Welcome to the Bizarre Games

Chapter 572 Past Events

No one answered in the hall.

The dim candlelight flickered slightly, dividing this world in two—one half was completely blank, where one could only sense that the great demon within the sect seemed to be lurking there, and that with the sect leader's passing, it too was nearing its end and could disappear at any moment.

On the other side is the reality where Zhou You is, there is no one else around, only his steady breathing and the sound of blood flowing quietly among the corpses.

After waiting for a long time, it remained the same.

Zhou You was not in a hurry. He simply held his sword and carried his bow, waiting calmly.

for a long time.

Then a soft cough was heard.

The sound was very abrupt, as if it did not exist in this reality, but it quickly returned to reality.

Then, suddenly, a human-faced flower began to grow rapidly.

In just a few blinks of an eye, the flower grew to the height of a person. Suddenly, a crack appeared on the branch, and then a thin, bony body slowly emerged from it.

It was none other than the Venerable Chongxu who had just been tricked and killed by Yun Zhongzi!

He was completely naked and covered in slime, but after a series of panting breaths, he seemed to have finally gotten used to his body. Then he waved his hand, and a brand new Taoist robe was handed to him by the plant.

After quickly getting dressed, the first thing he saw wasn't Zhou You, but Yun Zhongzi lying dead on the ground.

He shook his head and then sighed softly.

"I've told you before, you're a complete idiot. An idiot should know his place and stay where he belongs. Always thinking about things he can't afford will only lead to this end."

Then, he raised his head and looked at Zhou You.

The person did not draw his sword.

In fact, after two consecutive liberations, he is now like a withered branch that has been drained of all its oil—he has been squeezed dry, and now even standing is a struggle.

Seeing this, Master Chongxu sighed again.

"You're a smart man, but in some ways, I think you're even more foolish than Yun Zhongzi. At least Yun Zhongzi was acting in his own best interests, but what about you? You had several ways to escape this danger, and you could have retreated with Lin Yunshao just now. But you've stayed until now. What are you trying to achieve?"

Zhou You laughed.

"It's nothing, just for peace of mind."

"Morality and a sense of justice are the most useless and laughable things in the world. You shouldn't have joined my ranks; you'd be better off with the drunkards."

After making this remark, Master Chongxu fell silent, while Zhou You responded with a smile.

"But Master, you are truly remarkable. Although I thought that with your cunning and shrewdness, it was impossible for you to be so easily outmaneuvered, I never expected you to use such a substitution. But Master, now that you have the absolute advantage, how do you plan to deal with your disciple?"

Master Chongxu grinned—unexpectedly, he denied Zhou You's statement.

"An absolute advantage? No, disciple, you're mistaken. I don't have an absolute advantage right now."

As they spoke, even more human-faced flowers sprouted from the soil, each one growing to the height of a person, just like the previous ones, and each one split open from the inside.

Then, about ten skinned bodies walked out.

Although Zhou You didn't stay inside the gate for long, and those bodies had long since lost their faces, he could still feel a sense of familiarity from the details.

Upon seeing this, Zhou You was taken aback, then suddenly burst into laughter.

"I knew it! How could all our sect's many experts be wiped out by a single berserk attack? Turns out you'd been hiding them all along. Master, you really went all out with this backup plan!"

Master Chongxu remained silent, but took a few steps back, cautiously maintaining a distance from Zhou You. The corpses, like an army formation, blocked his way, forming a wall of flesh.

Even though someone was already unsteady on their feet, this person remained extremely cautious.

But Zhou You was still smiling.

"I was wondering why something seemed off before I even went up the mountain—I should have only informed you and Lin Yunshao about my return, there couldn't have been any leaks, so how could someone have laid an ambush beforehand? Besides, the Rotten Soul Corpse is an extremely obscure thing, even if there are people on Aunt Qingxia's side who know how to make it, they couldn't possibly make too many, but you're different, Master, you specialize in unorthodox methods."

After Zhou You finished speaking, Chongxu Shangren then spoke up.

"That's right. As the saying goes, to deceive others, you must first deceive yourself. These disciples were indeed killed and created by my own hands, precisely to lower others' guard."

"—Then why have you been hiding it until now?"

"what?"

