West of Changning Guard City, near the triangular delta where the Jinsha River and the An River met, lay Ningxi Town.
Ningxi Town's terrain was mostly gentle. Within its jurisdiction, waterways large and small crisscrossed in every direction; the soil was rich and fertile, the fish and rice abundant. It was one of Changning Guard's important granaries.
Two aristocratic clans had presided over this town for generations: one was the Ningxi Dang Clan, and the other was the Ningxi Liang Clan.
The Ningxi Dang Clan was a proper Eighth-Rank Aristocratic Clan and occupied most of the high-quality land resources in Ningxi Town. The Ningxi Liang Clan, meanwhile, was merely a small Ninth-Rank Aristocratic Clan. For many years, they had lived with extreme caution, having to deal with the Dang Clan, that "ferocious beast," over the long term while constantly trying to grow stronger and escape their predicament.
Eighteen or nineteen years ago.
The Ningxi Liang Clan had once mistakenly taken part in the operation between the Wang Clan and the Liu Clan. As a result, the Wang Clan had carved a deep slice out of them, consuming much of the resources accumulated by their ancestors.
Logically speaking.
After suffering such a wound, the Ningxi Liang Clan was very likely to collapse and never recover, gradually unable to withstand the Dang Clan's open and covert encroachments, until they were finally erased within the "long river of history."
Yet the Liang Clan of today not only had not declined, their days had instead grown more and more comfortable. In a short span of eighteen or nineteen years, they had nurtured a second Spirit Platform Realm ancestor, forming a structure of one clan with two Spirit Platforms, faintly showing signs of standing as equals with the powerful Ningxi Dang Clan.
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