Qi Yuan also saw Qi Ye before the trial began.
Upon seeing his son, Qi Yuan instinctively avoided his gaze.
Once the trial started, Dean Xu laid out all the evidence he had gathered. His words came slowly, but each sentence was airtight and cut into Qi Yuan and Chi Zhongye like a blade.
By the time he finished speaking, Jiang Luo couldn’t help but give a silent cheer in his heart. A glance from the corner of his eye showed that his companions were visibly more relaxed.
But Qi Yuan and Chi Zhongye, who had still been holding out a sliver of hope that Dean Xu hadn’t uncovered key evidence, now looked visibly worse.
The two exchanged a glance. Chi Zhongye lowered his voice and said, “Qi Yuan, don’t forget what we agreed on.”
Qi Yuan quickly replied, “Don’t worry, I’ve got the connections. And you’ve got the puppet arts. Once a few months pass and things cool down, I’ll definitely find a way to get you out.”
“You’d better mean it.” Chi Zhongye didn’t really trust Qi Yuan, but right now, he had no better option. Having just one of them go down was better than both falling. Besides, he had leverage on Qi Yuan.
Thinking that way settled him a bit. But there was still a gnawing sense of unease.
Chi Zhongye had been regretting for some time now that he ever listened to Qi Yuan and laid a hand on Jiang Luo. Originally, he just wanted to use Jiang Luo as bait to get rid of Chi You. If not for Qi Yuan’s instigation, how would he have ended up standing here?
But the one who changed the assessment content and arranged the dirty work was him. Qi Yuan had only talked and offered some manpower. Between the two of them, Chi Zhongye’s involvement was clearly deeper.
Though they had agreed he would take the fall, now that he was really here, Chi Zhongye’s legs felt weak. Fear crept in, and he even started regretting stealing the position of the Chi family head.
If he hadn’t been head of the Chi family, this wouldn’t have fallen on him.
If only Chi You weren’t dead.
He could’ve pinned all of this on Chi You and made him take the blame.
The more he thought about it, the angrier he got.
This was all Chi You’s fault.
If Chi You hadn’t turned into a ghost after dying, Chi Zhongye wouldn’t have needed to risk killing him in the first place.
Everything—everything—was Chi You’s fault. Annoying when alive, and still causing trouble after death.
Lost in these bitter thoughts, Chi Zhongye hesitated to speak. It wasn’t until Qi Yuan gave him a shove that he stiffly stepped forward and hoarsely said, “It was all my idea. I asked Qi Yuan to help me. He didn’t know what I was planning. I never told him. He only got involved because I tricked him.”
Qi Yuan quickly chimed in to express his innocence, “Yes, yes! I really didn’t know anything. Brother Chi just asked to borrow a few men, and since our Qi and Chi families have always been close, I agreed out of loyalty. I didn’t even ask what it was for!”
Hearing that, Jiang Luo couldn’t help but chuckle quietly. Only Ye Xun beside him heard it. He gave Jiang Luo a helpless look, but even he couldn’t stop a smile from tugging at his lips.
So the plan was to let one take the fall and save the other?
But after all the trouble it took to bring these two down, how could Jiang Luo let them wash their hands clean of it?
As Dean Xu frowned, clearly considering how to respond, Jiang Luo discreetly moved his fingers. Using the recovered energy of qi, he silently wrote the word “Truth” and sent it flying toward Qi Yuan and Chi Zhongye.
The invisible word passed through the air and landed on both of them. The two men, who had been struggling to clear their names, suddenly jolted violently. Then, as if they were completely different people, they began racing to confess every part of their plot and crime.
“It was me. I came up with the idea. We wanted to kill Jiang Luo, so we planned to make it look like an accident during the assessment.”
From the gallery, Qi Ye clenched his fists tightly and let out a strangled, beast-like whimper of despair.
Qi Yuan’s eyes widened in shock, unable to believe what he was saying. Yet his mouth kept moving uncontrollably, “I wanted to kill Jiang Luo because he wanted to avenge Chi You. I wasn’t going to stop at Jiang Luo—I wanted to crush the Heavenly Master Residence and make the Qi family the leader of the Six Great Clans.”
After saying those two sentences, Qi Yuan’s expression was already filled with despair, yet he kept confessing all the wrongs he had done and the people he had harmed, one after another.
Chi Zhongye was the same—he couldn’t control his own mouth. “No, the things I’ve done are worse. I colluded with the leader of the blood eels, deliberately spreading the news about how blood eels could restore youth and grant longevity to wealthy people, taking kickbacks in return. Once, a man named Hu Lin hired me to conduct a ritual, but I was drunk that day and ended up killing his entire family. I pinned the blame on Chi You. Not just that case—Chen Binxi’s incident too, and then…”
Each revelation was more horrifying than the last.
As Qi Yuan and Chi Zhongye’s voices echoed, the entire courtroom erupted in chaos.
The heads of the Xuanling Joint Committee looked at Qi Yuan and Chi Zhongye in disbelief. The public gallery was in an uproar. The court recorder, face full of shock, furiously typed without pause.
Qi Yuan heard himself say, “No, I’ve done even more despicable things…”
A man in his fifties was being pushed to the edge of ruin by his own mouth. Qi Yuan tried to cover his mouth, but his hands stayed obediently at his sides. Inside, he even felt a powerful urge to confess everything, as if riddled with guilt. He knew clearly that this impulse wasn’t normal, but he couldn’t suppress it. In utter despair, his expression turned numb.
