"Hmph, you treacherous dog! Colluding with outsiders and plotting against your own kin! Do you admit to these charges?"
At those words, Zhao Chongxiao's pupils contracted. The smile on his face instantly froze, and his heart filled with shock and terror.
Within a Cultivation Family, colluding with outsiders to harm one's own kin was an unforgivable crime. Anyone who committed such an offense would consider execution the lesser punishment; the truly terrifying part was being unable to live or die as one wished.
"Second Grandfather, what are you talking about? Why is your grandson so confused by what he hears?" Zhao Chongxiao still clung to a sliver of hope, putting on a bewildered and helpless expression.
Seeing that he still refused to give up hope, Zhao Sheng stepped forward and laid out the evidence. "Tell me, was this year's Qixia Gathering on the first day of the seventh month, or the fifteenth? And why did you have Shadowless Insect powder left on my shoulder?"
The instant Zhao Chongxiao heard this, the expression on his face collapsed.
With a thud, he dropped to his knees. In the blink of an eye, he was crying his eyes out.
At the same time, he hugged Zhao Jinding's thigh and cried out his grievance through tears and snot. "Second Grandfather, I was forced into it! I didn't want to do this either! But they planted a Rotten Blood Gu in me. If I failed to do as they ordered, the gu would flare up, and I would ultimately melt into a pool of rotten blood."
Zhao Jinding kicked him away and demanded harshly, "Who are they? Why did they make you do this? Tell us everything you know!"
Zhao Chongxiao scrambled up, knelt properly again, and said with a face full of fear, "Your