The Immortal Lord of the Path of Ruthlessness Bends for Me - Chapter 6

Chapter 6: In the End, These Are the Debts She Must Repay

“You never cared about me! Now you’re here acting like some paragon of justice, sacrificing your own kin? Wang Lifu, don’t you think you’re hilarious?” Ling Shu’s voice was thick with fury, like a firecracker ready to blow.

Wang Lifu’s face was incredibly grim. “Today, I must discipline you properly so you never dare to be this lawless again! The second young lady of the Li family died at your hands, and you slaughtered a cultivator of the Li clan. Fresh lives have been lost because of you, yet instead of showing remorse, you’re here defying me?! Men, take this rebellious daughter back to the sect! I will personally deliver the punishment!”

“I didn’t kill the Li family’s second daughter! As for that cultivator, they surrounded me with lethal intent; I acted in self-defense. You condemn me based on mere conjecture without investigating the truth—you are simply incompetent and senile!” Ling Shu rolled her eyes. “I have no idea how you even sat in that position. Truly, a dog in human clothes thinks it’s a person!”

Wang Lifu’s face turned as dark as soot, her temper exploding like a cannon. “What kind of thing did your mother raise you to be?! How dare you question how I conduct myself!”

Li Qiaoyan stepped forward to mediate. “Now, now, we’re all on the same side. Let’s not speak so harshly.”

Ling Shu crossed her arms, looking as if she wouldn’t care even if the sky fell. “I was raised into something good.”

Wang Lifu lunged forward, wanting to teach her a lesson. “You… you, you, you!” She looked ready to tear Ling Shu apart, but Li Qiaoyan quickly pulled her back. “The child is still young; she’s just being a bit naughty. Don’t be angry. Let’s talk about this back at the sect.”

Wang Lifu pointed at the stubborn Ling Shu and fumed, “You call this naughty? Lives were lost and you call it naughty?! Stop taking her side.”

Li Qiaoyan turned to Ling Shu. “Be good, dear. Go home with your mother. A family should be harmonious.”

Ling Shu corrected her with a shout, “Who is ‘family’ with you people!”

Wang Lifu took a deep breath to steady her internal energy. “Men, take her back to the sect.”

Ling Shu drew her sword, swinging it wildly at the Shangqing Sect cultivators. Wang Lifu gave a cold, mocking laugh. “Amateur skills.” With a wave of her hand, Ling Shu’s sword snapped in two and clattered to the ground. Ling Shu was so incensed she began kicking the cultivators trying to restrain her. They didn’t dare touch her roughly, so they simply let her kick and punch until the scene turned into a chaotic mess.

Wang Lifu had been a person of dignity for most of her life; people usually obeyed her without question. She rarely encountered someone who dared to defy her so flagrantly, let alone find that the biggest “thorn in her side” was her own flesh and blood.

In the end, these were the karmic debts she had incurred.

With a helpless sigh, she cast a spell. Ling Shu’s hands were bound, and she was secretly brought back to the Shangqing Sect.

Ling Shu was locked away at the Heavenly Thunder Platform. Wang Lifu escorted her there, leaving her with one final sentence: “Reflect on your actions here. Think about why human life is precious. You will endure every bit of the punishment you deserve; I will not show mercy just because you are my daughter.”

“Unbind me!” Ling Shu glared at her. “I am not wrong! They were the ones who attacked me first!”

Wang Lifu waved her left hand, releasing the binding spell. Ling Shu immediately bolted toward the main path, only to slam headfirst into the barrier of the Heavenly Thunder Platform. She jumped around and kicked it a few times, realizing the entire platform was sealed by a powerful restriction.

Ling Shu kicked the barrier violently. “Wang Lifu, you old hag! Let me out!”

Wang Lifu flicked her sleeve and turned away in anger.

