Chapter Thirty-Six: The Bottom of the Lake, A Strange Person

  Chen Song's hand had not yet touched Gu Yun's head when a stern voice came from all directions, "Who is it that disturbed my slumber? You will pay the price." As soon as the words fell, a huge whirlpool suddenly appeared in the previously calm pond, spinning faster and deeper. A giant hand made of condensed water emerged from the whirlpool, rapidly grabbing towards the two. Chen Song had not yet reacted when he was slapped flying by a palm, landing tens of meters away on the ground, spitting out two large mouthfuls of blood. In just one strike, Chen Song was severely injured and unable to fight back. He stared at the giant hand made of condensed water in shock and awe, thinking that if this person's cultivation could cause such damage with just a single blow, he didn't dare imagine what it would be like.

  Before the big hand could grab him again, Chen Song quickly got up from the ground, gave Gu Yun a hateful glance, and then fled the scene on his flying sword. This person's cultivation was unfathomable, without even seeing his face, he had already been injured by him, completely not someone he could handle, at this moment if he didn't run, when would he? As for Gu Yun, in Chen Song's eyes at that moment, he was already a dead man, but it wasn't because of his own hands, which made him somewhat unsatisfied.

  Gǔ Yún thought he was a goner for sure, that palm strike that sent Chén Sōng flying earlier would have been impossible to dodge even if Gǔ Yún were in top condition, let alone now when he's heavily injured. With great effort, Gǔ Yún propped himself up and took a look at the mountain peak which was now a scene of utter devastation. Just a few hours ago it was a paradise with flowers blooming everywhere, but now it was a desolate wasteland, the spot where the heavenly thunder exploded had become a massive crater ten zhang wide and three zhang deep, the rampaging energy had swept away everything on the mountain peak.

  Just now, Chen Song threw out that crystal, Gu Yun also knew what it was. The Xian Lei made by the Xian Lei Gate was so terrifyingly powerful. Although Gu Yun didn't know what kind of price Chen Song would have to pay for using a high-grade Xian Lei, seeing his painful expression still made him feel a little balanced in his heart.

  However, looking again at the large hand that continued to grab towards himself, Gu Yun's heart became disheartened once more. He hadn't expected that before he could truly see the outside world, he would have to stop here. Resigned, he closed his eyes and allowed the large hand to drag him towards the center of the whirlpool without any resistance.

  The feeling of death he had imagined did not appear on himself, Gu Yun opened his eyes. He found himself in a cave now, the cave was not big, neither length nor width nor height exceeded one zhang, but it was very strange, because he saw that at the entrance of the cave was the water from the pool flowing there, but without any intention of entering this cave.

  "Kid, don't bother looking, this cave has my Water Separation Array set up, those water pools can't come in." Just as Gu Yun was looking around, a voice suddenly sounded beside his ear.

  Gǔ Yún hastily turned around and looked everywhere for the person who made the sound, but except for him, there was no one else in the cave. "Senior, since you have no ill intentions, why not show yourself," Gǔ Yún said loudly to the empty cave.

  "Heh heh, young one, how did you know I didn't have malicious intentions?" The voice chuckled.

  "By feeling", Gu Yun replied with three words. He knew that if the other party wanted to kill him, they wouldn't have brought him to this place in the first place.

  "Haha, what a feeling-based guy, what a unique kid! Don't you know that feelings are sometimes not reliable at all? But this time your feeling is right, I don't have any ill intentions towards you, on the contrary, I have something to ask of you." The voice laughed loudly after hearing Gu Yun's words.

  "Something that even the great masters of old found difficult to accomplish, how can I possibly do it well?" Gu Yun said frankly, he had seen this person's methods before, and if they couldn't even handle such trivial matters, Gu Yun wouldn't think he himself had the ability to complete it.

  "Little kid, you think I'm very strong now? Then let me show you what I look like now." As soon as the words were spoken, Gu Yun saw a figure emerge from the wall of the cave. It was indeed floating out from the wall and hovering in front of Gu Yun. Only then did Gu Yun get a clear look at the person's appearance. To be honest, this person looked quite strange, with limbs and body like those of a young child, but an unusually large head, much bigger than that of an ordinary person. Gu Yun was taken aback, hardly daring to believe that the severely injured Chen Song had been struck by this person earlier, because at this moment, this person was just a floating spiritual soul in front of Gu Yun. A spiritual soul without a physical body basically had negligible strength.

  Seeing Gu Yun's bewildered expression, he chuckled and said, "Now you know why, right?"

