Luzhou Moon

Chapter 134

Hidden in the plum tree, Su Muchen saw Jiang Shuying approach. He swung his sword backhand, chopping off a plum branch, and suddenly channeled his energy into his left palm, sending the strong branch piercing towards Jiang Shuying's wrist like an arrow. As Jiang Shuying dodged, Su Muchen leaped into the air, his curved sword in hand, and slashed down fiercely at Yu Hezhi.

Just as Yu Hezhi was about to withdraw his attack, he saw Su Muchen charging towards him with all his might. He snorted coldly and made a move with one hand, seizing the back of Su Muchen's blade with a flick of his wrist. He secretly channeled his inner energy, sending it straight down the blade. Seeing that Su Muchen's face was as white as paper, Yu Hezhi was about to use his inner energy to shatter his heart and lungs when he suddenly felt a faint numbness in his fingertips. Looking closely, he saw that a bluish-black color was spreading across his fingers.

"Senior brother, be careful!" Jiang Shuying called out when she saw that Yu Hezhi was distracted. At this moment, Su Muchen turned around and leaped backward, his feet touching the tree trunks. In the blink of an eye, he had passed through the Silent Forest and was heading towards Mount Da Shu.

Jiang Shuying rushed forward and, seeing that Yu Hezhi's right hand fingers were bluish-black, exclaimed in shock, "The back of the knife is poisoned?!"

"You stay here and protect Ruzheng, I have my own ways of dealing with him!" Yu Hezhi hurriedly said, then chased after Su Muchen in the direction he had left.

The two walked one after the other through the dense forest. The faster Yu Hezhi quickened his pace, the more his fingers stung. Seeing that Su Muchen had already leaped up the mountain, he touched the ground with his feet, and with the force of his robe sleeves shaking the rocks, he flew to Su Muchen's front. With a flick of his long sword, he forced Su Muchen to the edge of the cliff.

"Hand over the antidote now!" Yu Hezhi's eyes flashed with a fierce light, and his gleaming longsword was pointed directly at Su Muchen's brow.

Su Muchen chuckled, "Yu Hezhi, aren't you supposed to have exceptional internal strength? How come you're afraid of the toxicity of this little bit of powder?"

Yu Hezhi looked into the distance and, seeing that Jiang Shuying and Yue Ruzheng hadn't followed, gritted his teeth and said, "What exactly do you want?!"

"What are you doing?" Su Mucheng glared fiercely at Yu Hezhi. "You know perfectly well! If you hadn't ruined my plans, I would already be the Valley Master! Yu Hezhi, you only think of yourself, using me and then discarding me. Do you think I'll let you get away with this?!"

Yu Hezhi glanced at him sideways, and said dismissively, "What makes you say that? Mo Li is dead, so how can you blame me for not becoming the Valley Master?"

Su Muchen raised his curved blade to block the longsword, saying bitterly, "We had an agreement: I would help you eliminate Mo Li so you would have no worries, and in return, you would remove obstacles for me and help me ascend to the position of Valley Master. But what did you do? After killing Mo Li at Chaohu that night, before I even returned to Bliss Valley, you also eliminated the double I had painstakingly trained! Do you know that all my efforts were to cover up the truth of the Valley Master's death, waiting for that double to return to the valley and personally pass the position to me, so that no one else could say anything!"

Yu Hezhi tightened his grip on his wrist, but the stinging pain only intensified. He lowered his voice and snapped, "You're so tactless! If I hadn't killed Mo Li's double in that deserted village, Lian Junchu and Wei Heng might have discovered this right then and there!"

"You're afraid of implicating yourself, aren't you?! That's why you took the opportunity to kill that double as well, so there would be no one to prove it! My constant pursuit has been related to you, hasn't it?!" Su Muchen glanced at him, noticing the beads of cold sweat on his forehead, and couldn't help but feel smug. He raised an eyebrow and said, "I thought you were some kind of formidable expert just because you obtained the Divine Pearl, but I didn't expect you couldn't even handle this mere poison..."

