Chapter 80: Demon Art

“That’s excellent.”

On Duan Yanqing’s stiff, expressionless face, a faint smile seemed to appear.

“Young friend, sit cross-legged before me; I shall transmit my cultivation to you now.”

Duan Yanqing prepared to strike while the iron was hot.

“Let me handle it myself.”

Zhang Jie smiled, moved his hands, and a suction force suddenly appeared.

It lifted Duan Yanqing’s hands and pressed them against his own palms.

Although Duan Yanqing had now abandoned all resistance,

Zhang Jie would never expose his own weakness before him.

Duan Yanqing paid no mind to Zhang Jie’s caution—or rather, he admired it:

In the martial world, those who aren’t cautious are already rotting in gutters with rats!

What puzzled him was how Zhang Jie intended to absorb his cultivation.

Since this was Zhang Jie’s secret, he did not press further:

“Young friend, proceed as you wish.”

“Prince Yanqing, I apologize for the impropriety.”

Zhang Jie bowed in apology.

He immediately activated the Northern Dark Divine Art; a powerful suction force surged from his Lesser Shang acupoints.

“Ugh!”

Duan Yanqing suddenly realized his internal energy was flooding out like a dam broken,

pouring from his dantian and the Eight Extraordinary Meridians into Zhang Jie’s Lesser Shang points.

Instinctively, he tried to resist—but he was horrified to find

the suction from Zhang Jie’s Lesser Shang points growing stronger,

already sticking him fast, leaving him utterly unable to break free!

“Demon Art! This is a demon art!”

Duan Yanqing roared inwardly.

What else could a martial art capable of forcibly stealing another’s cultivation be called but a demon art?

Ordinary martial artists spend decades in arduous cultivation, only to lose it all in a single moment to this demon art!

Year after year, they weave golden threads—only to make garments for others!

Seeing Duan Yanqing’s resistance impairing the absorption efficiency, Zhang Jie frowned:

“Prince Yanqing, are you planning to renege?”

Hearing this, Duan Yanqing snapped alert—he instantly understood Zhang Jie’s implication:

“Duan Yanqing, you don’t want the truth about Duan Yu not being Duan Zhengchun’s biological son to spread, do you?”

“Who cares if it’s demon art or not? I’m already dead today—why should I care about any of this?

Right now, my only priority is securing my son’s future.”

Duan Yanqing instantly discarded thoughts of Zhang Jie’s demon art and began cooperating fully.

“Hmm.”

With Duan Yanqing’s cooperation, Zhang Jie’s absorption efficiency soared; he nodded in satisfaction.

Less than the time of one incense stick, Zhang Jie had drained Duan Yanqing completely.

At this point, Duan Yanqing could no longer speak.

After all, his ventriloquism relied entirely on internal energy.

He could only gaze at Zhang Jie with desperate hope, praying he would not break his word.

“Prince Yanqing, may you find peace.”

Zhang Jie gave Duan Yanqing a reassuring look,

then swept his hand across the top of Duan Yanqing’s head,

an invisible force instantly shattered his brain,

sending him to bliss before he could feel pain.

After dispatching Duan Yanqing, Zhang Jie resumed meditation to refine the absorbed energy.

As Zhang Jie cultivated, a vortex spanning several meters appeared around him.

Whoosh—whoosh~

A miniature storm formed at his center; the candle flames in the meditation chamber flickered wildly.

Sssss.

As the vortex around Zhang Jie grew larger, so did the storm,

until all the candles were extinguished, plunging the chamber into darkness.

“Breathe! Breathe!”

For a moment, it seemed as if a primordial beast from ancient wilderness had taken residence in the chamber.

…

Several hours later, Zhang Jie opened his clear, dark-and-white eyes,

a visible flash of brilliance darted through them and vanished.

The chamber was pitch black, utterly blind to the touch,

yet to Zhang Jie’s eyes, it was as bright as daylight, every detail laid bare.

The extinguished candles, the dust in the air,

the beginning-to-pale corpse of Duan Yanqing on the floor—all were clearly visible to him.

