100. Ding Desheng, the Peerless Ruthless One

Seeing West Gate, East Gate Yong already had a fair idea of what had happened. But before he could speak, Ding Desheng seized the initiative.

"Master, you really ought to rein in your people. I was the one who captured West Gate before, and I meant to clear White Severance's name. Who would have thought this brat would bite the hand that fed him and actually join forces with that thief West Gate to stir up havoc in our Crimson Cloud Sect!"

"Go swallow a worm, you little maggot. Do you ever think before you speak? If I had not discovered West Gate, you would have killed him already. You secretly kept him locked beneath your own home. You can ask West Gate yourself what monstrous things you did to him!"

White Severance shot West Gate a look.

West Gate immediately flopped onto the ground, his fat, ugly body striking a strangely alluring pose like a coquettish beauty. He wailed, "Grand Elder, you beast. I told you I do not like men, and yet you insisted on forcing yourself on me... sob, sob, I will never be able to marry now. Grand Elder, you have to take responsibility!"

White Severance had never imagined West Gate could be so shameless. Even he felt like bowing in admiration.

At the words, the Grand Elder spat out a mouthful of blood. "I forced myself on you? I forced myself on you how exactly?"

"Grand Elder, you are an elder. Stop saying 'I' this and 'I' that..." East Gate Yong frowned. Though the Grand Elder wielded immense power, East Gate Yong was, after all, the sect master.

Grinding his teeth, the Grand Elder said, "This brat is framing me!"

So White Severance carefully recounted everything from beginning to end. But the Grand Elder insisted that he had merely captured West Gate and had intended to clear White Severance's name.

For a moment, each side clung to its own story, and neither could gain the upper hand.

"How about this? Everyone go back first and put some clothes on before we continue. This is the grand plaza of the Crimson Cloud Sect. What are all of you doing gathered here naked? If word gets out, it will make our sect look terrible..." East Gate Yong said.

By then, the powder had mostly dispersed. White Severance had come to the Crimson Cloud Sect intending to change his clothes, but he had not expected the powder to be so powerful that even the clothes in his wardrobe had been completely dissolved. With no other choice, he had woven himself a grass skirt from dried hay.

Just then, the disciples outside were also fretting over the same problem.

"Junior Brother, that thing of yours is great. Make me one too!" Yang Hongliu said, holding a vase in front of his private parts.

White Severance had no choice. "Fine, I'll make you one."

"Brother, I smell an opportunity..." At that moment, Fat Dragon slunk over furtively, wrapped in bark.

White Severance sighed helplessly. "You opportunistic swindler, you always crawl through any crack you find."

And so, over the next few hours, Fat Dragon led several disciples in weaving grass skirts. Since all the disciples' spare clothing had already been utterly dissolved, the grass skirts instantly became a hot commodity. No matter how many they made, they were sold immediately.

What had once cost ten spirit stones for ten pieces was soon driven up to one spirit stone per piece. A pile of useless hay at once became a prized treasure.

Meanwhile, White Severance and the elders had gone to the master’s residence to confront each other in the living room, where Ding Xuanming lay on the floor wrapped head to toe in bandages.

Ding Xuanming had been tortured half to death by that swarm of hornets and still could not speak because of the numbness in his body, though he could blink. The moment White Severance entered, he fixed him with a murderous glare.

If looks could kill, White Severance would have died a hundred times over.

"As a disciple, you dared to act insolently toward your elders and caused Elder Ding Xuanming such grievous harm that he nearly lost his life. White Severance, do you plead guilty?" Ding Desheng roared.

East Gate Yong was displeased as well. He thought to himself that he was the master and should have been the one speaking, yet Ding Desheng had cut him off.

As for Ding Desheng's scheme against White Severance, the target had always been East Gate Yong. So long as White Severance was ruined, only he himself would be implicated.

But White Severance still did not possess enough evidence. East Gate Yong said, "Severance, do not be afraid. Tell us everything you know!"

Around them, many core inner disciples were watching. Whatever happened here would eventually pass through the mouths of these inner disciples and make its way to the ears of the others.

