Chen Yuanye looked at Lin Yu, seeming to hesitate about whether to answer.

But when he looked at the remains of Xie Chong in Lin Yu’s hands—two pieces of Xie Chong’s remains—he quickly made up his mind.

“All right... you want to know what I intend to do, and I won’t hide it from you.”

“Of course I plan to use these remains of Xie Chong to resurrect the Thousand-Eyed Thousand-Silk Demon Lord.” 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

When Xuan Yunzi heard that, he spoke up again, “You were born human yet run errands for demons... how shameless, how utterly deranged!”

Chen Yuanye glared at Xuan Yunzi and said coldly, “You of the Taiqing Sect, you pride yourselves on being righteous and consider humans nobler and just compared to demons, do you not? But the things you have done are just as filthy.”

Hearing Chen Yuanye’s words, Li Nian perked up.

“Oh? There’s more to it? So this old Taoist isn’t a good man after all?”

Li Nian said with interest, and Chen Yuanye immediately pointed a finger, “Exactly. This old Taoist and the Taiqing Sect behind him mouth nothing but benevolence and morality... yet the Thousand-Eyed Thousand-Silk Demon Lord was sealed in these Twin Saw Mountains. Did they ever think about the common people within a hundred-li radius of Twin Saw Mountain?”

“Even if I truly am not Chen Yuanye, I know all of his memories—this man’s friends and relatives, the townsfolk, did Taiqing ever care?”

When Chen Yuanye said this, Snowy Owl slightly furrowed her brow: “Indeed, if Taiqing claims to be the head of the righteous path, how could they be so callous with human lives?”

High Mountain, however, didn’t believe Chen Yuanye’s words: “This guy is a minion of demons; don’t be swayed by his words... Perhaps their handling was improper, but the ones who annihilated these villages must be those demons—the killer is the one who should be condemned in a home intrusion murder, not the neighborhood security for lax supervision.”

“Moreover, Taiqing not caring for the people is just his one-sided claim!”

High Mountain was, after all, from the police. His social experience was clearly richer than Snowy Owl’s, and he had seen too many vicious criminals use rhetorical tricks to shift blame and evade responsibility.

But Chen Yuanye looked at High Mountain and once more spoke in a cold voice, “This is not just my one-sided claim—the townspeople were deliberately left here by the Taiqing Sect. These so-called righteous families always like to do this, and the reason is... hmph.”

Chen Yuanye sneered and turned to Xuan Yunzi, “The reason is, the few living souls of ordinary people are far from enough to let the Thousand-Eyed Thousand-Silk Demon Lord escape, but by causing large-scale deaths, you can use that fact to determine the demon’s revival.”

“Placing a ‘life-soul lamp’ on a whole town is much simpler than directly putting a surveillance sealing talisman on the demon.”

“These Daoist orders and martial schools know exactly where powerful demons lurk, yet they refuse to publicize it and may even encourage ignorant civilians to live nearby, all so they can use human lives as expendable materials—using those lives to monitor the demon’s movements and status.”

“At the same time, it prevents those demons from escaping their control.”

“Am I right, Xuan Yunzi?”

Xuan Yunzi stared at Chen Yuanye, his whiskers trembling with anger: “Outrageous slander, spitting blood-blind accusations. My Daoist disciples and the knights from martial schools take slaying demons and protecting the Way as their duty; countless Daoists and fighters die each year for this cause, and you still spout such nonsense...”

“How many commoners have died?” Chen Yuanye interrupted. “How many innocent villagers did you kill in the name of ‘slaying demons and protecting the Way’? Especially your Taiqing Sect, the leader of the Daoist path—how many people did you kill who had no choice?!”

“What do you mean by killing people, unjust deaths,” Xuan Yunzi retorted angrily, “Taiqing has always acted openly and righteously, with a clear conscience. When have we ever intentionally harmed people to slay demons?”

“It was in these mountains—Chen Family Fort, Five Springs Village... you may deny those, but what about Willow Town?!”

“Three hundred and fifty years ago, what kind of ‘cruel’ act did your Taiqing ancestor commit against the townspeople of Willow Town...”

“That was the Thousand-Eyed Thousand-Silk Demon Lord’s doing. When discovered, Willow Town’s townspeople had all fallen under the demon’s control, becoming half-dead puppets,” Xuan Yunzi said fiercely. “They were merely corpses manipulated and toyed with by the demon, already killed by that spider. Even so, our ancestor grieved and regretted for the rest of his life. That clearly shows our Taiqing ancestor’s compassion. And yet you perversely call this ‘cruel’... If you hate Taiqing and the orthodoxy and now serve the demon as a lackey because of that, you are utterly foolish, calling a thief father, unable to tell right from wrong!”

Chen Yuanye sneered, “Nonsense, Xuan Yunzi. You are giving your ancestor too much benefit of the doubt—have you even convinced yourself he was truly innocent?!”

“There were a million merchants in Willow Town then. What power could the Thousand-Eyed Thousand-Silk Demon Lord possibly have to control a million people at once... if it truly had that power, could your Taiqing ancestor alone have sealed it?!”

“Among those million townspeople, only seven or eight tenths were affected by the Causality Silk and still recoverable; the ones truly turned into puppets numbered only a few hundred. Your Taiqing ancestor, unable to discern precisely, chose to use the Calamity-Sealing Forbidden Art, sinking the entire town of Willow Town along with the Thousand-Eyed Thousand-Silk Demon Lord!”

“Your Taiqing ancestor was the murderer, the butcher who killed a million people!”

Xuan Yunzi’s face dramatically changed: “Slander to mislead the masses—you’re turning truth upside down, you bastard...”

“Then swear the Dao oath, Xuan Yunzi,” the fake Chen Yuanye said coldly, “I don’t believe you truly do not know the inner truth of this matter!”

Xuan Yunzi ground his teeth and hissed, “Scum! Filthy beast! Who the hell are you?!”

But...

He did not deny it, nor did he dare take the Dao oath!

Watching the back-and-forth between the two natives of the Prison Mountain Realm, though somewhat clouded and confusing, the players still managed to squeeze out a sliver of truth.

Seagull exclaimed in surprise, “Wait, is this matter being reversed... is Xuan Yunzi and Taiqing really not the good guys?!”

High Mountain also found it hard to accept: “Seems so... meaning that a hundred years ago, actually a million people in Willow Town were killed mostly by Taiqing’s ancestor, and the spider killed far fewer?!”

Snowy Owl looked toward Lin Yu.

“Interesting... Old Yao, was this within your expectations?”

Lin Yu shrugged, “No, I didn’t expect it to develop like this... At first I simply suspected this old Taoist was hiding something from us.”

“After all, he clearly recognized us as Otherworldly Ones, and his strength should be enough for a native of the Prison Mountain Realm to see that, yet he deliberately didn’t reveal it.”

“And although his explanations could be made plausible... they were, indeed, one-sided with no concrete evidence.”

“Then a person absolutely impossible to be on his side showed up, so I thought to hear both sides and get a clearer picture.”

“I didn’t expect that there really would be a major revelation.”