Shen Shouxing's eyes gleamed. "That's right. I'm a member of the family, a true power-holding elder, but I'm also only an ordinary cultivator. Other people's lives and deaths are beyond my control, and I have no ability to control them.
"I only wanted to climb higher, to walk my own path a little better, and to pave a great road to immortality for my descendants, so they could step on my back and climb upward, one step at a time...
"But if one wants to climb upward, one must inevitably pay a price."
"The independent cultivators of Lone Mountain were that price."
"Without those independent cultivators, how could the family have risen? How could it have become the greatest clan in Qiandao Sect today? Where would all this prosperity have come from? Once their value had been drained dry, there was no need to keep them."
"It was inevitable...
"If I didn't kill them, others would naturally have killed them. That was their fate. No one could change it... That was their fate..."
Shen Shouxing's emotions visibly fluctuated.
These words seemed to have been buried in his heart for a long time. Over all these years, he had kept his lips sealed and never mentioned them to anyone. Now that everything had been exposed, he could no longer hold back, releasing the feelings he had imprisoned for so many years.
Yet at the same time, darkness flowed through his eyes. His Divine Thought was clearly trembling, and his aura was gradually changing. Mo Hua found it strange and could not help furrowing his brow slightly.
After Shen Shouxing finished speaking, Xun Ziyou and the others also fell silent.
There was one thing he had said that was true. If Shen Shouxing had not killed these people, other family cultivators—or even