Chapter 309 - You're Lying

Ji Ting seemed like a completely different person, forsaking his timid and low self-esteem demeanor.

He stood before the deep pit in the ground, his sleeve still dripping with blood.

His bloodied palm covered his cheek, with a pair of eyes hiding behind his fingers, fierce as those of a beast.

He chuckled lowly, “But what of that?

Even if he alone treated me well, can it change the malice that the entire world once planted towards me?

Meng Chengzhi is truly kind-hearted, but who says that good people can’t die?

He’s stupid!

Hopelessly stupid.

With a treasure trove within him yet no ambition to advance, content to be downtrodden in a small border city, an old man weak enough for anyone to bully, engaging in pointless stupidity.

He knew full well I was a stubborn stone, no matter how beautifully he carved me, a stone is but a stone and will never turn into jade!

His expectations of me were so naively laughable.

I never wanted to strive to become a jade stone myself, so what right does he have to decide for me, wanting to turn me into what he wishes in his heart?”

Baili An said, “If you want to rot till you stink, no one would bother with you.”

“No, no, no.” Ji Ting lowered his hand, his cheek smeared with fresh blood, and he gave a grin that revealed his chillingly white teeth.

“Everyone wants to rise above others, and so do I, but Meng Chengzhi doesn’t understand me.

I detest his gentle and soft mannerisms of a gentleman.

I am a hungry wolf that feasts on raw meat; I don’t want to wrap myself in the false skin of kindness and be bound as a tame sheep.

When there are shortcuts everywhere, why should I jostle and fight tooth and nail on a path that is long and without end?

On this road, there are too many of you noble and clean folks.

In the fighting crowd, I have to bow my head, tuck in my tail, smile sycophantically, fearing my dirt will stain the hems of the noble, all the while moving forward in panic and fear, timidly grateful for any little space you deign to give me.

But when a noble jade chariot rolls across the land, who cares for a bit of fresh red blood crushed on the ground?

Insignificant people like me, when dead by the roadside, even provide a few bites for the hungry dogs!”

Twilight cast shadows across the earth, and the moonlight illuminated his increasingly fierce and liberated eyes and brows.

Baili An said indifferently, “If you died by the wayside, Mr.

Meng would surely collect your corpse and see to your burial.

But from now on, there will be no one else like him.”

That plain statement pierced into the deepest, bloodiest part of Ji Ting’s heart.

His cruel gaze flickered for a moment, then he looked down and let out a self-deprecating laugh: “When that time comes, whether I rot in the belly of hungry dogs or under a handful of earth and a mat, it won’t matter.”

He sniggered and continued, “But the important thing is, that old man steadfast in his benevolence, he was soft-hearted alright.

He saw me murder, knew I was no good.

But as long as I knelt on the ground, pleaded miserably, played the pitiful card, and injured myself a bit more, his heart would soften.

Such malleability makes for easy destruction.

Look, even a powerful Cultivator like him, upon hitting that boulder, was like any other old man, bleeding from the head and kicking his legs before passing on.”

Having said that, Ji Ting sighed twice and spread his hands: “After all, I miscalculated by just one move and missed out on one account.

I intended to lure you here with the Ghost Tears Pearl, using your lives as the price for my success in obtaining it.

But the plans of humans can’t compete with those of heaven; the two Evil Ghosts inside the grinding stone couldn’t bear the blood shed by you two and directly collapsed, bringing out the big Ghost.”

He looked at Baili An with regret, “What I did not expect is that you could defeat the big Ghost.

However, I am genuinely curious, having only met me a few times, how can you be so certain that the crux of the problem lies with me?”

Baili An gazed intently at him, his eyes calm and undisturbed: “The night Mr.

Meng met with trouble, I visited your home.”

Ji Ting was taken aback, his face darkened as he sneered, “So what?”

“I found Ji San there; she was covered in injuries and terribly frightened.”

Ji Ting responded indifferently with an ‘Ah’: “You’re talking about Ghost’s little snack?

She was lucky.

That night I intended to snatch her into the Deserted City for the Ghost to enjoy, seeing as she was a sacrifice.

But unexpectedly, she was rescued by that young Cultivator with a horsetail whisk who intervened.

