Evil Mage Cultivation: The Immortal Enslavement Path-Chapter 86: The Price of Crime

He was surrounded.

Han Rui led the contingent from the Han clan, and beside him stood Luo Chen himself at the head of the Luo clan’s men. Behind them came the elders, Luo Phen among them, along with Luo Lan and Hong Qing, both of whom had been central to the investigation.

Han Suwen looked around at all of them, then let his sword drop to the ground.

"Looks like everyone made it," he said.

"What are you doing?" Han Rui shoved through the crowd and grabbed him by the throat before the words were fully out. "And is that Feng Zhou? What have you two been plotting?"

Then one of the elders pointed past them.

Han Shi’s body lay not far off.

His son.

He turned back to Han Suwen, and the rage that came into his eyes had nothing measured left in it.

"You had better start explaining."

Han Suwen had expected this, in some part of his mind.

That his son would invite an enemy into the heart of their clan, then kill a brother with his own hands, he could see how it looked.

He could see what lengths his father’s mind was already racing toward.

"Calm down, Father." He met the old man’s eyes.

"I already killed the one responsible."

Because the truth was simpler than any of them suspected. He had killed Feng Zhou. Han Shi he hadn’t touched.

"Ask her," he said, with a calm that sat strangely on the moment. He pointed toward Luo Lan, who stood a few steps away.

Every eye in the courtyard shifted to her. She looked more unsettled than anyone present, and not because of the body. Because of him.

"Y-Yes." Her voice came out unsteady, which was unusual enough that a ripple of suspicion moved through the crowd.

But with her eyes, the truth settled, however reluctantly.

Han Rui let go.

Han Suwen dropped but caught himself, drew a slow breath, and stayed upright.

Every powerful figure in the town was staring at him now, waiting, and the unspoken offer was simple enough: give them a satisfying answer or die.

"I was poisoned," he said. "By the poison master."

The shock that moved through them was immediate.

Luo Phen turned to Hong Qing, his expression already forming an accusation.

The girl flinched.

Before he could press it, Luo Lan stepped between them and held his gaze without apology.

"What he said is true," she confirmed.

Luo Chen watched his daughter stand her ground, then let the matter go. He walked past the elders and stopped in front of Han Suwen.

"Tell me what happened."

"After I killed Wu Han, to help my wife take her revenge, they caught me." He glanced toward Feng Zhou’s body. "He was after Wu Han, but since I was the one still standing, he took me instead. Forced me to drink the poison."

"Why didn’t you fight back?" Han Rui’s voice had shifted, less rage in it now, more something like desperation. He wanted a better answer. He wanted his son to be a warrior. "Or at the very least—"

"Kill myself?" Han Suwen said it plainly. "I couldn’t. That’s what the poison does."

The logic sat poorly with most of them. It sounded like an excuse dressed up as an explanation.

But when they looked to Luo Lan, she gave a single nod.

Han Rui stepped forward and pressed two fingers to his son’s forehead, pushing his awareness inward.

What he found matched everything he’d been told.

After Hong Qing fled, an old man in dark robes had come with Feng Zhou. The two of them had taken Han Suwen together, and the poison had gone down his throat while he was still pinned.

Han Rui pulled back. His expression had changed.

"That man," he said quietly. "The poison master. The one Doctor Zhong warned us about."

The color rose in Han Rui’s face fast. "That bastard. I’ll going to kill him!!"

"The poison," Luo Chen cut in, setting aside the insult of having his daughter’s word doubted in the first place. The soul search had settled that.

What it hadn’t settled was everything else.

Han Suwen had still killed their 10th disciple, and beyond that, the same man whose death he’d arranged had been his daughter’s savior and her intended.

There was still a price to be named for that. "What happens to you now?"

"I have a month left," Han Suwen said. "Unless someone treats it."

The calm in his voice landed differently now. It wasn’t indifference.

He had simply already made his peace with the time he had left.

"Then we find Doctor Zho—" Han Rui stopped.

The thought completed itself without words. His son had just killed the disciple of only person who might have been able to help him.

The blood left Han Rui’s face.

"I’m going to lose both my sons," he said to himself.

"Don’t worry, Father. I still have time." Han Suwen managed a small smile.

"I broke free because of big brother. He drew enough of Feng Zhou’s energy away that the hold slipped, just enough for me to move."

Han Rui said nothing.

"A poison that allows control over another person..." Luo Chen kept his voice low, almost to himself.

He had heard of such arts before, read about them in old texts, but standing in the aftermath of one was a different thing entirely.

The scale of it settled into his chest like cold water

He understood now what kind of damage a single man with that knowledge could do.

"As expected of the poison master."

He looked at Han Rui. The rival clan leader who had been across from him in dispute and negotiation for years was standing very still, and everything he’d built his name on had just guttered out in one night.

"I’m sorry, Han Rui." Luo Chen meant it.

"I’ll speak to Doctor Zhong myself. I’ll do what I can to convince him."

"No."

Han Rui was many things. A father, a clan leader, a warrior.

Luo Chen was those same things, but the order was different in him.

Luo Chen led with being a father. Han Rui had always led with being a warrior.

He looked down at his son.

"He still has a crime to answer for." His voice was flat and certain.

"He’ll die, but he’ll die with some honor left to his name. In the yearly tournament, I’m opening any match he enters. Anyone who faces him may kill him."

The elders who had been watching from the edges stiffened.

Every one of them knew the first rule of the tournament. No killing.

Even permanent injury caused deliberately was forbidden, and the only reason crippling blows had ever been tolerated at all was a narrow exception carved out for exceptional talents who found themselves matched against opponents too weak to take a hit.

That was leniency extended once, for a specific circumstance.

Permitting a kill had never happened. Not once.

And Han Rui had just said it like it was nothing.

"Do you understand what you just said?" Luo Chen said.

"One of the people he’ll have to face is my daughter."

He wanted the boy to pay for what he’d done. But this was something else.

This was a public execution with extra steps, staged in front of every family in town.

There was no version of Han Suwen walking away from a match against Luo Lan.

"Think of it as his last trial." Han Rui’s eyes stayed on his son.

"If he wins, he fulfilled his life as a warrior. If he falls in the ring, he kept his pride." Han Rui drew his sword and held it level. "Or he accepts his crime right now."

He had buried a lot in his life.

Friends. His wife.

Two more sons, when it came to it, was just two more.

He could still fulfill his duty after.

Luo Chen stood beside him and said nothing.

He and Han Rui were bound by that same kind of grief, the specific weight of losing people you wished to get back.

But he had no ground to stand on here.

The boy had killed his daughter’s savior.

In some crooked way, Luo Chen had handed Han Rui the reason to do it, and he knew it, and so he kept his mouth shut and waited to hear what the boy would choose.

Luo Lan, standing in the middle of it, tried to voice her opinion but was stopped by Han Suwen.

"I lived my life as a coward, hiding away inside this very house to keep myself safe," his voice was steady and focused, with no hesitation in his eyes, "The crimes I committed, I’d do again. The wife I chose, I don’t regret."

"So, if the price of my crimes is to die by your hands, then don’t be afraid to go all out and kill me." He looked at Luo Lan with a smile, a smile she knew too well.

But not from Han Suwen. From someone who should be dead right now!