Chapter 108

Knowing she was protected by the Kunji Seal and safe, Qiu Qiu Lingsu's delicate body trembled involuntarily as she rushed alone to Suzhou, intending to repay Jiang Sishui's great kindness.

Seeing the three characters "Stone Guanyin," her memory was pulled back to the day she was forced to disfigure her face.

That was her nightmare, the despair and pain she dared not face directly.

"I am not afraid of you now, I am not afraid of you..."

Qiu Qiu Lingsu murmured to herself, clutching the copy of the diary tightly.

Like a drowning person grasping a life-saving piece of driftwood.

【Subsequently, Ishida Jushiro stormed to the Shaolin Temple and challenged Abbot Tianfeng Master.】

【Tianfeng Master possessed profound cultivation and insisted on refusing; Ishida Jushiro then went to burn the Sutra Library.】

【Tianfeng Master was forced to agree to compare three palm strikes; on the third strike, Ishida Jushiro neither dodged nor flinched, enduring Tianfeng Master's palm strike directly, and was Heavily wounded.】

【Tianfeng Master was about to offer aid, but Ishida Jushiro fled on his own, leaving a letter that revealed his sorrowful past and begged Tianfeng Master to take in his eldest son Pi.】

【Who later became the Wondrous Monk Wuhua.】

119 Wolf cubs with ambitious hearts; this is very Japanese!

"Wuhua is Ishida Jushiro's eldest son; did the Shaolin Temple know he was Japanese? Or did only Tianfeng Master know?"

The real-world Shaolin Temple also had a Tianfeng Master, but he was not the Abbot, only an Elder.

Unlike other Elders who usually stayed in the temple to cultivate Wu Gong in seclusion, Tianfeng Master actively "entered the world," and many years ago had descended the mountain with Master Liaojie to save the people and help the world.

Because his virtue and reputation were well-known, and he was the teacher of the famous "Seven Wondrous Monks," many of the women knew him.

As for whether the fact that Wuhua was Japanese was known only to Tianfeng Master as in the story, or if the Shaolin high leadership all knew, that was another question.

The two represented completely different meanings.

This era emphasized one thing: If they are not of our kind, their hearts must be different.

Whether the court or the Jianghu, it was all the same.

If the world learned that the number one figure of the younger generation of the Shaolin Temple was actually a foreigner, it would be a significant blow to the Shaolin Temple's reputation.

【After leaving the Shaolin Temple, before his injuries healed, Ishida Jushiro went to challenge the then Gai Gang Gang leader Ren Ci.】

【Ren Ci, young and vigorous, to defend the Gai Gang Gang's reputation, calmly accepted the challenge, swearing to settle the score with this Japanese swordsman.】

【The result: in fewer than ten moves, Ishida Jushiro was struck on the chest by Ren Ci's Beggar's Staff and died in less than a day.】

【On his deathbed, he never spoke a word of weakness, nor blamed Ren Ci with a single word or half a sentence; he only entrusted Ren Ci to care for his second son, who was still in swaddling clothes.】

【At this time, Ren Ci learned that before the duel, Ishida Jushiro had already suffered extremely severe internal injuries; realizing his own victory was unjust, he felt guilt and agreed to raise the son.】

【And this second son was Miss Nangong.】

Mengzhou, Prince Wang Fu.

Zhao Min's fingers tapped lightly on the table; her large, distinct black-and-white eyes sparkled with liveliness and cunning.

"Shaolin is the Taishan Beidou of the Wu Lin, and the Gai Gang Gang has the most members among all factions; placing one son in each place, Ishida Jushiro is not honest."

Zhao Min herself grew up playing with power and schemes; seeing Ishida Jushiro's actions, she knew that beneath this pitiful appearance hid a treacherous heart!

Not only Zhao Min, but Huang Rong, A Zhu, Ren Yingying, and Shangguan Haitang, those with flexible minds, also quickly realized this point.

Even if Ishida Jushiro could not find his wife, had no desire to live, and intended to seek death, he could have simply entrusted both children to Tianfeng Master.

Yet he did not; he only entrusted the eldest son and concealed the existence of the second son.

And after refusing Tianfeng Master's treatment, he dragged his injured body to provoke Ren Ci.

This was not as simple as having a will to die; it was using his own life to trade for someone else's guilt, so he could insert his son into the Gai Gang Gang.

Ishida Jushiro went to such great lengths and plotted so carefully; if they claimed there was nothing suspicious inside, they simply did not believe it.

Indeed, the diary read as follows:

【Ishida Jushiro was Japanese, yet he desperately wished to rule the Central Plains and dominate the Jianghu, but this was undoubtedly a delusion.】

【So, on his deathbed, he played a trick.】

【He inserted the eldest son into the then "Number One Sect Under Heaven," Shaolin, and the second son into the then "Number One Gang Under Heaven," the Gai Gang Gang; if the twin sons grew up and could both take over the two sects, he would have achieved his lifelong wish.】

【Furthermore, Ishida Jushiro left this testament and a Wu Gong secret manual to the eldest son, who was already six years old at the time.】

【Regarding this matter, Tianfeng Master was also unaware.】

Indeed!

This Ishida Jushiro was indeed treacherous; he exploited human kindness to achieve his undisclosed goals.

And whether in the story or in reality, those foreigners never gave up their treacherous hearts; their hearts deserved execution!

