Tang San trudged over the rugged hillside with a heavy bundle of firewood on his back.
After chopping wood on the mountain, he looked painfully frail.
A six-year-old should have been carefree and growing fast. Instead, he looked severely malnourished.
His limbs were as thin as dead branches, his cheeks sunken, and his skin dull. He looked like a scrawny little old man worn down by hardship.
The bundle of firewood was almost taller than he was. It pressed against his narrow shoulders as though it might snap his fragile spine at any moment.
Qian Renheng and Qian Renxue concealed their auras and hid in the dense canopy halfway up the mountain, watching Tang San struggle along below.
"This Tang San..."
Qian Renheng frowned as he watched the small figure stumble through the mud. "Isn't this a bit too miserable? He looks like a little beggar fleeing a famine."
"Though I suppose it makes sense."
Qian Renheng considered it silently. Spirit Hall crippled Tang Hao in that battle years ago and severed all his meridians. He survived by sheer luck, but with his proud, extreme nature, falling so far must have broken him. No wonder he gave up on himself. With a father like that, how could his son have a decent life?
Beside him, Qian Renxue stared with wide eyes, her face full of disbelief and distaste.
"Brother, are you sure this is the successor chosen by that other Asura God King?"
Qian Renxue pointed at the filthy, panting Tang San and curled her lip. "Looking like that, isn't he a little too... shabby? Too pitiful?"
"Someone who can't even get enough to eat, who's this stunted, is supposed to be your opponent someday?"
"Forget being your opponent. He isn't even fit to carry your shoes now!"
"Look at