Chapter 163: Tang Yuehua’s Heart Is Pierced Like by Knives
In the main hall of the Clear Sky Sect, the atmosphere was frozen solid.
The Seventh Elder’s cold sneer and mockery struck Tang Yuehua’s heart like a poisoned icicle, piercing deep and hard.
She jerked her head up, her eyes reddening as tears welled within them; yet, her voice held a defiant edge: "Seventh Elder! My Second Brother... no matter what else he is, he remains a direct-line disciple of the Clear Sky Sect—my own flesh-and-blood brother! Now that he is dead, am I not even allowed to weep for him?!"
"Your own brother?"
The Seventh Elder’s sneer deepened; he slowly rose to his feet and strode toward the center of the hall.
Standing with his hands clasped behind his back, he looked down upon Tang Yuehua from his commanding height. Upon his gaunt, elongated face, an anger that had been suppressed for years finally surfaced.
"If it weren’t for that beast, Tang Hao, dragging the Sect down with him..."
His voice suddenly rose in pitch, slicing through the air like a dull blade tearing through flesh: "...my eldest son would not have been ambushed and killed by members of the Spirit Hall while on a mission to procure supplies for the Sect!"
Tang Yuehua’s body went rigid.
Trembling slightly from the intensity of his emotion, the Seventh Elder’s voice grew hoarse: "Given the vile, bestial acts that wretch Tang Hao committed, he is no longer worthy to be considered a member of the Clear Sky Sect! Nor does he deserve to bear the title of ’Clear Sky Douluo’!"
Tang Yuehua parted her lips, wanting to speak, but found that she could not utter a single word.
The Seventh Elder, however, did not stop.
He took a step forward, pointing a finger at Tang Yuehua as his voice grew even more shrill: "Moreover, I am not the only one who has suffered because of that wretch—the entire Sect has suffered!"
"If it weren’t for him, the Spirit Hall would never have come knocking at our gates! So many of our disciples would not have died! And we certainly wouldn’t be forced to hide away on this snowy mountain, cut off from the rest of the world for over a decade!"
"If he truly recognized the magnitude of his error, he should have returned long ago to take his own life as atonement to the Sect!"
His voice reverberated through the vast, empty hall, the sheer force of it making one’s eardrums ache with pain.
"The Old Sect Master... your father!"
The Seventh Elder glared at Tang Yuehua, enunciating every single word: "He was literally—literally—driven to his grave by sheer rage! Do you still remember that?!"
Tang Yuehua staggered back a step, her face turning ashen white.
"Tang Hao provoked the Spirit Hall, beat Qian Xunji within an inch of her life, and brought such calamity upon the sect! And what did he do? He acquired a hundred-thousand-year Spirit Ring and didn’t give a damn about anyone else; nor did he bother to offer that hundred-thousand-year Spirit Bone to the sect."
The Seventh Elder’s final sentence rang out like a peal of thunder: "Now that he has been killed—well, that is nothing but his own damn fault!"
As his voice faded, a deathly silence fell over the main hall.
Tang Yuehua’s body swayed precariously.
She parted her lips, yet no sound escaped them; finally, tears came streaming down her face.
"Seventh Brother."
A low, deep voice rang out, shattering the silence.
The Second Elder frowned, his tone carrying a hint of displeasure: "Watch your tongue. Go sit back down."
The Seventh Elder gave a cold snort, flicked his sleeves, and turned to walk back to his seat.
Yet, his sinister eyes remained fixed upon Tang Yuehua, filled with undisguised loathing.
Tang Xiao sat in the seat of honor, having remained silent throughout the Seventh Elder’s outburst.
But at this moment, his face, too, was a mask of grim fury.
Within those eyes—which bore a striking seventy percent resemblance to Tang Hao’s—a maelstrom of complex emotions swirled: anger, grief, guilt, and... helplessness.
Tang Yuehua stood in the center of the hall, her vision blurred by tears.
Her voice trembled, thick with weeping: "But Second Brother... he’s already dead!"
"When a person dies, their light is extinguished; can’t we just let those old grudges... be wiped clean?"
"Wiped clean?"
The Seventh Elder looked as if he had just heard the most ridiculous joke in the world; he threw his head back and let out a burst of laughter.
That laughter echoed through the vast, empty hall—piercingly harsh and jarring.
