273: Chapter 273 Dark Abyss, Departing from the String

The night breeze was slightly cool, rolling up a few fallen leaves on the long street.

The sky gradually grew dim.

Chen Ran came out of Six Doors, his figure blending into the night.

After he first followed Lin Wan and played the role of investigating himself for a while.

After confirming that the other party had no clues or evidence, he set his mind at ease.

Towards his fiancée, the capital's female constable, Chen Ran still held a trace of vigilance.

As the saying goes, if you walk often by the river, how can your shoes not get wet?

Even though Chen Ran felt he hadn't left any traces, just in case, it was better to keep an eye on her progress from time to time.

The night was bright, and the shops on both sides had lit their candles.

There were already far fewer pedestrians on the street, leaving only a few passersby still strolling around.

These people might be local Young Masters of the capital, scholars traveling to the capital for the imperial examinations, or martial artists coming to the capital for experience...

Who would have thought that the one who killed the Cabinet's Grand Eunuch Cao Yong was hidden right within this peaceful scene.

A few quarters of an hour later.

Acting like nothing happened, Chen Ran returned to the Heavenly Prison.

The Heavenly Prison was still as gloomy and oppressive as before, resembling an ancient Vicious Beast dormant deep underground.

Chen Ran walked down the dim corridor, while the Jailers were still dozing off or chatting idly,

However, upon seeing him approach, those few Jailers perked up and hurriedly spoke respectfully:

"Lord Chen!"

Chen Ran nodded casually, his thoughts having already drifted elsewhere.

Killing Cao Yong did not yield him many rewards.

Perhaps it was because Cao Yong was too far away and died outside the Heavenly Prison, which didn't fit the rules.

But Chen Ran didn't mind; his gaze looked forward.

[Guarding the Heavenly Prison for several days, reward: five years of cultivation]

After entering the Heavenly Prison, the rewards accumulated over the past few days all popped up together.

With the elevation of his status, Chen Ran discovered that even if he wasn't inside the Heavenly Prison now...

...he still had some participation in the operation of the Heavenly Prison and could still obtain rewards, just a little less than suppressing personally.

But that was already very good,

That meant even if the current Chen Ran left the Heavenly Prison, he could still obtain offline gains.

As long as he came to the Heavenly Prison to harvest a wave every once in a while, it would suffice.

Chen Ran looked at the heavenly book of prison suppression in his Sea of Consciousness, full of anticipation.

The heavenly book of prison suppression didn't have this function before, and its appearance this time was because he had achieved a Breakthrough to the Innate.

As his strength advanced, the heavenly book of prison suppression was also evolving.

"I've taken another step closer to the path of invincibility."

Chen Ran couldn't help sighing with emotion.

It seemed that this heavenly book had a huge background, actually possessing such a Heaven-Defying function.

...

Chen Ran walked deep into the dungeon, found an empty cell, and sat cross-legged.

He closed his eyes and immersed his mind into his Sea of Consciousness.

Because when Cao Yong breathed his last breath, he had used the [Painted Skin] talent.

That cluster of memory light belonging to Cao Yong exuded a cold and desolate aura.

Chen Ran's Divine Thought gently touched it, and in an instant, countless images flooded over him like a tide.

That was a remote and barren small mountain village.

Cao Yong in the imagery was only an eight-year-old child, skin and bones, yet with a pair of bright and stubborn eyes.

He was a famously gifted martial arts genius in the village; even if he just watched the crude moves played by the old veteran at the village entrance a few times, he could learn them decently.

But his Family was too poor.

So poor that even tree bark and grass roots were almost gnawed clean, and underneath there were several younger brothers and sisters crying out for food.

That year of severe drought, many people starved to death in the village.

Coincidentally, eunuchs from the palace came to the countryside to recruit people.

In order to trade for a few dou of life-saving brown rice, and also to let the other children survive, his parents tearfully sold eight-year-old Cao Yong to that gloomy-faced old eunuch.

The young Cao Yong did not cry or make a fuss.

He naively thought that he was going to the imperial palace to enjoy a life of luxury, and as long as he scrimped and saved, he could send his saved monthly allowance back home in the future, letting his parents and younger siblings eat white flour steamed buns.

But he was wrong.

The place he was brought to was not the glittering imperial palace, but "Dark Abyss", where the Cabinet secretly trained assassins.