White Severance cupped his fists and stood up. "First, there is the Hundred Fragrance Pill. That pill originally belonged to West Gate, but it was seized from him. Then this Ding Xuanming, with no shame left in his heart, actually tried to use the Hundred Fragrance Pill to seduce the sect's female disciples. That is even more despicable than West Gate, because he is an elder! An old man with no sense of propriety!"

A person's mouth has two lips, and if one speaks skillfully enough, one can talk someone to death.

White Severance's furious tirade made the numb Ding Xuanming rage inside like a madman. If he had been able to move, he would already have rushed forward to strike White Severance.

Ding Desheng immediately said, "What do you mean, lacking propriety? As an elder, what is wrong with testing a pill? Besides, Elder Ding Xuanming's spirit of self-sacrifice deserves everyone's admiration!"

"Testing?" White Severance sneered. "Even West Gate, who made the pill himself, would not dare swallow the Hundred Fragrance Pill in broad daylight. He would not dare eat it, yet Elder Ding Xuanming did. There are only two possibilities: either he wanted to use the pill to commit wicked deeds, or his brain short-circuited and he had a moment of madness."

East Gate Yong had already experienced White Severance's ability to wriggle and argue, so he pretended to think it over. "Severance makes a fair point."

"Master, and all of you, White Severance was colluding with West Gate. The two of them escaped together. Everyone saw it with their own eyes!" Ding Desheng said, directly bringing out his trump card and declaring that White Severance was indeed suspicious.

White Severance laughed loudly. "Then let me ask you... what about these people?"

With that, he shook out the corpses he had taken from the dungeon. Since corpses were dead things, they could be stored in a ring.

The sight of the three dead bodies on the ground, bodies no one knew how long had been there, made the surrounding people all frown.

White Severance turned one of the corpses over and said, "These bodies were found in the underground secret chamber beneath Elder Ding's backyard. Everyone here can see the talismans on their backs. They are blood-sacrifice talismans. I did not recognize them at first either, but later I realized they were the markings of the Hall of Ten Thousand Demons. And before that, we found disciples from the Hall of Yama Demons here in the Crimson Cloud Sect. That means someone here has been working with outside sects and starting to do things that cannot see the light of day."

"This is blatant slander!" Ding Desheng shouted. "How can you prove these corpses are mine? For all we know, you made them yourself, and those disciples from the Hall of Yama Demons were also summoned by you."

"Haha, slander? No, you are the one spewing filth!" White Severance said.

At the mention of "spewing filth," everyone turned to look at Ding Desheng, because the phrase fit him far too well. The scene from before had been downright eye-searing.

Ding Desheng also remembered what had happened earlier, and his whole body trembled with fury.

Perhaps some would ask why Ding Desheng did not simply kill White Severance outright. The reason was simple: White Severance was merely a tool to him. Ding Desheng's true aim had always been to use White Severance to suppress East Gate Yong.

But at that very moment, Ding Desheng truly developed murderous intent.

White Severance said, "You hired people to kill me myself? Who in their right mind would believe such nonsense?"

Instantly, the room fell silent.

Indeed, by ordinary logic, who would possibly send men to kill himself?

Grinding his teeth, Ding Desheng's mind raced. He thought bitterly that he had been careless in his handling of things and had actually given this brat a handle to seize. Then he said, "If there was an informant, perhaps there was. But that informant may not have been me, and I had no knowledge of what was happening underground."

"What do you mean? You are lying with your eyes open?" White Severance asked.

Ding Desheng turned to Ding Xuanming. "Brother, as my own brother, you have long been involved in underhanded matters. Since the affair has now been exposed, I will be honest with everyone as well: my younger brother indeed has close ties with the sects outside. As his elder brother and as the Grand Elder of the Crimson Cloud Sect, I have always advised him time and again, yet my brother has remained incorrigible..."

As he spoke, Ill City came to stand behind White Severance and whispered, "Ding Desheng is a ruthless man."

Before Ill City could finish, Ding Desheng suddenly strode toward Ding Xuanming. Baring his teeth, he reached into the bandages and pulled out a token.

It was unmistakably a token from the Hall of Ten Thousand Demons.

At that moment, everyone around them was left speechless.

Ding Xuanming stared desperately at his older brother, his face filled with disbelief and terror.