It was still not over.
Tang Jie looked at Lin Lang and slowly said, “I can let some people off, but there are some people who can never be let go.”
Lin Lang tragically smiled and nodded his head. “Yes, I understand. Young Master Tang, thank you for your magnanimity. Since you have spared my wife, I, Lin Lang, have no fear of my death.”
He raised his hand to slap it against his head.
“Lin Lang!” Xu Mujun shouted.
Just as he was about to strike his head, he stopped and smiled at Xu Mujun. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t be with you for all your life.”
Xu Mujun began to weep.
Just when he was about to bring his palm down, Tang Jie stopped him, grabbing his arm.
Lin Lang froze. “What do you mean by this?”
Hope appeared in everyone’s eyes. Was Tang Jie feeling merciful and even letting Lin Lang go?
Alas, Tang Jie shook his head and said, “Young Master, you kill Lin Lang.”
“What?” Wei Tianchong didn’t dare to believe his ears.
“I said… I don’t want him to commit suicide. I want you to do the deed, to kill him!” Tang Jie firmly declared.
Wei Tianchong shivered and stared at Tang Jie. “You… you want me to kill… kill him?”
“Mm.” Tang Jie sternly nodded. “Even if he’s a fierce tiger, he’s a tiger that’s given up. What are you afraid of? Go on—kill him.”
“But… but why does it have to be me? Can’t you just let him end things himself?” Wei Tianchong complained.
But Lin Lang understood what Tang Jie was doing.
He looked at Wei Tianchong and smiled. “You’ve never killed anyone before?”
Wei Tianchong’s mouth opened, but no words came out.
Yes.
From the moment he had entered school, he had been focused on cultivating. When had he ever had the time to kill someone?
He hadn’t even seen a proper slaughter yet. Even today’s battle hadn’t resulted in death.
Lin Lang nodded. “Then you should try. Killing someone actually isn’t easy, especially for your first time. It will leave an extremely deep impression on you. Many people will experience an unbearably enormous pressure when killing for their first time, causing their minds to break… If this happens in a duel, then it’s okay, as there’s time to adapt. But in a melee, this sort of breakdown could cause you to lose your life.”
Wei Tianchong was stunned.
Lin Lang turned his sword around and offered the hilt to Wei Tianchong. “You have a good servant student who has fought to get this chance for you. Nothing could be better than killing me in this sort of situation and getting your first kill.”
“But… but I can’t… I… I don’t want to kill you. I think you’re actually a pretty good person,” Wei Tianchong frantically said. His words were a little silly, but they were extremely sincere.
Tang Jie coolly said, “That makes it even more vital that you kill him. On the Immortal path, there are many times when the person you kill isn’t someone you want to kill. The first person you kill will make you uncomfortable, and the first time you kill someone you don’t want to kill will also make you sad. Young Master, your first time will include both scenarios. This is also a sort of lucky opportunity. At least you won’t have to experience this pain twice.”
After this was said, Wei Tianchong no longer had a choice.
He raised the sword with a trembling hand, and Lin Lang smiled at him. Tang Jie had resolved his greatest concern, so all of his will to fight had naturally dissipated. All he sought now was death, and he was surprisingly calm.
Wei Tianchong’s hand swayed, and Tang Jie impatiently said, “Hold it steady and just thrust… It’s very simple.”
“Si-… simple… just thrust,” Wei Tianchong repeated. Finally, he managed to gather the courage to thrust.
Thud!
The sword stabbed into Lin Lang’s body, and the pain made Lin Lang’s muscles instinctively constrict and hold the sword fast, preventing it from going too deep.
“Not enough strength.” Tang Jie frowned. “Circulate energy into your shoulders, and you need to be steady when you exert your strength. No matter what state your mind is in, you have to swing with all your strength!”
“Ah!” Wei Tianchong swung the sword.
This time, he aimed at Lin Lang’s neck, but he lacked aim and ended up striking Lin Lang’s shoulder. As blood splattered, the others could no longer bear to look.
“Young Sir!” Mo Xiang wailed.
Xu Mujun fainted with a soft sigh.
Only Lin Lang continued to hold fast. “Again!”
“Ah!” Wei Tianchong shouted again, swinging the sword three times and leaving three wounds on Lin Lang’s body. But inexplicably, none of the three was fatal.
Tang Jie couldn’t keep looking, shouting, “Do you want to torture him? Do you realize that a soft hand only means greater pain for him? Finish it in one stroke! Stop hesitating!”
Wei Tianchong’s heart trembled. “Understood! Ghost Axe!”
His sword flashed with light, and Wei Tianchong jumped in the air and swung the sword at Lin Lang’s neck.
At this moment, there was no enemy, no Lin Lang, not even a target, in his mind. What stood in front of him was a statue that he had not finished carving.
He put all his energy into the blow, and the sword fell on the neck of the “statue”, leaving a trail of blood.
Blood gushed into the air!
The head rocketed into the air in a geyser of blood before falling to the ground.
Lin Lang’s face still carried a contented smile.
Upon seeing this, Mo Xiang fainted, her eyes rolling over.
Xu Xi’an fell to his knees and began to weep.
“It’s over…” Wei Tianchong put down the sword and panted for breath, suddenly feeling weak all over.
Tang Jie walked over and took Lin Lang’s head.
