Chapter 10

Chen Zhengguo could not bear it any longer. He trembled as he said, “What… What do you want…? Earlier in the day, I… I already went down on my knees for you! What else do you want from us?!”

Unable to withstand the stressful atmosphere, Chen Feng kneeled down on the floor. “Brother Ye, Master Ye… I beg you, please let me go! Whatever you heard about Sun Yi just now was all my dad’s idea! It has nothing to do with me! If you let me off the hook, I’ll do anything for you! I’ll even become a cow or a horse for you if that’s your wish!”

“You!” Chen Zhengguo did not expect his own son to betray him at such a moment!

He understood that it would be difficult for him to survive the encounter. Therefore, he stood up and forced himself to calm down. He cleared his throat and said, “I don’t care who you are or where you’re from. I’m telling you, there’s a martial arts grandmaster in the Chen family! If you dare harm a single strand of hair… Trust me, a grandmaster’s wrath isn’t something you can withstand!”

“Grandmaster?” Ye Chen smiled. “You’re talking about Chen Baoguo who left for a mountain ten years ago to cultivate, aren’t you?”

Knowing that Ye Chen recognized who he meant, Chen Zhengguo heaved a long sigh. “I know you’re an ancient martial artist. Furthermore, I know that there are rules imposed on ancient martial artists as well. If you kill me today, you’re not going to face the wrath of a single grandmaster, you’ll be pursued and eliminated by the organization! If something happens to us, do you think you’ll walk away alive?”

“Oh, is it now?” Ye Chen raised his head. A snicker hung at the edge of his lips.

Suddenly, Ye Chen moved! In his palm, he condensed the surrounding air to form a white energy arrow. Bursts of air blustered around the energy arrow as it flew toward the escaping Chen Feng!

Shoosh!

The arrow pierced through Chen Feng’s throat. Chen Feng then collapsed onto the ground!

“Now, what were you saying about me?” Ye Chen’s glacial voice echoed through the entire villa!

Chen Zhengguo’s face was drained of blood. He glanced at his immobile son and he realized that he would not be able to escape death.

He supported his weight by holding onto the sofa and sank into it. It was as though he aged ten years overnight. “I know I’ll die today but I hope you can give me a reason why you’re doing this to us. Why? We’ve never crossed paths…”

Ye Chen laughed shrilly. He stood up and started walking toward Chen Zhengguo.

Standing in front of him, Ye Chen stared down at Chen Zhengguo.

Then, Ye Chen’s voice boomed, rippling as though the gods in the nine heavens were talking(TN: According to legends, the heavens are made up of nine different skies – the highest point in the sky and the skies from the eight other directions.)

“Oh, we’ve never crossed paths?

“Let me ask you a question, Chen Zhengguo! Do you remember the banquet held at Cloud Lake Manor five years ago?!

“Let me ask you another question. Chen Zhengguo, do you remember the couple that died five years ago?!

“Let me ask you one final question. Chen Zhengguo, do you remember the poison that you spat from your venomous mouth five years ago?!”

Ye Chen’s voice thundered into Chen Zhengguo’s ears!

Chen Zhengguo was frozen on the spot.

Of course, Chen Zhengguo remembered all that!

What happened during the gathering at Cloud Lake Manor five years ago was the nightmare of countless families in River City!

There, they witnessed the elimination of a family!

From then on, all of them lived in fear, traumatized by the shadow of that man!

Everything was destroyed with a snap of his hand! It was terrifying!

Suddenly, as though he had recalled something, Chen Zhengguo raised his head. With dilated pupils, he extended a finger at Ye Chen and exclaimed, “You… You’re that trash from the Ye family; that Ye Chen who fell into the river! How’s that possible?! Aren’t you supposed to be dead…”

No one could comprehend the gravity of shock and surprise that roared at the bottom of Chen Zhengguo’s heart.

That trash from the Ye family had returned to life!

Moreover, he returned to River City in a body loaded with a terrifying cultivation base!

That was him! He was here for revenge!

Furthermore, he could see that the entire city would be uprooted soon!

