Yu Xinghe was stunned. He had initially thought his master had secretly infiltrated the enemy's headquarters, employing a surprise attack tactic. He hadn't expected that Shen Gurong would announce his arrival to everyone in Xianzhou so soon after entering the city.
Yu Xinghe frantically waved to Shen Gurong, "Master! Master!"
Shen Gurong casually finished his harsh words, sat atop the high city wall, crossed his legs, and looked at Yu Xinghe with a half-smile, saying, "What?"
Yu Xinghe was about to cry, "You're making such a big show of it? Aren't you afraid they…"
Before he could finish speaking, the demonic cultivators of Xianzhou City leaped onto the city wall, wielding curved blades, their demonic aura like smoke enveloping the surroundings, all enveloping Shen Gurong.
Shen Gurong simply sat there, his sword, Lin Xia Chun, still sheathed. With a flick of his finger, the pressure of a Mahayana stage cultivator surged outwards like waves, slamming down on the demonic cultivators whose toes hadn't even touched the city wall.
Yu Xinghe, closest to Shen Gurong, felt only a gentle breeze brush past before the menacing demonic cultivators crashed to the ground with a series of thuds, as if hitting an invisible wall, raising clouds of dust.
When the dust settled, the demonic cultivators lay dead in the cracked craters, their fates unknown.
Shen Gurong didn't move an inch. His spiritual power, infused with sword intent, swatted away the attacking demonic cultivators like flies, sending them all crashing down below the city wall.
Yu Xinghe stood there dumbfounded, uttering the words he hadn't finished earlier.
"...A sneak attack?"
As it turned out, in the face of absolute cultivation suppression, a sneak attack was as laughable as a child trying to demonstrate a sword in front of a master swordsman.
"Disciple," Shen Gurong sighed, turning his head to look at Yu Xinghe, "How did you grow up to be like this?"
Yu Xinghe thought Shen Gurong was blaming him for worrying unnecessarily, boosting others' morale while diminishing his own. He sobbed, covered his face, and ran away, crying, "Xinghe has disgraced Master!"
Shen Gurong: "..."
This fool...
He wasn't this pathetic in the Record of the Capital.
In the past century, when the Record of the Capital, sealed for a hundred years, first reacted, Shen Gurong was in seclusion on Yuxu Mountain, Liren Peak.
He didn't know how long he had been in seclusion, his mind not fully recovered. He stared blankly at the glowing bamboo flute in his hand for a long time, only suddenly realizing what it meant after a long pause.
The Record of the Capital reacted.
The master had been reincarnated.
From then on, Shen Gurong was almost like a madman, using countless distractions to descend the mountain and begin searching for the newborn child throughout the Three Realms.
Each of his illusory spirits, like puppets, wandered aimlessly through the Three Realms, searching for a reincarnation who bore a striking resemblance to his master.
He searched for a full six years, until one of his illusory spirits finally, in a daze, saw a child being placed on a bonfire.
Those eyes… so remarkably like his master's.
And the Record of the Capital trembling incessantly upon seeing its master.
Shen Gurong waited a hundred years, searching day and night for six years, finally glimpsing a glimmer of hope on a desolate road with no end in sight.
But that hope was abruptly extinguished by Lin Shuhe's words, "His soul is poisoned by the plague demon; he probably won't live much longer."
The light suddenly dimmed.
That day, Shen Gurong sat in the Fanjiang Residence, holding Mu Zhe, for an entire day. Afterward, he claimed to be in seclusion, but in reality, he opened the Record of the Capital alone.
The instant he opened the Record of the Capital, a bolt of heavenly lightning struck down. Shen Gurong felt as if he had been sucked into a mustard seed space, his soul twisted and reformed countless times. When he awoke again, he found himself in a virtual world identical to the real world—or rather, the future of Record of the Capital.
Within Record of the Capital, Shen Gurong recklessly channeled his century-long guilt into doting affection, showering everything upon Mu Zhe, the reincarnation of his master. Countless spiritual herbs and elixirs flowed through Mu Zhe's body like water, leaving no trace.
But in the end, Shen Gurong failed.
Mu Zhe was possessed by a plague demon, accidentally killing Li Suo. In the end, he was forced to sacrifice himself to kill the plague demon within Mu Zhe without harming Mu Zhe in the slightest.
However, when Shen Gurong awoke again, he found himself imprisoned on Yuxu Mountain of Liren Peak, his place of seclusion for the past century.
Chains bound him tightly within a massive magic array, his eyes bloodshot. He struggled to escape, but only managed to draw blood from the chains, crimson blood dripping down them.
