As Su Chen's voice fell, the scene before the listeners' eyes shifted in an instant to the entrance of the village.
They saw the willow tree swaying in the wind suddenly glow with a layer of soft, shimmering green light.
"Though the Willow Tree was damaged, it only had to unfurl a single tender green branch to send the Green-Scaled Eagle flying."
The next second, a sight that everyone in Listening Rain Pavilion would remember for the rest of their lives appeared.
With a light flick of that seemingly frail willow branch, the Green-Scaled Eagle had no room to resist at all. It was sent flying on the spot.
At that moment, though they were still inside the illusion, countless people in Listening Rain Pavilion couldn't help drawing in a sharp breath, their scalps prickling.
With just one willow branch, a casual flick had sent the descendant of a Primordial Demonic Bird—one comparable to a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast—flying more than ten miles?
How was that possible!
Yet Su Chen's tale wasn't over.
"After sending the Green-Scaled Eagle flying with a single strike, the Willow Deity didn't stop."
"That willow branch, shimmering with green light, stretched slowly toward the broken bird's egg like a nimble jade-green dragon."
They saw a drop of crystal-clear liquid fall from the tip of the branch and land inside the cracked eggshell.
Then, a miracle happened.
Before everyone's disbelieving eyes, the bird's egg—which had been cracked and drained of life—mended in an instant.
An ancient purple light shone from within the eggshell!
"A single drop of the Willow Deity's divine liquid not only saved the dying eaglet, but also awakened the faint trace of Primordial blood in its body, causing an incredible return to its ancestral form!"
"It shed its original green scales and grew purple divine feathers, transforming into a young bird with an exceptionally pure bloodline!"
"This was the Willow Deity!"
As the words "Willow Deity" fell, Su Chen snapped his fingers and dispelled the Immersive Experience illusion.
The tables and chairs in the main hall returned to everyone's sight.
Many people had fine beads of sweat covering their foreheads. Some were still frozen in the rigid poses they'd struck to dodge the Green-Scaled Eagle's attack.
After a brief silence, a murmur of discussion gradually filled the hall.
"A willow branch sends a giant bird flying, then brings it back from the dead?"
A middle-aged Spirit Master in luxurious clothes wiped the cold sweat from his brow and shook his head with a sneer.
"Mr. Su, that's a bit too far-fetched."
"In the end, wasn't it just a Plant-type Soul Beast?"
"On Douluo Continent, Plant-type Soul Beasts are already at the bottom of the food chain."
"The best healers are, at most, top-tier support Martial Souls or Soul Beasts like the Nine Heart Begonia."
"Even if it lived for a hundred thousand years, at most it would have a little more vitality."
"How could it give that egg some ancestral bloodline? That's complete nonsense."
"Exactly." Another Spirit Master beside him chimed in.
"A broken tree, struck by lightning and reduced to a stump, was just clinging to life."
"Sending that Green-Scaled Eagle flying probably used up the last bit of Soul Power it had left, right?"
In their impoverished understanding, plants were plants, and support was support.
The laws of the Great Dao, divine radiance and creation—those were things they neither understood nor wanted to believe in.
They were willing only to apply the theories of Douluo Continent to Perfect World.
And just as the listeners on the first floor scoffed at the Willow Deity and even thought Su Chen had exaggerated, in one of the luxurious private rooms on the second floor—
Ning Rongrong, the little demoness of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, who had arrived only a short while ago, was idly twirling the braid that hung over her chest.
Standing beside her was an exceptionally tall old man.
He was none other than Bone Douluo, Gu Rong, one of the other pillars of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect.
Gu Rong had naturally experienced the lifelike illusion just now.
As he watched Su Chen on the platform below, the Titled Douluo's eyes were filled with admiration.
"This Su Chen is truly extraordinary."
After murmuring softly, Gu Rong turned to Ning Rongrong and said,
"Rongrong, look at that little boy in the story, Shi Hao."
"He's only three and a half, yet he didn't cry or make a fuss in the face of such a vicious bird. He even dared to fight back with a boulder."
"His courage and character are truly rare. He's a fine piece of uncut jade."
"If he were on Douluo Continent and received proper guidance, he'd surely achieve great things one day."
