Fifty Years of Storms and Vicissitudes

What a racket!

Zhao Sheng's clothes suddenly billowed though there was no wind. The powerful aura of a warrior at the pinnacle of Innate Grandmaster erupted without warning, instantly "drowning" the entire Main Hall like a raging sea.

At that instant, even the air seemed to freeze solid.

Blood Sabre Old Ancestor, who bore the brunt of it, abruptly bulged his eyes. All he could see was blood-red, while boundless killing intent surged toward him.

For one brief moment, he felt his limbs turn icy and stiff. A thread of chill seeped from his neck, and he seemed to smell blood.

The next instant, Chang Meng suddenly felt the world spin. His line of sight shot sharply upward, only to plummet down again. Then, within his vision, there appeared an additional headless corpse clad in a scarlet robe.

It looks so familiar. Who is it? It seems to be—

The next moment, he abruptly fell into endless darkness. Yet with the last sliver of his consciousness, Chang Meng suddenly remembered. ...It seemed to be me!

Yet in everyone else's eyes, they only saw Blood Sabre Old Ancestor's head suddenly fall from his neck without warning the moment Zhao Sheng uttered the words "What a racket!"

However, someone had seen Zhao Sheng's entire attack.

That person was the old Daoist on Chang Meng's side.

He had personally seen an unimaginably swift streak of blue light fly from the drooping sleeve of the one-armed elder, instantly slicing across Blood Sabre Old Ancestor's neck as effortlessly as a knife cutting through a watermelon.

Moreover, he had not sensed the slightest fluctuation of spiritual energy.

But that only made it even more terrifying!

"Senior, spare my life!" The old Daoist suddenly dropped to his knees with a thud, repeatedly kowtowing to Zhao Sheng and begging for mercy.

Seeing Blood Sabre Old Ancestor dealt with so easily, the Zhao Family elders were overjoyed. Their gazes toward Zhao Sheng brimmed with reverence and closeness.

At this point, Zhao Sheng quickly calmed down from his anger.

His expression was tranquil, as though he had just done something utterly insignificant.

In truth, it really was insignificant.

Over the years, Zhao Sheng had killed more than two dozen Qi Refinement cultivators. What was a mere Innate Grandmaster worth mentioning?

Zhao Sheng ignored the old Daoist and instead looked toward Zhao Zhijing.

Zhao Zhijing coughed and said to the old Daoist, "Explain everything clearly, and you may live. If you conceal anything, this old man will make you wish you were dead!"

The old Daoist was overjoyed at this and immediately spilled every last detail of the entire affair.

It turned out that three months ago, the Black Ice Platform of the Liang Kingdom had suddenly issued a secret bounty mission. The mission was to "invite" the Zhao Family's Third Young Master, Zhao Yujie, to Qingfeng City, the capital of the Liang Kingdom.

Blood Sabre Old Ancestor Chang Meng was not only a major figure in the Jianghu, but also secretly a gold-ranked guest official of the Black Ice Platform.

Coveting the generous reward, he had rushed to accept the mission first.

However, after Chang Meng arrived in Nanyang City, he had been unable to find any trace of Zhao Yujie. That was why he had used the pretense of taking a disciple to lure Zhao Yujie out.

"...So we merely wished to invite your family's Third Young Master on a trip to Qingfeng City. We truly meant no harm. I beg Senior to show mercy and spare this little Daoist's life." After speaking, the old Daoist looked eagerly at Zhao Sheng.

After learning the whole story, Zhao Zhijing's expression shifted uncertainly, as though he had something difficult to decide.

Meanwhile, Zhao Xuanyi and the four elders suddenly wore looks of realization.

So that was it!

"It seems that Eastern Mausoleum Duke still refuses to give up. Our Zhao Family has rejected him time and again, yet he still wishes to forcibly take Yujie in as a live-in son-in-law. It is simply beyond reason!" one elder said indignantly.

Zhao Xuanyi, however, wore a bitter smile.

Eastern Mausoleum Duke was a collateral branch of the Liang Family, the Liang Kingdom's imperial clan, and the Liang Family was itself a Foundation Establishment Cultivation Family.

The reason Eastern Mausoleum Duke was so persistent was likely not merely to recruit a son-in-law. More likely, he intended to use Jie'er as a breeding tool.

