Born to Be Beaten?

Yue Bing's reply did not go into much detail. It only said that she had been kicked out of the team by her companions and now needed to complete the trial alone.

She vaguely indicated that this might be related to Yue Yan, the fourth son of the second branch.

It was clear from the letter that little Yue Bing felt terribly wronged and angry. Her fourth brother from the same family had not only refused to help her, but had also sowed discord, fanned the flames, and kicked her while she was down. A trial that had nearly been completed now had to be started over alone after she was thrown out of the team. At the end of the letter, kind-hearted Yue Bing even reminded the beautiful woman not to tell her third brother, lest he worry about her. But after the Black Mountain bandit incident, the beautiful woman had already come to regard Yue Yang as the pillar of the family. Naturally, she would not hide such matters from him.

"Fourth Mother, I'll go bring Bing'er back! Although I only contracted a Contract Tome recently, I should still be able to help Bing'er a little."

The beautiful woman did not doubt Yue Yang's words at all. His recent performance had greatly comforted her. She felt that her son had grown up, becoming a real man capable of standing on his own.

That night, when she believed the bandits were attacking the city, she had been overwhelmed by panic. Yet he had said he would do everything he could to protect his family. It moved and comforted her deeply.

Her third son had finally grown up!

She agreed to Yue Yang's request to bring Yue Bing back, but she refused his suggestion to first escort her back to Yue Clan Castle.

Although the beautiful woman was kind by nature and accustomed to enduring hardship in silence, she still possessed a quiet dignity. Back then, the family had considered her husband unpromising and forcibly split the household apart, separating the fourth branch from Yue Clan Castle and sending them to the Cloudmist Mountains to serve as minor idle officials. It had dealt her a severe blow. Living in White Stone City was not particularly peaceful, but even if Yue Clan Castle were impregnable, unless the master of the main family personally invited her to return, she would never voluntarily move back to the place from which her entire family had been cast out.

Her husband was a dutiful son, and she did not object to him spending all year busy with Yue Family affairs.

Yet she also had a conviction deep in her heart: to strive for self-reliance and never live at the mercy of the first or second branches.

Her third son contracting a Contract Tome had been her greatest wish for fifteen years. Now that wish had been fulfilled, she wanted nothing more. She was even less willing to return to Yue Clan Castle and endure the clan members' cold mockery.

To the beautiful woman, nothing mattered more than her sons making progress and her daughter being obedient!

"Fourth Mother, I'll come right back after picking up Bing'er. You and Shuang'er must be careful. White Stone City has been rather chaotic these past few days, so it's best not to go out much." Yue Yang gave her a few instructions. The beautiful woman rarely went out anyway, and several loyal servants looked after the household, so there should be no problem. More importantly, although Yue Ling was only a minor official without real authority, he was still a Yue Family descendant. No matter how bold mercenaries and thieves were, they would not dare cause trouble at his home. The name of the Four Great Families still carried some intimidation.

"I understand, Third Son. You must be careful too!" The beautiful woman felt as sweet as if she had drunk honey.

She had never expected this quiet, taciturn son to care so much about her. He truly had grown up and become far more sensible than before.

After seeing Yue Yang off, a thought suddenly crossed the beautiful woman's mind. Her third son seemed to have completely gotten over Miss Xue breaking off their engagement and had finally emerged from that bitter emotional ordeal. Should she find him another marriage match?

Yue Yang did not immediately head for the teleportation array at the White Stone City Lord's Manor. It was not because he wanted to save the one gold coin teleportation fee, but because he wanted to keep a low profile.

Unless necessary, he did not want to meet any powerful figure in White Stone City.

The master of Golden Saber Tower and the White Stone City Lord were jointly investigating the truth behind Happy Forest's destruction that night, and the state had also sent a special envoy to investigate. Yue Yang did not want his identity exposed and did not want to walk into the line of fire of those furious people. Besides, he had buried the arm of the Hell Demon King Hashin on a secluded ridge in Black Mountain, and he had decided to take it away. Previously, after the frost thawed, Demon King Hashin's arm had constantly dripped blood. Every drop corroded a large patch of ground and even set rocks blazing.

During the day, Yue Yang buried it deep in the earth. At night, he dug it out and used true qi to disperse the turbid, filthy impurities within the demon blood.

The arm of the Level Eight Hell Demon King Hashin was even more suitable for evolution than the body of a living person. It was an excellent supplement for Thorn Flower. If she devoured it, advancing would certainly not be a problem, but Yue Yang could not bear to let Thorn Flower consume it immediately.

