News of the Lin family's engagement banquet swept through Qinglan City like the wind.
To stabilize the family's precarious situation and demonstrate to the outside world the strong alliance between the Lin family and the Flowing Cloud Sect, the Lin family decided to hold a grand engagement ceremony for Lin Fan and Su Xiao. Despite Su Xiao's strong reluctance and tears, she was eventually forced to don the striking red dress under the Lin family's explicit threat to her mother's life.
The engagement banquet was held in the most spacious and luxurious main hall of the Lin residence and the adjoining garden. Lanterns were hung, and music filled the air. Almost all influential figures from Qinglan City attended. City Lord Xiao Zhan, though reluctant, sat beside the seat of honor. Guests toasted each other, their faces adorned with insincere smiles and their words filled with flattery. Yet in their exchanged glances, they couldn't hide their speculation about the Lin family's recent troubles and their intrigue over this sudden engagement.
Lin Fan forced himself to stay composed as he moved among the guests. Dressed in a new brocade robe, he tried to mask his exhaustion and the deep gloom in his eyes. However, his fragile composure was all too evident to discerning observers. He needed this engagement to leverage the influence of the Flowing Cloud Sect and the city lord's residence to stabilize the Lin family's crumbling position. More importantly, he needed to show Mr. Mo, lurking in the shadows, that he, Lin Fan, was not without the means to fight back.
Su Xiao sat among the female guests, her red dress only serving to highlight her pale complexion. She kept her head down, her slender fingers clutching the skirt so tightly that her nails nearly dug into her flesh. The surrounding revelry felt alien to her; her heart was like still water, her only solace the cold half-jade pendant engraved with the character "An" in her sleeve. She was like an exquisite marionette, placed here to perform a play she detested with all her being.
Just as the master of ceremonies cleared his throat to announce the start of the ceremony, and all eyes focused on Lin Fan and Su Xiao at the seat of honor—
"Wait a moment."
A calm yet penetrating voice, neither loud nor soft, instantly silenced the entire room, its clarity reaching every ear.
All heads turned toward the sound.
At the entrance of the hall, a black figure had appeared at some point.
Mr. Mo!
Still clad in a simple black robe with an indistinct face, yet the aura of profundity and composure that emanated from him brought the bustling banquet hall to an immediate silence, so quiet one could hear a pin drop. All eyes, filled with surprise, curiosity, fear, and inquiry, converged on him.
Lin Fan's heart seized with a foreboding chill as if doused in ice water. He forced himself to stay calm, stepped forward, and managed a stiff smile: "Mr. Mo? This is a private Lin family banquet. I don't believe we extended an invitation to you. Why have you come unbidden?"
Shen Mo's gaze swept indifferently across the room before settling on the pale, hollow-eyed girl in the garish red dress. A pang of sorrow flickered within him, but his voice remained unruffled, even tinged with a hint of mockery:
"On such a joyous occasion as Young Master Lin's engagement, how could Mo not bring a 'substantial gift'?"
With a light clap of his hands.
The crowd parted as the Ghost Physician pushed an object draped in a massive red cloth slowly onto the stage. The object was square and over a person's height—it appeared to be a mirror, or perhaps a special recording formation crystal?
Curiosity reached a fever pitch among the guests.
Lin Fan's expression darkened further. Suppressing his unease, he demanded, "Mr. Mo! What on earth are you plotting?!"
Ignoring him, Shen Mo nodded faintly at the Ghost Physician.
With a swift motion, the Ghost Physician ripped off the red cloth!
Beneath the cloth was neither a mirror nor a formation crystal, but a massive recording crystal, polished to a mirror-like sheen and towering over a person's height! The crystal's surface shimmered with an ethereal glow, radiating a strange energy fluctuation.
"This object can recreate the past," Shen Mo's voice rang out like ice across the silent hall. "Today, I invite you all to witness a play from three years ago."
With a snap of his finger, a strand of pure Annihilation True Qi was infused into the crystal.
Buzzz —!
The crystal erupted in blinding light, projecting a staggeringly clear holographic image! The backdrop was the dilapidated orphanage, with howling snow and wind!
The images unfolded:
- Young A-Mo (Shen Mo) sharing his only steamed bun with the ill Shitou.
- Lin Fan and Qin Yao bursting in like harbingers of death.
- Lin Fan's greedy and ferocious demand for the jade pendant.
- Qin Yao's cold assessment: "To die over a worthless piece of jade—it's not worth it."
- A-Mo's desperate resistance, ending in a severe injury inflicted by Lin Fan's palm strike.
- Lin Fan crushing A-Mo's hand to seize the black jade pendant, triumphantly presenting it to Qin Yao.
- And... Lin Fan's traitorous and cruel words: "Good brother, rest easy. Su Xiao, I will 'take care' of you."
- Finally, the look of despair and defiance in A-Mo's eyes as he was cast off the cliff, coupled with Su Xiao's heart-wrenching screams...
When the images faded, the banquet hall fell into an absolute, suffocating silence.
So quiet one could hear a pin drop!
Every face was frozen, eyes wide and mouths agape, staring disbelievingly at the lingering images and then abruptly at Lin Fan, whose face had drained of all color and was trembling like a leaf.
