Chapter 190 — Anomaly

Almost at that very moment, Dao Yan's voice came again, but the one he now addressed had shifted from Zeng Shuchang to Master Shuijing: "Shuiyue, what pretense are you keeping up now? Do you think that lofty air of yours truly makes you a paragon of righteousness?" His voice was strange, faintly shrill, tinged with hoarseness, and he declared outright, "In those years, when Wan Jian'gu was reduced to guarding the Ancestral Hall, sweeping floors to the end of his days, and at last died by the hand of demons and heretics, every bit of it sprang from you, every bit of it was thanks to you! Hahahahaha..."

By the end, Dao Yan's voice seemed beyond all self-control, laughing wildly, without a trace of the bearing of an immortal sage. Yet at this moment no one paid him any mind; Tian Buhui, Zeng Shuchang, and all the rest had gone pale, staring aghast at Shuiyue, whose face was as white as paper, and for a long while none could speak.

These few brief words were truly too shocking; the younger disciples like Qi Hao could only gape, stunned in both eye and ear, while Master Shuijing now trembled from head to foot. Yet strangely, a feverish, burning light such as none had ever seen in her shone from her eyes, and she stepped forward several paces, as though caring for nothing else, and cried loudly toward the Ancestral Hall: "You—what did you say? Could it be—could it be that Senior Brother Wan is still alive..."

Her words startled them all awake; Tian Buhui and the others grasped it almost in the same instant, and one after another, their faces alight with agitation, they too called out questions into the depths of the Ancestral Hall.

And Dao Yan's arrogant laughter grew ever more frenzied, echoing over the Ancestral Hall of the Canglan Mountain, and for a long time it did not fade.