No demons in all realms

Chapter 20 The Story of Qian Jiu Ri

"I was just joking. You really want me to kill someone?" Su Yang waved his hand in refusal.

Qian Jiuri remained silent for a long time.

Su Yang couldn't see his expression, but he could feel that his breathing had become heavy and his heartbeat had become much faster than before.

A surge of righteous energy flowed through his body, gradually transmitting the person's emotional fluctuations—pain, anger, grievances, and things that had accumulated over a decade and had nowhere to be expressed.

"Let me tell you a story," Qian Jiuri finally spoke, his voice hoarse.

Su Yang nodded in agreement, curious as to why this twenty-seven-year-old genius at the Tribulation Transcending Realm would have such a tragic mood.

Qian Jiuri sat down on the edge of the bed. The bed creaked. The man's body was very heavy, as if he were carrying an invisible mountain.

"In the Immortal Realm, there is a small sect called the Zhengyang Sect."

"The Zhengyang Sect is not large. The sect leader is a little old man at the True Immortal Realm. He has an eccentric temper and loves to drink. After drinking, he would pull his disciples aside and tell them stories from his youth. He would only tell a few stories over and over again, and the disciples could recite them by heart, but no one would say anything. They would all pretend to be hearing it for the first time."

When Qian Jiuri got to this point, his tone softened, as if he were talking about something from a very, very long time ago, so long ago that he could hardly remember it anymore.

"There are three disciples in the Zhengyang Sect who grew up together. One is me, one is my good brother, and the other is a girl. The three of us have been together since we were toddlers, practicing martial arts together, getting punished together, and sneaking down the mountain together to buy candied hawthorns in town. We were poor back then, so we would share a skewer, taking a bite from each other without anyone complaining."

"My brother's name is Xu Ritian." Qian Jiuri's voice visibly stiffened when he said the name. "It's a good name. His parents hoped that he would bring honor to the family and be a pillar of society. He's a good person in every way, except that he's narrow-minded and stubborn. Once he gets into something, he can't get out of it."

"Where is that girl?" Su Yang asked curiously.

"His name is Cheng Tian."

"The three of us grew up together and cultivated together. I cultivated faster and reached the mid-stage of the Celestial Immortal realm first, while Sun Immortal was slower and remained at the early stage of the Celestial Immortal realm. Cheng Tian was neither fast nor slow, staying in the middle of the two of us. Life went on like this. Everyone in the sect treated the three of us as their personal disciples, and the sect leader also placed high hopes on us, saying that the Zheng Yang Sect would rely on us in the future."

Qian Jiuri's voice gradually faded.

"Later... Ritian and I both fell in love with Chengtian."

"We've been pursuing her for a long time. Ritian is clumsy with words and doesn't know how to say nice things, but he knows how to do things. When Chengtian was injured while practicing martial arts, he was more anxious than anyone else. He searched all over the mountains for medicine. When he found the medicine, he didn't know how to use it. He held the medicine and squatted at Chengtian's door all night, not daring to knock on the door for fear of disturbing her rest."

"I'm different from him. I'm good with words, I know when to say what. When Cheng Tian is in a bad mood, I can make her laugh. When Cheng Tian is tired from practicing, I tell jokes to cheer her up. That silly Ri Tian just watches from the side and laughs like an idiot."

Su Yang felt a little uneasy as he listened.

"In the end, Cheng Tian chose me." Qian Jiuri's voice suddenly lowered, as if it were being squeezed out of his throat. "She told Ritian, 'You are a good person, but you are not the person I want to marry.'"

The room was quiet for a while.

"Ritian didn't say anything that day, he just turned around and left. I thought he would be angry and would come after me to fight, but he didn't. He left, and the next day he practiced his kung fu as usual, talked to us as usual, laughed and joked as usual, as if nothing had happened."

"I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking he had let it go." Qian Jiuri suddenly clenched his fist, his knuckles cracking.

