30 Whispers in the Dark

A.N - A big shoutout to ACDPQS for his new Reverend Insanity fanfic: Poison-Refining Demon Venerable.

I encourage everyone to read it, even though it only has one chapter now, as it seems to have a lot of potential.

And anything about Reverend Insanity is worth at least checking out.

------------

It's yet another desolate night descending upon Longhua Shan Mountain, faintly illuminated by a pale and forlorn moon hanging in the sky like an unreachable immortal fairy.

In the streets of the He An clan, pedestrians wander through dimly lit pathways, discreetly making their way to their homes or destinations. By now, those not afflicted by deep insomnia have long been in profound slumber for several hours.

However, within a certain prison, the relentless sounds of flesh being cut echo ceaselessly, as if someone were incessantly carving meat for slaughter.

*slash* *slash* Chen Wei is continuously cutting the bodies of the already dead guards lying on the floor outside his experimental prison.

"You damned spy, how much did Clan Feng Zhi pay you?!" He shouts, putting as much feigned outrage into his voice as possible, yet his face remains neutral and impassive, showing none of the anger evident in his voice.

Not only that, but he made a cut on himself, trying to make it appear as if he had been attacked from behind in an assassination attempt carried out by his guards.

Of course, he had already informed his grandfather, telling him that the guards had entered the prison without his authorization to abuse the female prisoner, and that in a fit of rage, he killed them, needing his grandfather's help to clear the cene.

"Ah...ah... you damn traitors, I'll kill all of you!" Chen Wei shouts to deaf ears, as all the guards are dead, and there shouldn't be anyone in this area at this time of night. But if, for some reason, someone did happen to be here, he didn't want to risk his lie being so easily exposed.

'The men my grandfather sent to help me incriminate these guards as traitors should be arriving soon,' Chen Wei thinks calmly as he inspects the apertures of each of the dead guards to make sure they didn't have any Gu that could record what happened.

'Most of them didn't even destroy their Gu due to the despair and pain that engulfed their minds.' After finding no Gu that could record what happened, he personally destroys all the guards's Gu, one by one, before putting them back in their apertures.

The next thing Chen Wei begins to do, in an orderly and calm manner, is to dismantle his experiments, as well as to dispose of the prisoners who were in the worst condition, one by one.

'It's best that only those who are undergoing light experiments remain, so as not to cause significant damage to my reputation.' Chen Wei approaches the cell where the body of Lin Xi, the female Gu Master he used for the BloodSoul Baby Gu refinement, is lying on the cold, dirty floor of the cell, lifeless, with a pale face and an expression of pain.

'But reputation is merely a tool to be used and discarded when necessary.' Chen Wei climbs on top of the Gu Master while making her own teeth bite her tongue, making it look like she committed suicide by biting her tongue.

'And now is the time for me to discard some of my and my grandfather's reputation, as it is necessary for me.' Chen Wei begins to injure Lin Xi's body to emulate those that would be made by someone trying to restrain a resisting woman.

Soon after Chen Wei finishes, he hears the noise of the men sent by his grandfather to help him modify this place arriving in front of the prison, discreetly, but not escaping Chen Wei's attentive ears.

Chen Wei quickly exits the prison to communicate with them. "I hope you've taken everything I had prepared in advance in case something like this happened, and I encourage you to be quick, as I'll have to report this to the clan quickly."

He, of course, being a prepared person, had already made a plan in case something like this happened, of quickly hiding his experiments and changing them for experiments morally acceptable by the clan if necessary in the future, and now that preparation paid off.

'It's as they say, a man who sleeps with a shotgun is a fool every night except one!' Chen Wei thinks as he watches his grandfather's men efficiently change his experiments, which Chen Wei couldn't remove alone, and replace them with things that would be considered normal and correct.

Of course, he doesn't care about appearing to be a good guy in front of the clan, as he plans to sacrifice his reputation, but he also doesn't want to worsen the already bad political situation he and his grandfather are going to enter.

"Have you prepared the Gu from Clan Feng Zhi?" He asks the team leader standing beside him, as Chen Wei wants to make sure nothing goes wrong.

"Yes, young master, they're already placing them on the bodies," the leader replies as Chen Wei sees the Gu Masters placing Gu from the Feng Zhi clan, commonly used for espionage, in the apertures of the dead guards and then destroying these same Gu inside the apertures.

