Chapter 24: Century-long Plan
Jiang Ce, who had hidden on the willow tree and couldn’t help but turn back to look, happened to witness the scene of the short and thin old man being beheaded.
Jiang Ce was first stunned: “Where did this hothead come from?”
Then he noticed the short vengeful spirit beside the old man’s corpse.
Completely different from what the old man had anticipated earlier, Jiang Ce was not frightened to the point of mental breakdown and at his mercy the moment he saw the Yin Slave. Instead, he disdainfully snorted coldly: “Seventh Rank? Cut the act!”
Then he kept running toward the outside of the manor without stopping.
Unfortunately, the old man could no longer see this scene.
However, while fleeing, Jiang Ce’s mind was still turning extremely fast. The moment he saw the old man with the ghosts and monsters, he knew this was a real evil cultivator.
After all, he had never heard of any righteous sects cultivator carrying ghosts with them, except himself.
Connecting it to the previous attack he encountered during cultivation, Jiang Ce quickly made two guesses.
First, the old man was the one who attacked him before and had followed him here.
Second, the old man came here for some purpose and happened to run into him, becoming a scapegoat.
But due to the old man’s appearance being too suspiciously timed, unless he was truly a villain from ten lifetimes, no one could appear here so perfectly, so Jiang Ce was more inclined to believe the old man was originally his enemy.
Unfortunately, the old man was dead, and that half-ghost half-demon monster was blocking the way. Jiang Ce figured he probably had no chance to figure out what was really going on.
Walking through the willow grove again, now familiar with the environment plus the urgency brought by the monster, while running for his life, Jiang Ce actually intuitively figured out some basic movement techniques, shuttling between the trees like a monkey.
Soon, the wall from when he came appeared in his view.
Jiang Ce held his breath and leaped with all his might, directly vaulting over the several-meter-high wall, steadily landing beside the shared bicycle.
Only then did he have a chance to catch his breath a little.
According to the unwritten convention in films and TV shows, whether ghosts or any existence beyond imagination, they only move in the place where they appear, meaning outside the manor was the safe zone.
Of course, this was the theory from films and TV shows.
So when Jiang Ce mounted the bicycle and wobbled preparing to leave, the monster directly burst through the manor gate, stomping a big pit right in front of him, leaving him completely dumbfounded.
The vengeful spirit that was full of life a minute ago now had its chest pierced through, hanging on the monster’s sharp claws like a broken bag, its head being fiercely chewed by the monster.
The sound of teeth grinding and skull cracking rang directly in Jiang Ce’s heart.
“Holy shit! It’s all lies in the movies?”
Perhaps no one could imagine Jiang Ce’s despair at this moment from being betrayed by movies, just like no one could imagine the psychological trauma a big slap in the face causes to a seven- or eight-year-old child.
Jiang Ce wanted to run, but suddenly found his legs couldn’t move.
It turned out the monster’s stomp wasn’t just a simple show of force; the cracks in the ground silently spread under Jiang Ce’s feet, the soil coming alive as it quietly climbed up his legs, firmly trapping him.
In that instant, Jiang Ce suddenly recognized the type of ghost and monster in front of him.
“Damn! Earthbound spirit! The Da An teacher turned into a spirit!”
The monster looked at the struggling Jiang Ce, suddenly swung its hand, flinging the vengeful spirit with half its skull gone flying, and stepped toward Jiang Ce step by step.
Each of its steps carried an extremely terrifying sense of oppression, like trampling on Jiang Ce’s heartstrings.
Jiang Ce was also extremely anxious at this moment, desperately pulling at his legs, but the power gap between them was like a chasm; no matter how hard he tried, it was useless.
The scene of the old man being beheaded replayed over and over in Jiang Ce’s mind, cold sweat unknowingly soaking his entire back.
“Hehe… heh.”
The monster’s flesh body part emitted a sound like stones rubbing, making Jiang Ce shudder.
“You ruined my century-long plan!”
Stuttering yet murderous words came from the throat of the flesh body part.
Looking at the monster less than three meters away, Jiang Ce became somewhat delirious under tension and fear.
“No… no, Big Brother, I really didn’t know those ghosts were yours?”
But the monster completely ignored Jiang Ce’s pale, feeble, and somewhat eerie explanation. The two sharp claws of its flesh body tightly grabbed his shoulders, while the half-body ghost on its back leaned down, opening its big mouth as if it would swallow him whole in the next second.
But at that moment, Jiang Ce, who was unafraid of being shattered to pieces and determined to leave a clear name in the mortal world, saw through life and death in an instant. Filled with endless hatred for the monster that was about to vent its rage over its ruined century-long plan on him and opened its sinful big mouth intending to devour him, he roared:
“Fuck off, you motherfucker!”
In an instant, countless tentacles invisible to Jiang Ce extended from behind him, gently clinging to the monster’s two arms.
Then, a head full of fleshy tumors with no facial features except for a dripping viscous mouth slowly rose up.
It overlooked the monster like a god.
It merely existed there, and the monster daring to look straight at it had its soul suffer a heavy blow, releasing its grip on Jiang Ce’s hands and staggering back a few steps as if losing balance.
And all this in Jiang Ce’s eyes was just him cursing once, then the other letting go of him and appearing very pained.
Jiang Ce suddenly had an extremely strong sense of déjà vu.
Back then facing Aatrox, he had also cursed wildly like this, and the bully who specialized in picking on the weak instantly turned into an autistic patient and retreated to its old home.
Only then did Jiang Ce realize that ever since this monster beyond his imagination appeared, he had never tried to reason with it verbally.
Could it be…
“How bold! In broad daylight under the clear sky, I see you don’t know what it means that all sins will eventually be brought to justice! Hmph! I think your mom must’ve had the umbilical cord wrapped around your brain when she gave birth to you, that’s why you’re so desperate to prove yourself?”
Jiang Ce seized the monster’s weakness and attacked viciously, while the monster seemed to suffer a major blow, weakening a bit with every sentence Jiang Ce finished.
In the end, the monster’s limbs actually gradually petrified and fell off, smashing into powder on the ground.
It looked up in disbelief, only to see that under Jiang Ce’s aggressiveness boost, the evil god phantom had become immensely larger.
Seeing it look up, Jiang Ce thought it was unconvinced, seizing the chance to kick the dog while it’s down with a whip leg, accelerating the monster’s disintegration.
“Who the fuck do you think you are looking at?”
Only until the monster completely dissipated with the wind did the evil god phantom beside Jiang Ce return to his body.
And when everything settled, Jiang Ce felt a trace of unreality.
Just like this… it ended?
A ghost and monster clearly so much stronger than him couldn’t withstand his most basic malice attack?
Jiang Ce’s mind was in chaos at this moment, beginning to re-examine everything he had experienced since starting cultivation.
He took out Aatrox, watching it frantically devour upon smelling the malice scent in the air, and fell into contemplation.
Right after the monster completely vanished, with even the last bit of malice digested by the bottomless pit-like Aatrox and all the previous power delivered to Jiang Ce, several phantoms floated over from afar, landing not far from Jiang Ce, startling him who was thinking.
“Master Ye, he’s right here!”
