Chapter 4: The True Trash
Gu Hongbo, halted mere steps from the bridal courtyard, jolted as if struck by lightning! That blood-curdling shriek… chilling premonition flooded him. He spun on his heel and lunged back towards the source.
The door burst inward under his violent shove!
The scene within struck him like a physical blow.
Elder Yuan lay sprawled in a thickening pool of crimson, the front of his fine robes saturated with gore. And standing amid the carnage, draped in the grotesque parody of bridal red, stood Gu Qingxi. Her expression held a stillness colder than mountain ice.
Gu Hongbo's gaze fixed on the dark blood staining Elder Yuan's lips and the ruinous stain on his chest. His limbs locked. "What… happened?!"
"Defiled Offspring!" His eyes raked over Gu Qingxi's wedding robes, twisted rage instantly erupting. "How dare you be here?! Did you delude yourself into seducing Elder Yuan?!" A filthy soul sees only filth. The ice in Gu Qingxi's eyes deepened.
Gu Hongbo dropped hastily beside Elder Yuan, trembling fingers pressing against the man's neck—nothing. Not a pulse. A wave of visceral cold washed over him, shock and fear entangling. Elder Yuan dead in the Gu compound… what vengeance would the Shangyuan Sect unleash? The Gu family had nothing to withstand it!
The thought of Gu Qingxi being the culprit didn't even cross his mind—how could this waste harm a Foundation Establishment Grandmaster? It must be outside conspirators!
"Speak! What have you done?!" he bellowed, the sound raw, cornered.
"Dead. He is dead." The ghost of a smile touched Gu Qingxi's lips, devoid of all warmth. "You are next." Her tone was placid, like remarking on the weather.
"You demon spawn! Seeking death!" The blasphemy ignited Gu Hongbo's habitual brutality. His arm swept up to deliver a backhand blow – only to freeze mid-arc.
Another crumpled shape in the shadowed corner pierced his awareness.
The pool of blood.
The skull crushed beyond recognition.
The face frozen in an ugly rictus of shock and hatred beneath costly silk…
Gu Wenlian?!
Who?!
Who killed Wenlian?!
Could it be… Gu Qingxi?!?
Preposterous! The notion was laughable even to him! Water and Fire Spirit Roots! Mutually devouring! Her achieving Qi Refining itself was a freak accident! A talentless cripple forever stuck at Layer One! Kill Wenlian? A sick joke! But if not her… then who?!
"Wenlian… you killed her?!" He whipped his head around, eyes like venomous hooks spearing towards Gu Qingxi.
"Yes." Gu Qingxi's voice remained flat. She raised her hand, a slip of jet-black talisman paper appearing between her pale fingers.
Only then did Gu Hongbo truly see the room—the walls were a canvas of crawling, twisted black sigils. A palpable miasma of necrotic energy hung thick in the air, writhing like living shadow.
His gaze snapped back to Elder Yuan's corpse, then flew again to Gu Qingxi. His pupils contracted to terrified pinpoints. "Elder Yuan… you killed him?! You… a Talisman Master?! Qi Refining Layer One… slew a Foundation Establishment Layer Three Elder?!" Each word scraped like rusted metal against his throat, voicing the impossible horror.
Gu Qingxi's fingertips traced the icy surface of the talisman. Her gaze was a glacial abyss, endless and unforgiving.
"My mother." Her voice, terrifyingly calm, cut through the silence. "Was murdered by you." Each syllable landed like a hammer blow on the festering secret Gu Hongbo guarded. "To make way for the 'true love' you had already defiled your marriage bed with, and who bore your bastard child, Gu Wenlian."
The plan had been meticulous. Woo the prestigious first wife for her family's connections. Once drained, administer the slow poison hidden within her daily meals…
Had his mother looked at him, this husband, with dawning horror as the life ebbed away?
The filth cherished only himself. Now he'd even sacrificed his favored bastard to another's harvest. Scum deserved only rot.
Gu Hongbo's face drained of blood. She knew. She knew everything.
"Monster! Slanderer!" he shrieked, rage masking naked panic.
"Water and Wood Dual Spirit Roots." Gu Qingxi's gaze pierced him like physical icicles. "Seventy years. The Gu family's coffers emptied. Stagnated at Qi Refining Ninth Layer." A sliver of pure, glacial contempt twisted her perfect lips. "Tell me, which of us… is the true 'waste'?!"
