Volume 4, Chapter 163 – Tracing the Cause

It was not that my Dao heart was unstable, or that fear had arisen in me. It was simply that this person’s bearing was too overwhelming. The pressure she gave off exceeded even that of the masters within our sect…

Having taken only a single step back, Gu Xi immediately came to herself, and a wave of shame rose in her heart.

Quite apart from the fact that the essence of the Dao-Void path was to disrupt proper order, so that all intelligent beings in the world could seize a slim chance to advance out of chaos, even by the standards of traditional Daoist teachings, that one backward step was a grave taboo.

Looking at Bai Xiang, Gu Xi felt that for quite some time, she would not be able to summon the courage to face her directly. And yet, under the circumstances, she was the one who had to step forward.

Chang Hongyuan had fallen. That made her Zhengtian Dao’s highest-ranking representative. Whether it meant stepping forward to question Bai Xiang, or seeing that the situation was stronger than she was and speaking in a low, humble tone, this matter had to be handled by her.

“Take him back.”

Gu Xi was still hesitating over how to speak to Bai Xiang when Bai Xiang spoke first. “I didn’t strike him heavily. He’ll be unconscious for at most two or three days. If he’s properly tended during that time, there should be basically no lasting effects.”

Huh?

Gu Xi froze.

This Bai Zhixing… seemed unexpectedly easy to talk to?

But hadn’t everyone said she had a violent temper, and that once she started chopping people down she never bothered to be reasonable?

She discreetly swept her gaze over the wrecked battlefield, and sure enough, she could not find any trace of her junior brother Zhou Yi. Most likely, his chances were grim.

“Is there a problem?” Bai Xiang fixed her gaze on her. “Qing’er stopped her hand several times when victory was already in reach. I imagine you saw that too.”

“But your sect’s disciple disregarded that entirely. He went so far as to use an explosive secret art, risking everything just to kill Qing’er here…”

At this point, Bai Xiang paused slightly and cast a sidelong glance at the girl behind her.

“So if Qing’er killed him in self-defense, he had it coming.”

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Killed him in self-defense?

Not only was Gu Xi stunned, even Bai Zhuqing, who had just gotten back to her feet, heard that and went blank.

What exactly is Sister saying… Wasn’t that man intercepted and cut down by Sister halfway through his charge after using that secret art?

Still, Bai Zhuqing reacted quickly enough and immediately realized that Bai Xiang intended to seize hold of the moral high ground. On one hand, that would make it easier to shake off responsibility. On the other, it would make it easier to demand accountability from Zhengtian Dao.

“Exactly!” The little girl immediately glared fiercely at Gu Xi, looking hostile. “Zhengtian Dao must give an explanation for this!”

The man is already dead. What explanation do you still want?

Gu Xi felt numb all over.

What had happened was too bizarre. Just listening to Bai Xiang and the other girl’s one-sided account… though she did not believe Bai Xiang would joke about something like this, she still could not understand why Junior Brother Zhou would suddenly go mad and attack this girl. She did not want to believe it.

Before the rewrite of the Severing of Heaven and Earth, there had indeed been no shortage of hidden channels capable of establishing contact with the main world.

But on one hand, they had been few in number. On the other, such channels were all highly unstable. Either they were limited to one-way passage, leaving no way to return once crossed, or their appearance lasted only an extremely brief time, collapsing on its own before the Void People could even discover them.

And Junior Brother Zhou had never had any chance to return to the main world before, so naturally it was impossible for him to have formed any enmity with anyone there. Gu Xi simply could not understand why someone like that would have any need to pursue this child to the death.

But this was not the time to dwell on that. She suppressed her suspicions inwardly, convinced that there had to be something fishy beneath the surface. Outwardly, however, she still greeted Bai Xiang politely and offered an apology. Only then, following Bai Xiang’s instructions, did she lift Chang Hongyuan and prepare to take him back to the others of Zhengtian Dao.

Bai Xiang did not stop her. She merely watched her drift away into the distance.

What came next was the usual procedure.

The staff member from the Sword Dao Association originally assigned to this venue had disappeared. Most likely, he had been swept into the Great Luo Heavenly Abyss and was already dead. The Association had no choice but to dispatch another group of people. After they gained a rough understanding of what had happened, they immediately declared Bai Xiang’s side the victors.

By then, network communication had already been restored, and large numbers of online users immediately began complaining bitterly, dissatisfied with this inexplicable ending.

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“They promised us an earth-shaking battle, and this is it?”

“It really was earth-shaking. I didn’t need to watch it online. I could see the wind and clouds change from several kilometers away.”

“Then what about people who don’t live on Tongyun Circuit?”

“What kind of garbage broadcast quality is this? At least give us an on-site replay.”