When Nan Yangjun came to see him, he had already tormented himself beyond recognition, his eyes, now filled with inner demons, fixed intently on Li Nanyang, as if wanting to devour him.
Li Nanyang paused for a moment before bending down and raising his hand to stroke his face: "Eleven..." Shen Gurong bit his wrist hard, his eyes bloodshot as he glared at him.
Li Nanyang remained motionless, letting him bite, his eyes cold and indifferent: "He doesn't deserve it."
Shen Gurong bit down hard, two lines of tears unexpectedly falling. After a long while, perhaps he came to his senses, or perhaps he realized that even if he went mad, it wouldn't change anything, and he could only speak lightly.
He asked blankly: "He doesn't deserve it, then who does?"
Li Nanyang remained indifferent.
Shen Gurong scoffed, his voice hoarse as he asked, "You? Nan Yangjun?"
Nan Yangjun looked at him coldly: "Eleven, you've developed a demon in your heart."
Shen Gurong said coldly, "The demon in my heart is still me. I know very well what I'm doing."
"Know?" Nan Yangjun's brows finally furrowed. He said in a deep voice, "What you mean by 'know' is using that potent medicine day after day for a hundred years, abusing yourself without feeling pain? Or is it destroying yourself completely for a reincarnated person?"
Shen Gurong's eyes were filled with hatred: "He's not a reincarnation, he's the master."
Nan Yangjun remained silent for a long time before... "Eleven, he is no longer your teacher," said the man.
"You're lying!" Shen Gurong struggled again, trying to pounce on him and kill him. As if touched on a sore spot, he ignored his bleeding hands and struggled, screaming, "You're lying! He is my teacher! He looks exactly like my teacher, I can't be mistaken!"
Nan Yangjun looked at him with pity: "Reincarnated people lose all memories and emotions. Even if he looks exactly like him, he's not the person you know."
"Nonsense, nonsense!" Shen Gurong repeated the same sentence like a madman.
He couldn't believe that he had waited a hundred years for a stranger.
Mu Zhe looked so much like his teacher.
He must be his teacher.
If Mu Zhe wasn't his teacher…
Shen Gurong struggled fiercely for a long time, then suddenly choked up and cried. He murmured, "If he's not my teacher, then what have I been doing all these past hundred years…?"
A joke?
He had waited a hundred years, clinging to the reincarnation of his master as his only hope, only to be told by Nan Yangjun that Mu Zhe was not his master.
His hundred-year wait had been meaningless.
Shen Gurong nearly collapsed again.
Li Nanyang raised a hand to wipe away his tears, whispering, "Take good care of your injuries. After the hundred-year agreement, kill Li Genglan and truly live for yourself."
Shen Gurong's eyes were still bloodshot, his body weak, yet his gaze remained filled with hatred.
He hated Li Nanyang for shattering his hundred-year hope.
Even though this hatred was without reason.
Li Nanyang looked at him for a long time before silently turning and leaving.
Later, Wen Liubing came to visit.
Still trapped in his demonic trance, Shen Gurong forcibly separated his yuandan, having Wen Liubing help him send half of it to the burial mound, transforming it into human form to stay by Mu Zhe's side.
Meanwhile, Wen Liubing's yuandan was also struck by a hidden attack from Li Genglan.
He died in the snowstorm, just a wall away from Shen Gurong.
Then, ten years later, Yuzhou City was destroyed. Yu Xinghe, bewitched by Li Genglan, shattered the barrier of the Burial Mound, releasing Li Genglan.
Shen Gurong experienced his own life in the book. In the ten years before his death, the person he saw most often was Yu Xinghe, who had already fallen into demonic possession.
Yu Xinghe would always come to see him in the icy plains with an umbrella. By then, he had become a king in Xianzhou City, his demonic aura more terrifying than the snowstorm.
Even though he held a high position and wielded immense power, in Shen Gurong's eyes, he was still like a child in his actions and words.
Whenever his cultivation level increased significantly, he would come and walk around in front of Shen Gurong, saying things like how his cultivation had reached the Nascent Soul stage while Mu Zhe's was still only at the Golden Core stage.
He wanted Shen Gurong to regret choosing the useless Mu Zhe instead of him.
Shen Gurong would always give him a look of utter despair, infuriating Yu Xinghe to the point of impotent rage before he would storm off.
But not long after, he would return, swaggering back to boast of his achievements, and, as usual, look down on the good-for-nothing Mu Zhe.
Year after year, Shen Gurong never uttered a word in response, not even a glance.
In the tenth year, Yu Xinghe nearly drove him mad.
Shen Gurong remembered that on the night before his death, in his delirious state, he heard Yu Xinghe muttering incoherent nonsense before him.
