Chapter 67

That year, Ji Dengqi knelt behind his father, shivering in the biting autumn wind, watching the Wan family head slowly lift his father up and spit on his blood-stained face, mocking him lightly:

"The Ji family is nothing more than this."

He lowered his head, tears sliding down his cheeks and dripping from his chin, wetting his thin autumn clothes and the cracks in the bricks on the ground.

He managed to raise his head and saw a young man in fine clothes standing quietly behind the Wan family head, looking at him coldly with a smile.

Later, he learned that the young man was named Wan Xiaohua, the Young Master of the Wan family.

Wan Xiaohua stood there sneering, while he, Ji Dengqi, knelt there weeping.

What kind of humiliation was this? The Wan family launched a surprise attack on Huaishan, breaking the protective formation that had only been built for three years in nineteen breaths, killing the current Ji family head, and dragging out every Ji family member—even those still sleeping in their thin clothes.

Twenty-nine direct descendants of the Ji family, most still in their thin clothes or wrapped in bedsheets, knelt tremblingly in front of the courtyard, watching Ji Dengqi's father, the young master of the Ji family, suffer humiliation.

Even the commoners kneeling outside the collapsed courtyard wall, those under the Ji family's rule, watched as the former immortals were humiliated one by one: the clan women had their bedsheets torn away and huddled in a ball, while the clan retainers were trampled underfoot, struggling.

Every night, dreaming of this scene, Ji Dengqi's eyes would split with rage, tears would flow, and he would sit up to cultivate.

The Wan family head kicked his father hard, causing him to vomit blood and collapse limply. Ji Dengqi wept and hugged the man's leg, crying:

"My Ji family will be your dog. The Ji family will watch the Yu family for you under the Tangjin Gate. The Ji family will pay tribute every year..."

The man sneered, kicked Ji Dengqi away, causing him to feel dizzy and lose two teeth. He laughed and said:

"The two gates are mortal enemies. Countless families have perished on the border. If I weren't afraid that destroying your Ji family would bring us into contact with the Yu family, would my Wan family have spared you? Your Ji family wants to be a dog, but my Wan family doesn't dare to accept."

Wan Xiaohua followed behind the man, looking at him with a smile, his eyes filled with mockery.

The man emptied the Ji family's wealth, took away the arrogant Wan family members, and left behind a ruined Huaishan, a disgraced Ji family, commoners with strange looks in their eyes, and corpses in the courtyard.

"Never forget... the hatred of the broken formation and the murder of my father."

Ji Dengqi bit his lip until it bled and ascended to the position of family head.

Ji Dengqi began to kill—killing the commoners who dared to look up at him, killing until blood flowed like a river, killing until his hands were stained red, killing until no one dared to recall the night the Wan family climbed Huaishan. The thirteen-year-old boy often liked to crush the heads of those commoners in front of them, watching the blood splatter.

Two years later, news that made Ji Dengqi both ecstatic and deeply regretful arrived: that man, a Qi Condensation cultivator well-versed in formations, had died in the Great Lishan at the hands of an enemy. The glorious era of the Wan family had reached its end, and Wan Xiaohua, who had hurriedly ascended to the position of family head, once again contracted his influence. The land to the east all returned to the Lu family.

"But it's not enough. Wan Xiaohua's talent is better than mine, and the Wan family's foundation is deep. This is far from enough."

Fortunately, the opportunity came. The Young Master of the Tangjin Gate was searching for a type of heaven and earth spiritual energy on Wangyue Lake. Ji Dengqi acted like a dog, serving him hand and foot, and under the cold gaze of a crowd of guards, he went to amuse the man who was bored under a tree. The man in golden clothes finally laughed out loud and asked him what he wanted.

He knew well that the man wasn't asking what he wanted, but what he had to offer. Ji Dengqi said the dog didn't want anything; the dog wanted to offer a woman.

Ji Dengqi saw the indifference in the eyes of the golden-clothed man's heavy guards. He whispered flatteringly:

"Your Highness needs a confidante, a close person with spiritual apertures and good talent."

Ji Dengqi offered his own younger sister, a naive and innocent girl with spiritual apertures. The twelve-year-old girl, who would smile and hug him, calling him brother, covered her face and cried, sobbing firmly:

"Brother, I also want revenge."

So he watched his sister lie on that man's bed, her fair little feet dangling at the end of the bed. He didn't dare to cry, and his sister didn't dare to cry either.

His sister left with him and became the Young Master's maid. Later, elixirs and resources were sent to their home every year. Ji Dengqi cultivated day and night and finally broke through to Qi Condensation. The first thing the Ji family did wasn't to celebrate or cheer, but to weep with excitement.

He immediately executed the old Wan family cultivator at the peak of Qi Condensation who was guarding the land the Ji family had lost—Wan Xiaohua's uncle. Only then did he discover that Wan Xiaohua on Huaishan was only at the Jade Capital Wheel.

No one could have imagined that the Wan family's Qi Condensation cultivator would die suddenly, and that he, Ji Dengqi, would ascend to Qi Condensation in just over a decade.

It was just that the formation left behind by the Wan family ancestor, Wan Huaqian, was as hard as a turtle shell. Ji Dengqi had harassed them for over a decade, and seeing the Wan family contact surrounding families and about to recover, he was so hateful that he suffered from insomnia night after night.

A few nights ago, Ji Dengqi received a message from his sister saying that the Young Master of the Tangjin Gate was going to Wangyue Lake again. He read the letter over and over, and a plan had already formed in his heart.

After many years, that man returned to Wangyue Lake, still searching for that type of heaven and earth spiritual energy. Ji Dengqi didn't know what kind of miraculous spiritual energy made this man come again and again, but the situation was clearly becoming favorable.

He had his sister reveal the blood feud between the two families and exaggerated the impregnability of the Wan family's formation, finally inciting the man's competitive spirit. The golden-clothed man laughed out loud:

"Wan Huaqian was a brilliant formation genius recognized by the three sects hundreds of years ago. For Yu'er's sake, this young master will test the depth of this formation."

So Ji Dengqi led the Ji family, holding long knives, and slowly stopped at the foot of Huaishan. The Ji family members behind him wore leather armor and watched the white light flickering on Huaishan quietly with him.

"Where are your reinforcements, Wan Xiaohua?"

Ji Dengqi muttered to himself:

Ji Dengqi suddenly felt a strong sense of destiny. His father's gaze, his grandfather's gaze—they were watching him silently from behind, watching him break through Huaishan.

"Behind this great battle, my Ji family has the momentum of the Tangjin Gate. Human power has its limits. You can't see it, and you can't imagine it."

Tears suddenly flowed down his cheeks again. The expression on his face and his decisive look no longer had any trace of baseness. Rolling evil desires and ceaseless sorrow condensed in Ji Dengqi's body, making his small, flesh-and-blood body appear exceptionally solid; no matter what, it could not be made to look small again. ===== CHAPTER 68 =====