Shi Ziling and His Wife? They Don't Deserve to Be Parents!

High upon the platform, the voice of Su Chen did not falter, continuing to paint that heartbreaking scene:

"After entrusting this dying infant to the old village chief, the young couple stood at the entrance of Stone Village, casting one final, lingering look at the flesh and blood they held in those swaddling clothes."

"Even though they were filled with reluctance, they did not linger in Stone Village for even a moment, as if they were desperate to seek out something else."

"And just like that, the two who had left the child behind turned away, departing without ever looking back."

"Leaving only that dying infant, solitary and alone, in the Great Wilderness where ferocious beasts ran rampant."

Listening to Su Chen's narration, the many soul masters instantly erupted into an uproar.

"What? They dumped a dying baby in some godforsaken, poverty-stricken mountain ditch and just ran off?"

In the front row of the hall, a lean, hot-tempered battle soul master widened his eyes, his face full of disbelief.

"Mr. Su, isn't this story you've concocted a bit too illogical?"

"That is the Great Wilderness you described as being filled with extreme peril! Stone Village is so dirt-poor they don't even have a decent healing soul master. Leaving a dying infant there—isn't that just blatantly waiting for him to die?"

"Exactly!"

As soon as the battle soul master finished speaking, a wealthy merchant dressed in noble attire loudly chimed in:

"I thought this couple were some sort of great heroes!"

"Turns out, after all that, they're just two cowards who value their own lives and abandoned their own flesh and blood!"

"That's right, they must have offended some major sect or a powerful soul master out there, and were chased into a dead end."

"Then they figured that carrying a half-dead infant was a burden that would slow down their escape, so they just dumped him on that old geezer of a village chief!"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. They fly apart when disaster strikes, treating their own child like baggage to be discarded. Such cold-blooded, heartless parents—they are barely human, it's disgusting!"

"In a dump like the Great Wilderness, you can't even pull up a blade of grass, let alone find medicinal herbs to save a life."

"That infant was already on the brink of death; left in that broken village, he probably wouldn't even survive a single night of cold wind, would he?"

For a time, the entire teahouse was filled with condemnation for the couple.

After all, in the eyes of these soul masters and elites of the Douluo Continent, the laws of survival in this world were simple.

If you are severely injured, you should spare no cost to reach a major city, go to Martial Soul Hall, and find those who possess the Nine Heart Begonia or high-level healing martial souls to save your life.

Dumping a dying infant in a remote, impoverished mountain village—how is that any different from throwing him into the Star Dou Forest to feed the soul beasts?

Meanwhile, in the private room on the second floor.

Sword Douluo Chen Xin frowned deeply and let out a cold snort, an unintentional sliver of sharp sword intent radiating from his body:

"Even a tiger will not devour its own cubs."

"If this couple truly had no choice, even if they had to spend their last breath and fight until the last drop of blood was shed, they should have protected their own flesh and blood to the end."

"To abandon them in a death trap as if they were a burden—such conduct is truly despicable!"

For Chen Xin, who had believed in the way of the sword his entire life and would rather break than bend, this act of abandoning a child was the behavior of the greatest coward.

Beside him, Ning Fengzhi, Sect Master of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, gently shook his folding fan and sighed:

"Perhaps they were forced into a hopeless situation by enemies and had no other path."

"But this approach is indeed irresponsible."

"That child... what a pity."

At this moment, Tang San, sitting in a corner on the first floor, did not bother to hide the mockery on his face.

He leaned back comfortably in his chair and whispered to Xiao Wu beside him:

"Do you see, Xiao Wu? This is the story he's made up—it's full of contradictions, and the logic simply doesn't hold up."

"Setting aside whether this absurd high-dimensional world even exists, the actions of these parents alone are pathetic."

"If it were my parents, or even me, even if we had to bleed until our last drop, we would never cast aside our own kin like baggage just to save our own skins."

"The lower and weaker one is, the more likely they are to commit such acts of abandoning their wives and children."

