward, and suddenly remembered what Cheng Yuan had said.
"Being able to cry is a good thing. As long as you can cry, it means you can keep going."
Unfortunately, he can't even cry anymore.
A sudden, sharp pain shot through his knee. Before he knew it, he was kneeling on the ground. Then, the world spun around him, and he collapsed completely. Everything around him slowly darkened until it disappeared.
Three days later, in the Heavenly Prison.
The damp air had soaked the hay in the corner, and occasionally a rat would dart past. The windows were sealed shut, letting in no clean air; the smell of blood mixed with mold was pungent and nauseating.
A person was chained to a shelf in the middle of the room. His body had been whipped so badly that there was not a single piece of good flesh to be found. Below his eyes, which were covered by black cloth, was an extremely pale face and lips that were cracked from dehydration, with traces of blood seeping out.
With a creak, the door was opened from the outside. Cheng Yuan turned his head slightly and heard light footsteps. The steps were rhythmic and unhurried, indicating that there was only one person.
Because of Chu Jianshan's orders, the people who came in each time did not say a word to Cheng Yuan. They would leave after whipping him. However, Cheng Yuan could tell that this was not the same person who had whipped him a couple of days ago. It was someone he had never seen before. The person had been whipped again today, and Cheng Yuan couldn't guess what this person was up to.
"Who are you?"
Cheng Yuan asked in a low voice, his voice hoarse from days of dehydration.
The visitor did not answer him, but walked to the dilapidated wooden table, picked up the teapot and poured a cup of water. The sound of water rushing into the cup stimulated Cheng Yuan, making him swallow hard.
The man walked up to Cheng Yuan with a water glass, put the cup to Cheng Yuan's mouth, but Cheng Yuan turned his head away and refused to drink. The man then lifted Cheng Yuan's chin with his hand, pinched his face, and forced him to drink.
"Cough cough cough...!" Cheng Yuan choked several times, but before he could recover, he was forced to drink several more cups of water.
"What exactly... do you want to do!" Cheng Yuan gasped for breath, his chest, covered in several bloody welts, heaving up and down.
After feeding him the last cup of water, the man put the blanket back. As he turned around, his sleeve brushed against Cheng Yuan's nose, and he instantly smelled the fresh bamboo scent, so different from the damp and dark prison, familiar and warm.
Cheng Yuan could hardly believe it. His pale, chapped lips trembled, and his voice was barely audible: "Master...?"
He could sense that the man seemed to pause for a moment, and then walked towards him. The soft fabric of the sleeve brushed against his cheek, and the black cloth covering his eyes was removed.
Cheng Yuan opened his eyes, but dared not look up at anyone. It wasn't that he was afraid of being blinded by the light, but that he dared not face Chu Jianshan. He lowered his head and saw that the hem of Chu Jianshan's blue outer robe was stained with a lot of rotten mud from the prison.
"Master, your clothes are dirty." Cheng Yuan didn't expect that the first thing he blurted out was this.
Chu Jianshan asked him, "Do you know why you're locked up here?"
Cheng Yuan nodded: "I remember some of it."
"Is it my fault?" Chu Jianshan asked.
"What?"
Chu Jianshan lifted his chin, forcing him to look at him: "I gave the order not to give you water or food, not to let you see anything, and to have you whipped."
Cheng Yuan gave a wry smile: "I've roughly guessed some of it."
Chu Jianshan remained silent, but his mind was unsettled, and the hand gripping his chin involuntarily tightened slightly.
"Ouch..." Cheng Yuan cried out softly, "It hurts a little, Master, please be gentle."
Knowing he was trying to ease the tension, Chu Jianshan couldn't bring himself to laugh at his current state. He withdrew his hand, looked into his eyes, and said directly, "My elder sister is dead."
Cheng Yuan's expression froze instantly, his eyes reddened, and his face screamed "How could this be?" He knew in his heart that with Chu Qinglan dead, everything was over.
Chu Jianshan forced a smile and said, "It seems you didn't guess this."
Cheng Yuan, his breathing unsteady, asked Chu Jianshan with evasive eyes, "Is it... because of me?"
Chu Jianshan countered, "Who else could it be?"
He stared intently into Cheng Yuan's eyes, each word piercing his heart: "Who could easily enter Tinglan Pavilion? Who could distract the men my senior brother sent to protect my sister? Who could kill my sister so easily without her being on guard? Tell me, who else could it be?"
[Author's Note]
The story might get a bit angsty later on, so be prepared! A little angst is fine, and no bashing the author! [Let me see...]
I've been so busy with real-life matters lately that I haven't been updating much. I was planning to update more today, but I've had a low-grade fever for almost a week, and I'm really confused. I don't even know how well I've written it [crying emoji] (Damn it! Is this body still too weak?!) (If there's a next life, I definitely want an indestructible body! So I can update for my readers every day!)
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