Chapter 32: Subterfuge

Sha Ren Gui groaned as he lay on the ground, sprawled. He tried to roll over, but couldn't because of his broken back. Cursing in pain, he maintained his pitiful position, wanting to glare at me but couldn't.

"You knew we were coming!" he spat, his voice laced with agony.

"Actually, no, we didn't," I admitted. "But you stupidly triggered our security formations. Did you really think we wouldn't notice our formations getting destroyed or deactivated one after another?"

"…I thought you were asleep."

"You thought, he say, who confirm?" I retorted. I glanced at Lu Bu, who was standing silently like a sentinel over the dissipating remains of the now slain Liu Shi Fu. "I'm assuming you are a summoner who is after my life because of the Spirit War?"

Sha Ren Gui didn't reply, but his sullen silence told me everything I needed to know.

"What do you intend to do with him?" Mu Rong Shu asked, dropping from a tree branch to land beside me. When I glanced at her, she shrugged. "Don't worry, I've already checked out the surroundings. There's no one else here except this idiot. I don't think there's anyone else stupid enough to try and launch an attack on the Mu Rong family's home."

"If it were one of the other Mu Rong family members, perhaps…but you know how your reputation is." Sha Ren Gui glared at the ground, clenching his fists. He spoke through gritted teeth. "I alone knew how false that reputation was…I knew you would pose a significant threat, with how capable you are, but even so, I still ended up underestimating you. Fuck! Even though I knew how strong you were, I didn't think you would see through my assassination!"

"Thanks, I'm flattered you think so highly of me," I said dryly. Mu Rong Shu sighed and glared at me, placing her hands on her hips.

"You still haven't answered my question."

"Oh, right. I don't know. What do you propose I do? Hand him over to the authorities?"

"Just kill me already," Sha Ren Gui growled resentfully. "No point prolonging my pain."

"You think I'm a murderer or something? What do you think a person's life is?"

"He did try to kill you," Mu Rong Shu pointed out. She shrugged when I glanced at her. "Not that I disagree with you. I also think you should just hand him over to the authorities and let the system deliver justice, not take it into your own hands."

"Don't be naïve," Sha Ren Gui scoffed. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I tried to kill you, so I have no one to blame when you kill me. Also, you can't leave loose ends dangling. You might have slain my summoned spirit for now, but as long as I remain alive, I can still summon Liu Shi Fu again later. I just need some time to restore him and recover."

"Not unless we cripple your cultivation," Mu Rong Shu said. "But that's as good as killing you."

"Then cripple me! I lost!" Sha Ren Gui then scowled. "However, if you cripple me, someone else might take Liu Shi Fu from me. And then you'll have to face off against him and his new summoner in future."

"But if I let you leave, will you return to take revenge on me?"

"Of course! You think I'll let this humiliation be? If it were you, would you give up after you lost once?"

"I wouldn't be provoking my enemy and goading him to kill me, though," I pointed out wryly. Sha Ren Gui scowled again.

"Why are we even having this discussion to begin with? For someone who married into the Mu Rong family, you don't seem to have the guts to take someone's life."

"Oh, that's what separates me from a murderer." I sighed and shook my head. "If I kill you in battle, it would count as self-defense. That couldn't be helped. It was a kill or be killed situation, and I took your life out of necessity. But right now, the battle is over. There is no need to kill you. Taking your life now would just be murder. There's no honor, no justice in it. It would be me just fueling my desire for revenge or something."

"If you don't kill me now, I'll come after you again in future. So there is a need."

"With your back like that?" I snorted. "You should be more concerned with protecting yourself than taking revenge. And also…if I beat you once, I can defeat you again. Next time you might not be so lucky. Just because I refuse to kill you when you're helpless, already defeated and at my mercy doesn't man I won't take your life during a battle. Like I said, if that happens, I would be simply defending myself."

"Nice rhetoric. That's all just to make you feel good and proud of yourself, eh? To delude yourself into thinking you have some sort of honor."

"What, you think this is some trashy Chinese-influenced story where the protagonist is a ruthless, sociopathic murderer who literally lives by the rule of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and go around coldly murdering people even though it's a modern setting? Times have changed, friend. We no longer live in a warring era where millions of people die everyday. What's the point of progress and modernity if we continue to behave like barbarians?"

Shaking my head, I couldn't help but think of all the edgy authors and readers who callously called for the deaths of characters. They treated human lives like objects, hypocritically serving as judge and jury, thinking themselves worthy of judging whether someone deserved to live or die. None of them truly understood the weight of life. It was really tragic.

