His uncle returns, brutally punishing the White Tiger Duchess

The woodshed in the rear courtyard of the White Tiger Duke's Mansion.

The late-night wind swept through the battered window lattice, making a sound like mournful sobbing.

A scrawny boy huddled in a corner. His coarse, unlined clothes had long since been washed pale, and patches covered his cuffs and hem.

Fresh finger marks streaked his face. A purple bruise swelled beside his left eye, and blood seeped from his cracked lips.

But his eyes were bright.

It was not the innocent brightness of a child, but a light that had only grown more tenacious after being tempered by suffering.

Huo Yuhao was ten years old.

Four years had passed since his mother, Huo Yun'er, died.

For four years, not a day had passed when he had not wanted to escape this cage. But he could not leave. Before dying, his mother had taken his hand and said, "Yuhao, stay alive. Wait for your uncle to come back."

He did not know where his uncle was, what his uncle looked like, or even his uncle's name. His mother had said only, "Your uncle is very powerful. More powerful than you can imagine."

Those words were the sole conviction keeping him alive.

Bang!

Someone kicked the woodshed door open.

A middle-aged woman in a brocade dress walked in, followed by two burly maidservants.

The woman was in her early forties. Thick makeup covered her well-maintained face, but spite and cruelty filled her expression. She was the White Tiger Duke's principal wife, the duchess.

"Still alive, little bastard?" The duchess looked down at Huo Yuhao with a mocking smile. "Your mother has been dead for four years. Why haven't you gone to join her?"

Huo Yuhao lowered his head and said nothing.

He knew that the harder he resisted, the harder they would beat him.

"Gone mute?" The duchess snorted and signaled the maidservants behind her with a glance. "Hold him down."

The two maidservants rushed forward, seized Huo Yuhao's arms on either side, and pinned him to the floor. He struggled a few times, only to receive a slap across the face that left his ears ringing.

"Did you sneak into the kitchen this afternoon and steal a piece of meat?" The duchess crouched, gripping Huo Yuhao's chin and digging her nails into his flesh. "I've kept you for ten years. Not letting you starve to death was mercy enough, yet you dare steal?"

Huo Yuhao gritted his teeth and spoke one word at a time. "I didn't steal it. Auntie Wang from the kitchen gave me that meat. She said I was too thin..."

Smack!

The duchess slapped him across the face.

"Auntie Wang gave it to you? She's a servant. What right does she have to decide what happens to my family's property? She must be tired of living."

The duchess rose and brushed imaginary dust from her hands. "Someone drag that old woman Wang outside, give her twenty strokes of the paddle, then throw her out of the mansion."

Huo Yuhao jerked his head up, anger showing in his eyes for the first time. "Auntie Wang had nothing to do with it! I begged her to give it to me! If you want to beat someone, beat me!"

"Oh, how loyal." The duchess laughed, thoroughly delighted. "Since you care about her so much, fine. Kneel and knock your head against the floor a hundred times, and I'll spare her."

Huo Yuhao stared fixedly at her, his body trembling.

At last, he slowly bent his knees.

Thud.

He made his first kowtow, his forehead striking the blue-brick floor with a dull sound.

Thud.

The second.

Thud.

The third.

The duchess looked down at him, her eyes filled with satisfaction. She disliked this child. She had disliked him from the very first glance.

He was the product of her husband's drunken debauchery, a stain on the White Tiger Duke's Mansion. Every time she saw him, she remembered her husband's affairs and the nights she had spent alone in an empty bedchamber.

So she tormented him, abused him, and took pleasure in it.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Huo Yuhao kowtowed mechanically. Blood had already begun to seep from his forehead.

But he did not stop, nor did he dare. He feared that if he stopped, Auntie Wang would be driven out.

Auntie Wang was the only person in the mansion who treated him kindly. She often sneaked him food and mended his clothes. He could not drag her down with him.

Thirty.

Forty.

Fifty.

His consciousness began to blur, and golden stars danced before his eyes.

Just then-

A warm force suddenly supported his forehead, preventing him from striking it against the floor again.

