Chapter 772: I Won't Let You Down! (I)

The two Han Lingshous still standing spoke in unison, desperately trying to persuade Liao Yuexian. "Mother, please stop fighting!"

Liao Yuexian's expression was stern as she asked, "Jingyue? Why are you here?"

"Mother, it's me! I came to persuade you to stop colluding with Jing Wuya… Stop aiding the wicked!" both Han Lingshous replied simultaneously, their words perfectly synchronized.

As soon as they finished, they turned to look at each other, mirroring each other's movements exactly. They both yelled, "Hey! Stop copying what I say!"

Logically, Liao Yuexian should know her daughter well, so she should be able to recognize Liao Jingyue just from her voice. However, Chu Liang's act was too convincing; his expressions and the way he spoke seemed the same as Liao Jingyue's. They were so identical that Liao Yuexian did not dare to attack one of them rashly, fearing she might choose wrongly.

Liao Jingyue stomped her foot in frustration. Unexpectedly, Chu Liang had anticipated her reaction and stomped even earlier than she did. At this point, it was like a copy moving ahead of the original.

"

Haaa!

" Liao Jingyue huffed in frustration.

She pulled out a treasured mirror and turned it over to reflect her. A bright light washed over her, stripping away the illusion and revealing her true appearance.

That mirror was the Mirror of Captured Light, the very treasure she had stolen from Jing Wuya.

Liao Yuexian's fierce gaze instantly locked onto Chu Liang.

Chu Liang was suddenly the only fake Han Lingshou left in the room. His disguise was pointless now.

He turned to Liao Yuexian and awkwardly spread his hands in a shrug. "Esteemed Senior, I was just playing a little joke on you."

Stepping in between them, Liao Jingyue pleaded, "Mother, please stop! Let's leave this place together!"

Liao Yuexian remained silent, her hostile gaze lingering on Chu Liang. It seemed she was conflicted about what she should do next.

Right then, someone called out, "Jing Yue!"

It was Hu Sanlang. He dashed into the room and threw his arms around Liao Jingyue, wrapping her in a tight embrace.

"Why are you here?" he asked.

"Sanlang…" Liao Jingyue uttered, her voice trembling as she leaned into him.

"You brat! Don't you touch Jingyue!" Liao Yuexian yelled.

She once again plucked the strings of her guqin, and a sharp hum filled the air. The vibrating force of the guqin's strings resonated through the room.

Hu Sanlang fell to the floor with a heavy thud.

Liao Jingyue rushed to help him. Then she turned back to yell at Liao Yuexian, "Mother, you're not allowed to hit Sanlang!"

Hu Sanlang, struggling to hold on, weakly grasped her hand and urged, "Jing Yue, don't yell at your mother."

As the emotional family drama unfolded, Liao Yuexian stared at Hu Sanlang as if he were a thieving raccoon caught stealing her watermelon. She wore an expression mixed with shock and fury.

Meanwhile, Chu Liang realized Liao Yuexian was completely ignoring him now, so he quietly took a few steps back.

Heh. Guess I'm just an extra now.

Who would have thought that Hu Sanlang would be so useful? He drew Liao Yuexian's hostility away from me.

Chu Liang was more than happy to let someone else keep Liao Yuexian occupied, so he snuck away. When he got to a comfortable distance from the room, he overlapped his arms in his sleeves and leisurely watched the drama unfold.

While Chu Liang was stalling for time earlier, Di Nufeng had already defeated Jing Wuya, and Daoist Yan followed up with a sword slash, cutting away half of Jing Wuya's already not-so-great height.

Then Daoist Yan landed at the palace, holding the remaining half of the now even shorter man. Liao Yuexian finally pulled her gaze away from Hu Sanlang, shock filling her eyes.

She hadn't expected the Mount Shu Sect to dispatch even an eighth-realm Eminent One—and so quickly at that.

After all, eighth-realm Eminent Ones were strategic assets in any immortal sect and were rarely deployed. If the eighth-realm Eminent Ones were to take action whenever something came up, the mortal world would eventually fall into chaos, and even these powerful figures wouldn't be able to handle the consequences.

It hadn't been long since the fights at the palace began, yet the Mount Shu Sect had already dispatched a master of the Heavenly Origin. Their response speed was truly astonishing. It wouldn't be easy for Liao Yuexian to escape now.

Of course, it wasn't strange at all that she was surprised by Daoist Yan's swift appearance. In the era of the Circle of Immortal Friends, the way that cultivators communicated was drastically different from before.

In the past, when cultivators encountered trouble, they would usually send out a divine-light transmission like Xue Lingxue had done earlier. It would take at least half a day for their sect to receive the message. If the sect chose to be cautious, they would send someone to investigate the matter first, wasting even more time before deploying one of their more powerful members.

However, things were different now. Just by thinking, Chu Liang had silently completed several rounds of information exchanges and summoned reinforcements in no time. The old-school cultivators, Jing Wuya and Liao Yuexian, had been caught off guard by their efficiency.

"Daoist Yan, Di Nufeng..." Liao Yuexian fixed her gaze on the two of them and spoke quietly. "What does this matter have to do with Mount Shu? Why are you interfering so far beyond your reach?"

She was slightly older than Daoist Yan and Di Nufeng, but they could still be considered as part of the same generation. They had known each other in their youth.

