With Elder Qiao's statuesque 6 chi frame garbed in exquisitely tailored flowing white robes interwoven with dark yellow striped patterns, the fine silk rippled like water around her lithe form as her delicate fingers plucked the taut strings of the zither resting in her lap.
Her piercing eyes crinkled at the corners with an amused smile while observing Ji Wuye, plump crimson lips delicately pursed around a long ivory pipe trailing wispy tendrils of fragrant smoke.
But, in contrast, the rest of the assembled disciples were utterly stupefied by the scene unfolding before them.
Those who had rushed forward to prevent Yuan Xu's body from being flung off the cliff stared slack-jawed at Ji Wuye
Especially Kang Xia, whose eyes narrowed as his frown deepened, fixing Ji Wuye with an intense glare that seemed to bounce off the younger man's unruffled demeanor.
Not a single bead of sweat marred Ji Wuye's calm, faintly smiling expression - his chiseled features betraying no strain, as if the devastating display of insane speed and power was merely an effortless trifle for him.
"Impossible..." Kang Xia muttered under his breath, the muscles in his clenched jaw twitching. "That insane speed...that immense power."
Su Xinyi, silent until now, finally spoke in a hushed sigh as she blinked slowly. "So the rumors are true - he really is a 7th realm martial artist." Her delicate brows furrowed. "No...it's more than that. It's just his physique."
"Did I pass the test, Senior Brother Kang?" Ji Wuye's voice sliced through the stunned silence like a hot knife as he addressed the trembling Kang Xia. Nearby, Yuan Xu lay unconscious, his eyes rolled back - a humiliating disgrace for Elder Qiao's Inner Disciples.
Li Rong looked on impassively, unsurprised by the outcome, while Wei Xun's frame quivered with her broad, knowing smile, as if her suspicions had been confirmed.
However...
What shocked everyone even more were the chilling words that followed Elder Qiao's full, honeyed lips after she carefully set down her zither and took a deliberate sip of steaming green tea.
"Those foolish disciples are no longer mine." Her piercing gaze fell on Kang Xia, who immediately dropped to his knees, his entire body visibly convulsing before her luminously fair, unwrinkled visage.
"Master, please!" Kang Xia's ragged voice cracked with desperate pleading. His white martial robe with dark crimson stripes billowed and fluttered wildly as he kowtowed. "I beg your forgiveness! I'll do anything to atone for this!"
Wei Xun gasped audibly, her hand flying to cover her mouth as shock painted her features. "Master, you cannot mean that," she whispered, eyes widening in disbelief.
Su Xinyi took a bold step forward, her delicate fists clenched at her sides, tendons taut. "There has to be another way," she implored, her melodic voice thick with palpable emotion. "They are our Brothers...our family!"
Elder Qiao's piercing eyes flashed with a dangerous gleam as her smooth, porcelain-like features hardened into an expression of steely resolve. "I can tolerate one or two mistakes, but..." Her dulcet voice trailed off, the weight of Yuan Xu's last scornful words before losing consciousness still ringing with vivid clarity in her mind.
She fixed Kang Xia with a withering glare, noting his stubborn refusal to fully acknowledge Ji Wuye's overwhelming strength.
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"I absolutely despise those trapped in the narrow confines of their own delusional fantasies," Elder Qiao's rich, velvety voice dripped with potent venom. With deliberate, menacing movements, her delicate hand reached once more for the zither, supple fingers caressing the taut strings.
"No! Master, I implore you to reconsider!" Su Xinyi cried out in desperation, lurching forward with outstretched hands as if to physically intervene.
Wei Xun's face drained of all color, her mouth agape in horror. "Please, Master look past their transgressions!" she pleaded, her voice raw with naked fear.
But their impassioned pleas fell on defiantly deaf ears. With a single, mercilessly swift motion, Elder Qiao's lithe fingers lashed out, ruthlessly striking the strings in a blur.
SHRILL!
The piercing melody tore through the air like a ghost's wail, its reverberations seeming to shake the very cliffs around them. Kang Xia's agonized screams intertwined with the unconscious howls of torment ripping from Yuan Xu's throat, weaving together into a discordant chorus of pure, unrestrained pain.
Elder Qiao's melodious voice sliced through the cacophony, cold and utterly unyielding. "As your Master, it was I who bestowed the gift of my martial arts upon you. Now, by my hand, I shall reclaim every last vestige of that gift."
She set the zither down with a sense of terrible finality, her eyes utterly devoid of warmth or compassion as crimson streams of blood began seeping from the pores of Kang Xia and Yuan Xu's spasming bodies.
They collapsed like beckoning, boneless things, rendered unconscious and horrifically broken.