Yue Yang hoped to raise Thorn Flower to Gold rank first, then use the energy in Demon King Hashin's arm to transform and mutate her into a humanoid Thorn Flower Witch.

Only then would devouring the Demon King's arm yield its greatest effect.

Although his departure had been delayed by two days, Yue Yang still hurried to Red Forest City and Black Rock City, killing the six Level Three Heroes and more than fifty bandits on the Revenge Hunt list. He turned them all into fertilizer for Thorn Flower. After devouring more than two hundred living people in total, the once incredibly weak Saliva-Spitting Thorn Flower finally mutated and evolved to Gold rank.

Thorn Flower's stem was now as thick as a human leg and stood a full five meters tall, its entire body covered in hooked reverse thorns.

Its original flower crown had gradually transformed into a gigantic human head. Its facial features remained indistinct, and it still had no eyes, only huge spots resembling human eyes.

Its gaping maw was filled with dagger-like teeth. Now, it could swallow a person in ten seconds and completely digest them in two minutes. That thick flower stalk was practically a bottomless abyss, able to devour however many people it pleased with ease.

After mutating to Gold Level One, the Ghost-Faced Saliva-Spitting Thorn Flower had become the Demonic-Eyed Saliva-Spitting Thorn Flower.

From this point on, Thorn Flower began to possess certain animal instincts.

For example, it had gained motion detection. Naturally, it had no eyes and could not see directly. Instead, like a snake or spider, it used its tongue to sense heat and its cilia to detect fluctuations in the air. Yet the result was much the same as seeing with eyes... Most importantly, this Gold Thorn Flower had begun to possess the most basic intelligence. Though it could not think, it could receive Yue Yang's orders through telepathy and execute them flawlessly even from a great distance.

Although the Gold Level One Demonic-Eyed Saliva-Spitting Thorn Flower was still only Level One, its strength had increased more than tenfold compared to when it was Silver rank.

Besides, even the weakest Gold battle beast was as strong as an ordinary Level Four battle beast. Yue Yang felt that his Thorn Flower, raised on living people, should be even stronger than an ordinary Level Four battle beast in combat!

"Once you successfully transform into a Thorn Flower Witch, I'll give you a name!"

Yue Yang actually felt quite accomplished.

From a weak Saliva-Spitting Thorn Flower to a Gold Thorn Flower, this was entirely the result of his own cultivation.

He truly wondered what she would become after evolving into the Golden-Crowned Thorn Flower Queen... The only thing Yue Yang could be certain of now was that Thorn Flower always advanced in a female direction. There was no male form! Perhaps in the world of Thorn Flowers that reproduced through spore division, the word "male" did not exist!

Just a little more, and the Gold Thorn Flower could transform and mutate into a Thorn Flower Witch.

The transmigrator was thrilled and raced toward Black Mountain.

However, when he reached the ridge where Demon King Hashin's arm had been buried, the sight before him made him fly into a rage.

The earth concealing the Demon King's arm had been dug up, leaving the enormous demon arm exposed to the air. At the bottom of the pit, an Iron-Clawed Wolf was twitching in agony.

Perhaps the Iron-Clawed Wolf had smelled the demon's aura. For some reason, instead of fleeing in terror like other wild beasts, it had decided to play thief. But the Demon King's arm was not something it could covet. It had failed to eat the Demon King's flesh and had nearly lost its life here instead. Furious, Yue Yang yanked the Iron-Clawed Wolf out of the pit and gave it a savage beating.

He was not worried that it could steal any of the Demon King's flesh. That was not something it could chew through.

Besides, the moment it touched the Demon King's blood, its entire mouth would surely be charred black by demon flames.

What angered Yue Yang was its pointless, harmful behavior. It had dug up the Demon King's arm—what if someone discovered it...

Fortunately, this was a remote wilderness where no one ever came. Otherwise, this Demon King's arm that he had obtained with such difficulty would have been handed over to someone else as a collector's item for nothing. It might even draw powerful enemies lying in ambush, waiting for him to step onto the ridge and walk straight into an encirclement, falling into the trap of the Golden Saber Tower master and the White Stone City Lord.

"You dared steal my treasure? Do you think I'll forgive you just because you look like poor Gray Wolf?" Yue Yang gave the Iron-Clawed Wolf another brutal beating.

However, something puzzled him. There seemed to be something wrong with this wolf. Why did its expression become more comfortable the more he beat it?

Could it be born to be beaten, just like Gray Wolf?