Xu Changzhi, the current head of the Xu family! He no longer resembled the youthful figure from Su Chen's final memory. Now a middle-aged man, he had risen to become the patriarch.
Xu Changzhi staggered forward. His gaze fell upon the familiar severed heads dangling from the intruder's hands and belt. His mind reeled as though the heavens and earth had begun to spin. His lips trembled. He clenched his teeth so hard his gums bled. Blood vessels burst in his eyes.
Su Chen watched the scene unfold with calm detachment. "It seems I didn't kill the wrong people after all."
Xu Changzhi snapped his head up. His face twisted into something demonic. A guttural roar tore from his throat. "Kill! I'll kill you!"
He charged.
Su Chen caught him by the throat in an instant.
Without a trace of mercy, he slammed a palm into Xu Changzhi's dantian and shattered his cultivation.
Against a mere Qi Gathering Realm cultivator, a Spirit Vein Realm expert struck as easily as crushing a chick.
Of course, peerless geniuses were the exception—and Xu Changzhi was no such prodigy.
Rather than kill him immediately, Su Chen dragged the broken man deeper into the compound until he found the one he sought.
Xu Ba.
The old monster had sensed the chaos and emerged from seclusion in haste. What greeted him was a black-robed stranger hauling his most prized son by the neck. Heads—his descendants' heads—hung from the intruder's belt and hands.
Among them were the great-grandson and great-granddaughter he had doted on most.
All dead.
"What grudge does Your Excellency bear my Xu family that you would slaughter even the youngest children?" Xu Ba cried out in anguish.
White-haired sending off the black-haired—there was no greater pain in this world.
"Where is the Spirit Sea inheritance?" Su Chen asked coldly, eyes never leaving the old man. "Tell me, and perhaps I'll spare this one's life. Perhaps I'll leave your Xu family a single spark of incense."
He remained wary. He never underestimated any opponent.
Xu Ba surged forward, intent on fighting to the death.
Su Chen sensed the intention. With a stomp, he unleashed the full pressure of Spirit Vein Realm Third Layer.
Despair washed over Xu Ba. Advanced in years, his vitality had long since begun to decline. The stranger before him possessed superior cultivation. Even a suicidal clash might fail to wound him seriously.
After a long internal struggle, Xu Ba looked at his unconscious son—still clinging to the thinnest thread of life—and tears streamed down his wrinkled face.
He had made his choice.
"Will Your Excellency swear an oath?" Xu Ba asked hoarsely. "If this old man hands over the Spirit Sea inheritance, you must honor your word."
He did not ask how the intruder knew of the inheritance. Such questions were meaningless now. If the Xu family had no such treasure, they would have invented one on the spot—for the sake of preserving their final ember.
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Su Chen nodded. "I came only for the Spirit Sea inheritance. Once I have it, leaving your family a spark of survival is no great matter. Should I break this promise, may my martial path halt here forever."
Satisfied, Xu Ba retreated into his chamber and returned with a beast hide inscribed with strange, ancient runes, along with the Xu family's painstaking translations over the years.
Watching the old man's desperate effort, Su Chen was briefly reminded of the years of scheming and counter-scheming between them. For a fleeting moment he almost considered sparing him.
Of course, that was impossible. He accepted the beast hide with one hand. Then, just as Xu Ba reached to take back his son, Su Chen's sword flashed.
Xu Changzhi's head tumbled free. It rolled across the ground in lazy circles while blood fountained from the stump.
"You—"
Xu Ba's voice failed him. Pain lanced through his heart like a thousand blades. A familiar yet utterly frigid voice sounded beside his ear.
"Do you still remember the Su family? When you massacred them, did you ever spare a thought for the elderly or the young? Today, someone has simply come to collect the debt."
Xu Ba's eyes widened in shock. From the very beginning, this black-robed man had never intended to leave a single Xu alive!
"You will die a horrible death! You have violated your martial oath—you will be devoured by ten thousand ghosts! My Xu family will watch from the Yellow Springs as you suffer!"
With a final, wretched scream, Xu Ba was cut down.
Su Chen arranged all the severed heads in a neat row. Vengeance complete, he stood in silence for a long time. At last he spoke softly.
"I will not descend to the Yellow Springs. Even if you wait there until the waters run dry, you will never see me."
He was condemned to endless cycles of reincarnation. He would never go to the Yellow Springs.
With the Spirit Sea inheritance secured and Xu Ba dead, Su Chen departed. He left the remaining Xu clansmen untouched. In this world, others hated the Xu family even more bitterly than he did.
Before leaving, Su Chen glanced back from a distance at the plump old man stepping into the inner courtyard. He murmured under his breath, "Su Xuehe… the Su family is in your hands now. You must not repeat the fate that befell me and the Xu family."
Su Chen departed. He had already forgiven Su Xuehe for seizing his cultivation resources back then. Time had proven that Su Xuehe was far better suited to lead the Su family than he himself had been at that age. The Xu family's resources would be handled properly under Su Xuehe's care.
Grudges settled. The past was laid to rest.
Su Chen intended to live this life well. He still wanted to climb higher, to see the peaks of the martial dao.
Su Xuehe seemed to sense something. He turned and caught a final glimpse of the black-robed figure—the one who had helped them destroy the Xu family—vanishing into the night after only a few steps.
"That senior must have taken what he came for," Su Xuehe thought to himself.
Whatever the item was, it had to be extraordinarily precious. But it was not something the Su family could ever covet.
Still… he found it strange. Why did that departing silhouette overlap so perfectly with the memory of someone else leaving the Su family long ago? It had to be an illusion.
Su Xuehe walked alone into the inner courtyard. The Su family guards remained stationed outside. When he saw the neatly arranged row of Xu family heads, a savage smile twisted his lips. He kicked hard at the skull of the white-haired old man whose eyes still stared in death.
The head burst open like a rotten melon.
Su Xuehe laughed—then the laughter broke, and two lines of clear tears slid down his face.
"Brother Chen… did you see? I have finally avenged you."
"Brother Chen, it was I who was young and foolish. I envied how Father favored you, envied how everyone in the Su family loved you. But I never meant to steal your place. I never wanted to force you out of the family."
"Brother Chen, you don't know… those three years you were gone without a word, my mother… my mother truly needed the Millennium Snow Lotus Pill to live. I begged them for it. They refused. The only way I could save her was to become the first heir."
"Brother Chen… after you left the family, I searched for you for sixty full years. The day I finally learned you were alive, I wasn't happy—I was terrified. Terrified you wouldn't see me. Terrified you still hated me. The day you agreed to meet me was the happiest I'd felt since Mother died."
"Actually… on the way back that day, I cried for a long time. If you'd known, you would have teased me for it. I used to cry so easily when I was little. You always told me a real man doesn't shed tears lightly. I thought you were wrong. Tears only fall when the heart is truly broken."
"Brother… it was I who was wrong. I caused your death. I made your life so lonely and joyless."
The sobs Su Xuehe had fought to hold back finally broke free. They grew into the unrestrained, childlike wails of a boy who had lost everything.
The sound of blades and swords rang through the night.
At last, dawn broke.