  Gǔ yún diǎn le diǎn tóu, biǎo shì zhī dào. Dàn yòu yǒu xiē yí huò de wèn dào "kě shì, qián bèi gāng cái nà yī jī". Yuán shén de lì liàng rú cǐ zhī ruò, dàn cǐ rén què jǐn yǐ yuán shén jiù néng fā chū nà me duō qiáng dà de gōng jī, nà……

  "That last blow was nothing, if I were in my prime, I could do it with ease, but now it took a lot of my spiritual energy. Listen, kid, the truth is, what you're seeing now is just a remnant of my soul, and it's about to dissipate. For so many years, I've been stuck here, waiting for someone who can inherit my ultimate technique. But after all these years, no one has met my requirements... until I met you, you have the best talent I've seen in all these years, looks like heaven still hasn't given up on me." He paused and then said "You're wondering why I could launch such a powerful attack with just my spiritual energy?"

  Gu Yun nodded his head in agreement, this was indeed a place where he had many doubts.

  "You've also seen the state of my body, right?" The man said, looking at Gu Yun nodding.

  Gu Yun nodded again, but in his heart he was thinking, could this have something to do with his body? And then he said something that made Gu Yun understand.

  That person looked at Gu Yun with a hint of sadness and said, "I was born into a cultivation family, but from the moment I was born, my body had an unusual condition. My head is much larger than normal people's, and it didn't change as time passed. My body stopped growing when I was ten years old, and I couldn't cultivate any spiritual techniques. So, people called me 'Big Headed Waste.' I became the laughing stock of the family, receiving cold stares from everyone. Finally, at eleven years old, I was kicked out of the family by my relatives. But what's even more heartless is that my parents didn't say a word to plead for me, not even showing any sadness. They sent me away in a daze to a settlement town, where I lived a peaceful but hopeless life. However, I'm not willing to spend the rest of my life like this. I want to prove to those people that I'm not a waste."

  Having heard this, Gu Yun felt a deep respect for the man, as his own past was so similar to his. The only difference was that he had not been met with disdain from others, and his parents had not abandoned him; in comparison, he didn't know how much better off he was than this person. And yet, despite being in such a situation, this person still refused to give up - how could Gu Yun not feel a deep respect for him, when he himself was also the kind of person who refused to yield?

  "But because the meridians in my body were too weak and small, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't cultivate. Just when I was about to give up on myself, a chance encounter made me discover that my yuan Shen's mental power was much stronger than others. So, I gave up the idea of continuing to cultivate other true techniques and focused on cultivating my yuan Shen's mental power. Without any help, I went through countless failures and even faced death, but finally found a way to cultivate yuan Shen's power, which I named "Lian Shen Jue". Later, relying on Lian Shen Jue, I cultivated to the point where I could rival high-level masters in just over a hundred years. Then, I returned to my original family, defeated all the strong people in the family, including my parents, and left."

  He paused for a moment, and then a strong sense of hatred suddenly burst out from his body. His voice turned cold as he said: "But what I didn't expect was that the elders in my family thought I had brought them great shame. They even issued a wanted poster, asking people to hunt me down and kill me, and they didn't hesitate to spread rumors that I possessed top-grade cultivation methods and divine artifacts. If they killed me, they could share these things with others. You should know how tempting these things are to a cultivator, and on top of that, my own situation - a waste like me defeating the strongest members of a family... so people believed their words. As a result, I was hunted down by almost the entire cultivation world. Haha, the entire cultivation world, you know what kind of power that is? In the midst of being crazily hunted down, I relied on the Refining God Technique to refine the primordial spirits of my pursuers and crazily increase my strength. Finally, after I killed the ten strongest people among those who were hunting me at the time, no one dared to come again. And I made the elders in my family pay the price - their cultivation was completely ruined by me. I also saw through everything in this world and found this place. After setting up an illusion array outside, I began to meditate here."

  Listening to Gu Yun's words, it was a thrilling and blood-boiling experience. Being calculated by his family, hunted down by the entire cultivation world, and killing ten of the strongest people - what a delightful and exhilarating thing! And yet, this person's strength was also incredibly powerful. Gu Yun was influenced by Zei Fengzi, and he wasn't someone who pretended to be righteous in the first place. So when he crippled the cultivation of his family's elders, Gu Yun felt a thrill of excitement - you don't treat me with kindness, so don't blame me for being unrighteous. If people knew what Gu Yun was thinking, they might say he was an unfilial and disloyal person. But to someone like Gu Yun who followed their heart and wasn't bound by worldly etiquette, family was just a joke. And he also discovered that the illusion array outside wasn't set up by the two women's master as he had initially thought, but rather it was this person's masterpiece.