Seeking Solace

Chapter 8

{ TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter contains blood, death, gore, and Non Consentual intercourse & torture, as well as other NSFW scenes.)

....

The cultivators in the room were completely shocked.

Yanling Daoren?

That Yanling Daoren??!!

Jaws dropped and eyes widened as gasps echoed throughout the room.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, again, using my original name this time." He spoke with a twisted half-smiling expression.

"Yanling Daoren??!" They exclaimed.

"In the flesh." He replied, splaying his arms wide, a serene expression on his face.

Yes. He was Yanling Daoren.

He was once human, once a cultivator - at the peak of reaching the rare and so sought after immortality before he fell into the depths of hell. His master, his teacher Baoshan Sanren did not help him. He lost everything, nearly driven to madness. He sought revenge and finally, death. His bones were long since forgotten, lost deep within Burial Mounds, tossed there long before.

The Burial Mounds became bleak and full of resentment following the war that came long after his death, between the cultivators and their sects. Burial Mounds used to be the most beautiful mountain range in all the land, plush with green bushes, trees, flowers. The peaceful lake later became a blood pool. The rocks were turned jagged and sharp, malformed and twisted black from death and resentful energy, the earth was blackened with resentment and long buried corpses, and all life and nature were destroyed.

His spirit was broken, his soul split and strewn everywhere.

Until a desperate young man with a bleeding heart - so similar to him, almost a reflection of the person he had once been - reached out to him without even knowing, stitching Yanling Daoren's soul back together.

Such a kind-hearted young man, driven by grief and hatred, desperate to live, desperate to control and master resentful energy.

It was this young man who created Chenqing.

It was this young man who unknowingly saved him, Yanling Daoren, and gave him a new name, a new body, that of a flute, and a new master, who underneath his hatred, still carried a gentle heart.

Yanling Daoren realized the young man still cared too much about others and too little about himself. This young man became his new master, bonded to him through his new name and that awful resentful energy that controlled the flute Chenqing.

"Yes, yes. I know what you're all thinking. My name has been passed around for years, about how I was once a famous cultivator of the righteous path," Chenqing - Yanling Daoren - gave a sardonic, self-deprecating laugh, "and also how I became a villain capable of killing people without even blinking twice; and how I later died under thousands of swords."

He gave a flat grin and they all flinched back. "Well, it's true, yet not true. It was centuries ago, I had already died then. Before we get into all the sordid details and how I became Chenqing and made the choice to confine you all here and show the truth about my master and the events that happened - I forgot we have two new visitors joining us! I had invited my Shidi and his companion." Chenqing turned to the frozen Jiang Sect Leader, "You should go welcome our guests since this is Lotus Pier, Sect Leader Jiang. And you look like you need some fresh air. How about I walk with you? Come." Jiang Cheng scowled. He, a sect leader, was being told what to do. He still followed after Chenqing.