“Do you all know about the Yuan Tian Beads?”
Everyone present froze.
Qi Yuan said, “There are four Yuan Tian Beads in this world, and the Yuan Tian Beads are… cough, cough cough—”
Suddenly, Qi Yuan began coughing violently. The coughing seemed to snap him out of it—his gaze gradually became clear again.
Beside him, it was as if Chi Zhongye had been struck by a hammer—he, too, suddenly came to his senses.
The courtroom fell into a tense silence. Qi Yuan and Chi Zhongye stared wide-eyed, unable to believe what they had just said.
Jiang Luo sensed that the spiritual characters he had cast on the two had shattered. A far stronger force had long since placed a binding spell deep within their minds, forbidding them from speaking unspeakable secrets.
Cooperation no longer mattered. Qi Yuan reacted swiftly: “I was being controlled by Chi Zhongye just now! He knows how to use puppet soul magic—he controlled me and made me take the fall for him!”
“Bullsh*t,” Chi Zhongye spat through gritted teeth, glaring darkly at him. “Clearly, it was you who used some sinister method to influence me!”
The two patriarchs of prominent families were now publicly tearing into each other like rabid dogs, throwing the entire scene into chaos.
It was ridiculous, but the leaders of the Xuanling Joint Committee weren’t laughing.
Their expressions were grim, some of their fingers even trembling from the shock of the confessions. They immediately began contacting other agencies.
According to what Qi Yuan and Chi Zhongye had just revealed, multiple people had already died due to their actions—some of them ordinary civilians. This situation was far beyond what they could handle. It had to be taken over by national authorities.
Officer Lin had already been waiting outside the Xuanling Joint Committee with a team, prepared to arrest Chi Zhongye. Upon receiving the report, he led the officers in and stormed inside. The moment Qi Yuan and Chi Zhongye saw the police enter, their faces turned pale—they knew this time, they were truly done for.
Instinctively, they tried to run. But Qi Yuan only managed two steps before an officer tackled him to the ground. His nose slammed into the floor, and blood gushed out instantly.
He hissed in pain, gasping. On the other side, Chi Zhongye was struggling and shouting, “Let me go! Let go of me!”
It was over. All over.
Qi Yuan was yanked upright, trembling. He might spend the rest of his life in prison.
Then, unnoticed by most, a cold chill seeped through the gaps in the crowd and crept toward Qi Yuan.
A shiver ran through him—only then did he sense something was wrong. In the next instant, something invisible grabbed his neck and hoisted him into the air. Qi Yuan clawed at his throat, trying to pry off whatever was choking him. His face turned beet red from lack of oxygen, legs kicking frantically.
Qi Ye shot to his feet. “Dad!”
The crowd was startled. Officer Lin quickly shouted, “What are you all standing there for? Get him down!”
But no one could get Qi Yuan down. His breathing grew more and more labored, his complexion turning a frightening shade of blue. He gurgled hoarsely, tears and snot streaming down his face as he felt life draining from him.
With great effort, he lowered his head and saw Qi Ye, weeping and charging forward from the gallery. Seeing his son’s tear-streaked face somehow gave Qi Yuan a final burst of strength. In a dying flash of lucidity, he began to struggle harder.
At that moment, he heard a cold, low voice: “Qi Yuan, the spirit belonging to my grandfather—it’s time you returned it to me.”
Qi Yuan’s pupils contracted.
The officer holding his legs saw him go still for a moment and let out a breath of relief. But before he could finish exhaling, Qi Yuan suddenly thrashed even more violently than before. The sounds from his mouth no longer seemed human. The veins on his neck and face bulged grotesquely.
The spirit that others could not see was being forcibly ripped from his spine, causing excruciating pain—worse than death. The pressure around his neck increased. In his final moments, Qi Yuan’s vision darkened, and he suddenly saw the malicious ghost seated in the gallery.
In the chaos of the courtroom, the man in black sat unmoving. His abyssal, hellish eyes cut through the air and fixed terrifyingly on Qi Yuan.
Qi Yuan’s chest tightened. He clutched his throat, and with great difficulty rasped out, “Chi You…”
The moment the words fell, his neck twisted—and he died.
The police rushed to administer emergency aid. Chi Zhongye, who had still been trying to explain himself, jolted violently and was instantly overwhelmed with fear. He looked around in terror, trembling. “Chi You? Chi You is here?”
He trembled, broke free from the people holding him down, and lunged toward Qi Yuan’s corpse, violently shaking him with a twisted expression. “Qi Yuan, where is Chi You? Is he going to kill me—”
The already dead Qi Yuan suddenly opened his eyes. His bluish-purple face twisted into a bone-chilling, venomous smile as he said, “You’re next.”
Then, Qi Yuan shut his eyes again.
Chi Zhongye was so terrified he collapsed to the floor. When the police tried to pull him up, the moment their hands touched him, he clutched his head and started screaming like a madman.
“Don’t kill me, don’t kill me…”
…
The farce gradually quieted down.
Once everyone had left the courtroom, the malicious ghost draped in a black coat finally stood up gracefully, leaning on his cane, and walked out at an unhurried pace.
Just as he stepped outside, a voice came from beside him. “Hey.”
The malicious ghost turned his head to the right.
A black-haired young man was leaning against the wall, holding half a cigarette between his fingers. Smoke streamed from his nose as he flicked off some ash. The amber sunset spilled over his black hair, giving his stunning face a touch of laziness. “You finally decided to come out?”
He looked like he had been waiting there just for the malicious ghost.
