Chapter 4: Justice is just a Word

Then, he limped forward, and stood at the center of the courtyard and looked at the villagers and the elders, his eyes swept the disinterested crowd.

"Do you know why they beat and robbed me?" He said with a raised voice.

Some of the villagers, unconcerned and doubtful, started to ignore him, but some glanced over.

When the village chief heard Ye Wuji's question, his demeanor changed and his face clouded over.

A muscle in his jaw tightened as he shot Wuji a fierce look. He sensed that Wuji was about to make an unfavorable remark about him.

However, Wuji disregarded him and spoke clearly, "It was about a spirit stone."

The effect was immediate and better than he had imagined.

The air snapped tight and the previously silent village elders reacted like snakes poked awake.

One of them rushed forward, his eyes wide with excitement. "Where is it? Give it to me, and I'll deliver justice right now!" he shouted.

Another called out in a suddenly warm and urgent tone, "I'll take you as my personal disciple! My martial arts and mantle are yours!"

From farther back, the deputy village chief, who had always been calm and uninterested, until now shouted with wild eyes, "You want to be a cultivator, boy? I'll give you that chance myself! Hand it over!"

Their desperate, hungry, and loud voices overlapped. The villagers were confused by what was happening.

All they could hear were promises of discipleship, power, and immortality echoing like wild chants through the courtyard.

Ye Wuji stood silently and unmoved in the middle of it all.

He studied their faces one by one. Their eyes were wide. Their mouths were dry. Their fingers twitched like an addict's. "What's so special about this stone that it warrants such a reaction?" he wondered.

From the memories of the body's previous owner, he knew spirit stones were valuable, certainly, but not this valuable.

He remembered overhearing a traveler say that a single spirit stone could fetch a thousand gold coins in a hidden market in the city.

The original plan had been simple: sell the stone, buy status, and maybe open a shop. Something small, stable and safe.

What Ye Wuji didn't know was that It wasn't just the price that made it so valuable but the power behind the price.

Spirit stones weren't just treasures to mortals, they were also rare, pure, and irreplaceable to cultivators.

To mortals, they were dreams. To cultivators, they were progress and energy storage. And to greedy, talentless elders at the end of their paths, they were a second life, because in the village and in the mortal realm the spirit energy in the air was too scarce that it was basically non-existence.

This is why the elders were losing their minds. Some of them had probably never touched one in their whole lives, let alone owned one.

He gently raised his right hand, which silenced the murmuring villagers.

"My kind elders," he said in a smooth, and respectful voice. "I would love nothing more than to repay such generous offers."

He paused. Then, he tilted his head slightly toward Chen Yi and the village chief, who had an ugly expression.

Acting as if he had been wronged, he smiled thinly and said, "But the spirit stone was also stolen from me."

"Who dares to rob the talented youth of our village? Was it the bandit?" one of the elders roared, puffing up as if he had been robbed personally.

Ye Wuji turned to him, looking slightly embarrassed, as if unsure whether to laugh or sigh.

"It was Chen Yi," he said plainly.

"Is this guy stupid?" Wuji thought. "Can't he tell the village chief just made that up to control public opinion?"

The elder froze.

The villagers fell silent.

The third elder's eyes darted from Chen Yi to the village chief.

Wuji watched the scene unfold with quiet satisfaction.

"Now then," he thought. "Let's see what my so-called 'elders' would do."

Earlier, when he said that Chen Yi and his friends had beaten him and stolen everything, not a single elder had spoken up.

They had just watched him, as if he were the entertainment in a play. But now that the spirit stone is in play? Suddenly, they all remembered how to speak.

The elders glanced at one another, furtively and uneasily, waiting for someone else to speak first. But no one moved, they all had some concern about the village chief.

Finally, the Third Elder stepped forward. His tone was soft, almost coaxing.

"Yi'er, where is the spirit stone?"

He asked gently, as though addressing a beloved child, not someone accused of theft.

Chen Yi opened his mouth to respond, but before he could say anything, the village chief cut him off. In a perfectly controlled tone, he said, "He gave it to me."