The elders did not know the inside story, which was why they could not understand Eastern Mausoleum Duke's madness.

One had to know that a cultivator's descendants did not necessarily possess spiritual roots; most were ordinary mortals. Moreover, the rate at which spiritual roots appeared would rapidly decline generation after generation.

If five consecutive generations of descendants lacked spiritual roots, it meant that no descendants with spiritual roots could ever be born again.

Eastern Mausoleum Duke's family was now facing precisely such an extremely dire predicament.

At this point, Zhao Zhijing had already made his decision.

He ordered, "Xuan Yong, Xuan Xin, take this man away and interrogate him thoroughly once more. See whether any details have been omitted. Xuan Hua and Xuan Wei, take some men and clean this place up."

"Yes, Third Granduncle." The four Zhao Family elders immediately bowed in acknowledgment.

After speaking, Zhao Zhijing turned to Zhao Sheng and invited, "Old Ninth, shall we brothers have a talk in the inner study?"

Zhao Sheng nodded with a solemn expression.

Zhao Zhijing then looked at Zhao Xuanyi. "Xuanyi, come with us as well. You've worked hard all these years."

Two hours later, after Zhao Sheng had heard of all the storms and hardships the Zhao Family had endured over the years, he felt both sorrowful and deeply moved.

For the sake of their family, the Zhao Family had suffered grievous losses.

Back then, after Zhao Sheng's family scattered and fled, the then-family head, Zhao Hexing, suddenly killed every person who knew of it with his own hands. He then ordered the clansmen to scatter and hide before finally slitting his own throat. His death had been truly heroic.

Sure enough, the Zhou Family tracked them down merely a day later. However, every informed person who knew Zhao Sheng's family had escaped was already dead.

Unable to find any clues, the Zhou Family members flew into a murderous frenzy and began slaughtering people throughout the Zhao Family.

By the time the Zhou Family left, the Ren, Li, and Yi branches of the Zhao Family had suffered devastating casualties, and more than half of the direct-line descendants had died.

The Zhao Family had been grievously weakened and had no choice but to shrink its sphere of influence, lying low and licking its wounds.

Only thirty years later, when Zhao Zhijing advanced to Innate, did the Zhao Family finally recover its strength.

Over the decades, among Zhao Sheng's seven children, only his eldest son, Zhao Chenggong, returned to the Zhao Family with his wife and children ten years later.

And his son was Zhao Xuanyi.

When Zhao Xuanyi knelt before Zhao Sheng and kowtowed, Zhao Sheng was overwhelmed by both grief and joy, his emotions incomparably complicated.

His eldest son, Zhao Chenggong, ultimately had not lived to see his return. He had passed away three years ago.

Still, Zhao Chenggong had been fortunate. At the very least, he could be buried in the Ancestral Land. Cheng Feng, Cheng Zhao, and the other six, on the other hand, had remained utterly without news all these years. No one knew whether they were still alive.

After grandfather and grandson recognized each other, Zhao Sheng briefly recounted the various events on his own side over the past decades.

He did not explain things too clearly, and in certain places, he deliberately remained vague.

It was not that he intended to conceal anything. Rather, he wished to protect the Zhao Family.

Because Zhao Sheng was uncertain whether the Zhou Family had already abandoned their search for his family's whereabouts.

That was also one reason Zhao Sheng had returned to his hometown alone.

Before coming back, he had already prepared himself to commit suicide at any time.

Because the Cultivation World and the mortal world held different notions of time.

A Foundation Establishment cultivator could live for more than two hundred years, while a Pseudo-Core True Person had a lifespan of five hundred years. A Golden Core True Person was comparable to Peng Zu, possessing a lifespan of fully eight hundred years.

Thus, in the eyes of a Cultivation Family, a hundred years was not considered a long time.

Even though Zhao Sheng had spoken vaguely, it was already enough for Zhao Zhijing and Zhao Xuanyi.

The magnificent and mysterious Cultivation World, cultivators who drew talismans, cast spells, and flew on magical artifacts, all manner of unheard-of spirit plants and medicines...

All of it filled the two men with shock, making them envy even more those cultivators who could live for hundreds or thousands of years.