He closed Lin Lang’s eyes and wrapped it in the cloth strips he had prepared before handing it to Shi Meng.
Shi Meng somberly took it.
This killing had been a test and tempering for Wei Tianchong, but wasn’t it also one for him?
That geyser of blood had stained his heart, awakening him from the childhood fantasies he had of cultivation. The gruesome reality had finally brought light to the truth.
The Immortal path was dangerous!
As Shi Meng looked at the head, he had to control the impulse to throw it away.
Seeing that Wei Tianchong and Shi Meng had only paled and not shown any greater signs of disgust, Tang Jie nodded in satisfaction. He then said to Xu Xi’an, “This matter is done with, so we’re leaving. Everyone… make sure to behave.”
He also took Lin Lang’s sword and protective jade amulet. After all, they were both decent spell weapons and worth some money.
“High Immortals, I bid you farewell!” Suppressing his sorrow, Xu Xi’an and the few loyal servants that refused to leave kneeled.
The trio left the Xu Estate.
But after walking out only a few steps, Shi Meng grimaced. “The Detection Spirit Eye I deployed outside the estate has sensed spiritual pulses.”
Wei Tianchong and Tang Jie turned in alarm. “How many?”
“A lot, and they’re coming this way, quickly!” Shi Meng hastily said.
“It must be the other Basking Moon students,” Wei Tianchong anxiously said.
“They came rather fast,” Tang Jie grunted.
“What do we do now?” Shi Meng somewhat anxiously asked.
The moment they ran into other Basking Moon students, they would undoubtedly try to take Lin Lang’s head.
Just as Sun Baoran had said, only Basking Moon students could deal with Basking Moon students.
After some thought, Tang Jie grabbed the head from Shi Meng’s hands and began to whisper his orders.
The other two nodded. Tang Jie made his preparations, and then he placed a bundle in Wei Tianchong’s hand and ordered, “Split up!”
“Understood!” Without hesitation, Wei Tianchong and Shi Meng ran off in separate directions while Tang Jie himself turned back.
Just as the three separated, several figures flew out of the estate’s forest. Their leader wore floaty red robes, and as she stood atop a tree branch, it was clear that it was Liu Hongyan who had arrived.
Looking down from the tree, she saw Tang Jie walking over.
Their eyes brightened, and Tang Jie chuckled. “It was you?”
Liu Hongyan laughed. “As expected, Tang Jie, you really did come. I knew that you wouldn’t give up, but I didn’t think that you would actually find out where Lin Lang was.”
Lin Lang’s headless corpse was still on the ground, and the simple fact that he was missing his head was proof that Tang Jie had completed the mission. There was no need to ask for evidence.
Liu Hongyan and the others had no interest in the Xu Estate. They simply wanted the head. However, they still admired Tang Jie for being able to find Lin Lang first despite leaving last.
Another figure emerged, Cai Junyang jumping onto the tree. He pointed his sword at Tang Jie and laughed. “Good Brother, I didn’t think our little joke would come true. It seems like I’m really going to have to take that head from you. Hand it over and I can promise you that you won’t be beaten.”
Tang Jie chuckled. “You think you can beat me?”
Cai Junyang laughed even harder. “In a one-on-one, I’m no match, but we outnumber you!”
As he spoke, Shu Mingyang and Ping Jingyue appeared.
Behind them were Yang Zhiyuan and the others. There were seven students in all, tightly surrounding Tang Jie.
There was no killing intent from them, but Tang Jie understood that they wouldn’t go easy with the True Inheritor position on the line.
This was a struggle on the Immortal path, a struggle of the Great Dao, a struggle over a cultivator’s aspirations!
Companionship and camaraderie had no place here!
As he looked around at the people surrounding him, Tang Jie backed up a few steps and slowly raised his saber. “If it’s like this, I won’t go easy either.”
As everyone’s faces turned glum and the mood became tense, Liu Hongyan suddenly said, “You don’t have the head, right?”
Tang Jie froze, and the atmosphere immediately became awkward.
Liu Hongyan swiftly said, “You said that you didn’t want to become a True Inheritor, and I believe that. You must have come for your young master, right?”
“But that doesn’t mean that I couldn’t be holding it for the moment,” Tang Jie replied.
“But you also might have stayed to hold us down while the other two left with the head.”
“Correct. There are many possibilities, so which one of you is going to chase them?” Tang Jie countered.
All seven of them froze.
Although they had all agreed to work together to get the head, there was only one True Inheritor spot. A struggle between the seven was inevitable.
Given how indifferent Tang Jie was, there was an 80% chance he didn’t have the head. There was a higher chance that it was with Wei Tianchong, but now, it became a problem of who was going to chase Wei Tianchong.
All of them wanted to go, but all of them were also afraid that they would lose out.
What would they do?
Liu Hongyan gritted her teeth and said, “Three targets! It could be on Wei Tianchong, on Tang Jie, or on Shi Meng. Chase whichever one you think it is! I choose to stay to deal with Tang Jie.”
It was no longer appropriate to choose who chased whom. The best method was to let everyone decide on their own.
As for Liu Hongyan, she had chosen to stay primarily because she had the spell mark. Wherever Wei Tianchong ran, she would be able to find him. Thus, it was naturally better to deal with the difficult-to-find person first.