From the high platform, Su Chen's voice continued, painting a heart-wrenching picture:
"After entrusting the dying baby to the old village chief, the young couple stood at the entrance to Stone Village and took one last, reluctant look at the child of their own flesh and blood, bundled in swaddling clothes."
"Though they were loath to leave, they didn't stay in Stone Village a moment longer. Instead, they set off in search of something."
"And so, leaving the child behind, the two turned away and walked off without looking back."
"Only the barely breathing baby remained, all alone in the Great Wilderness, where Ferocious Beasts roamed."
Hearing Su Chen tell the story like this, the many Spirit Masters instantly erupted in uproar.
"What? They left a baby who was practically dead in some godforsaken backwater, then ran off on their own?"
In the front row of the hall, a lean, hot-tempered Battle Soul Master stared wide-eyed, his face full of disbelief.
"Mr. Su, this story of yours is way too illogical, isn't it?"
"That Great Wilderness you keep talking about is perilous beyond words, and Stone Village is so poor it can't even afford decent food. They don't even have a proper healing Spirit Master. Leaving a dying baby there—isn't that just leaving him to die?"
"Exactly!"
As soon as the Battle Soul Master's words fell, a wealthy merchant dressed like a nobleman beside him immediately chimed in loudly:
"I thought this couple were some kind of great heroes!"
"Turns out they're just a pair of cowards who fear death and abandoned their own flesh and blood!"
"Exactly. They must've offended some great sect or powerful Spirit Master while they were out and about, and been hunted until they had nowhere left to run."
"Then they decided a half-dead baby would be a burden and slow their escape, so they simply dumped him on that decrepit old village chief!"
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. When disaster strikes, everyone flies off on their own. To toss aside their own flesh and blood like a burden—parents so heartless and faithless are a disgrace to parenthood. Disgusting!"
"In a desolate place like the Great Wilderness, you can't even pluck a few blades of grass. Where were they supposed to find spirit herbs to save the baby?"
"The baby was already on death's door. Left in that wretched village, he probably couldn't even survive one freezing night, could he?"
For a while, the entire teahouse rang with denunciations of the couple.
After all, in the eyes of the Spirit Masters and nobles of Douluo Continent, the rules of survival in this world were simple.
If you were seriously injured, you should do whatever it took to reach a big city or Spirit Hall and seek out a Spirit Master with a Nine Heart Begonia or a high-tier healing Martial Soul to save your life.
Leaving a dying baby in some remote mountain village was no different from tossing him into the Star Dou Forest to feed the Soul Beasts, was it?
Meanwhile, in the private room on the second floor, reserved for distinguished guests,
Sword Douluo Chen Xin's brow furrowed tightly. He gave a cold snort, and a wisp of sharp sword energy unwittingly radiated from his body.
"Even a tiger won't eat its cubs."
"If that couple really were in dire straits, then even if they had to fight until their last breath and bleed their final drop of blood, they should've protected their own flesh and blood to the death."
"To abandon the child as a burden in such a hopeless place—their conduct is truly contemptible!"
For Chen Xin, who had devoted his life to the Sword Dao and would rather break than bend, abandoning a child was the act of the most abject cowards.
Beside him, Ning Fengzhi, Sect Master of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, gently waved his folding fan and sighed.
"Perhaps their enemies had driven them into a hopeless predicament, with death waiting on every side and no way out."
"But that still doesn't excuse such an irresponsible choice."
"What a pity for that child."
At that moment, Tang San, seated in a corner on the first floor, wore an undisguised look of mockery.
Leaning back comfortably in his chair, he turned to Xiao Wu beside him and spoke in a low voice:
"See, Xiao Wu? This is the story he made up. It's full of contradictions, and the logic doesn't hold together at all."
"Never mind whether that absurd higher-dimensional world even exists. Just look at what those parents did. It's pitiful."
"If they were my parents—or if I were in their shoes—I'd never treat my own family like a burden and toss them aside so I could flee, even if it meant bleeding my last drop."
