The Eternal Sin

The Heavenly Tiger Mountain was under an umbrella of darkness. The crescent moon had long been swallowed by drifting clouds, leaving only a dim pallor in the sky.

A cold wind snaked through the outer sect residences, brushing past tiled roofs and silent courtyards like a wandering ghost. Three silhouettes clad in robes that drank in the surrounding shadows, moved soundlessly through a narrow alley.

A young man spoke first, his voice low and doubtful. "Liu Chanshin, are you certain this is the place?"

The burly figure beside him gave a dry chuckle that sounded like grinding stones. "What’s this, are you doubting my information? Are you saying I am incompetent? Tsk, the Meng family sure has a way of teaching the younger generation."

Before the youth could offer a retort, a woman’s cold voice sliced through the air. "Silence your wagging tongue, Liu Chanshin. Do not forget we are here for those fifteen thousand spirit stones and whatever hidden legacy the boy might be hoarding. Let us cut the nonsense and get on with it."

This middle-aged woman was Meng Ruyan, a fourteenth-layer Qi Condensation veteran whose lucrative post at the Martial Scroll Hall had allowed her to witness Jiang Chen’s wealth firsthand. To her, a no-name junior like him possessing such riches was an invitation to greed.

Accompanying her was her nephew, Meng Kai, a young man whose handsome features still carried traces of naivety. He was currently at the twelfth layer of Qi Condensation and had been publicly groomed as her successor, since she had no children of her own.

Lurking behind them was Liu Chanshin. Though he appeared to be a mere brute of muscle and bone, he was in fact a cunning fox from the Enforcement Hall. His thick arms were wrapped with faintly rattling iron chains that coiled like serpents and had silenced many undisciplined and unfortunate disciples of the outer sect.

Without further words, the three moved.

They circled Jiang Chen’s residence like starving beasts surrounding a trapped deer, placing Silent Void Talismans one by one at the four cardinal points.

As the talismans ignited with monochromatic flames, a localized invisible barrier manifested, isolating the courtyard from the outside world. No sound or spiritual fluctuation within could leak out to alert the patrolling guards.

Liu Chanshin then reached into his robes and produced a slender, matchstick-like treasure that emanated a faint, sickly sweet aroma.

"This little treasure is called the Seven-Breath Soul-Sleeper, carved from the marrow bone of a Dream-Eating Tapir. Just one of these can drown a king-tier beast into two days of slumber," Liu Chanshin introduced in a hushed tone.

He infused a thin thread of spiritual essence into it, and the matchstick ignited with shifting, prismatic colors, its flames flickering between illusion and reality. As it burned, a vast and torrential volume of smoke began to pour out, as if an entire storm cloud had been compressed within that tiny object.

All three quickly held their breath and inserted prepared nose plugs into their nostrils. Liu Chanshin approached a ventilation slit in the wooden wall and tossed the burning matchstick inside, immediately blocking the opening with his thick elbow to prevent even a wisp from escaping.

"Once the smoke enters his lungs, even if we beat drums beside his ears, he will not wake up," Liu Chanshin said with full confidence.

At this point, Jiang Chen no longer registered as a threat in Liu Chanshin’s mind, and he had already begun mentally calculating how to secure a greater share of the spoils for his efforts.

Ten minutes drifted by like falling leaves.

Then without a shred of hesitation, Liu Chanshin stepped forward and kicked the door open. The wooden panels burst inward with a dull crack. Thick smoke rolled and swirled through the room in sluggish waves, within which they could discern the steady, rhythmic snoring of a figure sprawled across the bed.

"Kill him quickly so we may divide the loot," Meng Ruyan uttered, her gaze sweeping the room for traps and hidden treasures.

Liu Chanshin stepped forward with murderous intent, but Meng Kai suddenly furrowed his brows and spoke. "Aunt... must we kill him? He is already unconscious. We could simply take the spirit stones and leave. To slaughter an innocent fellow disciple... I find such an act unpleasant."

Liu Chanshin glanced sideways with amusement but said nothing. Meng Ruyan’s expression softened slightly as she looked at her nephew. "Kai, you are a good boy, and I cherish that about you. But listen well. Mercy without strength will always hurt you the most. If we leave him alive, then one day he will come looking for us. That is the law of cause and effect."

She stepped closer, placing one hand on the side of his face. "He has ties to an inner disciple of high standing. If he survives and seeks justice, do you think we will remain untouched? When you make an enemy, you do not leave them wounded to grow stronger and thirst for vengeance. You crush their skull and burn their corpse. Otherwise, when they return, it will be your bones that line the footpath."

Meng Kai listened, his fists clenching tightly. After a long moment, he lowered his head. "...I understand."

Seeing this, Liu Chanshin let out a soft laugh. "Since the lad is so concerned with innocence, why not let him deliver the killing blow? It is a fine opportunity to temper your heart, boy. Do not be a coward who lets others soil their hands for your profit."

"Me?" Meng Kai stiffened, uncertainty flickering across his face.

