Chapter Seventeen: Guidance

Boom!

It was neither the roar of cannons nor the collapse of a building, but the thunderous commotion caused by Zhao Jian, the Giant Elephant, as he charged forward in a frenzy. His face, already fierce and brutal, was now paired with the colossal form of the Elephant Vajra; the scar upon his cheek twisted and trembled with his savage grin, making him resemble a general from hell who feasted upon famished ghosts.

With his energy cultivation perfected and the mass of a dragon-elephant, Zhao Jian was a peerless figure among warriors, excelling both in explosive power and in sheer resilience.

Before him, the hungry ghosts were as insignificant as tiny scooters before a barreling freight truck; they barely appeared before they were sent flying by this grinning, muscle-bound, bald-headed brute.

Geng Liangchen’s “Hungry Ghost Realm” tried to assail him, but every attack was cast aside by Zhao Jian’s raw, untamed force, as though nothing could stand in his way during his rampage.

Though he had yet to reach the level of Spirit Refinement, Zhao Jian had already brushed against its threshold. Even if he could not yet unleash spiritual assaults, he was capable of passive defense. Moreover, his skin was thick and his flesh tough; having wandered the world and witnessed countless tragedies, the effect of the “Hungry Ghost Realm” upon him was greatly diminished.

“Heh heh heh heh! Geng Liangchen!”

“Call off your little ghosts!”

“If you ruin what the Immortal Master has planned, I’ll twist your head off and offer it to him as penance!”

In the blink of an eye, this wall of flesh had already crashed to the side of Geng Liangchen’s hiding place. Zhao Jian had no patience for detours; facing a brick wall, he simply dug through it with his bare hands as if he were excavating a beehive—effortlessly and with relish.

Once the bricks were torn aside, Zhao Jian’s grinning face was the first thing to squeeze through.

“Ha, Geng Liangchen, I’m here—I’m going to twist your—”

But then Zhao Jian’s laughter died in his throat.

Geng Liangchen was kneeling, clutching his head, wracked with pain and trembling uncontrollably. Beside him stood Lan Yi, his hair once more a dark, cropped length; Lan Yi had activated his Colorless Eyes, scanning the out-of-control Geng Liangchen with meticulous precision.

“Forgive me, Immortal Master! I didn’t know you were here! This foolish warrior did not mean to disturb you!” Zhao Jian’s huge head squeezed into the room as he forced a grin, all the while cursing bitterly in his heart.

Damn you, Huo Yuanjia!

Why did you send me here? Who knows what the Immortal Master and Geng Liangchen are doing together? If it’s something forbidden, I’m doomed. If it’s something good… Heh, with Geng Liangchen writhing like that, what good could possibly come of it? He wished he’d seen nothing at all.

Zhao Jian was suffering—Huo Yuanjia had truly made his life miserable.

Geng Liangchen had turned himself into a hungry ghost.

His cultivation of the “Hungry Ghost Realm” had progressed swiftly, yet he could not utterly extinguish his humanity, could not attain that state of perfect self-effacement, where body moves without thought or desire.

Lan Yi, overseeing everything, sensed his loss of control and arrived at once.

A perfected energy cultivator could not yet be discarded as expendable, left to his own devices.

“All conditioned phenomena are impermanent, arising and ceasing in every thought. Second, all dharmas are without self. Third, nirvana is tranquility and extinction.” Lan Yi spoke with contemplative insight, voicing the realizations of Spirit Refinement.

The understanding of a supreme psychic adept, spoken aloud, bypassed the mind and entered the soul directly.

Trembling on the ground, Geng Liangchen, caught between hungry ghost and man, felt his spirit suddenly enveloped in a vast, star-strewn serenity. The direct communion of soul to soul was more profound than words, inspiring awe and revelation. Even a hungry ghost, faced with such grandeur and splendor, would shrink back in humility and submit completely.

Geng Liangchen’s convulsions ceased at once.

Even Zhao Jian, that raging bull, was left dazed, his aura shifting rapidly.

No one knew how much time had passed.

Suddenly, Zhao Jian jolted awake from a dreamlike trance he could not recall. Instinctively raising his palm, he saw a black iron light hovering there—his own path of Spirit Refinement, the “Vajra Contemplation.” It was nearly useless against those of equal rank, yet its spiritual resistance was like an iron wall.

“Huh? I’ve achieved Spirit Refinement.”

“You big oaf, you’re so slow to break through, I had to stay here and keep watch so you wouldn’t go berserk and demolish the street,” came Geng Liangchen’s voice from the side. Now, the darkness at the back of his head had spread over half his face, so that his features seemed to vanish, leaving only a mouth, magnified by some unseen force.

“Geng Liangchen, you’re back to normal?” Zhao Jian frowned; he could sense that Geng Liangchen had grown even colder, like the earth from an unmarked grave, deeply unsettling.

“The Immortal Master’s guidance,” Geng Liangchen answered with a faint, tooth-baring smile.

“Hm? The gunfire’s stopped. Were all those Eastern devils wiped out?” With a rumble, Zhao Jian rose, shattering the surrounding bricks to powder. He seemed even taller than before, standing in the room like a supporting wall.

Geng Liangchen moved away from this muscle-bound monster with obvious distaste.

Spirit Refinement warriors found Zhao Jian’s type the most troublesome to deal with.

Except for Lan Yi, even if the others worked together, they might still find Zhao Jian impossible to handle.

“The Easterners have long since been wiped out. The Immortal Master said, ‘Why suffer a beating without striking back?’ So Master Huo and Zhao Sikong took men to the Eastern Concession, and while they were at it, seized the foreigners’ armory,” Geng Liangchen explained the recent events.

After the Easterners collapsed, there was no more effective resistance.

In the slaughter and mortal crisis, both Huo Yuanjia and Zhao Sikong broke through to Spirit Refinement with ease. They crushed the last desperate resistance of the Easterners, who clung to grenades in suicidal defiance, and even captured the foreign observers, who stood no chance of outrunning martial artists.

The warriors carried out Lan Yi’s orders.

Not a single one of those blood-soaked Eastern devils was left alive.

For the first time in years, the people of Xinghan, long humiliated on their own soil, could finally hold their heads high! You have technology, but we have divine arts—let us see who will have the last laugh.

“Damn, you actually sent Zhao Sikong…” Zhao Jian felt his teeth ache.

This cousin of his, Zhao Sikong, had once been a top assassin for a syndicate boss in the city’s foreign quarter. Enlightened by the Immortal Master Lan Yi, he had abandoned the darkness for the light, accepting the Immortal’s martial bestowal with his hands still bloody and his former master’s head as his offering.

Since pledging himself to Lan Yi, Zhao Sikong had rarely acted openly.

Owing to the nature of his cultivation, he mostly lingered in Lan Yi’s shadow.

The few times Zhao Sikong had acted, the results were unforgettable: he harbored a fanatical hatred for gangs and traitorous merchants. Unless Lan Yi intervened, those who crossed his path died in ways so horrific one could only think of ritual sacrifice.

Now, with Zhao Sikong heading to the Eastern Concession, even with Huo Yuanjia overseeing him, it was bound to be a bloodbath.

After all, the traitorous Eastern merchants and lawless ronin there had long been targets of Zhao Sikong’s thirst for bloody vengeance.

“The Immortal Master orders that when you wake, you are to gather twenty men and follow me to Shiliupu,” Geng Liangchen said solemnly.

“To Shiliupu? For what?”

“He didn’t say—only that we are to assist Chen Qimei. My guess is that it’s got something to do with the warships.”