Or else, she wouldn’t have lived to see you.”

The young Cultivator with the horsetail whisk was probably Meng Zifei, which also matched the events of that night.

Ji Ting suddenly laughed out loud: “But I’ve always been careful and cautious in my actions, even when capturing my own little sister, I never let her see my face.

Even if you found her, she couldn’t possibly tell you that I was the one conspiring with Ghosts.”

Baili An looked deeply at the man before him; amidst all this, the smile on his face was indescribably contented, and the way he spoke of ‘my little sister’ was as doting and tender as usual.

“When I found her, I asked for her name, and she asked me to call her Ji San, like her brothers and sisters do,” Baili An said evenly.

Ji Ting’s smile instantly cracked, his blood-covered facial contortions suddenly turned brooding.

In an instant, the world seemed to quiet down.

Ji Ting stood in the wind, like a raw and bloody evil hound, stripped of its fur.

Baili An lifted his ink-black eyes, serene with neither sorrow nor joy, and stated calmly, “You’re a person adept at lying, and when you tell lies for a long time, you might even start believing them yourself.

Ji Ting, you might not check yourself, but from the moment I met you, you’ve been lying.

Would you like to hear it?”

Ji Ting’s eyes grew dark, like a pond weighed down with silt suddenly stirred into turbidity.

Baili An continued, “You claim the Ghost abandoned you here after killing you, but the Ghost I know is cruel and violent, seeking to extinguish life without leaving any chance of survival.

Thus, the wound on your chest could not have been made by the Ghost; you are lying.

The penetrating wound on your chest did not come from this desolate house but from injuring yourself on the Life Plate of Lan Youdie’s maid when you brutalized her that night.

On the brink of death, you summoned the Ghost.

From the beginning, you had allied yourself with the Ghost, hunting prey for it.

Not Mr.

Meng, but you were the one severely injured and in need of life-sustaining ghostly paper.

Mr.

Meng was not the feeble Cultivator others saw, for he already possessed the capacity to transcend tribulation.

I don’t understand why he would refine a soul division, turn half his cultivation into a parrot, and continue being a leisurely old man, giving you an opportunity to exploit.”

Ji Ting stared at the youth before him as if he were seeing a ghost.

Baili An went on, “You say since entering the manor you were manipulated, but upon regaining your senses, you immediately sought me out.

Now the question arises, if you were under coercion, how did you know I was in this deserted house?

So, you are lying again.

You say, as a mere scholar with little strength, even if you can’t save Ji Ying, you are willing to remain forever in this deserted house, fearing she would be lonely on her way to the Netherworld.

Indeed, these are the words of a brother.

But you seem to forget that you have more than one ‘sister’, yet you didn’t mention Ji San at all.

As such, the so-called ‘companionship in the Netherworld’ is a lie.

You claim you and Lan Youdie’s maid were from the same hometown, hence the late-night conversation.

However, you can never state the maid’s name, which indicates another lie.

You say she died in the deserted house, wretched as a flower, but you don’t know that the news released by the Inner City Seal Keeper was that the maid’s body desecrated by ghostly affliction was discovered in the mountain residence, not the deserted house.

This leads me to believe that this misinformation was deliberately spread by the official.

If you had truly lost your senses, you wouldn’t know she was buried in the deserted house.

The night before, the ghoul corpses in the courtyard were all reduced to blood mist by a powerful force, including the maid’s.

Therefore, you couldn’t have learned that the maid was interred in the deserted house, yet you claimed she was here.

So, there’s only one possibility: the person who carried her body into the deserted house was you.

Earlier, when saving your sister on the loft, you didn’t find Ji Ying and panicked; you questioned the girl inside, revealing she was ‘fine’ just the other day.

Although it was just a subconscious statement, it suggested reality because it was subconscious.

Ji Ting, you haven’t seen Ji Ying, so how could you be sure that she was ‘fine’ at that time?”

Having already confessed to many sins, Ji Ting, hearing this, couldn’t help but stare fixedly at Baili An’s face.

His eyes, already crazed and demented, seemed to tremble for an instant, the rims tinged with barely perceptible redness.

The man who was eloquent in his pleadings now found himself speechless.