I Swear I’m Not a Demonic Cultivator - Chapter 48

Chapter 48: Fang Zheng’s Boundless Compassion!

Tie Xue Leng pushed open the heavy black iron door.

The massive hinges groaned and screeched, sealing the howling wind and snow outside.

The deathly silence within the stone chamber was more bone-chilling than the icy winds and snow.

His gaze swept past the flickering brazier and froze.

Then, solidified.

His daughter, Tie Yuyao—the precious girl he had never dared to scold—stood on one foot in a posture he had never seen before. Her other foot was shoved deeply, brutally, into the mouth of a strange man.

The man lay sprawled like a discarded burlap sack, his body stained with blood and his upper torso nearly naked.

His face was as gray as a weathered tombstone, his eyes hollow and staring into the void.

A surge of bloody fury erupted in Tie Xue Leng’s chest.

“Tie! Yu! Yao!”

Clang!

Hearing her father’s full name, Tie Yuyao’s hand slipped, and the whetstone clattered onto the hard stone floor with a jarring clang.

She froze like a snow fox caught in a hunter’s trap.

Father?

How could he be here? Why now?

Tie Yuyao felt her heart stop, as if an invisible hand had seized it and was squeezing it relentlessly.

It’s over.

The words echoed in her mind, droning like a death knell.

“I… I…” Tie Yuyao recoiled as if struck by lightning, losing her balance and stumbling back two steps. She grabbed the cold wall to steady herself, barely avoiding a fall.

She met her father’s stern gaze, her voice trembling with a panic she couldn’t even convince herself of.

“Father! It’s not what you think! This guy… he’s… he’s acting strange! He’s been giving me that look all day! He doesn’t seem like a good person, so I was just teaching him a lesson…”

Fang Zheng’s knees buckled beneath him, and he collapsed heavily onto the icy stone floor.

The excruciating pain from his forcibly widened jaw still burned in his joints, choking off his breath.

The suffocating sensation, accompanied by violent dry heaving, shattered the dam of his consciousness.

In the deepest recesses of his mind, where he had desperately sealed away bloodstained memories in a forbidden tomb, this overwhelming sense of absurdity cracked a fissure.

Before his eyes, the girl’s panicked face began to distort and overlap, morphing into another face—a face behind a mask.

The owner of that face was prostrating himself in devout worship before him, while behind him, a thunderous roar of voices surged like a tidal wave…

“Hail the Holy Son ascending to the throne!”

Cough… cough cough cough!

Fang Zheng choked violently, his lungs burning like fire.

Fang Zheng coughed violently, spewing out scalding tears in large, rolling drops.

Tie Xue Leng ignored his daughter’s frantic babbling.

His hand had already settled on the icy-cold axe handle at his waist. The metallic chill calmed his seething rage, if only slightly.

He took heavy strides, his military boots thudding against the stone floor like hammer blows, each step pounding against Tie Yuyao’s heart.

He stood before Fang Zheng, bending down to scrutinize him as if examining an unknown beast that had trespassed into his territory.

The tattered Dao Robe, splitting apart from within, revealing a body ravaged beyond repair.

At the Dantian, the dark Golden Core, radiating an ominous aura and riddled with cracks.

A cripple.

Yet Tie Xue Leng’s right hand tightened its grip on the axe handle.

He saw nothing in the man’s eyes.

No desire, no anger, no fear.

Only an abyss.

This emptiness chilled him to the bone.

He roughly yanked open Fang Zheng’s tattered collar, revealing two small embroidered characters:

Fang Zheng.

Tie Xue Leng released his grip, slowly straightening up. Turning to Tie Yuyao, whose face was ashen, he uttered four words:

“Go. Retrieve the Bamboo Gentleman.”

“Father!” Tie Yuyao’s shriek nearly shattered the air. “For him? You’d use the Bamboo Gentleman? That’s…”

This was the Tie Clan’s treasured artifact, used to judge heinous traitors and expose high-ranking Demonic Path spies!

“Bring it here,” Tie Xue Leng commanded, his voice as cold as steel, devoid of warmth.

He knew that perhaps only the Bamboo Gentleman could discern the true nature of this man’s character and Dao Heart.