It had been many years since they last met, and it was unfortunate that their reunion had come under such circumstances.

Chu Liang stepped forward and spoke first. "If this were merely an internal conflict within the Fuyao Kingdom, then naturally, Mount Shu would have no involvement. But, Esteemed Senior, you impersonated a disciple of the South Melody Conservatory and colluded with the evildoers from the Celestial Charm Sect. You sought to plunge the South Melody Conservatory, one of the Terrestrial Ten, into chaos. Any immortal sect would have a duty to intervene."

"

Hmph.

" Liao Yuexian glanced at him and let out a soft chuckle. "I'm guessing you must be Chu Liang. I've heard your name before. Seeing you today... you truly are quite the mystical character."

"You flatter me, Esteemed Senior," Chu Liang replied politely.

Xue Lingxue stepped forward, gazing at Liao Yuexian. She slowly said, "By seniority, I should call you Senior Aunt. But after losing the competition for the position of the conservatory master, you chose to exile yourself and collude with evildoers, committing evil alongside them. That was not the path you should have taken. Even if you had suffered some injustice back then, you should have—"

"There was no injustice," Liao Yuexian stated suddenly, interrupting Xue Lingxue.

Silence fell over the room.

A moment passed before Liao Yuexian spoke again. "Back then, I truly did fall in love with someone from a diabolical sect. That was no rumor."

She looked into the distance as she recalled the past. "I simply couldn't stand Yan Yingluo. From the moment she was born, she took everything from our generation of South Melody Conservatory disciples—admiration, fans, the position of head disciple, the position of conservatory master, the conservatory's Great Dao... Everything was hers."

Liao Yuexian clenched her fingers tightly. "For all these years, all I've wanted was to take back what rightfully belonged to me! What reason is there for everything to belong to her?"

"Mother..." Liao Jingyue looked at her mother's face, suddenly finding it rather unfamiliar. "That's not what you told me before…"

"I just didn't want you to know... that your father is a diabolical cultivator," Liao Yuexian said, turning her gaze to her daughter. "But I have no choice but to let you know now."

She suddenly raised her head and yelled toward the sky, "Lin Poyun! How much longer do you intend to wait before making your move?"

At her call, black clouds crackling with lightning gathered in the sky. In the next instant, a beam of light shot out from the clouds, opening up a rift. Then a massive hand reached out from it!

Liao Yuexian had likely possessed some kind of tracking jade talisman—an enchanted tool that could be crushed at a critical moment to call for aid.

As expected, a master of the Heavenly Origin, who had been waiting in midair, immediately descended to rescue her.

Could it be that the diabolical sect disciple she once loved was the current sect leader of the Dark King Sect, Lin Poyun?

As a well-informed undercover member of the Dark King Sect, Chu Liang knew quite a bit about this formidable figure. However, he had never heard any stories about his romantic entanglements.

Daoist Yan soared into the air and swung her Heavenly Cloud Ancient Sword, sending a mighty surge of sword qi into the sky!

Boom!

The massive hand descended, grabbing both Liao Yuexian and Liao Jingyue and pulling them upward. Simultaneously, a second hand emerged from the rift, clutching a mass of black clouds to block Daoist Yan's sword qi.

Yet, the black clouds were instantly slashed apart. Two of the massive hand's fingers were severed, dripping with blood as they dropped to the ground.

The sect leader of the Dark King Sect might have had a higher cultivation level than Daoist Yan, but because he had to protect both the Liao mother and daughter while descending across space, he had inevitably been at a disadvantage.

A voice rang out from the rift, speaking slowly and deliberately. "The past grievances between Mount Shu and me, along with this new grudge of losing two fingers—I will get my revenge for them."

As the two massive hands withdrew into the rift, the dark clouds gradually closed up. Then they dissipated in a flash.

Chu Liang hadn't expected this at all. He couldn't help but feel a little regretful as he watched the mother and daughter vanish.

Of course, his regret wasn't because he had been determined to capture them. Rather, it was that he really wanted the Mirror of Captured Light. The mysterious treasure was not recorded in the Catalog of the Mortal World's Ten Thousand Treasures, but it had extraordinary abilities.

Nevertheless, he could likely get the answers to his questions about this mysterious treasure from Jing Wuya.

Chu Liang turned to look at Jing Wuya. Daoist Yan was holding him like he was a dead chicken.

Just like what had happened to the Violet Gold Marquess in the lead-up to his death, Jing Wuya's wounds kept emitting a golden radiance; his body was trying to heal itself. However, the residual sword qi from Daoist Yan's strike lingered within his wounds, preventing any regeneration.

This man had been operating in the Fuyao Kingdom for years, with connections to the Penglai Supreme Sect, the Celestial Charm Sect, and other diabolical sects. It would undoubtedly be far more valuable to extract information from him than to simply kill him.

By now, a large number of soldiers and cultivators from the Fuyao Kingdom's Royal Wave Bureau had gathered outside the palace walls, but none of them had dared to interfere while the Eminent Ones had been fighting.

Now that the battle was over, a commotion broke out among the people outside the palace.

Lin Bei's voice was among them.

It seemed that Han Lingshou had returned to the palace.

GLTD Alternate Universe's Thoughts

Translator: LD