"Bastard spawn! Worthless slag! How dare you defy me!" Gu Hongbo's face contorted beyond recognition. Enraged beyond reason, he swung his uninjured hand, aiming for her face with bone-crushing force!
Gu Qingxi's eyes flickered.
Her finger lifted, imperceptibly.
The talisman drifted free.
HHHUUUMMMMMMMM—!
Every black sigil in the room flared to life, resonating with a deafening hum!
An annihilative power, thick as tar and cold as the void, coalesced instantly! Corrosive dark bolts lanced forth, converging onto Gu Hongbo's descending palm!
*KRA-KOOM!*
"AGGGGHHHHH—!!!"
A scream, ripped from a soul in torment, shredded the air!
The hand, from the wrist down, dissolved into a spray of atomized flesh, bone dust, and superheated vapor! Only a ragged stump of thumb clung to the spurting ruin of his forearm, gouts of blood painting the walls scarlet!
Gu Qingxi watched, impassive as an obsidian statue.
Gu Hongbo writhed, agony threatening oblivion. Yet in the next heartbeat, an even vaster, colder force—like a glacier's core ice forged into a spike—shattered its way into his Sea of Consciousness!
"HURK—!"
His eyes bulged horrifyingly! Thick, dark blood erupted from all seven facial orifices! His body crumpled as if every bone had turned to water, collapsing to his knees like a broken puppet!
His spirit core was being flayed apart! He could feel the agony as his soul fractured under an unimaginable pressure!
"Now," Gu Qingxi's voice descended, chillingly soft, as she looked down upon the groveling, blood-soaked ruin that was her father. "Enlighten me. Whom do you call… the waste?"
"G-g-gghhhhh…" Gu Hongbo clawed at his own throat, suffocating on regret and ruin. Gu Qingxi! His daughter! Possessing such terrifying talent! With her… the Gu family could have soared! Resources would have flowed like rivers!
Why… WHY had he dug his own grave by trampling this unfathomed treasure into the mud?!
Too late… All… too late…
Gu Qingxi spared no final glance for the bloody, clawing stump desperately reaching for her.
She stepped forward.
Strode over the quivering mass of offal staining the floor.
Never looked back as she walked out of the charnel house.
Behind her, the building surrendered to the pent-up fury of the dissipating formation.
A titanic *CRRUUMMMBBBLLLEEEE!!!!*
The vile bridal chamber imploded in a cataclysm of fire, stone, and warped timbers! Flames and smoke clawed at the night sky.
Under the blazing rubble, if anything lived, it would be no more than a drooling, limbless fragment of a mind, forever broken.
The full moon bathed the world in sterile silver light, draping the rotten Gu manor in a shroud of false purity.
Gu Qingxi emerged from the towering gates.
Under the cold lunar gaze, slender fingers began deftly unfastening the blood-red knots of the wedding robe.
The cursed silk hissed as it pooled at her feet like discarded offal.
Clad only in simple white under-robes, she seemed an ethereal spirit conjured by the moonlight itself. Step by silent step, she walked into the embrace of the deepest shadows, leaving the desecration behind.
The moonlight sculpted her profile, impossibly perfect, inhumanly beautiful. Her figure dwindled, swallowed by the velvet dark.
...
The village outskirts.
A humble dumpling stall nestled beneath a flickering oil lamp, wisps of savory steam curling towards the stars. The scent of rich broth and fresh scallions hung in the cool night air.
Gu Qingxi sat at the smallest, most shadowed table. Before her, a porcelain bowl held a dozen tiny, translucent dumplings floating in clear, fragrant broth, dotted with emerald scallions.
Beside it, stacked with meticulous neatness, were six other empty bowls — remnants of beef noodles, jajangmyeon, rice noodles with beef... every signature dish the stall offered.
She ate slowly, savoring the fresh bowl of wonton.
The broth shimmered clear. The proprietor, sweat gleaming on his brow as he scooped boiling dumplings, cast repeated, worried glances towards the slender figure in the corner. Fifteen bowls… fifteen empty bowls stacked like a miniature pagoda! Such a delicate constitution… what if she became grievously ill?
The lamp flame danced, casting shifting light over her composed features. She ate with focused serenity, as if this were any ordinary meal.
The stall owner's anxiety, it seemed, was entirely unnecessary.