If the man proved righteous, his Dao Heart pure, then this entire affair would be deemed a misunderstanding, and Tie Xue Leng would personally compensate him for his daughter’s insolence.

But if the Bamboo Gentleman revealed him to be wicked, harboring malicious intent, then the most brutal measures awaited him…

Tie Yuyao dared not defy her father further. Gritting her teeth, she practically fled the room.

In no time, she returned, carefully carrying a Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Jade Box radiating an icy chill.

Tie Xue Leng took the box and opened it.

A section of vibrant jade-green bamboo lay nestled inside, its clear, pure life essence instantly dispelling the bloody stench that lingered in the air.

He withdrew the Bamboo Gentleman and handed it to Fang Zheng.

“Hold it.”

Fang Zheng slowly raised his head, his hollow gaze settling on the bamboo. Instinctively, he extended his bloodstained hand and grasped the bamboo.

Icy cold yet strangely warm.

In the next moment, an utterly pure surge of life energy flooded through his palm, surging violently through his ravaged meridians!

For this body, driven by a death wish and saturated with violent Demonic Essence, this energy was not nourishment…

Torture! Like pouring boiling oil onto a frozen lake!

Boom—!

The dark golden Golden Core within Fang Zheng’s body shuddered violently. The deathly Silent Demonic Essence, born from despair, instinctively counterattacked with savage fury, seeking to tear apart and devour the invading “benevolence”!

Crack…

Suddenly, an anomaly erupted!

The Bamboo Gentleman in his hand groaned under the overwhelming strain. A layer of jet-black ice, radiating an aura of bone-chilling deathly silence, instantly crystallized across its jade-green surface!

“So he wasn’t a good person after all!” Tie Yuyao blurted out unconsciously, yet her heart inexplicably lightened.

But before her words could fully leave her lips—

Within that pitch-black ice layer, a golden flame suddenly ignited!

The flame grew brighter and brighter, like a sun rising in eternal night!

Sizzle—!

The bamboo trembled violently, alternating between pitch-black as charcoal and jade-green as jade.

Fang Zheng’s body also convulsed violently. Beneath his skin, streaks of golden light and Black Qi raced frantically, making him resemble a fragile glass vessel on the verge of shattering!

In the end, the Bamboo Gentleman’s energy bypassed all obstacles, targeting Fang Zheng’s Dao Heart and conviction directly.

Hum—!

A dazzling, blinding pillar of emerald light erupted from his hand, piercing through the stone hut’s roof without resistance!

The sacred, compassionate, and righteous life force surged through the stone house like a tsunami in an instant!

Inside the stone chamber, Tie Xue Leng and Tie Yuyao stood frozen in shock.

They watched in awe as the “Bamboo Gentleman” in Fang Zheng’s hand erupted with divine light, its roots digging frantically into the ground, its shoots bursting forth with unstoppable vigor!

Tender green shoots forced their way out from the dry bamboo joints!

Emerald-green bamboo leaves unfurled in a vibrant display of life!

But that wasn’t all.

Amidst the lush foliage, something extraordinary began to bloom: flowers!

Snow-white blossoms, pure and flawless, quietly unfurled in the sacred radiance, emitting an ethereal fragrance that seemed to cleanse the soul.

Bamboo in bloom!

The Tie Clan’s “Bamboo Gentleman,” used for centuries to discern good from evil, had transcended its limitations as a mere Magic Treasure. It had returned to its Origin, manifesting a divine miracle!

Tie Xue Leng’s hand, clenched around his battle-axe, trembled with rigid tension.

His pupils reflected the blooming white flowers.

He recalled the Tie Clan’s most ancient secret scroll—a parchment scroll treated as myth, untouched for millennia. On its yellowed pages lay a single, oft-mocked prophecy:

When the Bamboo Gentleman blooms, the Dao shall be revealed.

Staring at Fang Zheng’s bewildered and anguished face, that prophecy exploded in his Divine Soul like a thunderclap from the heavens.

He staggered back a step, the stone tile beneath his foot cracking into a spiderweb of fissures.

“Bamboo… blooms… see… sages…”

“This Fang Zheng… bears great love!”