Chapter 345 - 329: Naive
"This is just one NPC disciple from the Guixi Sect. Just how much did those pay-to-win whales spend on building up their sect?!"
"AHHHH! I’m so salty! I’m really salty! How did that scholar named Mu Ling get so lucky?!"
"I want to join the Guixi Sect too! Is it too late if I dismember Liu Yue right now?! I want to cultivate! I want to be One-Punch Man!!"
Meanwhile, Ma Tietou, embedded in the wall, felt his consciousness struggling on the edge of darkness.
Agonizing pain.
The excruciating pain of shattering facial bones and a concussed brain gave him a strong sense of déjà vu.
’This familiar feeling... Where have I felt this before?’
In a daze, Ma Tietou’s mind flashed back to a dilapidated alley. Back then, a similar punch had sent his top enforcer flying, right through a wall.
And back then, a similar punch had knocked him out...
That masked heroine in black...
Ma Tietou struggled to pry open his swollen eyelids. Through the thick dust, he looked at the black-clad figure standing in the center of the courtyard, robes fluttering.
’The person from back then... so it was you...’
...
"CRACK... CRUNCH..."
It was the sound of crumbling stone and of bones shifting out of place.
A large hand gripped the edge of the hole in the wall. Then, bit by bit, Ma Tietou’s twisted body pulled itself out of the deep crater.
The bones in half his body seemed to be shattered. Half of his face had caved in, making him look grotesque and terrifying.
But he took his notched cleaver and, with a CLANG, stabbed it firmly into the ground. Using it for support, he staggered to his feet.
Through his matted hair, his bloodshot eyes stared intently at Mu Ling.
’Kill... kill him... kill him... kill him...’
With every step Ma Tietou took, he left a long trail of blood.
In his world, at this very moment, it didn’t matter if the sky fell or the earth caved in. Even if the Jade Emperor himself stood before him, he had only one thought: to tear the bastard who killed Yue’er limb from limb!
Su Ling’er frowned. In a flash, she appeared in his path again, her voice cold.
"Still struggling? Your body will fall apart if you move again."
"Tell me, who’s behind you? Who is your contact in Anhe City? If you talk, I can grant you an intact corpse."
However, Ma Tietou seemed deaf. He paid no heed to Su Ling’er’s words, not even glancing at her. His cloudy gaze remained fixed on Mu Ling, who looked equally heartbroken.
He dragged his broken leg, moving around Su Ling’er to continue his slow advance.
One step.
Two steps.
Ignoring the Immortal, ignoring the warning, ignoring life and death.
"Incorrigible." Su Ling’er lifted her leg again and kicked!
"BANG—!!!" This kick was even harder than the last!
Ma Tietou was once again sent flying back at astonishing speed, crashing back into the same hole in the wall!
"BOOM!"
The wall collapsed completely, burying most of his body under the rubble.
"Cough... COUGH, COUGH, COUGH!!"
Ma Tietou coughed violently, spewing out chunks of internal organs mixed with black blood. In that same instant, he used his tongue to dislodge a small wax pill hidden deep in his teeth and, with a CRUNCH, bit down on it. Having done this last act, he truly could not move anymore...
But he was smiling.
"Cough, cough... heh heh heh..."
"Immortal... now... you decide to meddle?"
Ma Tietou roared intermittently while spitting up black blood, his eyes filled with venomous hatred. "Now... you remember to play the hero? Where were you before?! Huh?!"
"Immortal of the Su Family!! You’re high and mighty, so of course you’re righteous! But do you have any idea what it’s like to starve?!"
"Do you know... what it feels like to have your head stomped into the mud... and be forced to drink their piss... all for half a moldy steamed bun?!"
"Back then, where were you high-and-mighty Immortals?! Back then, where was the justice?!"
"Yue’er and I... we just wanted to live like human beings! We just didn’t want to be trampled in the mud anymore! Is that so wrong?! HUH?! IS THAT SO WRONG?!"
Su Ling’er’s grip on her sword tightened slightly, but she said nothing.
Seeing her silence, Ma Tietou’s laughter grew more frantic. "You think killing us and clearing this place out will cleanse the world? What a joke!"
"Do you know who buys the ’human sacrifices’ from us? High-ranking officials from the imperial court! Gentry who are the wealthiest in their region! Even... some from the side branches of mortal cultivation families!"
"This is a web! A great, man-eating web! I am both the spider on the web and the insect caught in it!"
"Is your Cultivation strong enough to fight it? Will your meager Spiritual Power last until the end?"