The Heavenly Thunder Platform was a massive cliffside terrace, the edges of which plummeted thousands of feet into a bottomless abyss, sealed off by the barrier. The sky here was perpetually choked with thunderclouds, and lightning would strike the barrier intermittently. Each strike only served to strengthen the seal, as the lightning was the source of its power. Over time, it had become the place where sect disciples braved their lightning tribulations.

Usually, no one came here. Once Wang Lifu and her entourage left, the area was hollow and silent, leaving Ling Shu alone in the center of the platform.

Ling Shu started by shouting curses, but eventually, her energy flagged. She sat cross-legged on the ground, fiddling with her belt and looking up at the flashing lightning, tracking where each bolt landed to see if they ever hit the same spot twice.

“Two hundred and seven… two hundred and eight… two hundred and nine…”

The roar of the thunder was suddenly interrupted by a clear growl from her stomach. Ling Shu clutched her belly. “Good heavens, don’t let me starve to death here… That damn Wang Lifu. It’s one thing to lock me up, but she could at least give me a bite to eat. Even prisoners get three meals a day. I am, after all, her daugh—”

Ling Shu slapped her own mouth and muttered, “Stupid mouth, stop talking nonsense!”

“What number was I on? Uh, I forgot. One… two… three…” As she counted, the aroma of food suddenly drifted by. It smelled like steamed fish, white-cut chicken, stir-fried bamboo shoots, and… braised pork ribs!

She turned her head in surprise, following the scent, but her face immediately fell when she saw the newcomer. “What are you doing here? Come to poison me?”

Li Qiaoyan smiled thinly, looking poised and natural. “Please. I’d quite like to remain the Sect Leader’s wife.”

Ling Shu crossed her arms and turned her back to her. “Take your things and get lost. I don’t want to see you.” Just then, her stomach betrayed her with a loud rumble. Li Qiaoyan let out a soft laugh. “Come and eat. If you die of hunger, you deserve it.”

Ling Shu jumped up in a rage and slapped the barrier between them. “You really do hate me.”

Li Qiaoyan lifted the food box before her, a faint, mocking smile on her lips. “Yes, I hate you. My second sister died because of you. Did you think I would forgive you? Even if I don’t poison you, I have ways to make you sit here until you wither away. You have no standing with your mother, whereas I have been her wife for decades. Given our bond, even if I did poison you, how do you think she would treat me?”

Ling Shu thought for a moment. It seemed Li Qiaoyan was right; crushing her would be as easy as crushing an insect. Ling Shu’s expression soured.

Detecting her discomfort, Li Qiaoyan looked triumphant and continued, “You have lost completely, little Ling Shu. Do you know where you first went wrong?”

“Where?” Li Qiaoyan’s gaze was like a snake crawling in a dark cave, her smile like a villain in a play. Ling Shu felt a chill run down her spine and unconsciously took a step back. She had never encountered someone who felt so… slimy and damp.

Li Qiaoyan sat on the ground and opened the food box, laying the dishes out one by one in front of Ling Shu. “You went wrong the moment you entered the sect to claim your kin and started screaming at your mother in the Fire Cloud Hall. You shouldn’t have been so impulsive; you shouldn’t have turned against her.

After all, you share the same blood; that is a bond you can never sever in this life. You aren’t a child anymore. Before you clash with someone, you can’t just act on temper—you need to consider their status and position to see if they are someone you can afford to offend.”

Li Qiaoyan’s hand could pass through the barrier, and so could the items she brought. Ling Shu thought the barrier had been opened and reached out to test it, only to be blocked. Li Qiaoyan said, “I’ve set a one-way restriction. You can’t get out.”

Ling Shu withdrew her hand, discouraged. “So why are you telling me all this? To intimidate me? To tell me to watch your ‘status’ before I oppose you? Are you here to gloat?”

Seeing that Ling Shu wasn’t biting, Li Qiaoyan shifted back into a threatening tone. “Yes, exactly. If you want to get out, you better find a way to win over Wang Lifu and get her on your side. Otherwise, how do you plan to oppose me? With nothing but your bare flesh and blood?”