Huo Yuhao froze.

He looked up and saw a pair of feet before him. They wore white boots embroidered with elaborate golden patterns, with a faint shimmer flowing over them.

His gaze traveled upward, and he saw a young man dressed in white.

The man looked no more than twenty-four or twenty-five. His handsome face seemed beyond mortal beauty, and his deep eyes appeared to hold a sea of stars.

He stood there without doing anything, yet the atmosphere of the entire woodshed changed. At some point, the two maidservants holding Huo Yuhao had released him. They slumped on the floor, trembling like chaff in a sieve.

The duchess, so arrogant a moment earlier, was now deathly pale. Her lips quivered, but she could not utter a word.

Because she had seen the Soul Rings surrounding the young man in white.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Eight.

Nine.

Nine Soul Rings, every one a deep blood-red, radiated suffocating pressure within the dim woodshed.

Nine rings.

Every one was a hundred-thousand-year Soul Ring.

A Titled Douluo.

No, that was not right... Though the duchess was only a Soul King, she had seen a Titled Douluo before.

The White Tiger Duke, Dai Hao, was an Eight-Ring Soul Douluo, and she had also seen the empire's nine-ring Titled Douluo retainer from afar.

Their auras had been powerful, but they had come nowhere near the terror this young man inspired in her.

It felt like an ant gazing up at a god.

"Y-you... who are you?" the duchess asked, her voice shrill and trembling.

The young man in white ignored her.

He bent down, reached out with both hands, and carefully helped Huo Yuhao up from the floor. His movements were gentle, as though he were cradling a priceless treasure.

"Child, you've suffered."

His voice was gentle, as gentle as a spring breeze brushing across a lake.

Huo Yuhao stared at him blankly. For some reason, his nose suddenly stung with the urge to cry.

"You are..."

"My name is Huo Chen." The young man in white smiled faintly and wiped the blood from Huo Yuhao's forehead. "Your mother's elder brother. Your uncle."

Huo Yuhao's pupils widened sharply.

His uncle.

The powerful uncle his mother had spoken of.

He had finally come.

"Uncle..." Huo Yuhao choked out, his eyes brimming with tears. "Why... why did you only come now...?"

He had waited four years for this day.

After his mother died, he had waited every day. Waited for that uncle he had heard so much about to appear and take him away from this hell.

But day after day, year after year, that man had never appeared. He had begun to wonder whether this uncle even existed, whether his mother had simply invented a lie to keep him alive.

Until today.

"I'm sorry," Huo Chen said, his voice filled with guilt. "I'm late."

He truly was late.

Ten years earlier, he had encountered a turbulent current in space-time and stumbled into the Reincarnation God King's isolated sanctuary.

It was a mysterious space outside the Douluo Continent, concealing six foundational divine trials left behind by the Reincarnation God King. He had spent long years there-ten years in the outside world, but a thousand within the sanctuary.

He had passed all six divine trials and become a Level 99 Limit Douluo, with one foot already in the realm of gods.

But his seventh divine trial, [Mortal World Proving the Dao], remained incomplete. He needed to return to the Douluo Continent, protect his loved ones, and overturn their fated destinies.

So he had returned.

But he was still a step too late.

His younger sister, Huo Yun'er, had been dead for four years.

"I'll take you home." Huo Chen held Huo Yuhao's hand, his voice gentle but firm. "From now on, no one will ever bully you again."

With that, he turned to face the duchess.

In that instant, the warmth vanished from his eyes, replaced by icy killing intent.

"You're the White Tiger Duchess?"

Terrified by his gaze, the duchess stumbled back two steps and shouted, fierce on the outside but cowardly within, "You... what are you trying to do? This is the White Tiger Duke's Mansion! My husband is a duke of the empire, an Eight-Ring Soul Douluo! If you dare touch me, he won't let you get away with it!"

"Oh?" Huo Chen raised an eyebrow. "Dai Hao isn't here, is he? As I recall, he should be overseeing the troops at the border. He won't return for at least three months."

The duchess's expression grew uglier.