In the next moment, a massive uproar exploded like a tsunami!
"Heavens... Lin Fan actually... committed murder and theft!"
"And against an orphan he treated as his brother! He's worse than an animal!"
"A fraud! What genius, what noble—all of it a lie!"
"To push someone off the Soul-Severing Cliff over a jade pendant! That's a death sentence!"
"No wonder Mr. Mo is targeting the Lin family! He's here for revenge!"
"The Flowing Cloud Sect took in such a disciple! It's truly..."
The cacophony of voices, accusations, gasps, and scornful glances pierced Lin Fan like countless swords, reducing him to tatters in an instant! The image he had cultivated for years, the pride of his genius stature, collapsed entirely, shattered beyond repair!
"N-no... It's not true! It's fake! He fabricated it! Slander! All of it is slander!" Lin Fan leaped to his feet like a scalded cat, pointing at Shen Mo and screaming in a final desperate attempt to salvage his reputation. Yet his panicked, blustering demeanor was tantamount to admitting the truth of the images.
Xiao Zhan rose abruptly from his seat, his face ashen and radiating the aura of a Divine Sea powerhouse. He glared at Lin Fan and thundered, "Lin Fan! The evidence is irrefutable—what have you to say for yourself?! Our Qinglan City has produced a despicable wretch like you! A disgrace!"
City Lord's guards immediately stepped forward, forming a loose encirclement around Lin Fan.
Su Xiao was already in tears—not from sorrow, but from shock, elation, catharsis upon learning the truth, and a deeper well of hatred! She raised her head and stared at Lin Fan, her once-beautiful eyes now blazing with fiery intensity.
Amidst the chaos and the palpable atmosphere of judgment, Shen Mo slowly raised his hand.
Under the gaze of countless onlookers, he meticulously peeled off the human-skin mask that had concealed his face.
Beneath the mask lay a youthful visage—handsome, angular, and etched with cold resolve. Though more mature than three years prior, the brows, the contours...
"A-Mo...?!" Su Xiao was the first to cry out in disbelief, clapping a hand over her mouth as tears poured forth like a broken dam. It was a mix of shock, disbelief, joy at his return, and a flood of emotions that shattered her composure.
"Shen Mo?!!" Lin Fan's eyes bulged as if seeing a ghost, stumbling backward, knocking over furniture in his path. His voice was distorted, filled with sheer terror, "N-no... It's impossible! You were dead! You fell off the Soul-Severing Cliff—how could you survive?! You're a ghost! A ghost!!"
The hall erupted in pandemonium once more!
Mr. Mo was none other than A-Mo, the orphan presumed dead three years ago—the very少年 pushed off the cliff by Lin Fan himself! He had returned, in a manner so overpowering and enigmatic, to exact his revenge!
Shen Mo's gaze, like a spear forged from millennia of ice, pierced through Lin Fan's fear-twisted soul. His voice, cold and clear, echoed through the hall:
"Lin Fan, my 'dear brother,' are you disappointed to see me return alive?"
"You've risen to your current status on the blood-stained jade pendant that was mine, thanks to the Flowing Cloud Sect's handouts. Over these three years, have you ever felt a shred of guilt? In the dead of night, have you ever heard my curses?"
Pierced by the gaze and the words, Lin Fan's psyche collapsed. All pretenses, all侥幸心理 were utterly shattered. He screamed like a madman, hysterically shouting, "So what if I did it! Why not! You, an orphan abandoned by your parents, why should you possess such treasure?! It should have been mine! I could give it a better future! I could reach the peak with it! This world is ruled by the survival of the fittest! I am stronger than you—I deserve it all!!"
This狂乱而扭曲的自白 confirmed his guilt and stripped away the last vestiges of his humanity.
Shen Mo regarded him with utter disdain and icy coldness.
"To kill you would soil my hands."
With a casual wave of his hand, an无形 yet immense force materialized, ensnaring the frenzied Lin Fan in an invisible cage, paralyzing him on the spot! No matter how Lin Fan struggled, how he channeled his true energy, it was as futile as an ant shaking a tree!
The absolute dominance of the Ten Thousand Phenomena realm over the Body Tempering realm!
At this moment, everyone present acutely sensed Shen Mo's unfathomable and terrifying power! The initial shock at his identity was instantly replaced by awe inspired by this overwhelming strength!
Shen Mo turned his gaze from the desperate, mad-dog-like Lin Fan to Su Xiao, whose teary eyes were fixed on him in daze. His cold voice softened imperceptibly:
"Xiao Xiao, I'm back."
With that, he walked unhurriedly toward the hall's exit, oblivious to the dead silence and Xiao Zhan's ashen face, as well as the at-a-loss city lord's guards.
People parted like the tide before him, none daring to bar his path or utter a sound.
At the threshold, he halted, not turning back, yet his frigid words hung in the air like a final judgment, echoing through the silent hall and imprinting on every heart:
"Lin Fan, our game is far from over.
"Enjoy the time you have left."
He left behind a chaotic, uproarious engagement banquet and a Lin Fan who was now disgraced, abandoned, and plunged into the abyss of utter despair and madness.