HPLFK 12

Chapter – 12

Oh No, Your Wife Is Arguing Her Case in the Main Hall

“Fifth Elder, you’re being too hard on her.” The elder Tianyin, seated to the side, toyed with a lock of her long hair and chuckled lightly. “After all, A-Shang is Yan Zhi’s cultivation partner. As the saying goes, love the house and its crow—how could you ask Second Elder to personally hand down the verdict?”

Hearing the woman’s piercing emphasis on the words “love the house and its crow,” True Man Qingyu clenched his fists, his expression darkening. He said coldly, “Guards, take this vile creature to the Immortal Punishment Hall.”

The Immortal Punishment Hall—the place where the Immortal Sect dealt with and imprisoned great evil demons and monsters.

A-Shang had murdered a fellow disciple—a heinous crime—and deserved to be sent there.

The disciples moved forward to drag her away, but A-Shang looked toward the two men in the distance and spoke to the crowd: “I killed someone, and that is my fault. I will go to the Immortal Punishment Hall. But why should those two be allowed to stand aside and stay out of this?”

A-Shang suddenly raised her hand, pointing at He Zong and Lu Si not far away. “With twisted hearts, they threatened a disciple into becoming their cultivation cauldron to boost their own power. Why should such despicable men be allowed to stand there as if they’ve done nothing wrong?!”

“Y-You’re talking nonsense!”

Seeing A-Shang expose their evil deeds in front of everyone, He Zong shouted, “Don’t slander us! You were the one trying to seduce Zhong Hua. When he wasn’t swayed by your charms, you flew into a rage and killed him! If Lu Si and I hadn’t run fast enough, we’d be dead by your blade just like him!”

“That’s right! You deliberately tried to seduce him—” Lu Si dropped to his knees with a thud and kowtowed to the three elders above:

“Elders, please see clearly! This half-demon is spouting nothing but lies! Using fellow disciples as cauldrons to increase one’s cultivation is strictly forbidden by the sect. Even if you gave us the audacity, we wouldn’t dare do such a thing!”

“Senior Sister A-Shang.” He Zong’s eyes glistened with tears, his face twisted in anguish. “We have no grudge against you. Why do you want to harm us like this? Earlier, when no one was willing to go with you to the Valley of Ten Thousand Spirits to gather herbs, I thought—we’re fellow disciples, I didn’t want to see discord among us. So I volunteered to the steward and offered to go with you.

I admit, I was wary of you because of what happened before, so I brought along two fellow disciples I’m close with—Zhong Hua and Lu Si—to join us. But I never expected that my meddling would end up costing Zhong Hua his life…”

He Zong’s face contorted in pain. He looked at Zhong Hua’s lifeless body beside him, then collapsed to his knees before the corpse and wailed bitterly.

A-Shang watched it all with cold eyes, watching his revolting act.

She finally understood why He Zong’s name had sounded familiar to her.

In her past life, she had heard of He Zong—more precisely, she had seen the names of all three of them, posted on the sect’s bulletin board.

“He Zong, Lu Si, and Zhong Hua, for violating sect regulations and committing grave offenses, after deliberation among the sect elders, have been sentenced to the destruction of their spiritual roots, thirty lashes of the Bone-Gnawing Whip, expulsion from the sect, and a permanent ban from ever returning.”

As for what regulation they had violated, A-Shang remembered. It was said that the three of them had somehow learned a method of using others as cultivation cauldrons, and several disciples had suffered greatly at their hands.

It wasn’t until their final offense—when they had assaulted a young lady from a noble family who had come to the sect incognito as a disciple, and she had taken her own life after enduring the humiliation—that their vile deeds were finally exposed.

A-Shang didn’t know whether the three of them had faced retribution from that family after being expelled. But she imagined they must have.

Because those three truly deserved to die!

“It’s with that disgusting yet masterful acting of yours that you’ve deceived one female disciple after another, isn’t it?” A-Shang looked coldly at the two men wailing on the ground.

The two of them were stunned by her words. “What?”

“All of you are here.” A-Shang turned her gaze to everyone present and said, word by word: “I know that these three beasts have all done despicable and filthy things to you. I nearly fell victim to them myself—that’s why I killed Zhong Hua. That is my reason. Because he deserved to die. They all deserve to die.

And I do not regret it. I only regret that I only killed one of them. For vile, disgusting beasts like these three, even being hacked to pieces a thousand times over wouldn’t be enough to satisfy your hatred.”

A-Shang’s gaze locked onto the two men on the ground: “Right now, I truly have no evidence. And I know that since the two of them have the audacity to twist right and wrong here, dumping all the blame and filth onto me, they must have erased everything that was originally on the Memory Pearls.

I know you’re afraid to come forward and testify against them because of their threats—after all, those things are truly shameful to speak of. But I don’t understand—why? Why should perpetrators who have done every evil deed imaginable get to live in this world as if nothing happened? Why should we, the victims, have to shrink into our shells, enduring humiliation and living in fear every single day!

They did wrong. They must pay the price for it. Perhaps my words today won’t be enough to condemn these three beasts. Perhaps my words will shock them into lying low for a while. But once the storm passes, once no one mentions this matter anymore, they will reach out their claws to the next victim, and the next.”

“Y-You…” He Zong’s face turned ashen at her words. “What nonsense are you talking about!”

“Nonsense?” A-Shang pointed at them, each word striking like a blade:

“As cultivators, if we flee and hide from the injustices of this world, then what right do we have to cultivate the Dao? What Dao are we cultivating? What demons are we supposed to vanquish?

Heaven’s justice is clear. I refuse to believe that vile people who commit every evil under the sun can laugh their way to the end. I may not be able to convict all three of you today, but one day—one day, those who have suffered at your hands will convict you. Even if that person isn’t me, someone will stand up just as I have today and expose every single evil deed you’ve done!”

After A-Shang finished speaking, everyone present was moved by her words.

She spoke with such fury, such conviction, that the crowd had no choice but to believe her.

But… words alone meant nothing. She had no evidence. They didn’t know whether to trust her or not.

Until the first voice rang out from the crowd:

“This disciple, Wu Xin, is willing to testify that He Zong, Lu Si, and Zhong Hua once coerced this disciple into becoming their cultivation cauldron. When this disciple refused, they used a Memory Pearl to record the humiliation and used it to blackmail this disciple.”

“This disciple, Fang Wei, is willing to testify that He Zong, Lu Si, and Zhong Hua coerced this disciple into becoming their cultivation cauldron.”

“This disciple, Su Yan, is willing to testify that He Zong, Lu Si, and Zhong Hua coerced this disciple into becoming their cultivation cauldron.”

“This disciple, Luo Ting, is willing to testify that He Zong, Lu Si, and Zhong Hua…”

…

One by one, seven or eight disciples wearing outer sect uniforms stepped forward to testify against the three men—both male and female among them.