Fortune changes, and for once Su Yuehe wasn’t taken hostage.
At that moment, the very person he was silently cursing sat in the passenger seat, scrolling through documents on a tablet. “The Yin family ancestral home is in the western suburbs of the magic city. About a twenty-minute drive.”
Hong Yuan leaned back in the rear seat, arms crossed, staring blankly at the car roof.
After a moment, she spoke, her voice laced with self-reproach.
“I should have acted sooner.”
The pang of grief came belatedly. She should never have trusted Yin Chen so easily.
“Wouldn’t have made a difference even if you did.” Chen Guan sat beside her, quietly twisting the knife.
The truth was, though Chen Guan hadn’t been there in person, he suspected Yin Chen might have gone willingly. Never mind that Yin Chen had Frostbone Wolf by his side—he could have at least put up a fight against Guan Jinyue, not lost so easily with barely a trace of a struggle.
Then there was Hong Yuan’s cheating tortoise. Even if it wasn’t suited for combat, it could have served as a sturdy meat shield.
But no. None of that happened. He just got taken without a fight.
From what Chen Guan knew of Yin Chen, after learning everything he had learned, there was no way he felt blameless.
So most likely, he walked into it willingly, letting himself become Guan Jinyue’s hostage in exchange for her sister’s sight.
An Changqing turned his head from the front seat.
“It’s not your fault. Guan Jinyue’s target from the very start was always Yin Chen.”
“More precisely, it was Yin Tianzheng.”
“Yin Chen was just leverage.”
Chen Guan spoke up next. “Guan Jinyue’s sister was used by Yin Tianzheng as a living human vessel for a formation, sealed beneath the Oriental Pearl Tower. She came here to take her out.”
Everyone’s eyes turned to him.
An Changqing frowned. “How do you know that?”
“She told me herself while I was chasing her.”
Chen Guan lied, his face betraying nothing.
He couldn’t exactly say Baal had told him a bedtime story.
An Changqing didn’t press further. He had no time to chase down sources.
“If what she said is true, then Yin Tianzheng’s actions three years ago were seriously questionable.”
Long Ao shook his head vehemently. “That’s still Yin Tianzheng’s fault. Yin Chen is innocent.”
“I never said we weren’t saving him.” An Changqing turned back. “What I’m saying is, when we meet Yin Tianzheng, we need to be ready for him not to cooperate.”
“People with guilty consciences hate having old skeletons dug up the most.”
Su Yuehe added softly, “And Yin Tianzheng has already blocked Yin Chen’s number. That means he doesn’t even want to face this.”
“If that old bastard doesn’t care about his own grandson, I’ll be the first to refuse to accept it.” Hong Yuan tightened her grip on her axe handle.
Outside the car window, a low wall slipped past, behind which stretched a massive complex of classical buildings, dominating the western suburbs of the magic city.
The car stopped.
Su Yuehe glanced at the navigation. “We’re here.”
The main gate of the Yin ancestral home was a pair of three-meter-tall black lacquered wooden doors. No plaque hung on the lintel. The stone lions on either side cast heavy shadows in the night.
By the time they got out of the car, the doors had already opened.
An elderly butler stood at the entrance, bowing slightly.
“Please come in. Master Yin is expecting you.”
An Changqing led the way, the others following.
They crossed the front courtyard, rounded a rockery, and suddenly the view opened up.
The main courtyard of the mansion was vast, paved with clean bluestone slabs. Lanterns hung from the colonnades surrounding it, spilling dim yellow light across the yard.
In the very center of the courtyard, a man stood with his hands behind his back.
He wore a navy blue Tang suit, not tall in stature, but his back was ramrod straight, his graying hair neatly combed.
He simply stood there, without any superfluous movement, yet the air around him felt so heavy it was hard to take a step.
This was not the pressure of supernatural powers—it was the kind of weight accumulated over a lifetime.
Yin Tianzheng.
An Changqing stopped five paces away. The others halted as well.
The old man’s gaze swept over them one by one.
Long Ao. Hong Yuan. Su Yuehe. Chen Guan.
Finally, it fell on An Changqing’s face.