Hearing Bone Douluo praise a wild child from a story so highly made Ning Rongrong, who had been pampered since childhood and treated like the sect's little princess, instantly bristle.
Her young-lady temper flared. Without the slightest attempt to hide her voice, she spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear from the second-floor private room.
"Grandpa Bone, aren't you giving him too much credit?"
"What fine piece of uncut jade? He's just a poor wretch from some backwater mountain village, drinking foul-smelling beast milk and wearing scraps of animal hide."
With that, Ning Rongrong stood and walked to the railing, looking down at the hall with the haughty eyes of someone born above everyone else.
"People like him are nothing but ignorant commoners, born with the lowly lot of the poor."
"Courage? That's just barbaric recklessness!"
"What if he's strong? In the Tiandou Empire, lowborn commoners like him are only fit to labor for nobles or serve as slaves."
"Comparing him to those of us with noble bloodlines and top-tier Martial Souls? That would be an insult to our eyes."
What was most outrageous was that, even though Ning Rongrong's sharp, vicious words laid bare the rigid class system, hardly anyone took offense.
In fact, many nobles and sect disciples in the hall nodded in agreement.
"This young lady is right."
"A wild child who can't even afford decent clothes—how can he be called the chosen one?"
"Exactly. Like begets like; dragons have dragons, and phoenixes have phoenixes."
"A commoner from some remote village might be strong, but he's still fated to struggle at the bottom all his life, a lowborn nobody."
Listening to the grating agreement around him and seeing Ning Rongrong's air of superiority, Su Chen, atop the platform, stopped moving the folding fan he'd been waving leisurely.
He slowly raised his head and looked past the crowd toward Ning Rongrong in the second-floor room, dressed in a gorgeous gown and wearing a spoiled expression.
"Lowborn lot?"
Su Chen repeated those words under his breath, then let out a cold laugh.
It wasn't loud, but everyone heard it clearly.
"What are you laughing at?" Ning Rongrong furrowed her brow, feeling that her authority had been challenged. She immediately snapped at him.
"I'm laughing at you ignorant frogs in a well. Your vision is narrow, and your foolishness is astounding."
As he spoke, Su Chen closed his folding fan and stood up.
He didn't look at Ning Rongrong. Instead, he swept his gaze across the self-proclaimed nobility of Douluo Continent.
"You think that because he lives in the dilapidated Stone Village and grew up drinking beast milk, he's a lowborn commoner?"
"You think that because you have noble titles and belong to sects in this tiny corner of the world, you're nobler than him—and that you can look down on him and call him lowborn?"
As he spoke, Su Chen turned and fixed Ning Rongrong with a piercing stare.
"Little girl, you pride yourself on your noble blood."
"Then let me tell you today: when it comes to heritage and bloodline—"
"Your so-called Upper Three Sects and that so-called Heaven Dou Imperial Family aren't worthy of lacing his boots!"
Su Chen's words were no different from pointing at the most powerful forces on the continent and cursing them to their faces!
The entire hall erupted in an uproar. Even Bone Douluo's eyes turned cold, and the pressure of a Titled Douluo seeped out around him.
But Su Chen paid none of it any mind. He raised the wooden clapper in his hand and slammed it down hard on the table.
Bang!!!
The thunderous crash forcibly suppressed the uproar.
"Do you really think Shi Hao was born an ordinary abandoned infant in the Great Wilderness village of Stone Village?"
"He wasn't a commoner."
"He was born in the imperial capital of the most powerful ancient kingdom in the Desolate Region—the Martial King Manor!"
"He was favored by the laws of the world from the moment of his birth. His body not only carried the Martial King Manor's purest, invincible bloodline; it also gave birth to a Supreme Bone!"
Su Chen's words came faster and faster, echoing in everyone's ears long after he spoke.
"He should have been the brightest sun in the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths, an unrivaled Supreme destined to sweep across the ages and rule an entire era!"
"With a birth and talent like his, forget you ordinary mortals—even the gods in the heavens would have to bow their heads before him."
At that, everyone fell completely silent.
Born with a Supreme Bone? An unrivaled Supreme destined to sweep across the ages?
They didn't know what it meant, but it sounded extraordinary.
