That night when he escaped and found Prince An Le, he was originally going to warn him to never start trouble again. Yet after the last descendant of his royal house discovered his true identity, he excitedly grabbed hold of him and asked him to join his grand scheme of revenge and aid the recovery of their kingdom. His eyes were so red with passion and his voice so high with excitement that it made one’s hair stand on end. He first vowed to spill blood at the Gilded Banquet, then kill Lang Qianqiu, and then sow havoc in Yong’an. They would do this even at the cost of destroying the growing amity between the two peoples and at the cost of all the lives that remained from Xianle. As long as they could drag everyone of Yong’an, royalty and commoners alike, to the depths of hell, they would not hesitate.
But in the end, who was killed was killed, who was murdered was murdered. However just the reason, however compelling the reason, the truth was that he’d killed, with his own hands, an honorable king who had truly wanted to eradicate discrimination, as well as the last blood descendant of his clan in this world.
Chapter 23:
In the Cannibal’s Lair, Ghost King Faces Heavenly Officials
XIE LIAN TURNED HIS HEAD to look at that dejected-looking kneeling statue. “Qi Rong was right about one thing. I am quite the failure.”
“Don’t believe the words of useless trash like him,” Hua Cheng said quietly. “Other than being good at not dying and running away, he’s got nothing going for him. He couldn’t even level up to a supreme after eight hundred years. Even beating him up would only dirty your hands.”
Xie Lian’s lips jerked upwards with the thought: wasn’t he the same? Only good at not dying and running away; even after eight hundred years, he’d only gotten this far, which was nowhere.
When he first saw Lang Qianqiu as the Martial God of the East, a high-ranking heavenly official but still maintaining his old character—still straightforward, still falling asleep in boring meetings—he felt rather gratified. However, who knew how he would change from now on? He went off in pursuit of Qi Rong; once that was done, how would he end things with Xie Lian?
Xie Lian rose to his feet and slowly walked to the statue. He faced it head-on; that face was indeed exactly the same as his own, only it was carved with a sorrowful expression, its face covered in tears, contorted and scrunched up, extremely ugly. After staring at it for a moment, Xie Lian sighed and placed his hand on its head, pouring in a powerful pulse of energy.
When he removed his hand, two long crevices crawled over the cheeks of the statue, and soon after, the crying face broke apart. The statue collapsed and crumbled into innumerable small rocks and fell to the ground, never to be restored.
When Xie Lian turned around again, his usual gentle, serene expression had returned. He rubbed his forehead and said, “There are probably still humans hidden in Qi Rong’s lair. I’ll go find them and release them.”
Hua Cheng stood up too. “Let’s go.”
During the ruckus earlier, all the little green lantern ghosts in Qi Rong’s lair had fled, and those who hadn’t were hidden in the shadows, afraid to come out. The two searched all over, nabbing a couple of unfortunate little ghosts along the way and forcing them to guide them to the many caves used for “storing fresh food.” Counting roughly, the number of people Qi Rong had captured for consumption was—shockingly—no less than three hundred, all villagers living near or travelers passing by.
The two unlocked jail cells as they roamed, freeing all the detainees. With a task at hand, Xie Lian was able to focus on something else and calm down. And once they were free, he had the time to chat with Hua Cheng.
He pondered his words but asked anyway: “By the way, San Lang, I wanted to ask you about something.”
“What is it?” Hua Cheng replied.
“How did you know that Qi Rong was the mastermind behind the Gilded Banquet plot?” Xie Lian asked.
At first, he didn’t know why Hua Cheng had brought him and Lang Qianqiu to the Green Ghost’s lair, but now he understood Hua Cheng’s objective was to have Lang Qianqiu hear Qi Rong’s confession to the whole Gilded Banquet scheme for himself.
“Qi Rong didn’t know that I was Fangxin,” Xie Lian said. “If he had known, he would’ve harassed me from the start. At the time, although I knew the old Xianle royals were plotting something underhanded, I didn’t know that Qi Rong was behind it all. So how did you find out? How long have you known this?”
“Not too long.” Hua Cheng walked alongside him with his hands clasped behind his back. “I’ve run into Qi Rong a few times and quickly understood what sort of person he is. Qi Rong was of Xianle when he was alive and holds deep hatred for Yong’an. He is good at the art of provocation, fanning fires and fabricating situations. Many major assassination plots targeting Yong’an nobles were manipulated by him behind the scenes, but he hid himself well.”