Chapter 195: Gui Bei

Gui Bei was the son of a side branch from the Gui family. They were a family of merchants with some ties with the Myriad Cherry Blossom Hall. In fact, Patriarch Gui was one of the lesser managers of the Cherry Hall, the head branch of the association. However, Gui Bei was born in a tiny side branch. As such, he was barely recognized as a member of the family. He always felt belittled by his own family. Sadly, his talent was not that good either, both in cultivation and in business. He wasn't that smart.

Gradually, he became estranged even from his own father. Gui Song was completely absorbed in his work, trying to fructify his business and regain a bit of favor from the Gui family. The only parent who could take care of Gui Bei was his mother but she died of disease. The treatment was too expensive and no matter how much Gui Song pleaded, neither the Shang Province's Governor nor the Gui family would lend him any money.

The following years, Gui Song turned to a whole other kind of people. Gui Song started to engage in business with various crime organizations. However, that would not prove to be a better idea. Very soon, he got denounced by some crooked merchant who gave up names to save his own life. As a result, Gui Song was banished from the Shang Province and his son along with him.

By that time, Gui Song was barely even talking with his son. The many setbacks he had endured had completely destroyed his will. From this moment onward, Gui Song almost looked like a dead man with extinguished eyes. One last time, he tried to get into a legitimate business. And for once, it succeeded. In a couple of years, he even set up a small shop in Baziyun City, the capital of the province he had fled to.

However, tragedy befell the small Gui family yet again. Gui Song contracted the wrong kind of debt and got roped in with criminals once more.

On the other hand, Gui Bei was completely forgotten by his father. The boy was around thirteen then and he felt as though the entire world found him useless. One day as he was exploring the outskirts of Baziyun City, he met with a beautiful young girl whom he would later know as Ling Jia. She had beautiful light brown hair with some glistening highlights. The girl was around the same age as he was. When he saw her for the first time, she was reading a book about demonic beasts.

It turned out that Gui Song was providing materials from demonic beasts. He would buy the corpses of demonic beasts from some hunters, and after processing them he would sell the materials. Hence, Gui Bei had enough conversation about the subject to talk with the little girl. At first, she got surprised by the poor looking boy. Ling Jia came from a noble family and did not meet a lot of commoners. But she found Gui Bei to be quite fun. For once, the boy had something to enjoy in his life.

However, unfortunately for him, he fell in love with the girl. One day, he mustered the courage to confess. Long Jia was utterly speechless. She had never seen him as something else than a friend. Although she tried to tell him nicely, Gui Bei heard completely otherwise. In his mind, he imagined her laughing behind his back while telling everyone how pathetic he had been. Gui Bei had always been pathetic after all. He couldn't do anything. He had no brawn and no brain. Day after day, Gui Bei fantasized about all the horrendous rumors Ling Jia would spread about him.

Any time Gui Bei left his house, he imagined people mocking him. But what would such a pathetic excuse for a man could do?

That was when Gui Bei realized that he could be a criminal just like his failure of a father. After all, everyone was already mocking him behind his back. But if they feared him, they would never dare tell him up front. And Gui Bei enrolled with a crowd. He really was just a lackey for other criminals. Their main thing was to ambush vagrant hunters to steal their stuff. As they didn't want to be attacked by the governor's forces, they always were cautious about their targets. And they never went too far. Although it was sometimes necessary to be violent, they always knew when to stop. Since they planned in advance, they had systematically more men than the hunters. Being outnumbered and exhausted from their hunt, the vagrant cultivators seldom decided to fight.

Being in the crowd, Gui Bei still felt like he was useless. No one ever gave him anything important to do. And he only received a fraction of their bounty. When he turned seventeen, a great opportunity fell into the lap of his crowd. During a hunt, they found the location of some ancient site. All over the Hongchen Kingdom, there were many temples and various constructions from forgotten times. Most of the times, those ancient sites contained untold treasures. This could be their chance to finally make it big. Maybe, they could even advance their cultivation significantly and join a sect. In the group, no one exceeded thirty so they still had hope for the future.