At the mention of sucking up to Wang Lifu, Ling Shu’s mood soured completely. She put on a sour face. “I didn’t kill your sister. She was greedy for a demon core and got into a fight with those two men. She died because of internal infighting among her own people. What does that have to do with me? Stop framing me!”

Li Qiaoyan gave a soft “Heh.” “And what if I insist that you are the murderer?”

Ling Shu’s temper flared instantly. She pointed at Li Qiaoyan’s nose. “You’re shameless! You murder the innocent! You frame good people!”

Li Qiaoyan slammed her chopsticks against the dishes with a sharp clack. “Eat!” The sudden harshness in her voice startled Ling Shu. This woman was, after all, in the middle stage of the Nascent Soul realm…

“Why should I listen to you…” Her voice had lost half its bravado. Li Qiaoyan furrowed her brows, a low, questioning “Mmh?” vibrating from deep in her throat. Ling Shu’s skin crawled. She sat down, reached for the bowl and chopsticks, and tentatively put a piece of tender fish belly into her mouth.

The steamed fish was fresh, smooth, and savory. The starving Ling Shu chewed a few mouthfuls and began shoveling rice into her mouth. Even while enjoying the food, she didn’t forget to steal glances at Li Qiaoyan’s expression, only to be scared back by a sharp, “What are you looking at? Eat faster!”

Chewing on a chicken leg, Ling Shu muttered a muffled complaint. “Humph. Sending me food is just an act to please Wang Lifu. How shameless.”

Li Qiaoyan: “You seem to be eating quite happily though.”

Ling Shu’s jaw froze. She had a point… Her face flushed red as she cursed herself in her heart: Ling Shu, where is your backbone?!

“Is the chicken leg good?”

“Hmph…” Ling Shu turned her body away, refusing to look at her, and continued eating.

Li Qiaoyan suppressed a smile and immediately resumed her dignified posture. “If you want to get out, there is actually one way. You could ask Immortal Qingxi to use the ‘Technique of Retrospection’ to recreate the scene of the victim’s death to prove you were also a victim. Then you could be released. However, you did take the life of a cultivator from my sect. You cannot escape that crime. By law, you must endure forty strikes of lightning punishment.”

As Li Qiaoyan finished, Ling Shu bit into the chicken leg viciously. “If you hadn’t sent people to hunt me down, would I have killed anyone? I killed her to save my own life!”

“There was a trace of your spiritual energy on my sister’s body,” Li Qiaoyan stared intently at her. “Was I wrong to hunt you down?”

Ling Shu was speechless. They were back at the start, like a sealed maze where every turn leads back to the beginning.

Among those three people, the one who drugged her and plotted for her demon core was indeed the second young lady of the Li family. The two men were her protectors. Ling Shu had used a ruse to escape, and they had indeed turned on each other, killing one another in greed for the core.

After she escaped, news of the lady’s death reached the Li family instantly. They sent hunters. Not knowing the Li Patriarch’s stance, Ling Shu had no choice but to kill to survive. But they had threatened the lives of Boss Zhang and her daughter, forcing her back into their hands.

She hadn’t known that the Matriarch of the Li family was the very woman her mother had married after abandoning her own mother.

“It was Wang Lifu who decided you must be punished. Telling me anything is useless.”

Li Qiaoyan waited for Ling Shu to finish, packed up the leftovers, and rose to leave.

Ling Shu felt that this time, she couldn’t just rely on her usual recklessness to barge through her problems. She sat alone on the deserted Heavenly Thunder Platform and touched the imperial green jade bracelet on her left wrist—the only thing her mother had left her. She rubbed the smooth jade; it carried her body heat, yet the jade itself felt icy.

Because of that touch of cold, she thought of that person who was covered in a chilly aura.

Would she… help me?

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