Six Months Later, the Owner of the Gold Came Looking for Gu Xie's Family Demanding Its Return, but That Jar of Gold Had Long Been Spent Clean by Gu Xie's Family, Leaving Them Entirely Unable to Repay It

Gu Xie was thrown into prison. The illusion ended. Gu Xie regained consciousness and discovered he was the last one to wake. Gu Junye and the others had awakened long before. Seeing Gu Xie wake, Dai Bufan shook his head slightly. "You failed." "I failed?" Gu Xie was bewildered. How could he have failed when everything had gone so well? His filial piety was renowned across the entire countryside! "Setting aside the fact that your family tried to murder you multiple times, yet you still treated them with utmost respect..." "Take your stepmother's repeated gambling: far from stopping her, you bent the law for personal favor. Not to mention that you later attempted to bury your son, which constitutes voluntary abandonment of intentional homicide. Furthermore, you used the unearthed gold to let your stepmother enjoy her twilight years, rendering you unable to return it, which constitutes the crime of unlawful misappropriation." Failing alongside Gu Xie were his trusted confidants. They simply lacked Gu Xie's forbearance; under relentless torment from their families, they could bear it no longer and slaughtered their entire households, never enduring long enough to become constables. Gu Xie pointed at Gu Junye and the others. "Then all of them passed?" "Of course they passed." Dai Bufan felt that if he simply sent Gu Xie away like this, the man might easily do something rash. He snapped his fingers and replayed Gu Junye's illusion. After jumping from the roof and breaking his leg, Gu Junye had immediately reported his parents to the county magistrate. The magistrate ruled that the parents were guilty of attempted intentional homicide and sentenced them to ten years of imprisonment. Passed. "How does that conform to filial piety in the least?!" Gu Xie raged. He remembered clearly that the third trial tested filial piety. "Teaching parents that one should never harbor malicious intent to harm others, and that wrongdoing must be punished, naturally conforms to filial piety." Dai Bufan replayed Daoist Xiantian's illusion. Daoist Xiantian had been digging a well. Seeing his father and younger brother trying to bury him alive, he leaped out of the well and killed them both. Passed. "He killed people and still passed?!" Gu Xie had wanted to kill his father and brother at the time too, but he had held back! "That was legitimate self-defense." Gu Xie furiously pointed at his failed subordinates. "Then why did their killings count as a failure?" Senior Brother Dai patiently explained, "Legitimate self-defense requires imminent danger. They were bullied in daily life and kept it bottled up inside, which over time filled their hearts with suppressed rage until they finally couldn't bear it and erupted all at once. When they killed, it was merely over a trivial matter without any imminent danger, so it does not constitute legitimate self-defense." "Bottling up fury with nowhere to vent is not the way of immortal cultivation." Seeing that Gu Xie was losing control of his emotions, Daoist Xiantian stepped forward to kindly comfort him, looking a bit bashful. "Fellow Daoist Gu Xie, you're simply too kindhearted. When someone tries to kill you, how could you possibly endure it? That won't do. You must be decisive in killing, just like me." Gu Xie could no longer suppress his fury. Ever since he began the trials, he had suffered one humiliation after another. First, in the second trial, he was struck by lightning eighty-one times for no apparent reason, then beaten by Yun Zhi until his bones were fractured and no patch of skin remained intact. Afterward, in the third trial, he had endured humiliation and swallowed bitter grievances all for the sake of filial piety—only for the Dao Seeking Sect to tell him he had failed, and that he was too kindhearted! This was simply pushing things too far! "Kindhearted, my ass!" Gu Xie swung his sleeve, intending to swat Daoist Xiantian flying. Originally, he had planned to pass the trials, infiltrate the core of the Dao Seeking Sect, and destroy it from within. Who could have imagined that not a single person from their Great Yu Alliance would pass the trial—a complete and utter wipeout! A monumental disgrace! He would endure it no longer. All of them had to die! "How dare you harm anyone!" The moment Gu Xie's killing intent flared, Daoist Lord Hanhai realized something was amiss. This Gu Xie was concealing his true strength! Daoist Lord Hanhai struck out decisively, clashing violently against Gu Xie's sleeve. The collision of their two forces surged upward, blasting straight into the sky! Trying to kill the Ancestral Master? He's practically tired of living!