A heavy silence followed. The elders looked at each other, weighing what to do.

Then, the deputy village chief snapped, his voice sharp as he locked eyes with Chen Yi.

"He gave you a stolen spirit stone? From two orphans?"

His voice echoed across the square, loud and harsh enough to make a few villagers flinch.

"What do you think the punishment should be for stealing from your own village?"

The tension increased. No one dared to speak.

The Third Elder stepped forward slightly from where he stood. He cleared his throat awkwardly before continuing with a measured and sincere like tone.

"I think Yi'er should return the spirit stone to its rightful owners." He nodded once, as if delivering a final judgment. "We can't tolerate theft. Not within our walls."

The Third Elder's words sounded righteous—even noble—but Ye Wuji could see through them.

He couldn't help but feel amused.

The pleading elders, the sudden outrage, none of that existed when he was arguing with the village chief.

But now that the spirit stone was involved, they all became enforcers of justice.

"If the spirit stone stays with the village chief," Wuji thought, "they'll never even sniff it, let alone touch it."

But what if it were returned to him?

Then they'd have hope—hope of bargaining for it, pressuring him for it, or simply taking it by force.

He shook his head slightly, "And here I was hoping that even one of the elders might know justice, but it turns out they're even greedier than I was in my last life."

"It's not like I came here looking for justice anyway. The weak don't have the right to justice in any world. If this little village is this corrupt what about the rest of this world?" he thought.

The village chief stepped forward, and with a measured and firm tone addressed both Wuji and the villagers. "The spirit stone cannot be returned."

He turned slightly, letting the crowd hear every word.

"It's of paramount importance to me and to the village. With it I can see hope of break through, and once I do, the village will have a Stage Three Qi Refinement cultivator to guard it."

The crowd became excited when he said those words exactly as he had intended.

"That's true!" one of the villagers said.

"With the chief at Stage Three, those town thugs won't dare mess with us anymore."

A merchant nodded quickly. "Even the bandits would think twice if we had someone that strong in the village."

Ye Wuji smiled inwardly, "Using the public against me, huh? Clever."

But then he spoke, his voice smooth and unhurried, but just loud enough.

"I was going to offer the spirit stone to you anyway."

The crowd quieted. "But who would've thought, before I could even do that..."

He turned his gaze sharply toward Chen Yi. "Your so-called disciple to rob it from me and give it to you as if it were his."

"Yin Li, I understand your pain. You've suffered, and that's regrettable."

He glanced briefly at the crowd, keeping his voice measured and reasonable.

"But calling it theft? That's a stretch."

"Chen Yi is young. Rash. Maybe he acted too quickly, thinking he was protecting something that could benefit the village. He might have misunderstood your retaliation, which is why he attacked."

He turned back to Wuji, his eyes narrowing slightly.

"Intent matters. If he handed me the stone, it was with the village in mind, not out of selfishness. Weren't you also thinking of handing it to me? You are a kind young man, too."

Then, he turned to the crowd and said louder,

"What's more important? One boy's pain or the safety of the entire village?"

"Yin Li a good, selfless young man," said a village merchant, trying to lighten the mood. "If it were me, I wouldn't have shown anyone the spirit stone, either."

Ye Wuji glanced at him but said nothing.

"Selfless?No, Yin Li was naive and inexperienced, and that naivety got him killed," he thought.

Another villager chimed in. "Even if he doesn't get the spirit stone back, maybe five hundred gold coins would be fair?" Murmurs of agreement followed.

"Five hundred coins," Wuji thought. "Not bad. I would have taken it if this body weren't still boiling with resentment."

Then, the village chief spoke, trying to seal the deal.

"Very well. I'll give you five hundred gold coins. I'll also allow you to walk the path of cultivation."

The villagers gasped and clapped in approval. "The chief is indeed the fairest."

Wuji gave a small nod and said, "Five hundred gold coins, I accept, I also accept the cultivation."

He paused. Then, his voice dropping to a calm yet deadly tone continued. "But aren't we forgetting something?"

The crowd fell silent. The chief narrowed his eyes and asked, "What?"

