Branch Family Forces Their Way In, Ye Qingwan Coldly Defuses the Situation

The instant the door was smashed open, wood chips splashed across my face.

I did not open my eyes. I merely muttered in my throat and shrank half an inch farther into the corner. The iron chains dragged across the floor with a dull clatter. The footsteps outside were heavy—not the orderly tread of guards, but the chaotic stomping of several people barging in with brute force.

"Where is he?" a shrill voice shouted. "This piece of trash still occupies the eastern courtyard? The ancestors' rules say the Direct Lineage holds the proper seat. Who allowed him to cling to this place and refuse to leave?"

No one answered. Only the wind moaned through the broken window.

I began coughing, my shoulders shaking violently as I mumbled a few indistinct words. "Fire... burned... Mother..."

"Playing mad!" The man kicked over the low stool by the wall. A bowl rolled out, struck the floor, and shattered into several pieces. "Ji Yunhai is clearing this courtyard today, making room for the Third Elder's Medicine Hut! You useless cripple can barely feed yourself. What right do you have to live in the ancestral residence?"

I slowly raised my head and looked vacantly at the group in the doorway. The leader was a young man in a green robe, a cheap jade pendant hanging from his waist, his fleshy face brimming with arrogance. Behind him stood four burly men who looked like hired thugs, clubs in hand as they surveyed the room, already treating it as their own.

"Drag him out." Ji Yunhai waved his hand. "Throw him into the back alley. Let him starve or freeze to death. He is not to come back."

One man stepped forward and grabbed my arm. I struggled along with the motion, then collapsed limply to the floor and rolled over. The cloth strip around my waist was rubbed aside, exposing a corner of the wound. The dark-red bloodstains had dried black, but the flesh at the edges had indeed tightened slightly compared to last night—that was the Pseudo-Primordial Body quietly repairing itself.

I made no attempt to hide it.

The man was about to seize my collar when he suddenly froze.

Footsteps sounded outside.

They were light and steady, falling one step at a time on the stone stairs, rhythmic as a medicine pestle tapping the ground.

Ji Yunhai frowned toward the door. "Who is it?"

A Black Cloak swept over the threshold. When she entered, the light in the room seemed to turn colder.

Ye Qingwan did not look at me. Her gaze fell directly upon Ji Yunhai's face. She gripped a Green Jade Medicine Pestle in one hand, while the other hung within her sleeve, her fingertips pinching lightly.

The earth split apart.

Several vines burst from underground, so fast their paths were nearly impossible to see, coiling around the ankles of the four thugs. Faint patterns floated across the vines' surfaces, as though talismans had been carved into the plants. The instant they tightened, the thugs' expressions changed drastically. It was as if something had blocked the Spiritual Power within their bodies, leaving them unable to summon it.

"Urgh—" One man tried to break free, but the moment he exerted force, his knees went weak beneath him.

Ji Yunhai took a step back. "What are you doing?! A Concubine-born Daughter dares meddle in the affairs of the Direct Lineage? Is this permitted by the Family Rules?"

Ye Qingwan finally spoke. Her voice was not loud, yet it pierced the ears like an ice awl. "This courtyard was assigned by the Ji Clan Elder Council as the residence of a Direct Grandchild. If you want to tear it down, bring the approval document."

"You—"

"Without an approval document, this is forcible occupation." She stepped forward, lightly tapping the medicine pestle against the ground. "Are you planning to violate the Clan Rules, or do you want the entire clan to know that the branch family has begun overstepping its bounds?"

Ji Yunhai's expression shifted again and again. He could tell that these vines were no ordinary wood-element technique. They were living plants refined with medicinal properties. Once they exerted their strength, they could corrode bone and sever meridians. The people he had brought could not withstand them at all.

"Fine, fine!" he gritted out. "You win today. But this courtyard will be cleared sooner or later. We will see who has the last laugh!"

He turned and left after saying that. The four thugs still tried to struggle, but the vines abruptly tightened. They screamed in pain and staggered after him.

The door remained open.

Wind poured in, stirring the ends of Ye Qingwan's hair. She stood where she was without moving. Only after the footsteps outside had completely faded did she slowly turn around.

Her gaze landed on my waist.

There, the cloth strip hung loose, exposing a small section of the wound. Pale golden patterns lay hidden beneath the flesh. If one did not look carefully, one would only mistake them for the gleam of scabs on an old wound. But she had seen them.

She crouched down, moving gently, as though she truly intended to examine the wound.

I suddenly recoiled backward, my back slamming into the wall with a dull thud. Saliva ran from the corner of my mouth as I stared at her with unfocused eyes. "Don't... don't touch me... Mother... save me..."

She stopped.

The medicine pestle trembled faintly within her sleeve.

Then she withdrew her hand and rose to her feet, her voice returning to its previous chill. "This courtyard is not yours to occupy."

After saying that, she left. Her cloak brushed over the threshold, and she did not look back.

I leaned against the wall and took several breaths, still maintaining my trembling act until her footsteps vanished beyond the courtyard.

Only then did I slowly raise my hand and wipe away the saliva at the corner of my mouth.

The crazed expression gradually faded, and the murkiness in my eyes dispersed, leaving behind only clarity.

That look she had given me just now had not been casual. She had recognized something.

The aura of the Remnant Dao? Or traces of the Pseudo-Primordial Body?

I lowered my head and lifted a corner of my trouser leg. On the inside of my calf, the pale golden patterns had extended another inch since last night, like some ancient bloodline awakening. The Heaven-Slaying Origin was still accumulating. Though slow, it had never stopped. The Residual Dao Fragments scattered by last night's Chaos phenomenon still drifted through the air, silently absorbed by the system.

As long as I did not make a move, no one would notice.

But Ye Qingwan was different. She was not merely skilled in medicine. There was something within her that resonated with the hidden fluctuations between heaven and earth. Just as she could smell blood, she could sense the flow of power.

I retied the cloth strip, covering the wound, and lay back down in the pile of straw.

Just as I closed my eyes, there was another disturbance outside.

It was not footsteps.

It was the sound of voices.

"What happened?" a deep voice asked.

"Reporting to Young Master, branch family member Ji Yunhai brought people to clear the courtyard, but he was stopped by a Concubine-born Daughter." It was a guard replying. "That woman used medicinal vines and drove them all away."

A brief silence followed.

Then the voice sounded again. "Ye Qingwan?"

"Yes."

"Hmph." A cold sneer followed. "Quite the unruly dog."

The footsteps receded.

I opened my eyes and stared at the hole in the roof.

Ji Hantian's people had come. Though he had not arrived in person, the news had traveled quickly enough. A minor character like Ji Yunhai had to be acting under someone's orders. Now, it seemed this was not as simple as clearing out a ruined courtyard.

They wanted to force me to act.

Either I would lash out under their oppression and expose that I was not crippled, or I would endure humiliation to survive and become a complete laughingstock.

Unfortunately, they were all wrong.

It was not that I could not act.

It was simply not yet time.

I slowly curled my fingers and pressed them into the dirt beneath me. My fingertips touched a tiny broken vine—one of those Ye Qingwan had summoned earlier, not yet fully withered. It lay quietly in the soil, like a sleeping nerve.

I suddenly recalled the look in her eyes when she had said those words.

"This courtyard is not yours to occupy."

Was she talking about Ji Yunhai—or... someone else?

I closed my eyes, slowed my breathing, and became once more that useless cripple who seemed liable to breathe his last at any moment.

Outside, the morning light gradually brightened.

A crow landed on the courtyard wall, pecked twice at a roof tile, and flew away.

The wound at my waist faintly burned beneath the cloth strip.