Zhou You said earnestly.

"With such trump cards, normally you should have revealed them during the chaotic battle—even if the result was considered a success, in reality, your losses would have been devastating—why did you wait until everything had settled down before bringing out these senior brothers?"

Master Chongxu remained silent, merely watching Zhou You indifferently.

Therefore, the meaning is already clear.

This trump card has been hidden until now; there's actually only one target to deal with.

That is yourself.

Zhou Youle spoke up instantly.

"Master, I am truly flattered. To make you target me like this, do you think I can be freed again?"

Unexpectedly, Master Chongxu shook his head.

“I know that your supernatural abilities only lasted twice.”

"Just now, Yun Zhongzi was certain that I could only use it once. Master, you don't know me, how could you know?"

Master Chongxu said with great determination.

"—However, you can only use it twice, right?"

Zhou You was forced to back down this time.

But after a while, he laughed again.

"Okay, Master, you're not wrong, but I'm already in this state, and you..."

Before he could finish speaking, he was interrupted again.

"Because you are the chosen one."

In an instant, it seemed as if the entire Ancestral Hall had fallen silent.

Suddenly, Zhou You stopped laughing and asked.

"Master, how did you know?"

"Why don't you ask me why I didn't know even after things had come to this point?"

Zhou You thought about it for a moment and couldn't help but chuckle.

"That's right. With your shrewdness, Master, you certainly won't be fooled so easily. So let's get back to the first topic: what are you going to do with your disciple?"

Master Chongxu spoke with a cold expression.

"I want you dead." "Huh? What?"

I want you dead.

Upon hearing this, Zhou You looked on incredulously.

"Normally, according to the procedure, shouldn't you first try to persuade me to surrender, then talk about the bond between master and disciple, and finally use benefits to coerce me? If we really can't reach an agreement, then talk about other things? Why did you fast forward to the point of wanting me to die?"

Master Chongxu said.

“I would have done the same if it were Yun Zhongzi or even Qingxia, but you are different. You are the chosen one. I must kill you, otherwise I will be the one who dies.”

He wandered around in silence.

He stared at Master Chongxu as if trying to discern something from his gaunt face—but in the end, all he saw was a resolute killing intent.

However, after a long while, he slowly spoke.

"Master, since you want to kill me and now have the upper hand, why don't you just make your move?"

This time, Master Chongxu did not give a direct answer, but instead changed the subject.

"In that case, I can guarantee you, even swear a blood oath, that as long as you are willing to die peacefully, I will do my best to kill you cleanly and swiftly, and I can even let your soul reincarnate. As for Lin Yunshao, I will also do my best to protect her. Not to mention anything else, it is still possible for her to replace Qingxia."

To be honest, under the current circumstances, these conditions are already quite lenient.

Zhou You roughly understood what the other party meant.

That is, being wary and cautious, unwilling to take even the slightest risk.

So, people destined by fate are this powerful that they can make an old fox tremble with fear just by their names?
Zhou You smiled, and then suddenly sat down.

Blood was still flowing on the ground, but he seemed not to see it at all. He simply stretched his stiff muscles and then laughed.

“Master, caution is both your strength and your weakness. Well, the conditions are indeed good, but I still have some questions to ask.”

".What's the problem?"

"What exactly did my master's mentor and your master do that made the sect leader disregard the bond between master and disciple and almost slaughter them all?"

Upon hearing this question, Chongxu, who was willing to make many promises, suddenly fell silent.

And that's not all.

In a daze, under the glow of the candlelight, the sleeping demon seemed to awaken at the same time—although it was already nearing its end, it still stared intently at this place with its invisible eyes.

The air seemed to weigh a ton, making it hard to breathe.

After a long while, Chongxu finally spoke slowly.

"This story goes back a long time. You should know about the Tianyuan Dharma Assembly, right?"

"I've heard about it many times, but I'm not very familiar with the specifics."

"Besides guiding immortals to descend, the greatest use of the Tianyuan Dharma Assembly is to divide the thirty-six sects in the Han lands. But do you know why a single Dharma Assembly can make all the unruly sects obedient and even accept their rise and fall?"

"I don't know that."

"It's very simple, it's related to the guardian spirit beasts of each sect."

