Chapter 344 173: Jiang Ran, You Brat

Jiang Ran shot Tang Huayi a sideways glance.

"Where did you all come down from?"

Tang Huayi and their group had come from a different direction than Jiang Ran and Ruan Yuqing.

It was clear this place had more than one entrance.

The spot where Jiang Ran and Ruan Yuqing had descended was the original tomb raiders' tunnel, the earliest entrance here.

Tang Huayi and the others, however, had entered from a different location.

Hearing Jiang Ran's question, Tang Huayi didn't hide anything and pointed back the way they had come.

"There's a hidden passage over there."

Jiang Ran nodded slightly.

"In that case, let's capture this old man and get out."

The hunched old man was now standing on the chains of the sword array.

He first looked at Jiang Ran, then at Tang Huayi and the others not far away.

His expression turned extremely ugly.

A wolf before him, a tiger behind him. He was caught in the middle, in an impossible situation.

Before, with his bizarre skills, he might have been able to escape from this crowd.

But the palm strike he had just exchanged with Jiang Ran, while it looked like nothing, had actually left him seriously injured.

Now, wanting to escape was next to impossible.

He clutched Zhi'Er in his arms, glanced left and right, and was suddenly overcome with sorrow.

"Why must it be like this?"

"You… why do you treat me like this?"

"I… I just want to save my son… You… can't you just let me go?"

His voice was so grief-stricken it could truly stir one's heart.

But as soon as he said this, Ning Jiuyuan was the first to roar in anger:

"You want to save your son, so why did you have to harm my junior brother!?"

"Oh?"

Jiang Ran glanced at the old man.

"I, I… I didn't mean to."

The old man shook his head repeatedly.

"I had no choice! I need to refine Grief. Only Grief can save my son's life."

"But… but this 'Grief of the Ages' is too difficult!"

"Not only is the method of creating the medicine as hard as ascending to heaven, but the 'medicinal ingredients' are also precious and hard to find."

"One must endure both physical and mental torment and survive multiple deadly tribulations to transform into Grief."

"When I first obtained this method, I used the Secret Technique recorded on the swords to refine Grief, but I never expected to destroy Lord Wan's head in the process!"

"Seeing this, my wife did not hesitate to offer her own body as an ingredient, refining herself into Grief."

"All these years, I've been practicing this art, but… but I just can't seem to master it."

"I've cut off human heads to study them closely, but I've made no progress."

"But I have to save my son."

"Even if… even if some people have to die, even if I have to kill some people, as long as I can save him, I'll do anything!"

"I'd even refine myself into Grief!!"

The man was still speaking incoherently.

A short while ago, he had said that because the people from the Astronomical Bureau had flayed his wife, he had slaughtered all of them.

Now, his wife had apparently offered her body as an ingredient.

Jiang Ran could see clearly that the old man didn't seem to be lying with any of his words.

But if everything he said was true, there could only be one explanation…

"I'm afraid he's long been insane."

Jiang Ran shook his head gently.

His mind was fractured into countless, chaotic pieces, each generating its own memories based on his assumptions.

The obsession with 'saving his son' was the only thing holding him together, propping him up to this very day.

'What could such a person be, if not a madman?'

With this thought, Jiang Ran wasted no more time. He pulled Ruan Yuqing along, and in a flash, they were on the net-like array, preparing to capture the old man.

Seeing Jiang Ran approach, the old man's gaze suddenly changed.

With a strange cry, he turned and fled.

His cry was surprisingly filled with joy.

It was as if Jiang Ran wasn't there to catch him, but simply to play a game with him.

This man had been entrenched here for many years and knew the array on the net like the back of his hand.

Although Jiang Ran could move freely through the array, his understanding of it was far inferior.

With the old man now sprinting across the array's net, even though Jiang Ran's Lightweight Technique and Inner Energy were far superior, he couldn't catch him in just a few moments.

But he didn't need to. Given the old man's current position, no matter how skilled he was, he would ultimately have no choice but to retreat toward Tang Huayi and the others.

Therefore, Jiang Ran only needed to force him in that direction, and his task would be complete.

The old man ran and leaped across the net, sometimes looking back at Jiang Ran, sometimes glancing toward Tang Huayi's group.

In a daze, his body suddenly froze.

He stopped running, stopped leaping, and stared at his own hands in confusion.

"What am I doing?"

"Where is this place?"

He looked around with vacant eyes. When the swords came into view, he seemed to have a sudden realization.

"So it's here! Jiaqi, we found it! We found it!!"

At this, he quickly looked around as if searching for someone.

But as far as he could see, the person he was thinking of was nowhere to be found.

The old man's eyes immediately filled with bewilderment.

A moment later, he began to laugh, a low and deep chuckle.

"So that's how it is… So that's how it is!!"

Suddenly, he reached up and grabbed his own head.

After fumbling around a certain spot for a moment, he yanked hard… A silver needle, about half a foot long, was brutally pulled out.

"That's!?"

The sight immediately made Ning Jiuyuan think of the silver needles that had been stuck in Feng Wu's head.

"He was this ruthless even to himself?"

"He really is insane."

Dao Wuming sighed softly, feeling that what Jiang Ran had said earlier was spot on.

The man's previous behavior wasn't due to superb acting, but because he was, in fact, a madman.