"What?!"
Yun Bao Jian's arms abruptly stiffened around his sword. His head, which he had turned away in a fit of pique, whipped back around. His usually steady eyes widened slightly as he looked his father up and down, over and over.
He focused his senses. Yun Lan was still smiling, seemingly no different from usual.
But now that Yun Baojian examined him again, he noticed the difference.
That restrained aura was deep and enduring, stretching endlessly like the Southern Mountain Cloud Vein, like a blade concealed in a deep valley, still yet brimming with power.
The faint membrane separating the peak of the immortal lord realm from the next dao realm had shattered without a sound.
Yun Lan had truly become an immortal venerable.
Yun Baojian tightened his grip on his scabbard, his brows slowly drawing together.
"You... when did you break through?"
He paused, clearly disgruntled.
Then that smoldering frustration burst into open flame. His swordlike brows rose as he faced Yun Lan. "Why did I know nothing about something this important? You never breathed a word of it to me?"
Looking at his son's unmistakable expression of a poor little cabbage shut out by his own family, Yun Lan could not stop his lips from curling upward.
"You-you!" Yun Baojian grew even angrier.
He stood stunned for a long moment. He could not outargue his father, nor could he curse him, yet an indescribable frustration remained trapped in his chest.
"Ahem." Realizing he had teased his son a little too far, Yun Lan cleared his throat. Naturally, he would never admit that he had deliberately concealed his aura to tease him.
Yun Lan had already been a lineage leader at the peak of the immortal lord realm, half a step from becoming an immortal venerable.
Though he