Ning Xiangyi sat down again.
Ning Xinping spoke slowly, bitterness in his voice. "Yang Houjia summoned me to visit the Yang Family for precisely the reason you suspected: he intends to keep me there so he can manipulate our Ning Family more easily."
He paused, profound helplessness seeping into his tone. "I have no choice but to go."
Ning Xiangyi raised his head, his eyes thick with doubt. "Ancestor, why, exactly?"
Only after a long silence did Ning Xinping say, "Because of something that happened long ago."
"That matter could destroy me, and it could destroy the Ning Family."
Ning Xiangyi grew still more bewildered. He was about to press further when Ning Xinping's voice rose, distant and somber:
"When I broke through to outer scenery great accomplishment and formed a Dao Fruit, I gained the substance of inner vision, yet my cultivation could never advance another inch for the rest of my life. You must have wondered about this for many years, but you never asked."
At those words, Ning Xiangyi fell silent.
Back then, Ning Xinping had broken through far too quickly.
According to his calculations, Ning Xinping should have needed at least another twenty years to reach outer scenery great accomplishment.
That was precisely why he had persuaded this ancestor to leave the Ning Family, which had then been on the brink of collapse. Even if the Ning Family was ultimately destroyed, at least one of them would remain outside, preserving a thread of their bloodline and keeping the ancestral incense burning.
Yet he had never imagined that Ning Xinping would break through outer scenery in a mere ten years. And that was not all: upon reaching great accomplishment, he had actually formed a Dao Fruit.
He had stepped forward in their hour of peril, subdued the