"That's good. With such a good team my grandfather sent, they'll never find out the truth!" He speaks confidently to the leader beside him, although he himself thinks that the clan's investigation Gu Masters and elders from other families will eventually discover that the spy story is false.

Of course, Chen Wei hopes they won't discover anything, as that would be the best outcome for him in the end, but he doubts anything so good will happen.

So he has prepared for when they find out that the spy story is false, so that instead of reaching the truth, they simply arrive at another lie that is pleasing to them, then stop delving deeper into what happened.

That's why when he contacted his grandfather, he told him that he had killed the guards in a fit of rage after discovering they were abusing the female prisoner, and why he changed the scene of the event before his grandfather's men arrived.

'My reputation, in the end, means nothing compared to keeping the secret of the Soul Path,' he thinks, knowing that while many mortals and Gu Masters will likely side with him when think they know that's what happened,but it won't change the fact that, according to clan laws, he committed a crime.

'This is a really unfair and cruel world'He thinks because ultimately, if these guards were mere mortals, he wouldn't need to do anything to hide their deaths, as no one in the clan, apart from their families, would care about their deaths at the hands of Chen Wei, a talented grandson of an elder. But these guards are Gu Masters instead of mere mortals.

But even if they were Gu Masters, if they belonged to other clans and the female Gu Master were from the He An clan, the story would be different, and Chen Wei would be different, not needing a plan like the one he's executing now, as he would be hailed as a hero for defending a woman from the clan being abused by outsiders. But unfortunately, the actual situation is the opposite.

Of course, the punishment he'll receive will be inconsequential to him, as public opinion will likely be mostly on his side, considering the disgusting acts committed by the dead guards.

Even disregarding this fact, he still wouldn't be punished excessively, as he is an extremely talented grandson of the most influential elder of the He An clan.

But this is also the reason behind most of the political pressure he will face in the future, as his grandfather's enemies will surely use this opportunity to try to tarnish Chen Wei's previously impeccable reputation as much as possible.

They will also use this opportunity to tarnish Chen Wang's reputation for breaking clan rules to cover up his grandson's crime.

You might wonder why Chen Wei is being punished after doing something that would be considered morally correct even by most people in the gu world. Well, it's not because the guards didn't commit a crime - they did, and a very serious one in the eyes of the clan.

But Chen Wei didn't have the right to judge them or execute the punishment, let alone with that punishment being death, which according to clan laws is an exaggeration that could even lead Chen Wei himself to be sentenced to death in the worst case scenario.

But since the guards also committed a great crime and Chen Wei had various factors to help in his defense, besides being the most talented youth of his generation, he will probably only have to pay a large sum in compensation, as well as apologize for his crimes to the guards' families.

"Well, since it seems your work is done, you can leave for my grandfather to send reinforcements," he tells the team that came to help him, a secret force of assassins and spies totally loyal to the Chen family, serving directly as well as being created by Chen Wei's grandfather.

"Yes, young master, we were never here!" their leader responds to Chen Wei, who, despite being Chen Wang's grandson, doesn't know the identity of these Gu Masters who use Gu to disguise both their appearances and their voices.

Chen Wei watches the Gu masters leave without making much noise before receiving a message from his grandfather saying he sent the family's regular guards to "rescue" him and has already informed the clan leader and the elders about the spies and the assassination attempt.

'Ah, in the end, life is full of ups and downs, and now they will try to throw me into one of those downs...' he thinks as he looks at the black and starry night sky with an unimaginable beauty that can leave people breathless.

'But it will be of no use, as reputation is nothing but hypocritical words and irrelevant opinions...' In the heavens, he sees various stars and constellations that would be totally unknown to someone coming from Earth, like him, but at this point, he's more accustomed to the stars of this world than those of Earth.

'For in the end, in this world where spiritual essence is rich and immortal cultivation is possible...' He clenches his fists as he closes his eyes to better contemplate the calmness of this cold night that gives him a sense of peace and satisfaction that was lacking in his life on Earth.

'Only strength matters!' He finishes his thoughts on his greatest conviction, which grew strong after reading the novel, and became even greater after he reincarnated into this cruel and bloody world.