Chapter 165: Choice

Yong Jie's lips parted, but he could not speak.

But his footsteps moved forward involuntarily, and his True Energy surged accordingly. His hands were clenched into fists.

"Master!"

"Master Yong Jie. Have you thought it through?"

Two voices sounded at the same time.

One was An Ziyang, who was following Yong Jie; seeing him look lost, as if he were about to step forward and intervene, he hurriedly spoke to dissuade him.

The other was Li Miao.

He had long heard the footsteps of Yong Jie and An Ziyang, but simply ignored them.

Li Miao had An Ziyang bring Yong Jie over, originally thinking that Ji Tianrui had a high possibility of hiding in the Miao region, so he let Yong Jie come for revenge. Who knew that this matter would go back and forth and end up revolving around Yong Jie himself.

The grievances and entanglements were too deep, and Li Miao had no intention of clearing them up for Yong Jie, so he simply waited for Yong Jie to make a choice before speaking.

Therefore, it was only when he sensed Yong Jie's intention to intervene that he spoke.

"Master, look around."

Li Miao said.

Yong Jie suddenly came to his senses.

Since seeing the Miao King, his mind had been fixed on her, with no time to care about anything else. After Li Miao's reminder, he shifted his gaze to the surroundings of the Pupa Chamber, seeing the mountain of corpses and sea of blood, and the girl skeletons leaning crookedly on the jars.

"This, how many people have died here..."

An Ziyang muttered.

He had walked the Jianghu since he was young, seen many corpses, and witnessed many tragic sights. But he had never seen anything like this, truly like the hellish scene described in storybooks.

Just the mountain of corpses to the front left, a rough scan showed no fewer than several hundred skeletons. And the jars to the front right contained the skeletons of hundreds of young girls.

A flash of clarity passed through Yong Jie's eyes, and then he looked at the Miao King, whose heart had been dug out by Li Miao.

"Master, when we first met, I encountered your former subordinate in prison."

"When we left, you didn't ask me to save her."

"At that time, I asked you why; do you still remember your answer?"

Li Miao said indifferently.

Looking at the Miao King's familiar face, Yong Jie's lips quivered, and he said tremblingly.

"I remember... I remember."

"The monk said, sow the cause and reap the fruit; retribution is inescapable. If one does evil, one must repay it. The monk wanted to save her, but could not, otherwise it would be helping the tiger to devour people..."

"The people she killed must also be recorded on the monk's account..."

Li Miao nodded and said.

"It is good that the Master remembers."

"This person is the Miao King, the mother of the murderer who killed Master Xingchi, the root cause of the death and injury of thousands of people in Tai'an City, and the source of witchcraft."

"Regardless of whose wife or mother she was before, I will kill her today."

Li Miao's fingers slowly clenched, and amidst the Miao King's painful screams, he crushed that heart into meat paste.

"I will not ask you to destroy your relatives for the sake of righteousness."

"But if you step forward to stop me from killing her... I don't mind teaching you a lesson on behalf of Master Xingchi."

Having said that, Li Miao pulled his hand out of the Miao King's body and then clenched it into a fist.

He smashed his fist onto the Miao King's back!

"Pfft—"

Blood and minced meat gushed from the Miao King's mouth like a fountain; she flew high like a kite with a broken string and smashed into the pile of corpses.

After a long while.

"Cough, cough."

She stood up from the sticky corpses, the large hole in her chest already healed. The Miao King lifted her head, first glancing at Li Miao, then shifting her gaze to Yong Jie.

"Alas, husband. You have such a cruel heart."

Her tone was resentful, as if a wife were complaining about her husband.

Yong Jie, however, could not help but shiver.

Hearing this sentence, he finally confirmed that this was not his wife... absolutely not.

The Ge Puqi of back then was a woman who was gentle and graceful on the surface, but stronger than a man at her core. If the situation were reversed and Yong Jie had fallen into the demonic path, Ge Puqi would never have hesitated; no matter how heartbroken she was, she would have dealt a killing blow directly.

She would absolutely never have spoken in this tone.

His wife was already dead; now it was the Miao King wearing his wife's corpse, speaking to him.

"Patron An, retreat, retreat into the cave."

Yong Jie said hoarsely.

"Master."

An Ziyang frowned and called out.

"I have thought it through."

"The matter here does not involve the Ming Sect and has nothing to do with you; you should leave, so as not to be accidentally injured."

Yong Jie said.

An Ziyang thought for a moment; he had said everything that needed to be said, and what followed was not something he, a second-rate practitioner, could interfere with. So he retreated slowly as instructed.

Inside the Pupa Chamber, only Li Miao, the Miao King, and Yong Jie remained.

"Patron, thank you."

Yong Jie bowed to Li Miao.

Then he took a string of prayer beads from his wrist, removed one, and put it in his mouth.

This was given to him by the sweeping monk in the Scripture Pavilion. It was also something every Shaolin Abbot carried with him—the "Great Sandalwood Pill."

Xingchi had taken this very thing to step into the Heaven-Man realm and fight Ji Tianrui.

In just an instant, Yong Jie's True Energy suddenly became heavy and stagnant. It flowed along his meridians into his muscles and bones, wrapping them up. And Yong Jie's skin also slowly plated with a layer of gold.

After taking this, although Yong Jie would not die in three days like Xingchi, his lifespan would be greatly reduced. But at the same time, he had officially stepped into the Heaven-Man realm, gaining the qualification to participate in the struggle between Li Miao and the Miao King.

His current "Jin Gang" was already stronger than a perfect "Jin Gang."

"Master, have you figured it out?"

Li Miao said.

"Yes, Patron."

"This matter should be brought to an end by me, the monk."

Yong Jie said in a deep voice.

He clenched his fists tightly, the sound of tigers and leopards thundering, his muscles and bones ringing in unison. His left fist was raised to his eyes, his right fist held below his waist, his feet in a 'Ding' stance, his tiger eyes staring fixedly at the Miao King.

Yong Jie said in a deep voice.

"The hatred of killing my wife, the hatred of killing my master, as well as the people who died and were injured in Tai'an City, and the human lives piled up here."

"I am the Shaolin Abbot, the disciple of the 'Holy Monk' Xingchi."

"Eliminating demons and defending the Dao, it is today."

The Miao King looked at Yong Jie, a cold smile appearing on her face.

"Husband has such a cruel heart; are you actually going to team up with an outsider to kill your wife?"

"Fine."

"A bottomless three-path merger, and a secret Shaolin Jin Gang."

"If I hesitate any longer, I'm afraid it won't do."

Before the words had faded, Li Miao had already appeared before her.

His hands fluttered up and down like butterflies, it was "Falling Leaves."

Looking at the Miao King again, the right half of her body, from shoulder to fingertip, was left with only white bones. But she had no reaction at all, only sneering coldly, driving the Gu insects on her body to pounce toward Li Miao.

Li Miao's palm saber swept across, True Energy released externally, shredding the Gu insects in mid-air; the filthy blood splashed on the ground, hissing, and in an instant, it corroded a large hole.

And on the Miao King's right arm, a thin layer of fascia had already grown.

She was truly difficult to kill, even harder to kill than Wan Tianzong.

Almost every part of her body had been destroyed by Li Miao once.

Her body was no longer human.

To kill her, one still had to find that Gu insect parasitizing her body.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 166 =====