“Added twenty years of cultivation—quite satisfactory.”

In the darkness, Zhang Jie nodded in approval.

Thus, his cultivation now neared one and a half decades,

well worth the effort of scheming against the Four Evils and agreeing to Duan Yanqing’s terms.

Had Duan Yanqing fought desperately, Zhang Jie might have gained only ten years.

Sssss~

Zhang Jie flicked his finger; all the extinguished candles in the chamber reignited.

He rose calmly, picked up Duan Yanqing’s corpse, and stepped out of the chamber.

“Uncle.”

As Zhang Jie emerged, Fan Bailing and the others, who had been waiting outside, rushed forward.

“Younger brother, I never imagined that while we were away for just a few days, you captured the Four Evils alive.”

Su Xinghe stroked his beard, praising.

Because Zhang Jie feared that the Eight Friends of Han Gu might still be on the mountain, causing Duan Yanqing and the others to hesitate,

he had concocted a simple excuse to send them down.

After all, the Eight Friends of Han Gu were still second-rank experts.

Even Duan Yanqing, a first-rank expert, would not risk facing eight second-rank experts together.

Only Ding Chunqiu, skilled in poison, dared face opponents with weaker internal energy.

Only Fan Bailing, obsessed with chess, stubbornly refused to leave,

insisting on serving beside his master, whose chess skill he revered.

Zhang Jie, finding solitude on the mountain too dull, had allowed him to stay for daily chess games.

Only after achieving his goal and capturing the Four Evils did he send a pigeon letter, summoning Su Xinghe and the others back.

“Just a few minor figures.”

Zhang Jie dismissed them casually.

Hearing this, Fan Bailing and the others could only smile bitterly.

Even major sects like Shaolin and Kongtong treated the Four Evils as dire threats.

The Four Evils had terrorized for years without being subdued—their prowess spoke for itself.

Only their master, this young master, treated the Four Evils as beneath notice.

“Ah San, please bury Prince Yanqing.”

Zhang Jie handed Duan Yanqing’s corpse to Feng Asan.

Feng Asan was a tall, thin middle-aged man with a blank expression.

His nickname was “Craftsman”; he excelled in mechanisms and stonework—he had designed and built Wu Yunzi’s tomb.

“Serving the master is no hardship.

I will give Prince Yanqing a proper burial.”

Feng Asan accepted the corpse and replied respectfully.

“Who would have thought that a prince of Dali would meet such an end.”

Su Xinghe gazed at Duan Yanqing’s corpse, sighing deeply.

He had learned of Duan Yanqing’s identity from Fan Bailing upon his return.

Yue Lao San, hidden among the Xiaoyao Sect members, also looked at the corpse with complex eyes.

Although he felt no affection for Duan Yanqing,

Duan Yanqing had been his elder brother for many years and had protected him for so long.

Now that his elder brother had met such an end, he could not help feeling some sorrow.

“Master Uncle, how should Ye Erniang and the others be dealt with?”

Fan Bailing, who despised Duan Yanqing and the others for their boundless evil, asked.

“Ye Erniang…”

Zhang Jie fell into deep thought at these words.

Compared to Duan Yanqing, Ye Erniang’s crimes were even more unforgivable.

Although Duan Yanqing was called “overflowing with evil,” and had committed massacres of entire families,

his vengeance was directed solely at those who had once participated in the Dali coup and persecuted him.

The Confucian text, Gongyang Zhuan, Duke Zhuang, Year Four, states:

“Can one avenge a wrong nine generations removed? Even a hundred generations is acceptable.”

But Ye Erniang was truly, as her name suggests, “capable of every evil.”

Though she ranked second among the Four Evils, her crimes were the worst of all:

She specifically targeted families with infants, stealing other people’s babies,

playing with them until she grew bored, then either killing them

or giving them away to strangers with no blood relation to the child.

Thousands of infants have died at her hands over the years!

Countless families have been shattered, wives separated from husbands, children torn from parents!

Countless people hate her so intensely they long to drink her blood and eat her flesh!