At this point, Venerable Chongxu exhaled, as if to calm himself down and to resist the pressure from the great demon.

"The spirit beasts of a sect are closely related to the sect. To put it more seriously, they share the same fate, and they suffer the same fate. However, since the immortals and Buddhas went mad thousands of years ago, everything in this land, no, it should be said, the whole world has been affected. Similarly, the spirit beasts have also gone mad. Most sects can only use various methods to limit the madness of the spirit beasts. The most common method is to sacrifice disciples within the sect. However, using this method too much will only aggravate the madness and even attract the attention of strange creatures outside. But there is only one exception."

"The Thirty-Six Clans of Han Land?"

Master Chongxu nodded.

“That’s right. After the Yuntai Dharma Assembly, the thirty-six selected sects will be bestowed with a treasure that can keep the spirit beasts within the sect conscious. You’ve been through this before, so you know how fast a sect can expand without those restrictions, right?”

Zhou You did not answer.

Master Chongxu's explanations continue.

"Our Five Elements Temple was once one of the Thirty-Six Sects, and even held the title many times. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, what goes up must come down. Our sect leader was indeed a formidable figure, but his disciples were all rather mediocre. They failed to place in several consecutive Heavenly Origin Tournaments, so we could only watch helplessly as the guardian spirit beasts of the mountain grew increasingly mad."

“If this continues, even if the Five Aggregates Temple doesn’t perish, its decline is inevitable. So after much deliberation, my masters and senior disciples came up with a solution—since the spirit beasts have become monsters due to madness, let’s think about it another way: simply erase their intelligence and replace it with a clear mind. Wouldn’t that solve the problem?”

Upon hearing these absurd words, Zhou You couldn't help but chuckle.

"They have a good idea, but do they really think pollution is a joke? Not to mention the rejection reaction between souls. By the way, did they succeed in the end?"

A mocking smile appeared on Master Chongxu's cold face.

"As you said, it naturally failed—and not only did it fail, it also triggered a riot among the sect's spirit beasts. Left with no other choice, the sect leader had to personally kill all the disciples he regarded as his own flesh and blood, and then desperately subdue the spirit beasts. But after these two upheavals, the sect was essentially cut off from its lineage, and in the end, it had to resort to things like the Enlightenment Pill to keep it afloat."

At this point, Zhou You seemed to remember something and pointed to himself.

"Then my Enlightenment Pill."

"—You pulled it out yourself a long time ago, didn't you?"

Zhou You immediately fell silent.

Therefore, Master Chongxu gave his concluding remarks.

“I grew up in the temple, and I didn’t want to watch it slowly die like a dying beast. So I studied for a long time and finally found a method in an ancient book—that is, to fight poison with poison. Instead of keeping the spirit beast conscious, when it is about to die, let it be completely corrupted, and a true great monster will be reborn. Finally, use secret methods to manipulate it so that it can still maintain its original functions.”

Zhou You looked at Chongxu Shangren's face as if he were a madman, then shook his head and uttered a sentence.

"Your method isn't much better than your master's. Do you even have a one percent chance of success?"

"Even if it's only one in a hundred, one in a thousand, or one in ten thousand, I have to gamble for the future of the sect."

Just as he finished speaking these confident words, Zhou You received a notification.

"Congratulations, player. You have deciphered part of the world-building of this scenario and met the conditions for escape. You can now leave this scenario at any time."

Ignoring the urgent voice, Zhou You casually turned off the system notification and then smiled.

"Then I have one last question."

"explain."

"Master, why do you feel that victory is already in your grasp?"

Master Chongxu frowned, but looking at Zhou You's battered and bruised body, he still spoke.

"I do have some reservations about your status as the chosen one, but how do you expect to turn the tide in the current situation? I have already transferred Lin Yunshao and other potential helpers. You are now all alone."

Upon hearing this, Zhou You took a deep breath and a smile suddenly appeared on his face.

—As expected, this guy didn't know about Wang Chongming's existence!

Then he said it with a smile.

"Master, guess again, why did I use these two opportunities for liberation to clear away all obstacles for you, even though I knew you harbored resentment towards me and had a high probability of wanting to kill me?"

(End of this chapter)