Otherworldly Merchant

“Please spare us! Please spare us!” the sorrowful souls screamed and cried, begging for mercy.

Chuyi snorted. He knew that those souls had already been tormented half to death by the formation. As long as he gave them a way out, they would gladly take it. He immediately threw a talisman while reciting some incantation. “Go!”

A lightning strike descended from the sky and tore a fissure in the air. The cold wind came in waves, carrying the souls into the space fissure; all of them disappeared in the blink of an eye. The scene quieted down as if nothing had ever happened.

I could finally relax.

However, my vision blurred as soon as I relaxed. Everything became black, and I lost consciousness shortly after.

When I woke up, I found myself in a hospital room with IV tubes stuck to my body. I didn’t have the least bit of strength, and my mouth felt dry and bitter. I tried to open my eyes, calling for water. Zhang Ai clumsily poured me some.

I felt somewhat better after taking a sip of water. I looked around and found Chuyi, Li Mazi, Zhang Ai, and the gold-toothed man in my hospital room.

I exhaled in relief and really felt like an undying cockroach. I was surprised I could survive the whole ordeal.

I gave Li Mazi a wry smile. “Are you all right?”

Li Mazi sighed. “You should worry about yourself first. Can you believe that you’ve been unconscious for a whole week? I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to recover this time.”

I was surprised to discover that I had been hospitalized for a whole week.

I wiggled while trying to sit up, but Li Mazi asked me to lie back as he adjusted my bed.

The place seemed to be a VIP hospital room since everything looked lavish. I looked around and couldn’t find Senior Shu. “Li Mazi, where’s Senior Shu?”

Li Mazi’s face changed. His reaction made my heart sink. “Did he…”

“No, that’s not it.” Li Mazi explained, “He hasn’t woken up yet. The doctor said that it’s up to his willpower whether he can wake up or not. But there’s the chance that he’ll remain in a vegetative state.”

My heart throbbed with deep discomfort.

The gold-toothed man comforted us, “Please don’t worry. The Zhang family will do its utmost to help. We will supply all kinds of elixirs to cure Senior Shu. Even if he dies, we will bring him ba—”

At this moment, Chuyi’s face turned cold, with wrath flashing in his eyes. He grabbed the gold-toothed man’s collar. “If something happens to them, I will bury the whole Zhang family alongside them!”

The gold-toothed man was scared out of his wits, and cold sweat started to trickle down his forehead. “Daoist Priest Chuyi, don’t worry. I’m sure my Zhang family will do its best to save them. We’ll spare no effort!”

“That would be better.” Chuyi snorted and said, “You should seize the time and call the head of the Zhang family before I change my mind.”

The gold-toothed man nodded, leaving the room with a gloomy face.

I was surprised. I recalled having been in more dangerous situations, but Chuyi had never been this angry. What happened to him today?

I knew there was something else to it. “Chuyi, did the gold-toothed man hide something from us?”

Chuyi answered in a cold tone, “The Zhang family used you.”

“They used us?” I looked at Chuyi in puzzlement. “Is there some kind of misunderstanding? I know the Zhang family’s situation. They can’t afford to have any internal strife.”

“They used you as bait so I would get involved,” Chuyi said. “They knew you weren’t competent enough, and yet they asked you to come and deal with the Wordless Heavenly Book. They hoped that I would show up when you were about to be killed. It would force me to stand against the Longquan Villa.”

“What?!” After I heard that, I spat out a mouthful of blood. “Damn, those bastards…”

I was really mad and hated the fact that I couldn’t tear apart the Zhang family right at this instant. Using us to drag Chuyi into this mess was really despicable.

I felt a little guilty once my rage started to cool down. Chuyi was completely unrelated to this matter, but now he was involved because of me.

Li Mazi and Zhang Ai were also furious. Li Mazi wanted to look for the gold-toothed man to beat him up. However, Chuyi stopped him.

“Even if they didn’t trick you, I’d have gotten involved sooner or later. I can’t just stand there and watch as you and Senior Shu get killed.”

I sighed as I looked at Chuyi. My heart felt warm after his response.

Chuyi had always helped me, but I had yet to return a single favor. And now, he was involved in the fight between two forces because of me. I felt guilty toward him.

However, there was something I couldn’t understand. Why did Chuyi always help me while getting nothing in return?

I asked him, but he didn’t answer, so I could only give up.

Li Mazi asked Chuyi, “Do you know anything about the Wordless Heavenly Book? That book’s quite odd. It’s made of human skin.”

Chuyi nodded. “I used to have that book. I sold it to the Longquan Villa.”

The Wordless Heavenly Book was a relic from the Qin dynasty. All of the pages were made of compressed and air-dried human skin. Before the book was bound, the skin was treated with the best anti-corrosive technique at the time.

The one who had made that book was the Qin dynasty’s Chancellor Li Si, who had come up with the policy of ‘burning the books and burying the scholars.’

Everybody knew that Qin Shihuang embraced tyrannical policies and bore an extreme grudge against the scholars who stood against him and nagged about morals. Together with his Chancellor Li Si, they had orchestrated the most tragic case of slaughter in history. They had killed millions of Confucian students and scholars, burning them together with the books they loved.

To earn points and be in Qin Shihuang’s good graces, Li Si found some executioners and skinned one hundred Confucian scholars to create the Wordless Heavenly Book. Then, he burned them alive.

Those Confucian scholars had endured inhuman torture before they were killed, so their resentful energy was really strong. After they died, their souls were bound to the Wordless Heavenly Book and survived for the next thousands of years.

Qin Shihuang had burned books and buried talented people to strengthen his rule and allow his descendants to sit on the throne.

However, he didn’t expect that his policy of ‘burning books and burying Confucian scholars’ would be unable to seal people’s mouths. Quite the contrary, it had boosted their hatred against the Qin dynasty. Dozens of years later, the Qin dynasty overturned by the enraged citizens and collapsed.

Whether the ruler was good or bad, or how his country grew, history would tell. Using force to stop people from talking was the most stupid method.

This was a principle that had remained unchanged from ancient times until now, and it applied even to this day.