Before he could move, Meng Ruyan snapped, her eyes flashing with cold fire. "Liu Chanshin, do not overstep your limits. Do not think I cannot see your scheme to hold this murder over my nephew’s head as future blackmail. Hmph, you are the Enforcer here. You should be the one to execute him for the crime of making his seniors lose face. Today he dares surpass us in wealth, tomorrow he will pretend we do not exist. Better to deal with him now and restore order."

Liu Chanshin laughed dryly, unbothered by the exposure of his petty intent. He stepped toward the bed, his heavy iron chains slithering down his muscular arms like cold metallic serpents hungry for blood.

Looking down at the snoring Jiang Chen, he sighed mockingly. "Do not blame me, kid. Blame the heavens for giving you a fortune your fate could not bear. Now... die peacefully!"

He swung the heavy chains downward with bone-shattering force to pulp the target’s skull.

At that precise instant, Jiang Chen’s eyes snapped open.

They were cold, clear, and fully awake.

The shock was so sudden and the killing intent so piercing that Liu Chanshin’s heart dropped into his stomach, causing his spiritual essence to recoil and flow backward through his meridians.

Even so, the momentum of the chains carried through and smashed into the bed with the force of a falling boulder.

Jiang Chen’s head exploded, and the bed beneath him cracked in two.

Yet no blood came.

All that leaked out from the shattered skull was dense grey smoke. Before Liu Chanshin could even gasp, a stack of high-grade Explosive Fire Talismans hidden beneath the clone ignited in a blinding orange roar.

The explosion thundered like a caged dragon breaking free, and a pillar of fire swallowed the room in an instant.

Liu Chanshin screamed as his body was engulfed in flames and hurled across the room like a broken doll, crashing into a heavy oak shelf with a sickening sound. His blackened skin peeled away to reveal overcooked flesh, his fingers curling and clawing at nothing as the fire devoured him from the outside in.

In the end, his lips cracked apart as a thin line of dark blood seeped and hissed against the heat, and he collapsed into a charred husk, his life extinguished in a single violent heartbeat.

Meng Ruyan was also pushed back by the shockwave. Her robes were scorched, her skin marked with burns, and many strands of her hair curled into ash. She coughed violently as acrid smoke filled her lungs.

’Impossible! The Soul-Sleeper should have rendered him helpless! So how?!’ Her thoughts churned with extreme shock.

She scrambled to her feet, her gaze darting around as she searched for her nephew.

"Kai!" she cried out, but the young man had vanished as though he had never been there.

For a passing second, she considered whether he had been caught in the explosion, but that thought was quickly cast aside. He had stood the farthest from the blast, and there was not even a trace left behind. No blood, no fragments, nothing.

That left only one conclusion.

Someone else had intervened.

A jolt of pure terror struck her, and the instinct to flee rose sharply in her chest, but the thought of her nephew anchored her in place.

Gritting her teeth, she suppressed the panic clawing at her heart and steadied her breathing. Her divine sense unfurled in all directions, sweeping across the room inch by inch, probing every corner with extreme caution.

Step by step, she advanced to where Meng Kai had been standing just moments earlier, her movements slow, every nerve in her body stretched taut.

Then, without warning, the air beside her trembled and rippled like the surface of disturbed water.

A hand burst forth from the distortion, wrapped in blazing golden radiance that burned like a miniature sun.

’Shit!’ Meng Ruyan reacted instantly. Spiritual essence surged as a wall of swirling green wind formed before her, spinning rapidly in an attempt to intercept the attack.

The golden fist crashed into the barrier.

For two breaths, it held.

Then the wind barrier shattered.

The remaining force struck her squarely in the chest, sending her flying backward like a kite with its string cut. She slammed into the wall with a heavy thud, the impact forcing a spray of blood from her lips as the sound of fracturing bones echoed faintly.

From the torn veil of space, Jiang Chen stepped out slowly, his expression calm and devoid of emotion. In his left hand, Meng Kai hung limply by the scalp. The youth’s four limbs had been severed, the stumps bleeding profusely like broken wine barrels.

Ever since beginning his return journey from Sunken Moon Valley, Jiang Chen had developed the habit of sleeping within the Divine Concealment Array while also summoning a clone to stand watch.

Even within the walls of the sect he continued this practice. When the three intruders approached his residence, the clone detected them and awakened him. Jiang Chen then had the clone act as a sleeping decoy while he remained hidden within the array.

As for the Seven-Breath Soul-Sleeper, the moment Liu Chanshin tossed it inside, Jiang Chen intercepted it and stored it within his storage ring. While the smoke could induce sleep in living beings, it posed no threat to items within the ring.

The smoke present when the trio entered had merely come from bundles of incense that Jiang Chen had lit beforehand. Since they were using nose plugs, they could not distinguish the scent, and thus the deception succeeded flawlessly.

"My Kai... no... this can’t be..." Meng Ruyan’s face went pale as her eyes fell on her nephew’s mutilated body, her heart sinking cold.

"Isn’t it bad manners to enter a man’s house uninvited?" Jiang Chen said mockingly as killing intent surged outward like a blizzard swallowing the world.