Strongest Scammer: Scamming The World, One Death At A Time-Chapter 140: Telling His Story (castle bonus)

Han Yu opened his mouth, but Wu Huian spoke up first, bowing hastily.

"Elder Nie, please! Junior Brother Han is badly injured and starving! He needs care before anything else!"

Nie Jing hesitated, his gaze sweeping over Han Yu’s filthy, battered appearance.

After a long moment, he nodded sharply. "Very well. We will question him later."

With a gesture, he summoned a few more disciples, and together they helped escort Han Yu straight to the Healing Hall.

There, the healers quickly got to work, checking him from head to toe.

However, their confusion only grew the more they examined him.

Aside from malnourishment and minor external injuries, Han Yu was... perfectly healthy.

More than that, a shocking discovery soon left the healers whispering amongst themselves:

Han Yu had advanced to the Early Stage of the Qi Refining Realm!

And his body had undergone a complete transformation.

It was as if it had been reforged—stronger, tougher, and more resilient than any ordinary cultivator at his level.

The news spread like wildfire among the elders, and within half an hour, several of them gathered in the Healing Hall, each wearing grave, complicated expressions.

Finally, after confirming there were no immediate health risks, Elder Nie Jing stepped forward.

"Han Yu," he said, his voice firm yet not unkind, "you must explain what happened. This is no small matter."

Han Yu had been preparing for this moment.

Calmly, but with enough strain in his voice to seem genuine, he began recounting the story he had woven beforehand:

He told them how, during the mission, he had fallen from the ridge—

how he had clung to a jutting rock halfway down, but eventually lost his grip and plunged into the depths.

He described how his bones broke upon landing, how he became trapped beneath a heavy boulder, barely able to move.

"I thought I would die there," Han Yu said hoarsely, keeping his eyes downcast. "But... somehow, I managed to free myself after days of struggling."

He described how he passed out multiple times from hunger and pain, and how, in his delirium, he stumbled across a strange, glowing fruit deep within the ravine.

"I was starving... desperate..." he said, his voice cracking at just the right moments. "I ate it."

He told them how unbearable pain wracked his body after consuming the fruit, causing him to pass out once more.

When he awoke, he found that he had miraculously healed—and his cultivation had broken through to the Qi Refining Realm.

The process, he claimed, took over a month as his body adapted to the strange energies.

The elders listened intently, exchanging glances of disbelief and awe.

When Elder Nie Jing asked him to describe the fruit, Han Yu smoothly recalled one of the treasures he had seen in the sect’s vaults:

a "Moonlight Restoration Fruit"—a rare treasure said to glow faintly in the dark and possess miraculous healing properties.

Han Yu described it vividly, borrowing the details almost word for word. Thankfully, having spent some time in the vault, he had looked around and memorized the things he had seen there. It was now coming in handy.

The elders conferred among themselves in hushed voices.

Finally, Elder Nie Jing nodded solemnly.

"While it is astonishing, the Spirit Beast Forest and its surrounding regions are known for their hidden dangers—and hidden opportunities. Fate favors the bold."

The fortune and danger of all places within the Ending Spine Moutains were well known to everyone. It wasn’t out of the norm that Han Yu had such an encounter. Though he had also faced mortal danger at the same time, so it was still balanced.

Elder Nie Jing looked at Han Yu with a complicated expression—part suspicion, part wonder.

"You are fortunate beyond words, Han Yu. The heavens have not abandoned you."

The other elders murmured their agreement, though many still wore frowns, their doubts not fully erased.

Han Yu kept his head bowed respectfully, hiding the gleam in his eyes.

Fool them now. Grow stronger later.

He had returned.

He had survived.

And now, he had a second chance.

The elders had gathered again in a closed chamber in the Elder Peak, the air tense with suspicion and curiosity. Han Yu sat before them, head bowed respectfully, wearing some fresh outer court robes that had been provided to him earlier.

Elder Nie Jing leaned forward, fingers steepled together, his sharp gaze boring into Han Yu.

"Han Yu," he said slowly, "your body’s transformation... is excessive. Even the Moonlight Restoration Fruit, legendary as it is, cannot account for such profound change. Your very constitution has been reforged. Your cultivation foundation is unusually solid for one who merely broke through recently."

Another elder, a wrinkled old man with a hawk’s beak of a nose, added, "And surviving alone in the ravine for so long is not something a tenth-stage Body Tempering cultivator could easily do."

A heavy silence fell over the room.

Han Yu closed his eyes briefly, as if gathering painful memories, then let out a deep, weary sigh.

"I understand your doubts, Elders," he said, voice hoarse and full of bitterness. "I find it hard to believe I lived through it too."

He paused just long enough before continuing, as if the words pained him.

"After I consumed the fruit and healed... I thought I could leave. But the ravine was too deep, and my body, while healed, was weak. The injuries, starvation, the trauma... it was too much. I stayed there—stuck—for months."

The elders exchanged glances.

Han Yu clenched his fists tightly, his knuckles turning white.

"I ate whatever I could find. Strange bugs that glowed in the dark, bitter moss that numbed my tongue, black fungi that made me faint for days..." He trembled lightly, and the healers checking his pulse could feel his body’s subtle responses—fear, disgust, horror. Whether they were real or acted, they were convincing.

"I think... I think some of them were poisonous," he said hollowly. "Every time I recovered, I would try to climb. I failed again and again."

The chamber remained dead silent, save for Han Yu’s ragged breathing.