Who Would Care About an Ant Crushed Underfoot

"Which one of you has no eyes?"

"Can't you see the Ye Clan is conducting business? Get lost if you don't want to die!"

Ye Li barked without looking back, his right palm whipping behind him, wrapped in a Gale Wind that tore through the air.

His Fourth Realm cultivation erupted with full force, the edge of his palm even shimmering with a blood-red Evil Aura—this was the Ye Clan's secret Heart-Shattering Palm, which had once shattered the heart meridians of a fellow cultivator of the same realm on the spot.

However—

Snap!

The savage grin on Ye Li's face froze instantly.

He heard the crisp sound of his own bones shattering, starting from his fingertips and traveling upward.

The cracking sound did not cease; like a string of firecrackers, it traveled up his arm, and in an instant, the flesh and bone of his entire right arm were crushed into powder by some terrifying force.

Ye Li didn't even have time to scream before a hand covered in Black Iron Scale Armor clamped onto his throat, hoisting his two-hundred-pound frame into the air as if he were a chick.

His legs kicked instinctively in the air, his left hand clawing frantically at that iron-pincer-like grip.

Yet, his palm, which usually possessed the strength to split stone monuments, felt like it was merely tickling the opponent, failing to leave even a single scratch on the scale armor.

Seeing this, the Ye Clan cultivators were about to intervene when the entire world suddenly plummeted.

"BOOM—"

An invisible pressure crashed down like the heavens collapsing, and the bluestone slabs of the long street instantly exploded into countless fragments.

The members of the Ye Clan, along with the surrounding cultivators who were watching, were struck as if by lightning, their bodies slamming uncontrollably into the ground.

Blood mist erupted from their shattered knees, and their faces were scraped raw against the stone slabs.

The entire marketplace fell into a deathly silence, with only the sound of joints breaking echoing one after another.

"M-Mercy, my lord!" Ye Li realized something was wrong and began to beg. His face was purple and bloated from the grip, yet he still desperately squeezed out pleas for mercy. "It was this lowly one who failed to recognize a titan..."

At this moment, he no longer possessed his earlier arrogance, only fear and wretchedness.

The plea for mercy fell, but the guard's expression remained as cold as ice.

His gaze merely swept past Qin Wangchuan—

The five-year-old child was looking elsewhere, not even sparing a glance.

Seeing this, the guard immediately tightened his five fingers.

"CRACK!"

Ye Li's neck was crushed, and he died in agony.

Blood gushed from his seven orifices, yet under the overwhelming pressure filling the air, it eerily suspended in mid-air, transforming into a sky full of blood droplets.

In the final instant before his consciousness dissipated, he was still thinking: Is this an assassination attempt against me? Or an attack on the Ye Clan?

But the next second, Ye Li's unfocused pupils suddenly contracted violently.

In his blurred vision, a five-year-old child stood indifferently before the Little Blind Girl, while another Black Armor Guard stood respectfully behind him.

So... that's how it is...

Only then did he understand—this peerless expert who had crushed him with a casual gesture was merely a subordinate to this Young Master.

It wasn't a vendetta, nor was it an attack.

It was simply an expert passing by who had accidentally stepped on a clamoring ant.

"Who... who exactly are you people?!" The Ye Clan guard kneeling on the ground shouted, his voice trembling as he struggled desperately to resist. "My Ye Clan has a Quasi-Saint Old Ancestor guarding it!"

A Quasi-Saint could barely be considered a great power in the Upper Thousand Provinces.

Advancing further to become a Saint would allow one to establish a Holy Land and recruit disciples far and wide.

He had hoped that bringing this up would provide at least some deterrence, but he seemed to have forgotten—

This was the Ten Directions Immortal Court.

The two seemingly ordinary guards before him, along with the numerous Shadow Guards behind them, were all at the Twenty-First Realm: the Quasi-Emperor Realm.

If it weren't for the fact that the Great Emperor Dharma Body was inconvenient to move.

The guards escorting Qin Wangchuan would not be at the Twenty-First Realm, but the Twenty-Second Realm: the Great Emperor Realm!

It wasn't that the Quasi-Saint was too weak, but that the Qin Clan was too strong!

