Liu Changxu strolled along the broad streets of his own Cultivator Market, watching the bustling crowds with a sense of ease and contentment.
Since he had come only to inspect the market and experience the lives of its people, Liu Changxu had little interest in the stalls on either side of the street whose vendors called out their spirit treasures for sale.
Instead, he focused on how the Cultivator Market was run and managed.
As he walked, Liu Changxu entered a tall teahouse. He chose a seat at random in the ground-floor hall, ordered a pot of first-tier supreme-grade spirit tea, and settled down to drink at his leisure.
The teahouse was doing brisk business, with more than half the seats in the ground-floor hall occupied.
Most of the customers chatted animatedly as they sipped their tea.
Their conversations largely concerned Liu Changxu and his family's return to the lineage, and everyone enthusiastically sang praises of his strength.
Listening nearby, Liu Changxu could not help finding it amusing. He stopped paying attention to their conversations and concentrated on his tea.
Although spirit tea of this grade did nothing for his cultivation, its flavor was quite good.
Before long, Liu Changxu had drained the entire pot.
Finding little else of interest, he was about to rise and leave.
Just then, a tall young male cultivator at the seventh layer of Qi Refinement, with a resolute face, heard everyone praising Liu Changxu and said resentfully:
"The Liu Household's Nascent Soul Patriarch is good in every way, except that he treats his own family too well. His descendants are nothing but wastrels who seize men and tyrannize women.
"Have you heard? Just yesterday, one of the patriarch's descendants actually committed the vile act of forcing a female cultivator into marriage.
"And that man