“Changqing.”
Yin Tianzheng’s voice was slow. “Did your father not teach you never to compromise with an enemy?”
An Changqing didn’t back down. He met that gaze.
“Elder Yin, Guan Jinyue has space-based abilities, likely at least at the Seventh Rank.”
“She has taken Yin Chen hostage. She’s given a one-hour deadline, demanding you personally go to the Oriental Pearl Tower to undo the seal.”
“If you don’t go, she will use Yin Chen’s life and the entire city of the Shanghai to pay the price.”
Yin Tianzheng’s expression remained unchanged after hearing all this. He didn’t even raise an eyebrow.
“And?”
“She said that beneath that seal is her sister,” An Changqing said, staring into the old man’s eyes. “Sealed in by your own hand three years ago.”
The moment the words left his mouth, Yin Tianzheng finally reacted.
His brow twitched.
It was slight, but everyone present caught it.
“That girl went willingly,” Yin Tianzheng said.
“That doesn’t matter.” An Changqing took a step forward.
“What matters is that Yin Chen is in her hands now. I need you to tell me whether that seal can be undone.”
Yin Tianzheng was silent for a while. Then he spoke again.
“What do you think is sealed inside there?”
Everyone’s attention sharpened.
He turned around, his back to them. His voice suddenly rose.
“The remains of a fallen ancient god!”
The word “god” hammered into everyone’s ears, more chilling than the roars of beasts outside.
Chen Guan stood at the back, pieces clicking together in his mind.
The remains of a god, a living human vessel, a connection to the mystical ley lines.
No wonder Old Mason resonated unconsciously...
“You guessed it,” Baal’s voice cackled in his head, confirming his theory.
The sealed godly remains and the demigod who had his godhead taken by the main body were the same demon.
Yin Tianzheng turned back around. His gaze scraped across every face.
“Three years ago, I used the soul of a psychic-type ability user as the vessel and linked the seal to the underground mystical ley lines of the Shanghai. Only then could I barely keep that thing suppressed.”
“Do you know what will happen if the seal breaks?”
No one answered.
“The divine remains will reawaken. The ley lines will collapse. The rules of space itself will fully disintegrate.”
Yin Tianzheng spoke each word deliberately. “Half of the Shanghai will be buried along with it.”
“At that point, the situation will truly be hopeless. A god—even just a mindless remnant—do you realize how much power that contains? Who will deal with it? How many will die before it’s dealt with?”
An Changqing’s grip on his sword hilt tightened.
“What about Yin Chen?”
Yin Tianzheng closed his eyes.
uld barely embark on the path to immortality. Just as he was on the verge of death, his golden finger awakened. No matter whether it was poison, drained blood and vital energy, diminished lifespan, or any other physical debuff caused by paying a price—once midnight passed, everything would be refreshed. From then on, whenever someone asked what kind of person Chu Ran was, the answer was simple: Forbidden arts that other cultivators dared not learn? Chu Ran would learn them. Prices that even demonic cultivators dared not pay? Chu Ran would pay them. Lifespan that even righteous cultivators dared not burn? Chu Ran would burn it. All the blood essence in his body? Take it. Want both his hands and feet? He would cut them off and send them to you. You say he’s finished? He wasn’t built to sit idle. You think he’s gone mad? No—he was simply waiting for midnight. From that day onward, Chu Ran would respect neither Heaven nor Earth, bow to neither gods nor ghosts. He had only one wish: For midnight to arrive a little sooner.
e school belle recognized by the whole school, a genius girl from the kendo club. She also has a hidden identity, the youngest legendary demon hunter. Chen Shuo just transmigrated and found himself turned into a weak, helpless little vampire. He was caught by Su Xiyen and taken home at the very beginning. Since then, Chen Shuo's life creed only had two items. "First, classmate Su Xiyen is always right." "Second, if classmate Su Xiyen is wrong, please refer back to item one." Many years later, Chen Shuo, who had turned back into a human, led a pair of twins to appear in front of all the vampires to share the secret of how he turned back into a human. "It's simple, I tricked a female demon hunter into becoming my wife!"
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
