Responding

A day earlier,

Dawan Village.

A magnificent courtyard sat on the mountainside. Its exquisite buildings rose one after another, built along the slope and arranged in harmonious tiers, giving the place a simple yet elegant beauty.

From the courtyard gates, one could look out over the broad river valley and plains of Dawan Village. Anyone living there would feel their spirits lift and their minds grow calm and far-reaching.

However,

Inside the courtyard's main hall, the tense atmosphere shattered the quiet of the mountain residence.

"Father! I refuse to accept this!"

A young, impetuous voice rang through the hall.

"We got the job of managing Dawan Village by spending eighty Spirit Stones to grease Second Master Lai's palm!"

The man in his twenties stood up, his face blazing with anger. He slammed his palm onto the table, his voice brimming with indignation and fury.

"They promised us a ten-year term, and only six years have passed! Now, with one offhand remark, they're telling us to pack up and get out!"

"What kind of thing is that? Is there no justice left in this world?!"

At that moment,

The young Shen Shaochong—whom outsiders often fawned over and called Second Master Shen—shouted in a fit of rage.

How could he not be furious?

To the direct descendants of the Shen Clan, Dawan Village might have been nothing more than a barren backwater, far from the clan's center of power.

But to distant collateral branches like theirs, whose blood ties to the Shen Clan stretched back countless generations, it was a rare and precious foundation!

Dawan Village had twelve mu of Spirit Fields, which normally yielded around 1,200 jin of Spirit Grain per harvest.

As clan property, the Shen Clan took a fixed 1,000 jin from each harvest, leaving the remaining 200 jin for them.

An eighty-percent cut might have seemed steep, as if they worked themselves ragged all year for nothing,

But in truth, this was a highly sought-after post!

After all, those twelve mu of Spirit Fields did not belong to them in the first place.

All of Dawan Village was clan property of the Shen Clan. They were merely managing it on the clan's behalf.

Naturally, the clan's cut was substantial.

Furthermore,

Spirit Grain prices averaged around ten jin per Spirit Stone.

That meant two hundred jin of Spirit Grain brought in twenty Spirit Stones.

And the Spirit Fields produced two harvests a year,

So their annual income came to forty Spirit Stones!

What was more,

They did not actually have to work the fields themselves. The labor was done by mortal warriors forced into service, convicts sent there as punishment, or people who had joined an immortal clan in hopes of seeking an immortal opportunity and were working hard to obtain a cultivation method.

But whatever their origins, in the eyes of cultivators, they were all just lowly martial commoners.

If the cultivators were kind, they provided enough meat and grease to keep the laborers strong enough to work without dropping dead from exhaustion.

If they were hard-hearted, or wanted to save a little, they simply cut out the meat and grease. If anyone worked themselves to death, they could just send a letter to the Mortal Realm, and someone would naturally deliver a new batch of laborers.

It was practically a business with no start-up costs,

Bringing in more than forty Spirit Stones a year while they sat back and collected!

Who could easily give up such a fortune?

Finally,

If they left Dawan Village, they would have no choice but to return to the Shen family estate in Tiannan City and look for another way to get by.

But the Shen Clan was huge, and every position was already occupied.

The good ones had long since been taken. How could any be left for distant collateral relatives like them?

Once they returned to Tiannan City, if they had no connections and could not find a position, they might end up like those poor Rogue Cultivators, risking their lives out in the world!

Who could possibly give up such a foundation without a fight?

"Dawan Village is ours! No one's taking it away!"

"I'll take some men over there right now and break that brat's legs. Let's see if he dares to come and take over!"

Shen Shaochong lifted his chin and spoke with insolent defiance.

Around Dawan Village,

He, Shen Shaochong, was Second Young Master Shen to the small cultivation families and farmer-landowners nearby, all of whom vied to curry favor with him.

Whenever he went out, a crowd of followers flocked around him.

With the Shen Family's name behind him, he had made a good life for himself in the area, and now and then he even brought in a little extra income.

But once he returned to Tiannan City,

Once he returned to the Shen Clan,

Then Shen Shaochong was nothing!

Of them all, he was the least willing to leave Dawan Village.

That was exactly why, when he received the old man's message not long ago, while he was out carousing, he had hurried back almost overnight.

He wanted to persuade the old man not to hand over this valuable foundation for nothing.

"Second Brother, don't do anything rash."

A steady voice cut through Shen Shaochong's fury.

"Dawan Village is clan property, not our personal foundation. We're only managing it on the clan's behalf. If the clan has made its decision, we can only obey."

"Besides, Father didn't explain everything in his message. The person forcing us out this time has an impressive backer. He's one of the current clan leader's sons. He may be a concubine-born son, but he's still the clan leader's own flesh and blood!"