"It's all just boastful drivel anyway, it doesn't matter whether I listen or not."
Thinking this, Shen Gurong suddenly sensed that the other half of Mu Zhe's primordial core had finally reacted, and countless bolts of heavenly lightning crashed down.
After an unknown amount of time, Shen Gurong vaguely sensed that Mu Zhe had entered the Mahayana stage, and the karmic connection between them, sharing the same yuandan, was completely severed.
Shen Gurong suddenly revealed a relieved smile.
Meanwhile, the usually aloof Yu Xinghe was covered in scorch marks, kneeling before him, tears streaming down his face, clutching his hand tightly, sobbing, "Master, please look at me, just once."
Just one look at me, and the demons in my heart would completely dissipate, and that tiny bit of resentment wouldn't become nourishment for demonic cultivators.
Shen Gurong heard nothing, letting himself fall into darkness.
When he awoke again, he was still in his secluded cultivation place, his hands meticulously finishing the last character of the Record of the Capital.
"The lamp of parting burns eternally; he died in a snowstorm."
In the Records of the Capital, Yu Xinghe was powerful and capricious, capable of such ruthlessness even towards his master, revealing him to be a truly ruthless individual. Mu Zhe, on the other hand, was a pitiful child, easily bullied; without his master's protection, who knows how much suffering he would endure in the Three Realms.
However, because Shen Gurong was punished by heavenly lightning and had his memories erased, the sixteen-year-old Shen Gurong drastically altered the personalities and experiences of both men.
Shen Gurong sighed, feeling truly guilty.
However, he didn't hate the current Yu Xinghe; having truly suffered a brutal killing in the Records of the Capital, he couldn't bring himself to like Yu Xinghe either.
It was his own doing.
He should just accept his fate.
Shen Gurong waited on the city wall for a long time, swatting away the demonic cultivators who came to kill him like mosquitoes, quickly leaving behind numerous craters in the ground.
Yu Xinghe, having hidden for a while, timidly approached again, seeing his master's intense fighting, and whispered, "Master, why hasn't that demonic cultivator come out yet? Is he a turtle?"
If it were him, being shouted at to "come out and die" in front of the whole city, and with so many civilians dead, he would have already rushed out to fight to the death without hesitation.
But that demonic cultivator was like a turtle hiding in its shell, not showing its face yet.
This "turtle" pleased Shen Gurong, who looked at Yu Xinghe approvingly and said, "Very good, keep cursing, curse more, Master likes to hear it."
Upon hearing this, Yu Xinghe immediately felt useful and happily began cursing Li Genglan as a cowardly turtle, no one in the world more cowardly than him, his little mouth chattering and babbling.
Shen Gurong stroked his chin, surveying the vast expanse of Xianzhou, and said slowly, "He must be afraid, after all, back then..."
He raised his hand, lazily looking at his slender fingers against the still-burning Black Cloud Banner.
Those hands were too beautiful, their knuckles distinct like jade, completely flawless, hands born of pampered privilege.
Shen Gurong's eyes curved into a smile as he said, "I used these hands to slice off half of his flesh and bone."
"He'll naturally be afraid when he sees me."
Yu Xinghe was stunned for a moment, then shuddered, feeling that his usually gentle and kind master suddenly possessed the aura of a femme fatale?
It was an illusion, definitely an illusion.
But his master seemed even more handsome...
As Yu Xinghe was lost in thought, a streak of red flew through the sky, like a demonic cultivator before, heading towards Shen Gurong.
Yu Xinghe immediately shrank back to his master's side, waiting for his master to unleash his divine power again.
This time, however, Shen Gurong didn't attack. Instead, he calmly gathered his wide sleeves, watching the red figure drift towards him.
The red figure landed on the city wall. With a phoenix's cry, Xue Manzhuang leaped out of the flames, his tall figure draped in a bright red robe, exuding a terrifying aura of a demonic cultivator.
He had once again reached adulthood, his spiritual power at its peak.
Shen Gurong raised an eyebrow at him.
Xue Manzhuang, wielding a long sword, strode forward. The foolishness of his cub days was gone. He was arrogant and unrestrained, proclaiming, "Holy Lord, if I help you retrieve Li Genglan's head..."
Shen Gurong thought expressionlessly, "This fellow is starting to speak inhuman again. I might as well kill him."
Sure enough, in front of countless demonic cultivators below the city wall, Xue Manzhuang said, "Will you agree to become my Daoist partner?"
Shen Gurong: "..."
Mu Zhe, who had just stepped into Xianzhou through the Gate of Life: "..."
Prepare to die, you worthless bird!
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