"I never imagined that he had been keeping everything bottled up inside. He kept it all up day by day, layer by layer, until finally, it created a knot in his heart. That knot grew bigger and bigger every day, until he couldn't control it anymore."

"Then one day, he suffered a qi deviation while cultivating."

Su Yang frowned slightly.

"His cultivation level began to skyrocket. He soared from the early stage of Heavenly Immortal to the middle stage, late stage, True Immortal, middle stage, late stage, peak stage... His eyes turned blood red, and black energy emanated from his body. He killed anyone he saw."

"He slaughtered the entire Zhengyang Sect!"

Su Yang's fingers trembled slightly.

"The sect leader, that little old man who loved to drink, had his neck snapped by him. Uncle Zhao, who taught us swordsmanship, was cleaved in two by him. The plump cook who cooked for us every day, he didn't even glance at her before piercing her heart with a single sword. And those junior brothers and sisters, the youngest was only twelve years old, they didn't understand anything, and he... he... killed them..."

Qian Jiuri couldn't continue speaking. He lowered his head, covered his face with his hands, and his shoulders trembled.

After a long while, Qian Jiuri continued, "I escaped with Cheng Tian, ​​and Ritian chased after us for three days and three nights. Cheng Tian was already pregnant at that time and couldn't run anymore. I knew that if I took her with me, we would both die."

"I entrusted her to another good friend of ours, Liu Jingye. He is an elder in the neighboring sect, and his family is wealthy enough to protect her."

"Then I lured Ritian away by myself."

Did you distract him?

"I lured him away." Qian Jiuri gave a bitter smile. "I fought him and was beaten half to death. I knew I couldn't beat him, so I jumped down to the mortal realm."

He pointed to the ground beneath his feet.

"After jumping down from the Immortal Realm and passing through the barrier between the two realms, I broke countless bones in my body, and my cultivation level also plummeted from the mid-stage of True Immortal to the early stage of Tribulation Transcending. Look at my current state, the early stage of Tribulation Transcending, I'm just an insect in the Immortal Realm, anyone can step on me."

"And what about Xu Ritian? Did he come down with you?"

"Yes, he came down too." Qian Jiuri's tone turned cold. "He built a sect in the mortal realm called the Immortal Sect. Do you know why he named it that? It's to tell me that even if he comes to the mortal realm, he is still an immortal, and I am a human. I can never be as good as him."

"Then it was a relentless pursuit," Qian Jiuri said. "He sent people all over the world to find me, and killed them as soon as they found me. My cultivation had dropped so much that I couldn't beat his people, so I could only run. Over the years, I've moved to dozens of places, hiding here and there, like a stray dog."

Su Yang remained silent for a long time, sitting motionless on the edge of the bed.

He recalled how he had stopped Qian Jiuri from killing that bully during the day. He had talked so much, quoting classics and speaking eloquently, full of benevolence and morality.

But when that bully was harassing Su Xiaoxiao, it seemed like he couldn't do anything except reason with her.

Qian Jiuri killed someone, and he stopped him.

But back then, Qian Jiuri watched helplessly as his fellow disciples, who were like family to him, were killed. Who stopped them?

Su Yang suddenly realized that what he had said during the day was quite ridiculous.

"You're right," Su Yang suddenly spoke, his voice somewhat hoarse. "What happened during the day was my fault. I only saw you kill someone, I didn't see what you went through."

Perhaps this is what books mean when they say that reading ten thousand books is not as good as traveling ten thousand miles, because these are things that books cannot teach.

He seemed to have understood, and the righteous energy within him became even more solid.

Qian Jiuri shook his head. "You're not wrong." His voice softened. "When you talked about those principles, I thought of my past self. I used to believe in these things too, thinking that everything should be done according to rules and reason. But what about now? I've been preaching these principles my whole life, and the people who should die are still alive, while the people who should live are dead..."