Of course, it didn't help that most characters in such stories were poorly written, often conceived as one-dimensional caricatures whose foibles and villainy had been exaggerated to the extreme. It was hard to think of them as human, but when readers began demanding that the protagonist kill someone for something as trivial as insulting them, it started to become very disturbing.

Just look at the fan club of Chen Fan/Chen Bei Xuan from Rebirth of the Urban Immortal Cultivator. There were edgy fans who loved just how ruthless and psychopathic he was, killing everyone who crossed him for so much as looking at him in the wrong way…or simply because they were Japanese. It was disgusting, really.

I vowed not to follow such routes. Pushing my glasses up my nose, I glanced up when I heard the sirens.

The police were here. Good. I would just hand Sha Ren Gui over to them.

"You'll regret this," Sha Ren Gui snarled. I simply smiled.

"No, I won't. And even if you do come at me again, I'll just take that as a challenge and welcome it." After all, I looked forward to accumulating more combat experience. There was a lot I had learned from this encounter. I was surprised to see that a spirit like Liu Shi Fu was capable of decimating the Mu Rong family's security formations.

It would be great to see what else he and his summoner were capable of.

Sha Ren Gui remained silent and he looked away. But I could sense that his hatred and aggression had dropped a notch. Perhaps he was reconsidering his life choices.

"Hmph. I'll save you for last. Wait till I recover, and we'll have our rematch then."

"Sure. I'll wait for you."

*

The cultivator police bundled Sha Ren Gui into the ambulance, the paramedics rushing to set his spine and treat his injuries. The assassin-type summoner was a little gloomy. But he also felt complicated feelings welling up inside him.

Like most of the other summoners, he had a desire for immortality. He wanted to ascend to the Spirit Realm and gain access to its secrets, resources and benefits. But to achieve that, he must first slay other summoned spirits and their summoners, so as to use their essences to open the gate to the other world.

Yet there were those among the summoners who didn't seem interested in eternal life. summoners with honor and a strong sense of justice.

"What an idiot," Sha Ren Gui mumbled under his breath. Then he smiled. "But I don't dislike such idiots."

He drifted off, his body under heavy sedation. The paramedics had given him powerful painkillers to help him with his torn spine. Despite the grievous injury, Sha Ren Gui remained undaunted. With cultivation technology and medicine, he should be able to find an elixir that would repair his spine. Then he would spend a few weeks trying to restore Liu Shi Fu.

In the meantime, he had to hide somewhere, or the other summoners would come after him and kill him while he was most vulnerable.

"But that stupid Zhao Huan Shi won't take advantage of that."

Sha Ren Gui couldn't help but shake his head, smiling wryly. He felt a deep sense of gratitude. It would be a pity to kill someone like him.

Perhaps there was no need to challenge him then.

If Sha Ren Gui was not mistaken, while the Spirit War was a battle royale, it wasn't as if they needed to kill every single summoner or spirit in the world except the last remaining survivor. They needed many spirits, yes, but not all. A few thousand spirits, perhaps, should suffice. A handful of survivors would then ascend to the Spirit Realm together.

Yeah, it would be wiser to form an alliance with this person. He was more trustworthy than the other summoners he had met…

"Hmm?"

He stirred awake, realizing that the paramedics had transported him to the hospital. At some point in time, he had been transferred from the ambulance to a proper bed. Intravenous tubes and cables had been attached to him, and his vital signs buzzed across a screen.

But it wasn't the change in environment that woke him up.

Sha Ren Gui was aware of a nurse next to him, preparing a syringe. He moved his head slightly to stare groggily at her, still under the powerful effects of the sedative. There was something not right about the nurse. She…

"…you're not a real nurse…"

A cultivator as strong as this lady wouldn't be employed as a nurse. He could sense the potent qi roiling off her in violet waves, the titanic tides of esoteric energy engulfing the room. That, and the intense killing intent that she emanated.

"Ah…you're awake. I was hoping to do this while you were still unconscious. So that you can die blissfully and ignorant."

The nurse smiled as she stuck the syringe into a vein in his arm. Sha Ren Gui struggled, only to find that his movements were dulled.

"Sh, don't resist. You'll die painlessly this way."

"Who are you?! Why…?"

Sha Ren Gui's voice died in his throat when he realized the nurse was not alone.

Behind the nurse, leaning against the far side of the wall, an incredible beautiful woman stood. She wasn't exactly human – her ears were furry, resembling those of a fox. And behind her, nine bushy tails swayed slightly.

At that moment, Sha Ren Gui understood why he was about to die.

"For the Spirit Realm," the fake nurse said, and then pushed the plunger and injected the poison into the crippled summoner's veins.