"We can't afford to offend someone like that."

The speaker was Shen Shaochong's elder brother, Shen Shaoguang.

Though he, too, looked unwilling, fear clearly outweighed his resentment.

He did not approve of confronting the other side head-on.

"So what?!"

"Does being the clan leader's son give him the right to ignore reason?"

"Besides, with the clan leader's bloodline backing him, even if he were useless, he could've been sent to some town to live in comfort. But he came all the way out to this remote place. That brat must be an unimportant, discarded concubine-born son. What's there to fear?"

Shen Shaochong retorted, his neck stiff with defiance.

He looked ready to fear neither heaven nor earth, eager to step forward and fight it out.

Still, there was more than a little uncertainty beneath his bravado.

The Shen Family had tens of thousands of members, and there was a vast gulf between the main line and distant collateral branches.

Even if the newcomer was not valued, he was still the clan leader's son.

They, on the other hand, were so distantly related that no one knew how many generations back their blood ties went. They had even needed to grease Steward Lai Er's palm with Spirit Stones to land a good post.

If a conflict broke out, it was hard to say who would come out on top.

For a while,

The main hall fell silent.

Amid the oppressive atmosphere,

The two brothers turned their eyes toward their father, Shen Shiying, seated in the place of honor.

In a situation like this, only their father, the head of the household, could decide what to do.

Shen Shiying sat at the head of the hall, his imposing frame like a coiled dragon and crouching tiger. Shadows clouded his face, and his expression was so dark it seemed water could be wrung from it.

There was no doubt about it:

He was also deeply unhappy about losing the job of overseeing and managing Dawan Village for no reason.

But he understood one thing very clearly.

An arm could never twist a thigh.

In the end, they would have to hand over the position.

But how to do so while preserving as much of their own interests as possible required careful thought.

"Shaoguang isn't wrong. The higher-ups have decided this, and we can't change it."

"But Shaochong isn't wrong, either. If a mere concubine-born son shows up and we flee with our tails between our legs, what will become of our reputation?!"

"When we return to Tiannan City, won't every Tom, Dick, and Harry think they can walk all over us? How are we supposed to fight for our share of the benefits then?!"

As Shen Shiying spoke, a hint of savagery flashed beneath his shadowed expression, and a cold glint passed through his eyes.

"Shaoguang, go to the village storehouse and move every last bit of Spirit Grain, gold, and silver out of there! He wants Dawan Village? Then I'll give him an empty village!"

"And you, Shaochong, according to the distance, that brat should arrive tomorrow. Take some men to the village entrance and find some excuse to give him a proper warning!"

"Tell the others that our family isn't some soft persimmon they can squeeze whenever they please!"

Shen Shiying's words were filled with resolve and ruthlessness.

Compared with his two sons,

He had considered the matter more carefully and from more angles.

After decades of struggling his way through the Shen Clan, he understood all too well what his clansmen were like.

The moment you showed weakness in front of others,

A pack of hyenas would come rushing up behind you, hoping to tear you apart and feast on your flesh!

They would keep testing you until, in the end, they chewed you to pieces and swallowed you whole!

He had also learned the general details of Shen Changchuan, the concubine-born son who was about to take over the post, through a few connections.

Shaochong was right. The boy was indeed a deeply unimportant concubine-born son.

His birth mother was merely the daughter of a mortal martial warrior. She had used a few tricks to win the clan leader's favor for one night, and only then had the good fortune to bear him a son.

Among the clan leader's more than fifty children, he was one of the least noticeable and lowest-ranking. He had always been a nobody, and inside the Shen family estate, he was probably less important than even the most highly regarded servants and stewards.

The clan leader might not even remember having such a son.

"A boy with a low-born mother, treated as a nobody in the clan."

"If I don't choose you as the target to make an example of, who else could I choose?"

Shen Shiying thought to himself.

If, tomorrow, he swallowed that insult in front of such an inconspicuous concubine-born son with no backing, without so much as a reaction,

Then it was easy to imagine what would happen.

After they returned to the Shen family estate, even more people would invoke the names of the young masters and come pressing down on them, carving them up like meat on a chopping board!

Given what he knew of certain people in the Shen Clan, this was practically certain!

So they had to deliver a warning and make their position clear.

If things got out of hand, they could always claim it had been a misunderstanding between youngsters.

Between two evils, they had to choose the lesser.

By now, Shen Shiying had already worked out a rough plan.

Of course,

It was only because he knew Shen Changchuan's background so well that he dared to do this.

If it had been some other young master,

He would never have dared entertain such thoughts. He would have respectfully escorted the boy to the central courtyard in the back hills of Dawan Village, then hustled his whole family out of there as fast as they could.