The Villainous Master Forcibly Redeemed His Corrupted Disciple - Chapter 2

The master and disciple sat on the outer edge of the bed. Wen Zhihan looked at Ayuan before him. His former little disciple had grown into an adult, his facial features fully developed, having shed the innocence of youth while his cheeks had grown somewhat lean.

What was there to ask? It seemed indeed that there were many things that needed asking.

Having just woken up, Wen Zhihan was genuinely and utterly dazed, so dazed that he could not squeeze out a single question for the moment.

Pondering aimlessly, his two fingers already drew the handkerchief out from Shen Zong’s grip, wiping away the remaining stains of blood on his disciple’s hands.

Those hands were much more slender and lean than he remembered, unmistakably the hands of someone who held a sword year-round.

As the bloodstains faded away, the youth’s clear and pristine knuckles resembled jade or bamboo, a sight that cleared Wen Zhihan’s mind and slightly eased the knot in his heart.

He truly had nothing to ask. What was there even to ask?

With a child as good as Shen Zong, it was simply impossible that he would genuinely commit patricide against his master.

As for the truth of the matter, it was naturally up to him, the master, to investigate and clear it up.

Wen Zhihan set the handkerchief aside, fetched the sole copper basin in the room, and began pouring water into it.

“This master only wishes to know why you did not defend yourself just now.”

Hearing his question, Shen Zong blinked and tilted his head slightly with a puzzled look.

“Defend myself?”

He lowered his head again to suppress a hint of a smile. “Master jests. This place is your immortal dwelling, and with Master’s discerning eyes, this disciple had no need to offer a defense.”

The words were ambiguous. At first glance, they sounded like a disciple’s absolute trust in his master, naively believing that as long as Master was around, his innocence would naturally be proven.

Yet if one looked closely at that smile, false details could be found hidden beneath the overly perfect veneer.

Indeed, Wen Zhihan, why did I not defend myself? Are you not the one who knows best?

Hearing this, however, Wen Zhihan was taken aback. “Is that so?”

Shen Zong remained silent, merely tightening his fists at his sides while enduring an even more torrential surge of fury.

Wen Zhihan was putting on the facade of a gentleman yet again.

Such a lukewarm reaction failed to enrage this scoundrel, leaving Shen Zong with the uncomfortable sensation of punching cotton, so he simply chose silence.

The very next second, however, Shen Zong’s eyes widened slightly.

The basin of clear water poured into the copper basin was actually heated up by Wen Zhihan right before his eyes.

The gauze infused silently with chronic poison was similarly tossed into the boiling water, completely submerged and cooked through.

The rising, warm steam instantly dispersed between the two of them, carrying a strange medicinal fragrance.

As the potency of the poison was cooked away by the high heat until it lost its medical efficacy, Shen Zong’s expression sank bit by bit.

This poison was extremely rare and belonged to a secret of the Demonic Sect; ordinary people would find it hard even to hear of it, so how did Wen Zhihan know the antidote?

“Master, what is the meaning of this?”

“Oh, you mean this? It is high-temperature sterilization.”

“?”

Wen Zhihan raised his head matter-of-factly, practically wearing the words that this is common sense across his face, before remembering that this was common sense belonging to another plane, and it was entirely normal for Shen Zong not to know.

During his eight years of fighting in alien realms, he had encountered a fair number of people with similar experiences, thereby acquiring knowledge from many different planes. Medical supplies requiring high-temperature sterilization were one of those things.

Wen Zhihan decided to offer a brief explanation.

“Gauze is going to touch the wounds, and boiling it in hot water can sterilize it so the wounds heal faster.”

Shen Zong sneered in the privacy of his heart.

Instead of using miraculous immortal pills and medicines, he abruptly boiled a pot of hot water. He must have already discovered the poisoning and intentionally made the poison ineffective right before his eyes.

What was this? Provocation? Contempt, implying that his methods could not exert the slightest effect?

Or perhaps some petty little trick deliberately meant to provoke him?

Shen Zong carefully appraised Wen Zhihan’s expression, yet failed to find any trace of a clue.

He decided to play along with the situation.

“This gauze is too damp and might actually be detrimental to the wound instead, Master. Let this disciple dry it for you before use.”

With that, Shen Zong reached out toward the basin of water.

“Hey, wait!”

Sure enough, Wen Zhihan panicked instantly and intercepted him with a grab.

This was the good master he was familiar with, the sensitive, suspicious, and cunning Wen Zhihan.

Since he had just poisoned the gauze, even if it had been discovered without immediate retribution, given Wen Zhihan’s temperament, it would undoubtedly be saved to settle accounts later.

Having allowed him to keep it, how could he possibly dare let him handle anything related to medical treatment again?

Shen Zong smiled, blinking with deliberate, obedient innocence. “Master, did this disciple do something wrong? I merely wished to do what little I could for Master, to repay your grace in saving me.”

His hand was intercepted halfway, the rising steam dampening the sleeves of both men, yet he refused to retract the hand offering assistance.

The mere thought that Wen Zhihan would be disgusted by his feigned obedience yet unable to expose it brought a surge of gratification to Shen Zong’s heart. Although this act of revenge was childish, it was still better than nothing.

Wen Zhihan merely cupped his hands, a hint of reproach coloring his eyes as he naturally and smoothly scolded him.

“What is the rush? Do you want to scald your hands? Having this heart of yours is enough; this master is not some stickler for foolish filial piety.”

The water that had just been boiling was still scalding hot. If he had not intercepted him in time, his little disciple’s hands would have been burned red.

Granted, those who cultivators immortality also trained their physical bodies, making their physical resilience far superior to ordinary mortals, allowing such burns to heal naturally without medicine. Even so, getting burned and hurting meant needless suffering, and it would hardly feel pleasant.

