The Last Straw

With Qingyang County Territory's magistrate Zhou Qingyuan threatening them, Xie Rongxuan, head of the Ranked Family Xie Family, Li Jiaheng, head of the Ranked Family Li Family, and Sun Mingrui, head of the Ranked Family Sun Family, knelt on the ground and gave Zhou Qingyuan and the others a full account of the crimes they had committed with Yang Shouming, head of the Ranked Family Yang Family, Zhang Wenhai, head of the Ranked Family Zhang Family, and Wang Renhua, head of the Ranked Family Wang Family.

As Zhou Qingyuan heard more and more of the crimes the three men confessed, his expression grew darker.

He had never imagined that, right under his nose, the heads of the Six Ranked Families had acted with such ruthless malice.

As the magistrate of Qingyang County Territory, Zhou Qingyuan was responsible for its people. But he knew he could not remain there forever. With his career in mind, he had initially taken a hands-off approach. Whenever the head of a Ranked Family or a Lesser Cultivation Family came to him for help with some matter, he never refused and did what he could to help the family prosper.

Later, as the demands from those family heads grew increasingly excessive, Zhou Qingyuan abandoned that approach. He began choosing to help only families that could benefit his career.

Zhou Qingyuan knew the Six Ranked Families must have done things they wanted kept in the dark. But he had never imagined that, to protect their rank and power, they would violate the laws of the Great Yu Immortal Dynasty and conspire with the fugitive Sun-Extinguishing Elder to kill Meng Jingshan, head of the Ninth-Rank Cultivation Family Xinghua Village Meng Family, in broad daylight on a street in Qingyang County Territory. No county could tolerate such a thing.