“You secretly aided Sun Ding, forced the Hanged Ghost into dire straits, baited him into stealing the key, tailed him, killed him, and then disposed of both his corpse and the key,” Zhou Zishu picked up. “This created the veneer that he had fled, thus making Ghost Valley come out in full force to hunt him down. You watched Sun Ding and Lao Meng each harbor their own motives, watched them—“

“In this world,” Wen Kexing cut him off, “there is only one thing that can destroy evil spirits… and it’s the human heart.”

He abruptly turned his head to the side and coughed like his lungs were splitting open, inner breath turbid, the sensation of suffocation accordingly inundating him. Suddenly, a hand was pressed against the center of his back, and a soft current of internal force spread throughout his meridians and channels instantaneously, faintly clearing up his consciousness.

Seeing him slowly pass this breath, Zhou Zishu instantly curbed his efforts. “You’re out of strength, but your wound is more serious in comparison. It needs to be wrapped up to staunch the bleeding, else I’ll be too afraid to help you set your internal force into motion.”

Then, he looked into Wen Kexing’s eyes. “I’ll ask you this; do you want to live?”

The other watched him in silence for a very, very long time. “Will you… leave me?”

Smiling lightly, Zhou Zishu shook his head.

Like his life depended on it, Wen Kexing clenched his jaw, grabbed his hand, and forcibly propped himself up. “Live… why wouldn’t I want to live? Why couldn’t I live?! All those shameless, vile people of the world get to live, so why… why can’t I…? I have to…”

He could no longer easily get his breath back, body swaying as he panted nonstop. Zhou Zishu sighed, sealed up his main acupoints, then picked him up in his arms, going off the mountain.

He brought the blood-covered man to that small town. It took no less than two days for Wen Kexing to awaken, where he could barely manage take in some food and drink. After a few more days, Zhou Zishu hired a carriage to bring them to Luoyang, but, right before they set out, they happened to run into Gao Xiaolian and Zhang Chengling.

The latter was still in shock. As soon as he saw him, he immediately threw himself at him and cried painfully, sobbing and hiccuping. “Shifu… Brother Cao, he…”

Gao Xiaolian’s eyes were red, as well. Zhou Zishu sighed. “I know,” he gently said, and placed his palm on top of the other’s head to soothe him.

Immediately after that, Zhang Chengling bust out another sentence: “Shifu… I-I killed someone, too… I killed someone…”

Zhou Zishu’s hand froze. Wen Kexing, who was reclined inside the carriage, also shifted his gaze over, looking at the little devil in astonishment.