Manifest wickedness deserves divine retribution!

A crack of thunder, as if in answer to Wu Youzi’s final words, suddenly split the air.

The square erupted into chaos — far more tumultuous than when word came that Rong Huanxuan was the patriarch’s daughter. Cries of shock, the buzz of discussion, and curses rang out in a rising and falling chorus.

Cultivating forbidden arts was the gravest taboo in the righteous path, a source of shame to all who walked it. And to cultivate forbidden arts while also brutally murdering one’s own flesh and blood for the purpose — to call such a person a beast was to insult the beasts. This was simply something that defied all of heaven’s principles, a truly irredeemable villain.

“You are speaking falsehoods! To seize the Rong Family’s power while the patriarch is in seclusion, you resort to underhanded means — framing and slander. You have been crippled for ten years, and now that you can stand, it is you who has been cultivating forbidden arts — you are the true traitor, the true transgressor!” A man from the Rong clan glared at Wu Youzi and cursed at him.

What in the world was Rong Qingcang trying to accomplish? He was a member of the Rong Family. To destroy the Rong Family like this — what did it gain him? Without a clan, he would be like a drifting weed with no roots. How could things go well for him?

Most importantly — how could he be so selfish? To expose the Rong Family’s shame so nakedly — how were they, the Rong clan’s people, supposed to hold their heads up in Da Han going forward?

“That is correct — do not listen to his slander! Rong Qingcang is acting purely out of selfish desire to frame the patriarch. Our Rong Family has spent these years slaying demons and purging evil — all of you have seen it with your own eyes! It is said that great affairs require one to overlook minor details — it would be unbecoming to dwell on a small matter such as this…”

“The Twin-Pillar Bridge over Black Water River — I heard the former Rong Family patriarch worked a ritual to complete its construction back in the day, using two young children as living foundation posts. The resentment from those children caused their spirits to rage, and the bridge itself ultimately collapsed. Is this not to say that the Rong Family has long been well-versed in what they call ‘overlooking minor details’?” Lang Jiuchuan’s cool, clear voice rang out across the entire square, dripping with mockery.

The Rong Family members turned to glare at her with furious eyes.

The Imperial Princess Tantai’s fine brows drew sharply inward. A flash of cold disdain flickered through her eyes. The corruption within the Rong Family had festered to such depths — how much had been concealed?

Elder Bafang, for his part, was watching Lang Jiuchuan. His hand moved through a set of prayer beads, his brow furrowing. This woman is adding fuel to the fire.

“I knew you would find ways to refute everything. You say I am making it all up? Then why not take a look at this person — and see for yourself who they are.” Wu Youzi gave a cold laugh, and suddenly produced a talisman.

It was a Soul-Locking Talisman — capable of binding a soul within its seal.

The moment this Soul-Locking Talisman appeared, the spirit shadow of Zhengyang Zi manifested. Some of those present did not recognize him, but the Rong Family members let out cries of alarm, their expressions cycling through shock — this was Zhengyang Zi, one of the Rong Family’s revered elders, whose cultivation ranked among the top five in the clan, a half-step Foundation Establishment master.

He had long since passed away. So how had his soul ended up in Wu Youzi’s possession?

“Zhengyang Zi — tell everything you know and everything you did, plainly and without omission, and I will grant you a peaceful passage to reincarnation.” Wu Youzi’s voice rang out hard and sharp. “But if you conceal even a fraction, or distort a single truth — I will not hesitate to scatter your soul to the winds.”

Zhengyang Zi trembled all over. He had no choice. At this point, he understood that Lang Jiuchuan and the others had already gained the upper hand — and the Rong Family was no longer in any position to shelter him. And so, before the eyes of all assembled, he laid bare every detail of the brutal murder and soul-seizure, the particulars so vivid that the listeners felt as though they had witnessed the scene with their own eyes, and one by one drew sharp, horrified breaths.

Even in the act of taking bones and seizing a soul — was there any need to be so cruel? To visit such savagery upon a child — and one’s own blood, no less? Xi Yun’s jealousy was one thing, but without the patriarch’s sanction, how would she have dared?

Not only that — Zhengyang Zi also laid out in full the sacrificial formation in the underwater dungeon of the Ren estate: who had built it, how it was constructed, and what had been done within it. He concealed nothing.

This also overturned the account the Rong Family patriarch had given to the outside world on the day of the incident — shifting blame onto Zhengyang Zi — which meant that for the sake of his own interests, everything had been a fabrication from the start.