Those old fogeys with rigid, conservative mindsets were the only ones who found things like lying on ice to catch carp or similar exaggerated acts of twenty-four filial tropes worth praising; it was entirely unnecessary.

Shen Zong had not been like this in the past.

Having stopped him, Wen Zhihan showed no outward sign of it, yet inwardly sighed repeatedly.

Alas, they had grown distant. His disciple had grown distant from him.

Even so, Ayuan still cared about him, and he could not deny his disciple a chance to show it.

He fetched more fresh water, poured the slightly cooled water into the basin to lower the temperature, tested it with his finger, and looked at Shen Zong. “Alright, it is not hot anymore.”

Shen Zong did not move for a moment.

His deep, dark eyes stared quietly at that tangled mess of gauze, hiding all thoughts and misgivings beneath a calm and rippling surface that completely shielded any inner fluctuation from view.

Why?

Seemingly presenting yet another opportunity to meddle right before his eyes, Shen Zong felt no joy at all.

Claiming to understand Wen Zhihan best, he was intimately familiar with which tortures the man could bear least and under what kind of torment he found it hardest to fall asleep. Yet at this moment, he felt as though something was slipping out of his control bit by bit.

He had only wanted to probe a little earlier, which was why he used the only poison he carried on his person.

Seeing the medicinal powder completely lose its efficacy, he suddenly remembered that this chronic poison was called Soul-Quieting Powder.

Preventing wounds from healing and disrupting the normal operation of meridians were merely its most minor effects. If given time, day after day, increasing the dosage bit by bit, it would gradually drain the victim’s energy and make them drowsy, reducing the time they remained awake each day until less and less remained.

In the end, they would become a living corpse that did nothing more than breathe and blink.

Before his rebirth, he had harbored unrealistic fantasies, attempting by every means possible to prove that his master did not detest him, but had simply transformed into another person.

Yet there were no persuasive traces, no evidence, not even a trace of a changed soul. Even in his early twenties, he still suspected that his master had been possessed.

Within the vast expanse of the immortal sects, without evidence, no one was willing to believe the notion of body possession.

It was already a legendary forbidden art, and with only his words, he lacked proof.

However, he had made contact with the ghost market and purchased this medicinal powder.

It did not matter if no one believed him, the young Shen Zong had thought. With this, he could avenge the true master without harming his master’s immortal body.

He had not realized that through repeated disappointments, an obsession had gradually taken root, treating this powder as his sole savior.

Shen Zong had imagined countless times that on the day the plan succeeded, all painful matters would come to an end. He would take his master away and hide him secretly in the most secure and magnificent secret realm of the Three Realms.

No one would ever disturb his master again. He would offer up everything his master deserved, daily replenishing spiritual energy for his master’s immortal body to keep it imperishable for a thousand years.

It should have been like that.

Yet later on, because of what? He was still forced to abandon this beautiful dream.

What remained in his field of vision before his rebirth was only a world full of blood and twisted, fractured white bones.

Wen Zhihan’s divine soul had been tortured beyond endurance before his eyes, voluntarily casting off the physical body he had refined for years, only to be utterly crushed by him, his screams still lingering in his ears.

Blood had long since filled the magic array. Unfilial as he was, summoning bolts of heavenly lightning, he still waited in vain for his master to return.

If it had truly been a possessed body, even if the original divine soul had entered reincarnation, even if only one soul fragment remained out of three, with so many magic arrays offered in sacrifice, there ought to have been some movement.

Yet there was nothing at all.

A voice whispered like a curse deep within his mind.

Accept your fate, Shen Zong. Any master who treated you exceptionally well and cherished you was merely a fantasy born of your madness.

Indeed.

He was no longer the twenty-four-year-old Shen Zong. There was no need, nor did he have the patience to waste his precious time administering this non-fatal poison.

The corners of Shen Zong’s mouth twitched, quickly pulling back into an upward arc as he silently fished the gauze out of the water, wrung it dry, and then dried it further with spiritual power.

Wen Zhihan deliberately cooperated with his disciple’s movements, merely handing over the necessary wound medicine.

The wound on his abdomen was exceptionally difficult to treat. Initially, he acted out of indulgence and pacification, hoping Shen Zong might relax a bit through this, and even if the bandage work was sloppy, he would not mind.

Yet Shen Zong did a remarkably good job, almost too good. The application of gauze followed by bandages, the execution and force of the movements, were all just right, perhaps even a bit too practiced.

What kind of circumstances could have made Shen Zong so proficient in treating external injuries?

“Ayuan.”

Wen Zhihan gazed at the silent, downcast disciple, calling out softly.

“Master?”

Looking momentarily dazed, Shen Zong took a beat longer than usual to respond.

With an appearance like this, he clearly still had something weighing on his mind, which only deepened Wen Zhihan’s worries.

Judging by Ayuan’s state, he probably could not get any answers out of him, so he simply sought another method, pretending to regulate his breath and heal while actually performing a Bone Inquiry.

Bone Inquiry, as the name implied, was an immortal technique that read memories left behind on a physical shell.

He wanted to know what on earth had happened to him, and the technique of Bone Inquiry was the quickest and most convenient method.

To cultivators, whether their dao heart, divine soul, or flesh and bones, everything had undergone special refinement distinct from ordinary mortals. His divine soul had left the body carrying his dao heart, allowing it to exist independently and bear memories, while flesh and bones tempered with dao karma naturally preserved many past events as well.

Although the technique of Bone Inquiry was mostly used on the deceased or unconscious bodies, he had been possessed, meaning that theoretically, through Bone Inquiry, he should also be able to witness what had happened to him over these past eight years.

“Ayuan, guard me.”