When the old scholar exited the scroll again, he saw that Cui Chan was still lying on the ground and playing dead. "How unseemly!" he humphed coldly.

Cui Chan dazedly stared at the sky and mumbled, "There's nothing to look forward to anymore, so I might as well die and piss off from this world."

The old scholar walked over and gave him a kick. "Stop trying to act pitiful. Don't you want to know why Little Qi only lowered your cultivation base and didn't dispose of you instead?"

Cui Chan's eyes were adrift, and he murmured, "When you were kicked out of the Confucian temples back then, not only was Qi Jingchun not affected by you, but his cultivation base even continued to rise. This already revealed a lot of things. Qi Jingchun was already capable of founding his own branch since a long time ago, and his view on Confucian principles was outwardly similar but inwardly different from your Scholarly lineage. Thus, he felt like he didn't have the right to kill me. Instead, he hoped that you could clean up your own branch in the future."

The old scholar was infuriated by his lack of fight. Giving him another kick, he roared, "To gauge the mind of a noble person with the mind of an immoral person[1]... This saying is describing people just like you! I'll count to three, and if you still don't get up by then, then you might as well lay here forever and wait for death! You won't need to dream about attaining the Great Dao anymore. One! Two! Two! Two..."

Cui Chan was determined to remain lying on the ground.

The old scholar was left in an extremely awkward position, and he could only turn around and signal to Chen Ping'an with his eyes, asking the young boy to help dig him out of this hole.

Chen Ping'an nodded and retrieved the locust wood sword from Li Baoping's hands. He then strode forward and arrived beside Cui Chan. With his face completely expressionless, he said the final "one" before thrusting the sword down at Cui Chan's neck.

His thrust was powerful, and his aim was accurate. Perhaps Chen Ping'an didn't realize it himself, but after experiencing...