Ye Chen bent down and put his face next to Chen Zhengguo’s ear. He whispered, “Let me tell you another secret… Actually, I’m not an ancient martial artist like all of you claim… I’m just a cultivator.

“In your eyes, perhaps ancient martial artists are strong.

“But little do you know, to us cultivators, the entire Huaxia or even Earth, they’re as insignificant as dust!

“No matter how strong you are—even if there’s a martial arts grandmaster standing behind your back or even if it’s an entire clan—I, Ye Chen, will cut all of you down!”

The second his sentence ended, a strong gush of malicious qi started swirling around Ye Chen!

The malicious qi engulfed Ye Chen’s body and it flashed brightly in a blood-red color!

In an instant, his arm transformed into a shape similar to that of a blood dragon and pierced through Chen Zhengguo’s chest!

…

Concurrently, at the peak of Martial Waste Mountain.

An ethereal elder wearing a daopao(TN: Traditional formal attire worn by men in the Ming dynasty of China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daopao) sat cross-legged. When scrutinized, one would notice that the elder seemed to be floating in midair. Flashes of light in the shape of the Eight Trigram Array emanated beneath him.

The elder in the daopao was none other than Chen Guobao, the Great-grand Old Master of the Chen family!

After all of the storms he had weathered, the great-grand old master made the choice to withdraw from jianghu(TN: “Jianghu”, its literal translation is “lakes and rivers” but it refers to the community of martial artists.) to focus on his cultivation. In the blink of an eye, ten years passed.

At that time, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth flooded Chen Baoguo’s dantian and his cultivation base rose rapidly!

It was apparent that he was about to achieve a breakthrough!

At this very crucial moment, the wind started to roar! The elder’s eyes snapped open and he crashed into the ground. He spat out a mouthful of fresh blood!

The spiritual energy of heaven and earth around him dispersed immediately. Even the Eight Trigram Array beneath him disappeared without a trace!

After several seconds, the hoarse voice of an old man roared and echoed through the entire Martial Waste Mountain,

“Who?! Who was that?! Who dares to kill people from my family?! And destroy ten years worth of foundation that I laid?! I, Chen Baoguo, swear to the heavens that I’ll personally hunt you down! And then, I’ll butcher you and destroy your soul!”

…

It was a night of silence.

Ye Chen woke up early from his cultivation. Initially, he wanted to cultivate a while longer. However, the spiritual energy in Huaxia was too thin compared to where he had come from. At that moment, it was impossible for him to improve his cultivation base.

“It seems like I’ve to find a way to brew some medicinal pills and elixirs.”

Ye Chen opened up the canvas bag that he carried with him everywhere. The bag contained only two things.

A badly crumpled up photo and a black rock.

He obtained that photo the year after being rescued and returning to the Ye family house. As for the black rock, it was a gift from his father for his eleven-year-old birthday.

It was said to be a valuable inheritance passed down from generation to generation in the Ye family.

At that time, Ye Chen brushed it aside. He thought it was incredulous to take a mere rock as family inheritance. With a simple wave, he chucked the rock to the bottom of his bed. He only remembered the rock after tragedy befell his father. From that day onward, he kept the rock with him at all times.

‘It’s father and mother’s death anniversary next week. I should pay them a visit at Divine Stone Hill then.’

As Ye Chen was about to put back the rock into his canvas bag, he noticed a line of tiny words on the rock from the corner of his eye.

The words were so tiny he never noticed them throughout the past few years.

Ye Chen held the rock closer to his face and scrutinized the few lines of traditional Chinese writing. Although obscure, he could make out the words written on the rock.

It looked like the characters for “stone” and…”dripping blood”?

‘Is it telling me to drip some blood on it to claim ownership?’

Without further ado, Ye Chen forced out a drop of fresh blood and dripped it on the black stone. All of a sudden, a wave of information flooded his brain!

He felt like his brain was about to explode!

He could not bear the pain even as a cultivator!

“F*ck! What in the world is this?!”

Ye Chen shouted loudly and blacked out.