【Ishida Jushiro's painstaking efforts were not in vain; after Wuhua grew up, he was nearly a perfect man.】

【But precisely because he was too smart and too famous, when the Shaolin Temple selected a new Dangzhang Sect, they surprisingly chose Wuxiang, who was inferior to him in every aspect.】

【With no hope of taking over Shaolin, Wuhua placed all his hopes on his younger brother, Miss Nangong.】

【At that time, under Ren Ci's cultivation, Miss Nangong also possessed extraordinary wit, and his Wu Gong even showed signs of surpassing the blue.】

【After learning his true origins from Wuhua, under Wuhua's instigation, Miss Nangong poisoned Ren Ci's food with a slow-acting poison; Ren Ci thus lost all his cultivation power and spent his days bedridden.】

【Three years later, Miss Nangong simply poisoned Ren Ci to death directly and himself took over as the Gai Gang Gang leader in a straightforward manner.】

【Actually, Ren Ci had long known it was Miss Nangong's doing, but he always felt sorry for Ishida Jushiro, and thus refused to "harm" Miss Nangong in the slightest, ultimately meeting a tragic death.】

"Because he was too smart and too famous, he was not selected?" The women were all surprised.

They originally thought that even if Wuhua was not selected, it should have been because Tianfeng Master obstructed him due to his origins; they never expected it would be for this reason.

So this was "cleverness mistaken for wisdom"?

The women could not quite understand why someone too smart could not become the Dangzhang Sect, but they supposed that during daily interactions, the Shaolin high leadership discovered Wuhua's oddities.

After all, no matter how well a person disguises themselves, given enough time, they may eventually reveal their true colors.

The Shaolin high leadership might not have had concrete evidence against Wuhua, but they certainly realized something was amiss in their hearts.

Luzhou.

Zhong Yanyan (the second female lead of the TV drama *Xia Gu Dan Xin*, whose character is modeled on the original novel's Gongsun Yan), who was out on official business with her grandfather, leapt to her feet in shock.

"Steersman Ren was poisoned by Nangong Ling?" The girl's expression was a mix of alarm and doubt.

Ren Ci exists in reality; although he is not the Gai Gang leader, he is the steersman of the Southern Vermilion Bird Branch, one of the Gai Gang's four branch steersmanships.

And as it happens, Ren Ci has a disciple, and his name is Nangong Ling.

Zhong Yanyan's grandfather, Zhong Changtong, is the deputy steersman of the Eastern Azure Dragon Branch, and since his standing is similar to Ren Ci's and the two are old acquaintances, she knows all this.

"Reality is such a coincidence—is the truth really the same as in the story, or has it, like Guo Fu and Guo Xiang, long since been twisted beyond recognition?"

A deep sense of bewilderment welled up in Zhong Yanyan.

After all, the jianghu backdrop of *The Legend of Chu Liuxiang* is vastly different from reality; if Tianfeng Shisilang's scheming in the story were transplanted wholesale into the real world, it would be utterly laughable.

That is why Zhong Yanyan cannot be sure whether the real Nangong Ling is still a Dongying man, or whether he still harbors a hidden malice.

"No—I have to ask Grandfather more about Steersman Ren's past. I absolutely cannot let outsiders bring disaster upon our Gai Gang!"

Resolve hardened in Zhong Yanyan's eyes.

【One has to say, this fellow Ren Ci is definitely missing a few screws in his head!】

【Fine, say you failed to see through Tianfeng Shisilang's plot and felt guilty toward him, so you couldn't bear to "hurt" his son—okay, you're noble and high-minded, I'll grudgingly accept that】

【But you're still the Gai Gang leader! You're not just one man—you carry the fate of an entire gang on your shoulders! Sitting by and watching Nangong Ling run rampant through the Gai Gang—what kind of brain-dead move is that?】

【Putting private feelings before public duty, unable to tell the important from the trivial—this fellow died miserably, but he deserved every bit of it】

【When an honest man is honest to that degree, that too is a kind of state of being.】

120 The Pure Monk turns lecherous monk—dead and still gets his corpse whipped

Indeed, as the leader of a gang, every decision ought to be made from the gang's principles and interests; otherwise, one is not a good gang leader.

An honest man like Ren Ci, who lets his feelings rule him, can't tell public from private, and doesn't even sound all that bright, is truly unfit to lead a gang.

Nangong Ling was just lucky to have run into Ren Ci; had it been anyone else, he would have been killed long ago—where would he have found the chance to strut about?

【After Nangong Ling took charge of the Gai Gang, he stirred up storms across the jianghu in his drive to expand his power, and finally drew the attention of that meddlesome protagonist~】

【Chu Liuxiang followed the trail of clues all the way, and the moment he found Nangong Ling, Nangong Ling was poisoned to death by his most trusted elder brother, Wuhua】

【Sadly, though Wuhua "sacrificed the rook to save the king," Chu Liuxiang ultimately fixed his target on him and calculated that his next target would be Master Tianfeng】

【By the time Chu Liuxiang raced day and night to Shaolin Temple, he happened upon Wuhua—who was well-versed in Dongying tea ceremony—just as he was offering poisoned tea to Master Tianfeng, who was a devotee of fine brews】

【To spare Master Tianfeng grief, and to avoid embarrassing his former friend Wuhua, Chu Liuxiang called Wuhua out into the wilds and then laid bare his whole string of plots】

【At that point, there was nothing more to say—go in swinging】

【Wuhua, unable to win, took poison and killed himself】

【And so, the scheme Tianfeng Shisilang had painstakingly plotted at the cost of his own life dissolved entirely into bubbles】

"Two ungrateful wolves in sheep's clothing!" the women sighed in unison.