At last, someone in the crowd couldn't help swallowing and asked in a trembling voice,
"Sir, if he was so noble, why did he become a dying wild child, abandoned in Stone Village?"
"And why did the young couple you mentioned earlier leave him behind?"
Hearing the question, Su Chen slowly closed his eyes, as if recalling something.
"Because the most vicious thing in this world is often not a vicious beast's claws, but the human heart!"
"When he was still swaddled and couldn't yet speak—"
"His Supreme Bone was taken by his own clan's aunt, who wanted to pave the way for her son. She used the cruelest methods to—"
"Rip it right out of him!!!"
"His Supreme Bone was gone, his origin drained, his life force extinguished!"
"From high above the clouds, he was cast down into the mud by his own kin!"
"Now, you crawling insects who only know how to throw your family's power around—would you still point at a born Supreme like him and call him lowborn?"
Su Chen's roar landed like a thousand jun, each word sending chills down the crowd's spines.
At the same time, they could barely process what Su Chen had just told them.
His clan's aunt had ripped out his Supreme Bone?
Good heavens—how could anyone be so vicious?
As Su Chen finished his tale, Listening Rain Pavilion erupted into chaos.
"Beast! She's worse than a beast!"
A burly Spirit Master with a thick beard slammed his hand on the table. The teacups on it shattered to the floor with a clatter.
"He was her own nephew!"
"Even if he'd been a stranger, how could anyone bring themselves to do something so vicious to a baby who was still swaddled and couldn't even speak?!"
"Ripping out his Supreme Bone alive—such a cruel, inhuman act! Even the most evil Spirit Masters on Douluo Continent would feel ashamed of themselves after hearing it!"
"How pitiful. No wonder Little One was left in that remote, impoverished place called Stone Village, his origin drained and his life force gone."
"So he fell from such a lofty place! Anyone would go mad after suffering that, let alone a child!"
In the hall, commoner Spirit Masters and sect disciples who usually thought highly of themselves alike were furious after hearing this horrifically cruel past.
Even those with hearts of stone couldn't help feeling a pang of sorrow for the child called Little One.
To be betrayed by one's own kin and have one's talent cruelly stripped away—such pain was worse than death.
Yet as everyone condemned the vicious aunt and pitied Little One, an elderly Soul Saint with a full head of white hair—judging by his clothes, he belonged to some mid-sized sect—suddenly seemed to realize something.
"W-wait!"
The old man drew in a sharp breath and asked in a trembling voice, "Mr. Su!"
"You said Little One's Supreme Bone was taken, leaving his origin drained and his life force extinguished?"
Standing on the platform, Su Chen tapped his palm lightly with his folding fan and nodded calmly. "That's right."
"Hiss!"
Hearing Su Chen confirm it, the old man staggered back two steps. He stared at Su Chen as if he'd seen a ghost and said in a trembling voice, "But that doesn't make sense! If his origin was drained, how could he have survived?"
"Not only did he survive, but you clearly said earlier that Little One was only three and a half in Stone Village, yet a single swing of his arm carried a hundred thousand jin of strength!"
"If he still had his Supreme Bone, that would be one thing—but without it, how could he do that?"
At the old man's words, everyone who had been lost in anger and sympathy realized the same thing.
That was right!
He'd lost his Supreme Bone, stripped of all his fortune and life force. By any ordinary reasoning, wouldn't that leave him a cripple, weaker than even an ordinary person? He might even die at any moment!
And yet Little One was lively and full of energy, with a hundred thousand jin of strength in a single swing!
Without his Supreme Bone, how could he still possess a terrifying physique comparable to a Hundred-Thousand-Year strength-type Soul Beast?
Looking at the shocked, disbelieving eyes below, Su Chen began to explain without a trace of panic.
"Who told you that losing the Supreme Bone meant he was destined to become a cripple?"
"The Supreme is not the Supreme because of a single bone!"
"True invincibility has never depended on an external object. It comes from within!"
"Even after losing everything, even if he had to start over, he could still rely on his own flesh and blood to climb step by step to the summit and break the shackles of heaven and earth!"
"So what if his Supreme Bone was taken?"
"A mere hundred thousand jin of strength was only the first step in his rebirth through the fires of nirvana!"
Before you continue