"The weaker people are, the more likely they are to abandon their wives and children."
At this, Tang San paused, then continued his analysis:
"In my opinion, that dying baby is definitely going to be the main character later on."
"Su Chen's just using this tragic opening to win the audience's sympathy, then he'll force in some completely unreasonable lucky encounters to keep the baby alive."
"This trope is too low-brow, and way too clumsy."
"He doesn't even understand the most basic principles of treatment. How could anyone save a life in a place like the Great Wilderness, where there's not even a single support-type Spirit Master?"
"Is he going to count on that lousy Willow Tree, scorched by lightning and without a trace of Soul Power, to glow and save the baby?"
"It's utterly ridiculous!"
For a time, every Douluo in Listening Rain Pavilion agreed that the couple were selfish, despicable trash.
Yet on the high platform,
hearing the uproar below and the crowd's furious condemnation, Su Chen remained completely unruffled.
After all, these people were nothing but frogs at the bottom of a well. Their minds held only two things: hunting Soul Beasts and absorbing Soul Rings. They had to strain with all their might just to smash a boulder.
How could they possibly know just how astonishingly brilliant that heroic man they were so viciously cursing had been—a heaven-gifted prodigy from the lower realm?
How could they know that, to demand justice for the child in his arms, he'd once taken up a Golden War Spear and single-handedly stormed the vast Ancient Kingdom, leaving the entire Martial King Manor awash in blood?
He'd borne the pain of leaving his child in Stone Village, but it wasn't because he wanted to run away and shed a burden!
The wounds on that child were no ordinary cuts from blades or swords.
They needed to seek sacred medicine from the Primordial Divine Mountains. Only then would there be a sliver of hope.
But Su Chen wouldn't reveal a single word of these earth-shaking events and truths just yet.
He wanted to leave this mystery buried deep.
If he spilled the whole truth right now, it would be no fun at all.
"Smack!"
At the thought, Su Chen offered not a word of explanation. He simply struck the wooden clapper in his hand again, silencing Listening Rain Pavilion.
"Everyone, as you've heard, the story begins with the baby in those swaddling clothes."
"This child, still in his swaddling clothes, was thought by even the village chief to be beyond saving. And yet, he survived."
"And he is the protagonist of this story."
"Shi Hao."
"Smack!"
The wooden clapper fell with another crisp crack from the high platform, drowning out all the mocking chatter in Listening Rain Pavilion.
Su Chen remained composed, gently fanning himself with his folding fan as he continued his unhurried tale:
"It was an exceedingly poor village, its houses mostly built of huge stones—crude and rugged."
"To fill their bellies, the men of the village had to carry bone spears every day and risk death as they battled Ferocious Beasts at the edge of the Great Wilderness."
"Yet despite such poverty, the people of Stone Village possessed the most simple and sincere warmth in that cruel Great Wilderness."
"Old village chief Shi Yunfeng took in the barely breathing baby."
"There were no spirit herbs in the village, let alone the so-called healing Spirit Masters you mentioned."
"All the old village chief could do was boil milk from powerful Ferocious Beasts each night and feed it to the little one, bit by bit."
"Strangely enough, nourished by the rough beast milk of the Great Wilderness and protected by the Willow Deity at the village entrance, the baby, whose life had nearly ebbed away, miraculously pulled through."
"Time passed, and in the blink of an eye, three years went by."
"The baby who'd once been too weak even to cry had grown into a chubby little porcelain doll, still unsteady on his feet."
"He had big, bright black eyes and rosy cheeks, and was utterly adorable."
"But having survived on beast milk since he was little, the child had developed an almost stubborn fondness for it."
"Even after turning three, he still clutched a jar of beast milk every day and gulped it down, milk stains perpetually hanging from the corners of his mouth."
"The adults in the village couldn't help laughing at his adorable, simpleminded appearance, and gave him an especially affectionate nickname—"
"Little Milk Baby."
Before you continue