Ye Wuji looked directly at Chen Yi. His voice didn't rise, nor did he flinch. "I want Chen Yi's hands broken."

As soon as the words left his mouth, the air turned still. Silence fell on the crowd like a boulder.

Faces turned stunned, even Chen Yi stared at Wuji, his lips parting slightly and his eyes wide. He hadn't expected that.

"It's not possible," said the village chief, his voice low and hesitant.

Ye Wuji's gaze sharpened, and he asked flatly, "Why? Why is it not possible?"

A murmur spread through the crowd. One of the elders scoffed aloud, "Did he just ask the chief 'Why?'" he turned to the others.

"Does he really think the chief would allow his disciple to be wounded in public, even here?"

They chuckled nervously, but none dared answer.

What none of them knew was that Ye Wuji wanted more than just Chen Yi's hands broken.

He wanted to break his neck and sever his limbs. He wanted to see him crawl in the dirt, choking on blood and begging for death.

That's how much Yin Li—the boy whose body Wuji now inhabited—had hated Chen Yi.

However, the village chief's presence forced him to be rational...for now.

With controlled fury, Wuji answered the elder's mocking question: "He broke my leg! He beat me unconscious. He left me in the dirt. He made my little sister cry until she had no more tears left. And now, when I ask for justice, he's untouchable just because he is your disciple?"

The chief's expression hardened. "It's not just because he is my disciple," he said, stepping forward. "It's also because he is a talented seedling."

He looked at the crowd and raised his voice for effect.

"Within a day, he sensed Qi. In two days, he will enter the Qi Refinement stage. In two months, the sect cultivators will come for him."

To injure him now would be to injure the entire village's future.

Wu Ji looked around and saw gasps of approval, with some nodding their heads in blind belief in strength over right. The elders were also shocked.

They knew the difficulties of cultivation, so for Chen Yi to become a cultivator within two days in the mortal world was nothing short of heaven-defying.

But in the chief's eyes, there was no wisdom, only calculation.

"You little brat," he thought coldly. "Do you really think I'd waste my investment over your petty sense of justice?"

As Chen Yi's master, the village chief stood to gain far more than pride or reputation.

He would receive yearly qi pills from the sect—pills he could never earn on his own, not in ten lifetimes.

In the mortal realm, such pills were rare, held only by empires with deep ties to cultivators.

Receiving even one was rare, but receiving them every year was a once-in-a-lifetime chance.

The more talented the disciple, the more pills were granted—a reward for nurturing the sect's future powerhouses.

Of course, that's assuming the disciple remembers the one who raised him.

And Chen Yi? Given his speed, affinity, and terrifying potential, he was a sure bet.

With a steady supply of pills and proper guidance, he could reach Stage Six of Qi Refinement in ten years.

And the village chief? He'd rise with him, riding his disciple's success like a ladder out of mediocrity. There was no way he would let that investment be harmed.

Not for justice. Not for truth. Not for anything.

The villagers cheered. "What a lucky day!" a man cried. "The chief will break through, and our Chen Yi will enter a sect!"

Laughter and chatter broke out across the square, smiles bloomed, and hopes soared.

As for the injustice lying at their feet?Forgotten.

Ye Wuji sat down slowly, his body trembling from hunger and muscle pain. He looked around not with anger but with the quiet clarity of someone who understood the world for what it was.

"Look at them," he thought. "Not one of them cared for you, Yin Li. All they ever cared about was themselves."

He lowered his gaze and spoke softly, not to the crowd, but to the remnant of his soul.

"You see, Yin Li? Justice is just a word here. It's a story they tell themselves until something more profitable comes along."

The air felt lighter, as if something inside him was letting go.

He closed his eyes briefly.

"Don't worry. Chen Yi and his master will pay. I'm still weak, but with my Cell Dominion, I think I can avenge you in two months. I'll make sure of it."

"Tch... I should've eaten something before arguing with an entire village," he muttered faintly.

The last thing he saw was Meiyin running toward him, her face streaked with tears.

He managed a weak smile and whispered, "And here I thought you'd grown up," as his eyes slipped shut.

"Still a crybaby," then darkness took him.