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Inside the Liu residence's council hall.
Liu Huabai sat in the main seat, with First Elder Liu Xincheng seated beside him and the clan elders seated below. The atmosphere in the hall was extremely strange. Almost everyone except First Elder Liu Xincheng was looking at Clan Head Liu Huabai with an awkward expression.
Liu Huabai glared angrily at the elders below, then exchanged a glance with the first elder beside him. Each saw the displeasure in the other's eyes.
A moment later, Liu Huabai's eyes widened, and he fixed the elders below with a sharp stare as he shouted:
"Why aren't you speaking? Hmph! Now you think Senior Xiao Yan can benefit the Liu Clan, so you want me to go and curry favor with him with nice words. What do you take me, your clan head, for? And what do you take Senior Xiao Yan for? You certainly have some nerve!"
The Liu Clan elders below all changed color slightly at his words and furrowed their brows. One of them, however, stood up and fixed his gaze on Liu Huabai.
"Clan Head, that wasn't quite right of you to say. You're the head of the Liu Clan, yet you sound like you're on that senior's side."
The elder sneered, then continued with a mocking look:
"Don't tell me his terrifying strength scared you, or were you drawn in by the pills he carries? Heh! He's just a man who clings to life, fears death and is bound by heavenly lightning. Wouldn't it be giving him too much face for our dignified Liu Clan to spare no manpower to win him over? When you see him later, Clan Head, you only need to casually mention the ancestor, and, hmph! Won't he just..."
The Liu Clan elder had been about to continue, when he suddenly saw that the already thunderous expressions of Clan Head Liu Huabai and First Elder Liu Xincheng had changed dramatically upon hearing this.
Liu Huabai's face was dark, and he looked nearly mad as he opened his mouth and roared:
"Shut up! You're courting death!"
Both men stamped on the ground and shot toward him, Dou Qi surging wildly from their bodies. Each threw a punch at the Liu Clan elder.
The elder's expression changed dramatically at the sight, and he tried to pull back. But how could he possibly match two Eight-Star Dou Zong? His retreat had already been cut off. With nowhere left to go, he could only force himself to block their attacks.
"Bang!"
The sound of bodies colliding rang through the hall. Only then did the others react. Turning their heads, they saw the Liu Clan elder who had just spoken flying backward like a cannonball, his body a ball of flesh. He smashed the hall's doors, made from fine nanmu wood, to splinters before crashing into the wall outside and smashing a large hole in it.
The expressions of the other Liu Clan elders changed at the sight, instantly turning grave. They all rose from their seats, each taking a step back before standing together and surrounding Liu Huabai and Liu Xincheng in a formation for a joint attack.
One of them shouted angrily:
"Liu Huabai, Liu Xincheng, are you two trying to betray the Liu Clan?"
Liu Huabai merely snorted and turned to look at the elders surrounding them.
First Elder Liu Xincheng frowned slightly and sighed. Looking at the elders, he said helplessly:
"You'd better take a closer look. Liu Kai brought this on himself. If the clan head and I hadn't stepped in and gravely injured him, I'm afraid he would have been reduced to nothing, without so much as a bone left, by now."
The elders' expressions all changed at once. After hesitating for a moment, one of them could not help asking Liu Xincheng:
"First Elder, what do you mean by that? When Xiao Yan entered the Gold-Inscribed Plaque, didn't the clan head say that he would become the Liu Clan's most loyal member once he came out? But from what you're saying now, does he still have the ability to kill members of the Liu Clan?"
As soon as he said this, everyone's expressions changed again. If that was true, they had shown their displeasure toward Xiao Yan before and had even been disrespectful to him behind his back. Weren't they doomed to die now?
The elders' faces filled with worry. Some of the more timid ones were even trembling all over, terrified.
Seeing this, the first elder was just about to answer the elder who had asked the question when Liu Huabai snorted heavily beside him and rebuked them:
"Get out! Senior must already know what's happened here, but since he hasn't acted, he's given you a chance. If you don't want to die, get to the courtyard outside Senior Xiao Yan's door and kneel there until he comes out and forgives you. Otherwise, even if the ancestor appeared in the flesh, he couldn't save you."
The elders' expressions changed yet again. They had always held lofty positions, and it was rather hard for them to accept kneeling before someone and begging for mercy.
"Hmph! If you don't want to go, then wait for death!"
Liu Huabai glared at the elders, swept his sleeve and left the hall. The first elder sighed and shook his head. Without a word, he followed him out.
The elders watched the two men disappear from sight and looked at one another. Finally, a short, stout old man was the first to run out, wearing a woeful expression. Before long, every elder in the hall had vanished.
"Clan Head, do you think something might happen to them?"
As the two walked along a path through the residence, the first elder looked at Liu Huabai beside him with a hint of worry and asked in a somewhat dispirited tone.
Liu Huabai shook his head and sighed. He stopped with his hands behind his back and looked up at the sky. The first elder stopped as well and looked at him. Liu Huabai stood quietly for a moment before speaking.
"It's all up to heaven's will! They really have been too full of themselves. In the world of the strong, what can one clan do? It's up to them now. I only hope Senior will spare them, but if they truly remain stubbornly blind, then let them be."
At that, Liu Huabai lowered his head, his eyes slightly reddened. The first elder sighed as well and said nothing more. Together, they continued along the path, gradually receding into the distance.
Outside Xiao Yan's bedchamber in the Liu residence, numerous figures were now kneeling in the once-empty courtyard. Some Liu Clan disciples who had happened to hear about it had also come to investigate.
The younger members of the Liu Clan frowned at the sight of their usually lofty elders kneeling outside Xiao Yan's door, looking as though they had done something wrong.
The younger members frowned, but the elders kneeling in the courtyard frowned even harder. It was one thing to kneel there after doing something wrong, but they were a dignified group of clan elders, kneeling there while a crowd of the clan's younger members gathered around to watch. Their expressions turned uglier than ever, and they wished they could find a crack in the ground to crawl into.
Finally, after the elders had waited for who knew how long, an angry shout rang out from beyond the gate behind them, and the Liu Clan disciples who had come to watch the commotion were at last driven away.
"Get out of here! Hmph! You little brats, do you have to watch everything the elders do? Get back to your cultivation! As punishment, none of you may go out for ten days!"
"Phew..."
Once the crowd had dispersed, the elders finally let out a long breath. But when they thought of the peril they faced, their expressions fell again.
A crowd of figures knelt in the courtyard, but the room was silent and empty save for a young man dressed in white, sitting cross-legged on the bed.
Xiao Yan's eyes were tightly shut. With each breath, wisps of white energy streamed from his nostrils, making the curtains hanging beside the bed billow ceaselessly.
Dou Qi circulated constantly within Xiao Yan, cycling along the Flame Mantra's cultivation route before returning to the space within his cyclone.
As Xiao Yan circulated the art, the energy of heaven and earth gathered into fine threads and entered his body through the acupoint at the crown of his head and the pores all over his body, vanishing from sight.
Within Xiao Yan's body, streams of impure heaven and earth energy followed his guidance, circulating through his meridians. Under the Heavenly Flames' constant refinement, they transformed into wisps of pure energy, which Xiao Yan drew into the space within his cyclone.
Time flew by. In the blink of an eye, an hour had passed, and the strange activity around Xiao Yan finally subsided.
"Phew!"
Xiao Yan let out a long breath, and his tightly shut eyes slowly opened. A smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. He turned his palm over, and an exceedingly ancient-looking scroll appeared in his hand. He reached out and unfurled it.
The moment the scroll opened, the first thing that met his eyes was five large, ancient characters in bright silver:
Nine Revolutions Avatar Art!