Qin Wangchuan's expression remained calm as he finally spoke: "Leave none alive."

Perhaps because his voice was still childish, or perhaps because it was simply his nature.

He spoke softly, but to the ears of his enemies, it sounded like the voice of hell.

"A Quasi-Saint Old Ancestor?" Upon receiving the order, the guard turned to look at the man, a mocking curve appearing at the corner of his mouth.

He slowly raised his hand and flicked his finger nonchalantly—

"Pfft!"

The Ye Clan guard who had spoken didn't even have time to scream before his head exploded, his remaining body collapsing into the pool of blood like a pile of mud.

"A mere Quasi-Saint isn't even fit to tie my Young Master's shoes!" another guard sneered. "Even a Saint or a Great Saint is nothing more than a slightly larger ant."

With a thought, he acted.

The dozen or so guards of the Ye Clan suddenly collapsed as if all the strength had been drained from their bodies.

Though their physical bodies appeared unharmed, their souls had been extinguished in an instant, leaving them without even the chance to reincarnate.

If not for the sake of His Highness the Young Master, these men wouldn't even have intact corpses; they would have been reduced directly into mists of blood.

The people lying on the ground in the marketplace trembled at the sight, hurriedly pressing their heads against the dirt and beginning to pray.

Too strong!

This wasn't just a gap in strength; it was a crushing defeat across different dimensions!

"Next is..." Qin Wangchuan said, his gaze falling upon the girl still kneeling on the ground.

Although Ye Jianwei could not see, she could hear the crisp sound of bones breaking and smell the heavy scent of blood.

She bit her lower lip hard. The words "I'll buy you" were clearly within earshot, yet she feared it was merely another auditory hallucination.

Just like those nights when she was starving, she would always hear her mother's call.

She hoped it wasn't a hallucination.

Because if it were real, she would have the money to bury her mother.

Intelligent from a young age, how could Ye Jianwei not know that these people before her were likely from a completely different world than her own?

But she had no choice.

"Please, please buy me!" Almost instinctively, Ye Jianwei lunged forward and knelt. "Five hundred Spirit Stones is all I need! For five years... no, ten years is fine too! I am very capable!"

Her trembling voice carried a desperate, all-or-nothing tone, like someone drowning grasping at a final piece of driftwood.

Qin Wangchuan stood silently before the straw mat, the hem of his black brocade robe brushing against its edge.

He watched this blind girl, who would one day become the Zither Heavenly Emperor, kneeling on the ground like a beggar.

Beneath the straw mat beside her, half a finger was exposed—the final resting place of her mother.

As Ye Jianwei's forehead touched the ground, she suddenly caught a whiff of a crisp, cedar scent.

It carried no trace of perfume, clean as fresh snow in a mountain stream, yet it inexplicably brought a long-lost warmth to her limbs, which had been cold for years.

She liked this scent very much.

Just as she was thinking this, a dull thud suddenly echoed in her ears as a bag hit the ground—

Qin Wangchuan raised a hand, and the two guards behind him understood, tossing down bag after bag of Spirit Crystals.

"These are Spirit Crystals, several times more valuable than Spirit Stones. They'll buy your entire life."

The young man's voice was pleasant, like a clear spring or morning dew.

At the same time, it brought with it an unreal, dreamlike quality.

Ye Jianwei's fingertips trembled slightly. When she touched the heavy bag of Spirit Crystals, she recoiled as if burned.

"Y-Young Master..." Her voice was hoarse, her fingers unconsciously clutching the hem of her clothes. "I... I am not worth this much."

She had heard of Spirit Crystals before; they were things that even the head of the Ye Clan would covet.

If it were anyone else, they would likely be ecstatic right now.

But she only felt a sense of panic—

A blind girl who lacked the strength to even bury her mother's remains, how could she possibly be worthy of such generous treatment?

With mud-stained fingertips, she gently pushed the bag of Spirit Crystals back. She lowered her head, her voice so soft it nearly vanished into the wind: "I don't want the Spirit Crystals. Just... just help me bury my mother, and give me one meal a day from now on. My life... will be yours."