As he spoke, he flicked his curved blade, drawing an arc as he slashed at Yu He's wrist.

Yu Hezhi gripped his sword with his left hand, unleashing several attacks to block Su Muchen's assault. Although he had been poisoned by the Bliss Valley's strange poison, his profound internal energy made him an unmatched opponent for Su Muchen. Just then, Yu Hezhi spotted someone riding towards him from below the mountains. Due to the distance, he couldn't make out their face, but seeing them approaching, his only thought was to eliminate this troublesome Su Muchen as quickly as possible. With this thought in mind, he mustered his inner energy, enduring the stinging pain in his right hand, and suddenly struck out with his palm, aiming for Su Muchen's chest.

Su Muchen used his curved blade to block the palm strike, but felt a fierce gust of wind rushing towards him. He let out a strange cry and his body was sent flying backward like a kite with a broken string. Seeing this, Yu Hezhi frowned, suddenly leaped up, and his long sword flew out of his hand, chasing after Su Muchen.

Just as the longsword was about to strike Su Muchen's heart, a silver light suddenly shot out from nowhere, like a shooting star, arriving in an instant. Yu Hezhi flipped his palms, channeling his true energy into his fingertips, and managed to control the falling longsword from several feet away, stopping it in mid-air. The silver light also flew close behind the longsword, and Yu Hezhi rolled up his sleeves, his left hand forming claws, and clenched tightly, attempting to stop the silver light's momentum with his inner force.

Seeing that he was busy dealing with the situation, Su Mucheng took the opportunity to turn back, leaped high into the air, and slashed at Yu Hezhi's shoulder with his sword flashing.

"stop!"

A clear shout came from afar. Before the words had even finished, Jiang Shuying had already rushed over like a shuttle, her long sleeves quickly rolled up, and she firmly bound Su Muchen's wrist.

Upon seeing this, Yu Hezhi roared, a white mark suddenly appeared between his eyebrows, and with a swift movement of his left hand, he seized the silver light, flipped it over, and thrust it straight at Su Muchen's throat.

Unable to escape, Su Muchen cried out as he saw the sharp weapon in Yu Hezhi's hand about to pierce him. Just then, a figure swept down from the hillside – it was Lian Junchu. With a flick of his sleeve, two streaks of white light flashed like lightning, instantly severing the long sleeves binding Su Muchen's wrists.

Su Muchen then withdrew to the side, while Yu Hezhi had already closed in behind Lian Junchu, ready to strike. Suddenly, Lian Junchu swept her twin swords from her sleeve towards his waist. Yu Hezhi quickly withdrew, taking a step back and saying, "Young Master Lian, how can you be so unable to distinguish right from wrong, instead helping the remnants of the Bliss Valley to cause trouble here?!"

Lian Junchu sheathed her twin swords, raised her face slightly to look at Yu Hezhi, and said, "I heard your conversation with Su Muchen just now."

Yu Hezhi's heart skipped a beat, and his eyebrows twitched involuntarily, but his face remained calm and composed. "I was merely advising him not to be so stubborn. What did you hear? Tell me."

Lian Junchu smiled slightly. "I don't need to say more. You can ask Senior Jiang." After saying that, he turned to look at Jiang Shuying standing beside him.

Yu Hezhi frowned, a look of surprise in his eyes. "Junior Sister?"

Jiang Shuying, her face pale, clutched the long sleeve that Lian Junchu had torn off. She had stood silently to the side ever since she made her move, and only now did she look up at Yu Hezhi, slowly saying, "Senior brother... I was just around the corner on the hillside..."

Yu Hezhi felt as if he had been struck on the head. He gasped and saw Su Muchen's smug expression. A burning anger suddenly ignited in his heart, but he quickly suppressed it.

