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.
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
ver to a world of cultivation and returned invincible. Modern medicine is child's play compared to elixirs; technological might crumbles before true cultivation. My name is Qin Ning, Earth's sole cultivator!
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