However, what they found was death.

Gui Bei cowered in fear and ran when his 'friends' were slaughtered. In the end, he was the only one who survived because he was a coward. He hid in a strange room and heard a language he did not know resound in his head. Since this moment, he had more and more headaches but he obtained amazing abilities. In a matter of months, he reached the 7th-grade Mortal stage.

At last, now that he had talent, now that he had power, he would be recognized by all. It was finally his time to shine. After all, strength was the only thing he was missing compared to the others.

Gui Bei almost remembered nothing from that ancient site. In fact, the more he tried to remember, the more the memories would evade him. The only thing he remembered was that he had somehow ran out as soon as he could gather the courage to stand up. But the strange voice in his head had stayed with him. He never understood anything the voice told him but he soon realized it was able to help him detect things. That was how he was able to sense spiritual senses on him. And during the night, he would dream of fantastical sights. More than that, he even dreamed about cultivation and martial arts.

Deep within him, an inner demon had been ready to emerge for a very long time. But as Gui Bei was too weak, it had stayed dormant. However, it was now becoming stronger and stronger as Gui Bei himself was becoming stronger. Despite his lack of experience, Gui Bei understood what inner demons were and he was sure that this inner demon was due to the rejection he had suffered from Long Jia. But now that he had power, he could go to her and flaunt that she had been wrong. He would make her regret her decision and beg for him to want her again.

Obviously, it didn't quite happened as he had hoped for. When Gui Bei met Long Jia after three years, she was betrothed to a young commoner, He Lin. This He Lin had nothing special. He was the son of a butcher and his cultivation was very standard for his age, being only a 2nd-grade Mortal. Even his appearance was not that great. The only word that came to Gui Bei's mind was 'average'. Seeing the girl he had admired being so sincerely happy with such a trash, Gui Bei lost it.

He assaulted them and insulted the young woman. Grabbing her in the middle of the street, he said incoherent words about how she was too good for a trash. She had to be with someone worthy of her. But he couldn't bring him to say that she should be with him. Even now, he couldn't consider himself to be worthy of her. That was when He Lin intervened.

As a Mortal, he wasn't able to tell the strength of Gui Bei. But considering that they were the same age, they should have had the same strength, more or less. He Lin pushed Gui Bei off of his fiancée. With a simple slap, Gui Bei could have literally torn apart his head, but he didn't. Instead, he acted as though he got pushed away.

"Leave her alone!"

"He Lin!" The girl grabbed her fiancée's sleeve. "Please, don't hurt him."

The more he was listening to them, the more enraged Gui Bei became. He saw pity in her eyes. Damn that woman! He was going to show her who was really pitiful.

"You want to protect that wretched woman. I'm sure she's just playing with you. Soon she'll find someone better than a trash like you. You're nothing to her!"

"You...! How dare you insult my fiancée like that?! Are you only good with your mouth, or do you dare fight me?"

"Oh...? You really want to challenge me to a duel?" Gui Bei knew perfectly well that his cultivation was way superior to his opponent's. After all, they were both of rather poor social standing. Usually, considering their age, they should only be 1st-grade Mortal or 2nd-grade Mortal at most. Right now, Gui Bei was a 7th-grade Mortal. An average cultivator would not reach this level before he would turn 25. And He Lin was clearly an unaffiliated cultivator so he had to be below average. Some vagrant cultivators even ended their life as a 9th-grade Mortal after all.

"What? Too scared to accept?"

Seeing the confidence in He Lin's eyes, the crazed Gui Bei got excited. He wanted to crush his confidence. The idea that this guy who was as trashy as he had himself been could get his girl was unbearable.

"Fine, let's do this! But what if I accidentally kill you?"

"If you try to intimidate me, too bad. In a duel, both parties accept the possibility of dying." He Lin turned toward his fiancée. "Do not worry. I'll just beat some sense into him. I'll have him apologize to you."