"That’s easy enough for you to say!"
He abruptly wiped the smile from his face, a cold glint flickering in his eyes: "If Tang Hao dies, will the families of those fallen disciples come back to life?"
"Will the Old Sect Master come back to life?"
Tang Yuehua was left speechless.
The Seventh Elder continued his taunts: "Tang Yuehua, back when the Spirit Hall came knocking at our gates, why didn’t you go and tell them to just call it even?"
"That bastard Tang Hao’s Spirit Beast wife died, and Qian Xunji died too—why didn’t you go and suggest calling it even then?"
He grew increasingly agitated as he spoke, eventually erupting into outright insults:
"You are nothing more than an ignorant, simple-minded woman!"
"If it weren’t for that whole fiasco involving Tang Hao back in the day, the Sect would have married you off long ago! How else would you have the audacity to stand here and confront the Elders like this?!"
These words were the final straw—the weight that broke the camel’s back.
Tang Yuehua could hold back no longer; she buried her face in her hands and wept bitterly.
Tears trickled through the gaps between her fingers, dripping onto the cold stone floor and spreading into dark, damp stains.
All these years—even if she hadn’t earned any merit—surely she had at least put in the effort, hadn’t she?
Why did they have to speak of her this way?
For all these years, had she not been the one managing the Moon Pavilion in Heaven Dou City—navigating the circles of nobility to gather intelligence while simultaneously earning the funds to sustain the Sect?
The vast majority of the supplies the Sect had received over the years had been brought up from the outside world by her!
Yet now, the Seventh Elder had belittled her, rendering her utterly worthless in his eyes.
It was as if she were nothing more than a useless, sniveling woman.
Tang Yuehua’s heart ached as if it were being gouged out by a knife.
Tang Xiao, who had remained silent throughout, finally spoke.
"Seventh Elder, that is enough."
His voice was low and deep, yet it carried an indisputable air of authority.
Upon hearing this, the Seventh Elder gave a cold snort and fell silent.
Tang Xiao rose from his seat, descended the steps, and walked over to stand before Tang Yuehua.
He raised his hand and gently placed it on his sister’s shoulder. "Yuehua."
His voice was soft, tinged with a mix of heartache and guilt: "Tell me everything... in full detail."
Tang Yuehua raised her head, gazing at her eldest brother’s face—a face that bore a striking seven-tenths resemblance to her second brother’s.
That face, too, was etched with profound grief and helplessness.
Her tears began to flow even more fiercely.
Yet, she took a deep breath, striving to compose herself, and in a trembling voice, recounted—word for word—everything Xue Luochuan had told her.
"The Spirit Hall has appointed a new Adjudication Elder named Jiang Bai. He possesses nine 100,000-year Spirit Rings, and he even displayed them publicly..."
"He personally declared that he was the one who killed Second Brother with his own hands. He even produced a complete set of Spirit Bones—six pieces in all... including the Skull Bone and the Torso Bone... claiming he had stripped them directly from Second Brother’s body..."
"He has designated those Spirit Bones as the grand prize for the upcoming Continental Advanced Spirit Master Academy Elite Tournament..."
By the time she reached the end, her voice was so choked with sobs that it was barely audible.
She could only manage to gasp out a few broken, disjointed words.
Once again, the great hall fell into a deathly silence.
The expressions on the faces of the various elders became a study in complexity.
Nine 100,000-year Spirit Rings? How could such a person possibly exist in this world?
No matter how disgraced Tang Hao had become, he was still a direct-line disciple of the Clear Sky Sect!
To kill him, and then to offer his Spirit Bones as a prize—this was a blatant, naked slap in the face to the entire Sect!
However... that complete set of 10,000-year Spirit Bones!
And among them lay the Clear Sky Sect’s own heirloom Spirit Bones!
Tang Hao—the very man who had brought calamity upon their Sect—was finally dead. Good riddance!
Shock, rage, greed, schadenfreude... a chaotic tangle of emotions intertwined, rendering the atmosphere within the great hall utterly bizarre.
After a long while...
The Second Elder slowly spoke, his voice hoarse and heavy with gravity: "Nine 100,000-year Spirit Rings..."
He turned his gaze toward Tang Yuehua: "Is this man... truly that terrifying?"