Having said this, Tang San paused before continuing his analysis:

"In my opinion, this dying infant is definitely the protagonist of the later story."

"This Su Chen is merely trying to use such a tragic opening to elicit sympathy from the audience, and then he will forcibly arrange some nonsensical encounters to keep the infant alive."

"This trope is too low-level and too forced."

"He doesn't even understand the most basic common sense of healing; how could anyone be saved in a place like the Great Wilderness that doesn't even have a support-type soul master?"

"Is he going to rely on that broken willow tree, which was scorched by lightning and has no soul power fluctuations, to glow and save a life?"

"It is the height of absurdity!"

For a time, everyone in the Listening Rain Pavilion from the Douluo Continent felt that the couple was selfish and nothing but trash.

However, high upon the platform.

Listening to the clamor and indignant denunciations rising from the audience below, Su Chen remained completely unperturbed.

After all, these people were nothing more than frogs in a well, their minds occupied solely by hunting soul beasts and absorbing soul rings, struggling with all their might just to shatter a single boulder.

How could they possibly know what a brilliant and peerless prodigy of the lower realms that heroic man they were so frantically insulting truly was!

How could they know that in order to seek justice for the flesh and blood in his arms, he had once held a golden battle spear and charged single-handedly into that vast ancient kingdom, turning the entire Martial King Manor into a river of blood!

The reason he had endured the heartache of leaving the child in Stone Village was not to flee or abandon a burden!

It was because the wounds on that child were no ordinary cuts from blades or swords!

They needed to seek sacred medicine from the primordial divine mountains to have even a glimmer of hope for survival.

Yet, Su Chen would not utter a single word of these shocking past events or the truth at this moment.

He intended to dig this pit deep and keep it firmly fixed right here.

Because if he were to lay out the entire truth now, it would be far too boring.

"Clack!"

Thinking of this, Su Chen did not offer a single word of explanation; he simply struck the gavel in his hand heavily once more, causing the entire Listening Rain Pavilion to fall silent again.

"Ladies and gentlemen, just as you have heard, the story begins with this infant in swaddling clothes."

"It was this child, still in his infancy—a baby whom even the village chief thought would not survive—who miraculously held onto life."

"And he is the protagonist of this book."

"Shi Hao."

"Clack!"

On the high platform, the gavel fell crisply once more, suppressing all the chaotic mockery within the Listening Rain Pavilion.

Su Chen appeared composed, gently waving his folding fan before his chest as he continued to narrate:

"It was an extremely impoverished village, where the houses were mostly built from giant stones—simple and rugged."

"To fill their bellies, the men of the village had to carry bone spears every day, risking life and limb to battle fierce beasts on the edge of the Great Wilderness."

"Yet, despite such barrenness, the people of Stone Village possessed the most genuine warmth in this cruel Great Wilderness."

"The old village chief, Shi Yunfeng, took in this dying infant."

"The village had no spiritual medicines, let alone the so-called healing soul masters you speak of."

"All the old village chief could do was boil the milk of strong, fierce beasts every night and feed it, drop by drop, into the little fellow's mouth."

"Strangely enough, nourished by the coarsest beast milk of the Great Wilderness and protected by the Willow Deity at the village entrance, this infant, whose life force had been nearly extinguished, miraculously pulled through."

"Time flew by, and in the blink of an eye, three years had passed."

"That infant, whose cries were once too weak to be heard, had grown into a chubby, porcelain-like toddler, toddling about on unsteady feet."

"With large, bright, dark eyes and rosy cheeks, he was incredibly endearing."

"However, because he had relied on beast milk to sustain his life since birth, the little fellow had developed a near-obsessive preference for it."

"Even though he was over three years old, he would always be clutching a jar of beast milk, gulping it down incessantly, with milk stains perpetually clinging to the corners of his mouth."

"The adults in the village couldn't help but laugh at his adorable, simple-minded appearance, so they gave him an incredibly affectionate nickname—"

"Little Milk Baby."