“Why the Ren Family estate was annihilated in a single night — that, you would need to ask the Rong Family patriarch himself.” Zhengyang Zi looked at Wu Youzi with trepidation. This was something he truly had no knowledge of — so please, put away that killing gaze.

Towering sins, crime after crime, one after another — every matter Zhengyang Zi had knowledge of or taken part in was laid bare for all the world to see, naked and unvarnished. Even if this was only a fraction of the whole, a glimpse through a narrow gap could reveal the larger truth, and even these few accounts alone were enough to fill every witness with disgust.

When all was said, the Rong Family’s glossy exterior — all that glory and splendor so many had envied — was stripped away entirely, revealing the rotten, fetid, nauseating filth within.

A silence settled over the square.

The Rong Family members had gone limp where they stood, their faces frozen in fear, as though already picturing the crowd throwing rotten eggs and hurling buckets of filth at them.

Every guest present was stunned to the core. The way they looked at the Rong Family members had changed entirely — filled with contempt, shock, fury, and a thread of gloating satisfaction. To be betrayed by one’s own clansman from within was a scandal of a magnitude none had ever seen.

Someone let out an enraged shout: “A Rong Family such as this, with a patriarch such as this — what face do they have to stand among the Mystic Clans? What right do they have to call themselves a righteous clan, to stand alongside those of us who are of the righteous path? I, of the Zhouhang lineage, am too ashamed to share the same standing as the Rong Family!”

“As am I.”

“Have the Rong Family patriarch come out and give us an account!”

“The Rong Family’s wickedness is manifest for all to see — they should be stripped from the ranks of the Mystic Sects.”

The faces of the Rong Family members were as grey as death, as though they had plunged into an icy abyss. Their horror was not at what Wu Youzi had revealed — it was at what had now been confirmed: the Rong Family’s centuries of standing, of honor and reputation, had been destroyed in a single day.

Among those present were not only Mystic Sect members but quite a few nobles and persons of standing who would carry this story out and broadcast it far and wide. Once that happened, what credibility would the Rong Family have left?

Every pair of eyes that fell on Wu Youzi now burned with the kind of hatred reserved for one’s most bitter enemy.

Wu Youzi pressed both hands downward, his voice resonant with force: “The Rong Family has transgressed against the laws of heaven and human bonds alike, and committed every manner of evil deed. I, Wu Youzi, have already made a blood-severing contract, and today, before all of you as witnesses — from this day forward, I, Wu Youzi, and the Rong clan are sworn enemies with no grounds for reconciliation. Between Rong Yiming and myself, all bonds are severed, and there can be no end but death. The Rong Family — shall not remain in this world.”

At the same moment, in the eye of the formation deep in the forbidden grounds, Rong Huanxuan stood wreathed in an enormous mass of black jade, the dark, foul energy within being drawn inward through her breath. She tilted her head back, her eyes blazing with a destructive madness: “I, Rong Huanxuan, the one hundred and twenty-fifth generation lineal Young Master — with blood as the offering, with my soul as the sacrifice, with heaven itself as my witness — willing to invite heaven and earth’s united punishment, in the name of what is just and luminous — Activate!“

Boom!

And in the very instant Wu Youzi’s voice fell — rumble, rumble, rumble!

The entire Rong Family estate grounds gave a sudden, violent shudder, as though a great dragon had turned over in its sleep beneath the earth. The stone-tiled square beneath their feet cracked open in several long fissures.

The clan elders’ faces drained of color. Instinctively they looked toward the rear mountain of the clan grounds — in the direction of the forbidden area — from which came a thunderous boom that seemed to shake the very heavens.

In but a moment’s time, they felt something being drawn out from within their very bodies, seeping and spilling outward.

Lang Jiuchuan lowered her eyes, and the corner of her lips curved upward.

The Rong Family’s clan-protecting grand formation had been reinforced and strengthened again and again by successive generations of Rong Family Foundation Establishment masters — its layered power immense. The formation sheltered and blessed the clan, and also funneled all the spiritual energy within a radius of dozens of li toward itself.

Rong Family members had long enjoyed the stability and spiritual energy that the formation provided. Now, with the formation broken, the spiritual energy scattered outward — of course they would feel it.

A sliver of unhinged laughter showed on Wu Youzi’s face as he looked toward the forbidden grounds. Rong Huanxuan had succeeded. All those years the Rong Family had kept her alive — it turned out not to be entirely without purpose.

“You treacherous son! You wretched creature!” A voice reverberating with boundless fury and shock erupted skyward, its cry piercing the heavens.