"Junior sister, the only reason I joined forces with Su Muchen was to eliminate that jinx, Mo Li!" He stamped his foot in protest, his expression one of utter disappointment. "Don't you even trust me? Instead, you're siding with them?!"

Although Jiang Shuying was looking directly at Yu Hezhi, her gaze couldn't help but wander slightly, and her tone became much lower, "How exactly did the Youth-Preserving Pearl end up in your hands?"

Yu Hezhi retorted angrily, "Wasn't the Divine Pearl something I painstakingly retrieved from the Valley of Bliss? I already returned it to you long ago, and now you still doubt me?"

Su Muchen sneered from afar, "Yu Hezhi, did you foresee this day coming, which is why you returned the Divine Pearl to her?"

Yu Hezhi's hand tightened, almost wanting to rush forward and kill the man on the spot, but seeing that Jiang Shuying had already become suspicious of him, he could only sneer and say, "Our Yinxi Xiaozhu's affairs are none of the business of outsiders!"

He then turned to Lian Junchu and said, "Young Master Lian, is it because of our opposition to your affair with Ruzheng that you've colluded with Su Muchen to sow discord?"

Lian Junchu looked at him disdainfully and said, "So, all you can do now is use lies like this to frame me?"

"You…" Yu Hezhi was about to retort when he saw Jiang Shuying stride forward. Startled, he watched as Jiang Shuying raised her voice, "Senior Brother! Today is the anniversary of our Master's death. Do you dare swear to heaven that you have never done anything to betray Yinxi Xiaozhu?!"

Yu He was shocked, his expression changing drastically. "You're clearly saying you don't trust me?!"

"If you have a clear conscience, then prove your innocence here first!" Although Jiang Shuying had heard the conversation between Yu Hezhi and Su Muchen and felt uneasy, deep down she was unwilling to admit that Yu Hezhi was that kind of person.

Yu Hezhi's breathing quickened, his eyes resolute as he said, "Fine, since you put it that way, I, Yu Hezhi, swear here and now that if I have done anything to betray Yinxi Xiaozhu, my life or death will be decided by you!"

Jiang Shuying took a step back, her expression stern. "Since you're willing to swear an oath, I'll return to Yinxi Cottage with you for further discussion." She then walked up to Su Muchen and said sharply, "If you want to save your life, hand over the antidote immediately!"

Su Muchen shook his head and laughed, looking at Lian Junchu and saying, "Look at this stupid woman, she's really stubborn. Lian Junchu, I told you long ago, even if I told you the truth, Jiang Shuying wouldn't believe me!"

Jiang Shuying was furious at his rude words and was about to attack, but Su Muchen quickly protected himself with his curved sword, leaning against the ancient tree and sneering.

Lian Junchu originally thought that Jiang Shuying, after overhearing the conversation between Yu and Su, would fully understand that Yu Hezhi had long been secretly colluding with the Bliss Valley. Unexpectedly, she still sided with Yu Hezhi, which greatly disappointed him.

Yu Hezhi brandished his sword, pointing it directly at Su Muchen, and hissed, "I'm giving you one last chance. If you still refuse to hand over the antidote, you'll die here today!"

Su Muchen's face turned pale as he glared at him and said, "If you kill me, you won't survive today either!"

Yu Hezhi's eyes flashed with a fierce light, and with a flick of his left wrist, the tip of his sword pierced towards Su Muchen's neck. Lian Junchu flicked her right sleeve, and a short sword shot out, blocking in front of him.

Yu Hezhi sneered, "Lian Junchu, are you really going to stand up for Su Muchen?"

"You don't need to put on an act in front of me. My eldest sister's life was lost because of you! Ru Zheng discovered your whereabouts outside the Ziwei Cave, and you almost beat her to death because you were afraid she would see you practicing your skills!" Lian Junchu said, glancing at Jiang Shuying again. She saw that the expression on Jiang Shuying's face was becoming more and more frightened, and she was staring intently at Yu Hezhi.