That was a living purgatory with no sunlight and no hope.

Hundreds of children bought like him were locked together like Gu insects, slaughtering each other.

Beatings, starvation, brutal killings...

Cao Yong watched with his own eyes as the companion who had shared half a piece of dry ration with him yesterday was beaten to death alive by the instructor today;

He watched with his own eyes as those children who couldn't hold on bit and tore at each other in despair.

In order to survive, he could only become more ruthless and venomous than everyone else.

He Cultivated the most domineering Demonic Technique that harmed the body the most.

He survived, but he also went mad.

His heart, in that pitch-black abyss, gradually became cold and distorted bit by bit.

Ten years later, Cao Yong finally crawled out of the "Dark Abyss", becoming the Cabinet's sharpest blade.

The first thing he did after leaving the abyss was to return to that small mountain village that gave birth to him and raised him.

Although his parents' faces were already somewhat blurred, this was his final obsession.

He stood at the village entrance, looking at the large blue-brick tile-roofed house built with the money from selling him.

Turns out, every time he survived a trial, the Cabinet would mail a valuable sum of money.

But his Family members didn't ask where the money came from at all, already immersed in the world of money.

In the courtyard, his parents wore silk clothes, his younger siblings grew plump and fair, and the whole Family sat around the table, eating fragrant stewed meat amidst laughter and chatter.

No one ever mentioned the son who had been sold.

As if he had never existed in this world.

At that moment, Cao Yong stood in the wind and snow, tears mixing with blood flowing down.

The last shred of warmth in his heart, the last shred of attachment to the mortal world, completely collapsed.

He drew his saber.

That night, rivers of blood flowed in the blue-brick tile house.

Cao Yong personally severed his own roots, transforming from then on into a ruthless killing machine without emotions.

He began doing all sorts of shady and dark work for the Cabinet, assassinations, exterminating clans, suppression... until the Family tax decree was issued...

His hands were stained with fresh blood, his Soul was sinking in sin, and he could never turn back.

...

The imagery of memories gradually dissipated.

Chen Ran slowly opened his eyes and let out a long breath of turbid air.

In the gloomy cell, there was a deathly silence.

Chen Ran's heart felt as though it was pressed down by a huge boulder, so stifling that it made one unable to breathe.

He couldn't help sighing with emotion.

If back then, Cao Yong's parents hadn't sold him, even if the whole Family starved to death together, or endured that drought together...

With Cao Yong's astonishingly brilliant martial arts talent, relying just on himself, he probably would have stepped into the realm of the upper three grades.

By then, he might have become a generation's Grandmaster, or perhaps a great hero shaking Jianghu.

What a pity...

Chen Ran shook his head, a trace of complex emotion flashing through his eyes.

In this world, where are there so many "ifs".

An arrow leaving the bow can never turn back.

Cao Yong's tragedy was a microcosm of that era, and also the sorrow of human nature.

But what made Chen Ran feel even more chilled were the dark sides regarding the Cabinet within Cao Yong's memories.

Through Cao Yong's eyes, Chen Ran saw a colossal nation rotten to its very core.

Those high-and-mighty bigwigs of the Cabinet actually secretly colluded with other countries, reselling Great Wei's military intelligence!

They plundered the wealth of the people, collecting massive amounts of precious Medicinal Pills and Heaven And Earth Treasures, unexpectedly to offer Cultivation resources to that long-hidden emperor deep within the palace!

For the emperor's illusory dream of longevity, all the common people of Great Wei were struggling in dire straits.

No wonder Great Wei's wars had been continuous in recent years, the borders were in urgent distress, and internal rebellions were springing up everywhere.

Turns out the entire country had already rotted away from the very roots.

Following this kind of development, the destruction of Great Wei and total internal chaos were only a matter of time.

Chen Ran pondered quietly. In the torrent of this chaotic world, an individual's power appeared so insignificant.

Even though he was already a Innate Realm expert now,

...he would still get tired, still feel fatigued, and when facing a vast sea-like wheel battle, all his true qi would eventually be worn down.

Wanting to survive in this upcoming storm, and wanting the life he desired, he had to become stronger!

Stronger!

Chen Ran stood up, his gaze piercing through the gloomy corridor, looking towards an even deeper part of the Heavenly Prison.

There was the fifth layer of the Heavenly Prison.