The young girl was still looking at Gui Bei with pity and gently nodded. Utterly enraged, Gui Bei almost killed the fiancée on the spot. But he had still his sanity. As long as he killed him during an official duel, he could not be punished too heavily by the governor's authority.

Both men faced each other and saluted. Now the duel was official. In the street, there were a few people who witnessed that and stopped to watch the fight. A duel in the middle of the street was rather rare, but it wasn't that unusual either. Such duels were not strictly forbidden. But legally, they had to go through the governor's office to have their duel sanctioned. However, as it was a pain, some cultivators fought without going through the proper procedure.

However, if they killed their opponent during such an unlawful duel, this still wouldn't be considered murder, as both of them had agreed to fight and risk their lives. The problem was that Gui Bei had intentionally hidden his higher cultivation to entrap his opponent.

He Lin took out his sword and used all his strength to attack Gui Bei. He was confident in his own strength but seeing the attitude of his opponent, the boy had decided to take him seriously. Without even drawing his own weapon, the late Mortal grabbed the blade of the sword and punched He Lin in the face. The sound of his bones shattering echoed in the street.

"You're just trash! You can't have her! She's better than you! You're nothing!"

Gui Bei sent his opponent to the ground and kept punching. With his strength, his fists literally went through the flesh and bones of the poor He Lin. In a few instants, he was nothing more than the raw meat his father was dealing with everyday. There was nothing human anymore in his appearance. Yet, Gui Bei kept punching and punching.

"You're not worthy! You're nothing! You're trash! Coward!"

He kept screaming and punching and punching and screaming. When he finally got out of his delirium, Gui Bei saw his hands covered in blood and flesh. Even he was disgusted by himself. Then, he turned toward the young woman whose face was pale as death. Seeing some final spasms shaking her fiancée's body, Long Jia was stunned. Before she could even scream, the duel had ended and the man she loved was now a disfigured corpse.

Long Jia suddenly realized that this was real. Bursting into tears, she rushed to the corpse of He Lin.

"Look what you made me do! If you had not rejected me... If you had not favored this trash... Why was he good for you and not me?!"

Even if Long Jia had not been completely stunned, there was nothing she could have done to prevent the boy from grabbing her. Gui Bei forced her face right in front of his. What he saw in her eyes made him mad.

"I'll show you that I'm worthy of you. I'll show you that you were wrong."

In Long Jia's eyes, filled with tears, Gui Bei saw his own reflection and just couldn't take it. Beyond the fear and shock, he was seeing disgust in those eyes as well. That same girl who was laughing and talking with so much joy with him was now looking as though he was the worst scum on the planet. Rage took over Gui Bei and he wished to break the girl who was disgusted with him. He forced his mouth on hers and tried to kiss her.

Before he could go any further, the guards arrived. Thankfully, some witnesses had called for them. They were not in time to save He Lin but they would not let a man covered in blood and flesh abuse a young woman in the middle of the street. The leader of the group was a Mortal Warrior and with one gesture, he got the young woman away from Gui Bei. She appeared in the arms of his men, completely terrified. Just then, the leader pinned down the boy to the ground, his foot on the nape of his neck.

"Vermin! What do you think you're doing?!"

Gui Bei was later sentenced to only a couple of months of jail. After all, despite his deception, He Lin had himself instigated the duel. And Gui Bei had not been able to abuse the young lady thanks to the arrival of the guards. Moreover, just as Huang Cixi had suspected, Governor Leng got interested in his secret. Becoming so strong so fast was not just talent, he had to have had a secret.

-

Right now, Gui Bei was leaving the mountains. Since he wanted to crush Huang Cixi, he had gone back in the ancient site, deep in the Nine Peaks. There, he knew he could find enough strength to crush her completely. He was going to show them all what he was worth. He wasn't just a pathetic little boy. He would show them how powerful he had become.

Gui Bei was looking forward to see her being humiliated right in the Huang residence. He could not wait to crush that wretched girl in front of her own family and watch the despair in her eyes.