The arguments online immediately flared up again around the match result.

The controversy centered mainly on the lack of a replay. As for the earlier and larger dispute, “How could the Peak Group be counted as a win after only one match?” that died down almost at once after Tongyun Evening News released an exclusive interview.

The interview centered on Gu Xi.

[Shenming Sword Dao is very strong. It’s not just Venerable Bai. There are no shortage of capable figures under her either.]

[Yes, there was some conflict and misunderstanding during the Lingyun Group match. After that, I believe the matter was discussed with my senior brother, and they chose to proceed directly to the contest in the Peak Group.]

[As for what exactly happened, I don’t wish to explain further. I can only say that this matter still requires follow-up investigation on our side.]

Gu Xi spoke flawlessly, not leaving a drop of vulnerability. And because of her excellent image, plus the large following she had quickly accumulated from her previous appearances, her words carried considerable weight. One could say she helped Shenming Sword Dao settle some of the doubts and trouble that followed.

That was because Gu Xi knew that helping Shenming Sword Dao was the same as helping Zhengtian Dao itself.

The rules of the Dao-Void Martial Tournament really were extremely loose.

No ban on drugs.

No ban on killing.

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But the basic order of appearances still had to be preserved.

Bai Xiang taking action had indeed been improper. But Chang Hongyuan had also made a move. If the matter were pursued, neither side could escape responsibility. And that was not something Gu Xi wanted to see.

Framing them would not work either, because Zhengtian Dao had not been the only sect present. Among the spectators were experts like Daoist Luoying.

If they really got into an open fight with Shenming, Qianyuan Sect would absolutely kick them while they were down and come forward with eyewitness testimony unfavorable to Zhengtian Dao.

She was very clever.

That night, after enduring the concern and fussing of Bai Shengju, Xiang Xian, and the others, Bai Xiang lounged lazily against the bed, her eyes fixed on the Immortal Venerable Yuexi on the hotel television.

“Sis.”

“Sister Xiang.”

“Aunt!”

When Bai Zhuqing came out after her bath, she saw that scene. She walked over and called Bai Xiang several times without getting any response, and could not help raising her voice slightly, grievance tinging her tone.

Bai Xiang shot her a sidelong glance and said bluntly, “I’m not interested in her.”

“I…”

“No… I actually didn’t… that wasn’t… that wasn’t what I meant…”

“I just thought she wasn’t very good… After all, it was her junior brother who died, but she looked… looked kind of cold about it…”

All of Bai Zhuqing’s pent-up resentment was堵回去了? She had not expected Bai Xiang to answer so directly, and for a moment she neither knew how to explain herself nor how to cover it up. She stammered and hesitated for a while, not even knowing what she was saying anymore.

“Zhou Yi had been sent to Zhengtian Dao less than a month ago. She wasn’t close to him. Being cold about it is only human.” Bai Xiang shook her head.

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Suppressing Chang Hongyuan had not cost her much focus. While holding down her opponent, she had also devoted part of her attention to the Jade Spirit and used it to digest Zhou Yi’s remnant soul.

There was something wrong with that remnant soul too.

Normally, killing someone on the spot and refining the soul to read its memories was the most efficient investigative method. So long as Bai Xiang judged the target worthy of death, and the consequences were within what she could bear, she would never hesitate in this regard.

She had originally thought that once Zhou Yi was cut down, everything would come to light. But through soul-reading, Bai Xiang discovered something extremely strange about him.

Zhou Yi had no earlier memories.

All the memories his remnant soul provided began only from the moment he opened his eyes and was brought back to Zhengtian Dao by the Ten-Extremes Daoist.

By all rights, he was eighteen years old this year. Yet the experiences of the previous eighteen years of his life did not appear in his memories at all. They were an utter blank.

And after reading the later part of Zhou Yi’s memories, Bai Xiang discovered that he was not, as many Zhengtian Dao disciples had mistakenly believed, someone of “steady temperament and careful speech.” Rather, he simply did not possess that function.

He had no desires, no thoughts or motives for doing many things. All of this showed that he was not a normal intelligent being at all. He was more like a puppet fabricated out of thin air, or a clone.

Something was wrong.

Very wrong.

It all looked as though someone had deliberately set up the entire affair, with the aim of killing Bai Zhuqing to enrage Bai Xiang, forcing her to violate the rules of the Dao-Void Martial Tournament, even forcing her to openly make enemies of many different powers ahead of time.

For a role like that, the one who brought him back was naturally the prime suspect.

That was why Bai Xiang had aimed the spearhead directly at Zhengtian Dao’s leading figure, the Ten-Extremes Daoist.

While her younger sister was inside bathing, she had been checking this man’s information on the Venerable Net.