When it came to elders beating up the younger generation, Xu Yuan was already used to it.
It was just the way he was. He'd always loved to have fun, and in his previous life, the old man had practically beaten him from childhood to adulthood.
In elementary and middle school, he got into trouble and fights. In high school, he started dating early, and the girl's family came knocking. In college, he fell in love with wilderness trips. He'd head out for a round of fun, and no one at school would see him for over a month.
And every time the old man caught wind of one of these things, Xu Yuan got a vicious beating.
Over time, he'd gotten used to it.
If he couldn't win, couldn't he at least hide?
The world was so big. If he couldn't fight back, couldn't he run?
Whatever happened, they were father and son, after all. Once the old man cooled off, Xu Yuan would say a few nice things and show that he was truly sorry. When his living expenses came through, he'd go right back to having fun.
But in this world, Xu Yuan had discovered that he couldn't even run away.
His cheap big brother could hang him up and beat him.
Literally,
hang him up and beat him.
Hang him up and beat him until he couldn't even speak.
As these thoughts crossed his mind, a piercing eagle's cry suddenly rang beside his ear.
Coming back to himself, Xu Yuan looked at the unfamiliar room before him and shook his head slightly.
After he'd been beaten unconscious, this was the room he'd woken up in.
A faint incense scent filled the antique room, whose furnishings were all simple and elegant.
Looking out through the wooden window beside the bed,
Xu Yuan saw an endless blue sky.
And,
a gigantic eagle's wing with a span of more than ten zhang.
Two days had passed since he'd been beaten. He was now aboard the "plane" back to Jingjiang City.
Unlike the steel behemoths of his previous life, this "plane" was a living creature: a gigantic Mystic Eagle with a wingspan of over twenty zhang. A luxurious pavilion, complete with carved beams and painted rafters, had been built across its broad back.
It was Xu Changge's flying palace, but since Xu Yuan's cultivation was too weak, his big brother had lent it to his youngest brother for the time being.
As for Xu Changge himself,
that big brother of his had been busy with affairs. After hanging Xu Yuan up and beating him, he'd waited for him to wake up, then flown off with the two enormous python heads.
Xu Yuan guessed he'd hurried back to the Imperial Capital to report to their cheap old man.
He'd already spent too much time here in the Wanxing Mountain Range rescuing Xu Yuan. This was a crucial moment, and he had to return to the capital to assist their father.
At the thought, the image of those two enormous python heads flashed through Xu Yuan's mind, and his expression gradually turned odd.
He thought of Ji Fenghua, whose head Xu Changge had chopped off.
Ji Fenghua, a beautiful green-haired big sister from one of the game's character portraits.
A very big, very white big sister.
Still, compared to the death of yet another fictional wife, what puzzled Xu Yuan more was his big brother's strength.
As a mature Seven-Life Python who'd bloomed seven blood lotuses decades ago, Ji Fenghua was incredibly strong—several tiers above Ji Qingyue, the Snake Demon Clan's second princess.
Yet someone like her had died at Xu Changge's hands just like that.
Xu Yuan wasn't doubting Xu Changge's strength. The problem was that, in the many storylines of Cangyuan, Ji Fenghua had fought Xu Changge once.
In the late stages of that storyline, the Strange Demon Kingdom in the west crossed the Hundred Thousand Mountains in the Wanxing Mountain Range and invaded the Great Yan Dynasty.
Outside Jingjiang City, Xu Changge and Ji Fenghua fought a fierce battle.
And that time,
with no one interfering, Xu Changge had lost by a hair.
Badly wounded, Ji Fenghua had transformed into a colossal python that reached the heavens, swallowed him whole, and ended his life.
Anyone with eyes could see that Xu Changge and Ji Fenghua had been evenly matched. You could even say that the outcome had come down to a single thought.
But now, the reality was that
Xu Changge had gone straight to Ji Fenghua's home and chopped off her head.
Considering the circumstances, Xu Changge's nearly uninjured state when he returned, and the other demons watching from nearby in the Ancient Abyss, Xu Changge's strength must have been overwhelmingly superior to Ji Fenghua's.
This power gap, which completely went against the plot and clearly didn't match the original storyline, made Xu Yuan feel faintly uneasy.
Less than ten years had passed. Ji Fenghua didn't have a player's cheat-like leveling system. Even if she'd grown stronger, there was no way she could've improved this much.
What's more, Xu Changge was an undisputed genius, too.
If Ji Fenghua could grow stronger, Xu Changge could as well.
Their power gap might have narrowed because of some special opportunity, but it couldn't have disappeared entirely.
In other words,
Xu Yuan's thoughts stalled for a moment, and an implausible idea surfaced in his mind.
Between the time the Ancient Abyss invaded Great Yan and the events unfolding now,
had his big brother's strength not increased, but actually weakened?
Why?
Xu Yuan couldn't understand.
In Cangyuan, even players watching from an omniscient perspective didn't know everything.
For example, he had no idea how Ran Qingmo, who'd just parted ways with him, had learned that the Prime Minister planned to destroy the Tianyuan Sword Sect.
After all, at this point in the story, only Xu Yuan's cheap old man and a few of his trusted subordinates knew.
When he'd first played Cangyuan, Xu Yuan had guessed that there was a mole among the Prime Minister's subordinates. After all, only those few people knew about it. But as he played through every ending in the game, not one of the Prime Minister's trusted experts had ever been redeemed.
Every last one had remained loyal to the boss to the bitter end.
The development team had dug a pit and left it unfilled, claiming it gave players room to imagine for themselves.
Xu Yuan sighed softly.
Without enough information, any further speculation was pointless. He'd have to find a chance to investigate later.
He stopped letting his thoughts wander and slowly turned his gaze toward the head of his bed.
Before leaving, his big brother had casually tossed him more than a dozen bottles of pills.
He said they were to heal the useless brat's injuries.
He'd better recover quickly, so their father wouldn't blame him for hitting too hard.
Unlike the three supreme-grade pills he'd found in the cave abode, each in its own jade bottle, these bottles each held more than a dozen pills.
Green Forest Pills: speed up the recovery of the Will Soul and temporarily strengthen its ability to sense Source Qi.
Guangling Pills: strengthen the meridians and reinforce the body's foundations—a divine medicine.
Pulse Protection Pills: after taking one, a thin membrane forms along the inner walls of the meridians, allowing the user to circulate their cultivation technique all day and night without worrying about damaging them.
Soul Cleansing Pills: just as the name suggests, they temper the Will Soul.
Mm. "To heal your injuries," his big brother had said. These pills were indeed capable of healing injuries. Pfft.
These pills could easily be called divine medicine for newcomers to cultivation. They covered nearly every problem one might encounter while cultivating.
More importantly,
these pills had no side effects.
In Cangyuan's alchemy system, most pills that helped characters cultivate caused some permanent debuffs after use.
For example, a weakened Will Soul (reduced mana), damaged meridians (more experience needed to level up), or even irreversible organ damage from pills that helped break through a bottleneck (reduced maximum health).
There was only one kind of pill without side effects:
one whose ingredients were worth far more than the pill itself.
In other words, using rare materials from the mid-to-late game to make something a character needed in the early game.
He stared silently at the dozen or so jade bottles for a long time. Then, for some reason, Xu Yuan felt a sudden urge to go over and take another vicious beating.
He immediately came to his senses, let out a quiet laugh, and shook his head.
His big brother really did beat people brutally, but he was just as generous with the good stuff.
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