"If a mortal wants to climb up, how can they do it without stepping on the bones of others? If I don’t do it, there’s a line of people waiting to take my place! If I don’t want to be stepped on, I have to step on others!!"
Su Ling’er watched him coldly. "So that’s your reason for trampling others into the mud? Must mortals rely on skinning people alive and abandoning all humanity just to climb up?"
"What else?! What should we rely on? Handouts from you Immortals?!" Ma Tietou roared, cutting her off, his eyes filled with madness. "You stand here now, all righteous, like some living Bodhisattva come to save the world from suffering."
"Well, when I was seven, getting beaten half to death over a spoiled bun, where were you Immortals then?"
"Five years ago, when the great drought hit Pingyang City, when the officials wouldn’t open the granaries, when people resorted to trading children to eat them and the living ate the dead, where were you Immortals then?"
"You cultivators, always high and mighty, cultivating for your eternal life, treating us mortals like ants you wouldn’t even spare a glance for."
"And now, I’ve finally clawed my way out of the gutter through sheer ruthlessness. No one dares to bully us anymore! And *this* is when you decide to show up!"
"You say I’m guilty, you say I’m cruel—where were you before all this?!"
"This world is just big fish eating small fish. I just wanted to be one of the fish that does the eating. What’s so wrong with that? I did it to survive, WHAT’S SO WRONG WITH THAT?!"
His repeated accusations made the eardrums of everyone present ache.
Su Ling’er watched him quietly, images from her past few days in Anhe City flashing through her mind.
She remembered the righteous beggar with the severed hand who had risked his life to provide a clue. She remembered the old farmer at the market, where everyone else cheated their customers, who insisted on giving fair measure, choosing to be ostracized by his peers rather than be dishonest. She remembered all the things she had witnessed over the past few days...
"You’re right, Ma Tietou," Su Ling’er said slowly, her voice calm yet firm. "This world is indeed unfair. In Anhe City, I too have seen many people struggling in the mire."
"But—"
"The injustice of this world is not an excuse for you to believe you are without fault."
"Suffering can make a person resilient, or it can make them cruel. You chose the latter, so you must accept the consequences!"
"Don’t give me your platitudes!" Ma Tietou spat a mouthful of bloody saliva. "You’re an Immortal, you have Magical Power, of course you can play the phony saint! If you were born in a cesspool like me, you wouldn’t necessarily be any cleaner!"
"Perhaps," Su Ling’er did not argue, but nodded instead. "If our places were switched, I might have fallen into depravity as well. But that is not a reason for me to spare you today."
"It is precisely because the world is harsh that the weak should band together for warmth, not turn on each other with blades as you have, preying on those even weaker than yourself."
"Since you believe in ’the weak are meat for the strong,’ then being killed by me should be a fitting end for you, should it not?"
"I know that killing you alone won’t save the world. But if there is one Ma Tietou, I will kill one. If there are a thousand, I will kill a thousand. Since those other Immortals won’t bother, then I, Su Ling’er, will."
"Heh... heh heh..." As the poison attacked his vitals, Ma Tietou’s vision began to blur, but the sneer on his face only deepened. "Immortal... you’re still... too naive..."
"You can kill us, but there will be tens of thousands more like Ma Tietou and Liu Yue in this world! As long as this world remains a place where people devour each other, our kind will never be eradicated!"
Ma Tietou’s breathing grew fainter, but his voice became more venomous. "You... you will discover that the mire of this mortal world is so deep that you won’t even be able to pull your flying sword out of it..."
"Not to mention those demonic sects that refine people directly into materials... How high is your Cultivation? How powerful is your backing? I just want to watch..."
Ma Tietou’s eyes widened, as if trying to see through to Su Ling’er’s future. "...watch a meddling Immortal like you... hit walls at every turn in this rotten pit... until your head is broken... and bleeding..."
The poison took full effect.
Agony spread from his abdomen throughout his body as darkness began to consume his consciousness.
In the final moments of his life, the image of that woman appeared before Ma Tietou’s eyes once more.
Liu Yue was sitting in a room full of ledgers, counting ingots of blood-stained silver, her smile as beautiful as ever.
That silver might have been earned by breaking someone’s legs, or by hounding an old man to his death for a client, or even by seizing the property of a law-abiding family, turning them into refugees who were then hunted like wild dogs by young nobles for sport.
’But so what?’
’As long as they had money, no one would dare bully them. As long as they were ruthless enough, they could live like human beings in this world.’
’What did they do wrong?’
’Yue’er...’
’Let’s... go to hell together... and keep doing business...’
His bloodshot eyes finally lost their last glimmer of light...