"How... how do you know...?"

"That's not all I know," Huo Chen said evenly. "I also know what you've done to my nephew over these past four years."

He raised a hand, and an eerie red flower bloomed in his palm.

Its petals overlapped in layers, each flowing with blood-red light and emanating the aura of life, death, and reincarnation. The instant the flower appeared, the temperature throughout the woodshed plunged, and a thin layer of frost formed on the floor.

"The reincarnation other shore flower." Huo Chen looked at the flower in his palm as though admiring a work of art. "My martial soul. It can govern life, death, and reincarnation. It can also let someone experience... what it means to live a life worse than death."

The duchess screamed, turned, and tried to run.

But she had barely taken a step before an invisible force imprisoned her where she stood. To her horror, she discovered that her body was completely beyond her control. She could not even move a finger.

"Don't worry. I won't kill you." Huo Chen walked up to her and looked down at her. "Killing you would be letting you off too easily. I only want you to taste the suffering my nephew has endured all these years."

He extended a finger and lightly touched the space between the duchess's eyebrows.

A streak of blood-red light sank into her mind.

The duchess's body suddenly stiffened. Her eyes rolled back, and drool spilled from the corner of her mouth.

Her consciousness sank into chaos, and terrifying scenes flashed incessantly through her mind: she was strung up and whipped, pressed against a scorching iron plate, thrown into a pit of snakes...

These were all punishments she had inflicted on Huo Yuhao. Now, every one was returned to her a hundredfold.

"Aaah!"

The duchess let out an agonized scream and collapsed, her entire body convulsing without pause.

The two maidservants had long since fainted from terror.

Huo Chen paid them no further attention. He turned and took Huo Yuhao's hand. "Let's go, Yuhao."

Huo Yuhao looked at the duchess convulsing on the floor, then at his uncle beside him. An indescribably complicated emotion welled up within him.

Satisfaction? Relief? Both, but more than anything, it was a sense of safety he had never known before.

So this was what it felt like to have someone backing him.

"Uncle, where are we going?"

"First, to your mother's grave. I'll take you to see her." Huo Chen's voice lowered. "Then we'll go home."

"Where is home?"

"There's a house beside the Sunset Forest in the Heaven Dou Empire. I've spent many years making preparations there, waiting to bring you over."

Huo Yuhao was silent for a moment before asking, "Then, in the future... can I still come back?"

Huo Chen stopped and looked down at him. "Do you want to come back?"

Huo Yuhao shook his head.

"Then we'll never come back." Huo Chen ruffled his hair. "From now on, the White Tiger Duke's Mansion has nothing to do with you. You're not someone's illegitimate son, nor some shameful stain. You're my nephew, Huo Chen's nephew, and my only family."

"Remember, your surname is Huo, not Dai."

Huo Yuhao nodded hard, and at last, he could no longer hold back his tears.

This time, they were tears of joy.

They left the woodshed, crossed the silent rear courtyard, and reached the side gate of the Duke's Mansion. At the sight of Huo Chen, the guards instinctively moved to stop him, only for a single look to turn their legs weak and send them straight to their knees.

"Open the gate," Huo Chen said evenly.

The guards opened the side gate with trembling hands.

Holding Huo Yuhao's hand, Huo Chen strode outside.

Moonlight fell over them, casting two long shadows. One large, one small, held close together.

Behind them, the White Tiger Duke's Mansion blazed with lights and descended into chickens-flying, dogs-leaping chaos. The duchess's screams echoed throughout the estate, yet no one dared step forward to stop them.

Ahead lay the vast night, dotted with starlight.

A new world awaited this boy who had endured so much suffering.

"Uncle."

"Hmm?"

"Are you really stronger than my father?"

Huo Chen laughed, freely and heartily.

"Silly boy, what does your father amount to? Your uncle here is going to become a god."

"Then can I become a god too?"

"Yes." Huo Chen tightened his grip on the boy's hand. "With your uncle here, you'll surely become the most powerful god in this world."

In the night breeze, the boy's eyes shone like two stars.

That was the light of hope.