A chaotic maelstrom of Qi erupted violently from their prone forms in a sickly nebulous haze - a grotesque visual manifestation of their instantaneously shattered Dantians and irreparably destroyed meridian pathways.
The vibrant Qi they had spent years carefully amassing billowed away into the ether like so much insubstantial mist.
With a heart-rending wail of anguish, Su Xinyi crumpled to her knees, tears streaming unchecked down her contorted face as her lithe frame was wracked with heaving sobs of grief. "Master...how could you commit such an atrocity?"
Wei Xun remained frozen, rooted to the spot, her complexion ashen as her glistening eyes stared unblinking at the unmoving, broken forms of Kang Xia and Yuan Xu.
When at last she found her voice, it was little more than a whisper carried on the wind. "They're...they're just ordinary men now. Everything they devoted their lives to...it's all gone. Stripped away in an instant."
Even Lian Rougang, who had been observing in stoic silence until now, found herself visibly shaken. Her delicate hands flew to cover her agape mouth as shock stole the words from her lips, leaving her trembling mutely. Elder Qiao's harsh judgment had seemed so precipitous, her punitive methods so ruthlessly, unforgivingly severe.
Meanwhile, Li Rong stood stunned into silence, her gaze blank and unfocused as she watched her Senior Sisters gingerly carry away the unconscious, broken forms of Kang Xia and Yuan Xu to receive emergency treatment.
She found it nearly incomprehensible that her Master, typically so gentle and nurturing, could reveal such an unforgivingly harsh side.
As the youngest of Elder Qiao's Inner Disciples, Li Rong had never before witnessed such unyielding severity from her beloved teacher.
'How can this be...was choosing her as my Master truly the right decision?' Li Rong's mind reeled as seeds of doubt began taking insidious root.
As her gaze drifted, her eyes fell upon the figure of the man who had just caused both of her Senior Brothers to have their entire martial realms obliterated in an instant.
Ji Wuye...
The inhumanly handsome young man stood motionless, eyes unblinking with intense crimson focus as he calmly observed the prone bodies being carried off.
His piercing stare then shifted to meet Elder Qiao's own nonchalant gaze. Sensing the weight of his ethereally beautiful eyes upon her, she smiled faintly and gestured with a delicate, graceful hand for him to be seated once more across from her.
'I see...now I understand why my 'support' abruptly disappeared back then,' Ji Wuye mused inwardly as he casually took his seat upon the simple stone chair across from Elder Qiao.
In the previous timeline, there had indeed been a great disturbance involving all of the Elders that had shaken the entire Kunlun to its core. But at that time, Ji Wuye had not realized that Elder Qiao herself had been the one secretly supporting him all along.
The incident had been so profoundly significant that it prompted the highest Elders to re-evaluate and scrutinize all of their Inner Disciples.
"Do you have any questions?" Elder Qiao's voice was deceptively calm, as though utterly indifferent to the fact that her disciples had just carried away the unconscious, brutalized bodies of Yuan Xu and Kang Xia.
However, under Ji Wuye's discerning crimson stare, he noticed the subtle tells betraying her inner turmoil - the faint trembling of her lips, the shallow, uneven cadence of her breaths...as if she was struggling mightily to suppress a raging torrent of powerful emotions.
"Just one," Ji Wuye replied evenly, his piercing crimson eyes continuing to study the Elder Qiao's features with uncanny discernment.
He saw the fleeting glint of bitterness swimming in her gaze when their eyes met momentarily - a telling sign that his forthcoming query had already ensnared her full attention.
But the glimmer of vulnerability was gone in an instant. Elder Qiao swiftly averted her piercing silver gaze, uncharacteristically avoiding further eye contact as if suddenly entranced by meticulously savoring the flavors of the plump dumplings arranged before her rouged lips.
"Were these two...originally from the Hidden Factions?" Ji Wuye pressed onwards.
He didn't miss the almost imperceptible flinch of Elder Qiao's statuesque shoulders beneath the rippling silk, belying her outwardly calm demeanor.
She visibly struggled to maintain her composure, her full crimson lips beginning to twitch uncontrollably as the dam restraining her turbulent emotions showed signs of cracking her porcelain mask.
Meanwhile, Li Rong and Lian Rougang, observing nearby, found themselves stunned into disbelieving silence - not just by the daring implications of Ji Wuye's probing words, but by the proud Elder Qiao's uncharacteristic lack of response...as if through her deafening silence, she tacitly agreed.
Only the aloof Yu Lei, wearing a disinterested, nearly bored expression, spared Ji Wuye a brief sideways glance before closing his eyes once more with a dismissive yawn - seemingly utterly unbothered by the fraught atmosphere.