Meanwhile, Li Tianyi and his brothers had moved into the middle zone. Their original plan had been to spend a full month ambushing targets in the peripheral zone, using planted treasure as bait. But as time passed, fewer and fewer geniuses were taking the bait. With no better options, they decided to shift their operations to the middle zone, hoping the same tactic would still work.
What they didn't expect, however, was that most of the geniuses in the middle zone had already been wiped out.
To make things worse, many high-level experts—usually confined to the inner zone—had begun emerging into the middle zone. They had caught wind of the killings and were now actively hunting for the perpetrators.
Unfortunately for them, the two culprits were nothing short of monsters. They always struck when their targets were isolated, attacked with lightning speed, and disappeared without leaving a trace—not even a corpse.
The Nascent Soul cultivators pursuing them were left with no choice but to resort to powerful divination techniques, trying to piece together the truth from lingering spiritual traces. In the end, all they could uncover were broken fragments—clues that only deepened the mystery.
The deductions were: two assailants in total. One wielded a bow (Li Changyao). The second (Li Changsheng) had intervened only once during these hunts, likely when the archer was being overpowered and facing death. This second individual then personally slew the target, a genius from Eternal Sun Prefecture hailed as 'Invincible below Nascent Soul', who possessed a rare Mutated Single Spirit Root. That encounter was clearly a major battle, and the resulting commotion attracted nearby Nascent Soul experts, forcing the assailants to flee without time to clean up the battlefield, thus allowing these few fragments of information to be pieced together.
"Those two little bastards!" Li Tianyi cursed. "Stirring up such a mess! I bet they've already made off with a fortune in treasures!"
He had only just arrived in the middle zone, but he'd already pried this bit of news out of a captured genius. Gritting his teeth, he turned to glare at Li Tianming, the group's strategist.
"Fantastic. Just fantastic!" he growled. "We spent all that time outside, and what did we get? Barely anything above Rank 7! Only two Rank 6 items in the entire haul!"
"Alright, alright! Stop yelling!" Li Tianming snapped, covering his ears. For some inexplicable reason, the dagger hidden inside his robes began to stir slightly. His eyes flicked—almost involuntarily—to the throbbing veins on his eldest brother's neck.
Was my plan flawed? No. Absolutely not.
"Big Brother," he said, forcing himself to stay calm, "if you're looking to blame someone, talk to Changsheng! If he hadn't started that huge fight with their top genius, we would've cleared the place out clean!"
"Hey, you two, stop bickering!" Li Tianqi interrupted. "I've found Changsheng!" While his two brothers were arguing, Li Tianqi had already approached soundlessly, landing between them.
The three brothers exchanged a quick glance and vanished. When they reappeared moments later, they had positioned themselves surrounding Li Changsheng and Li Changyao.
"Three... Uncles?" Li Changsheng stammered, "What... what are you doing?"
Seeing these three, the terrifying memory of nearly dying in their trap just days ago surged back into Li Changsheng's mind. He had only just slain a Golden Core genius himself, not long ago. And while these three "Uncles" were technically still in the Golden Core realm too, and might not even have had better talent than that genius, the oppressive aura they gave off was in a completely different league.
There was real danger radiating from them.
And their reputation within the family? Infamous.
Even Great-Granduncle had once called them "utterly insane."
'Uncle' Tianyi? People said he "had issues"—like sleeping in coffins for fun and digging up the Old Ancestor's grave for kicks.
'Uncle' Tianqi? Straight-up deranged. When he was a kid, the harder the elders beat him, the more excited he got.
And 'Uncle' Tianming? The worst of the bunch. Supposedly, he liked killing people at random—no motive, no reason, just pure chaos.
"Ah, Changsheng," Li Tianyi began, his tone shifting dramatically, "I need to ask a favor of you." Wiping at his eyes and nose, Li Tianyi continued tearfully, "All these years, I've struggled out here on assignment... but look at me! Your Uncle Tianyi is getting old! I've accomplished absolutely nothing, ah! Haven't scraped together even the smallest advantage! And now... when I left, I vowed to everyone back home that I wouldn't return until I broke through to the Nascent Soul stage! But I just don't have the resources, ah! And your Uncle Tianming and Uncle Tianqi here with me... we..."
"We're Poor!"
"Got it. Now I understand everything," Li Changsheng sighed, memories flooding his mind.
He thought back to his childhood at the Feng Mansion. Year after year, during festival season, whatever gifts he received always ended up being swindled away, usually by his uncles or others from his father's generation.
Then later, when he was hiding at home to avoid being possessed by Feng Qingyang, he'd still lost all his cultivation resources—this time to his own father!
Now, even as the Head of the Hall of Heavenly Principle · Shadow Division, he was still forced to run around every year delivering resources to various elders like some glorified errand boy.
And these three "Uncles" in front of him now? They weren't asking for help—they were outright extorting him.
Helplessly, he looked up—or perhaps down—at the trio, who were currently holding him upside down. Reaching up, he jabbed a finger at his own captured ankle.
"Alright, I get it!" he shouted. "Can you put me down first before we continue this discussion?! Seriously! Grown men, the lot of you! Generation after generation—and all you ever do is bully pitiful juniors like me! Is that all you're good at?! Absolutely shameless!"
Looking somewhat sheepish, the three brothers put Li Changsheng down. Following a brief period of 'Friendly discussion', they relieved Li Changsheng of the storage ring he held and proceeded to divide the spoils.
"Three Uncles," Li Changsheng conceded, "I can see you are all nearing a breakthrough." Li Changsheng glared at his shameless 'uncles'. "But let's be clear," he stated firmly. "These resources were all hard-won by Changyao! You may only take exactly what you need for your own breakthroughs, nothing more! Otherwise, I will report this to the Old Ancestor and to the Great-Grandparent generation elders!"
Li Changyao, meanwhile, looked completely unfazed. She'd known for ages that these particular elders in the family were resource-poor; just look at her three 'Uncles' now – they resembled starving wolves.
"Alright, alright, we get it." Li Tianming waved a dismissive hand, completely unfazed. "Once this Uncle breaks through his Six-Nine Heavenly Tribulation," he said casually, "there'll be plenty of rewards for you kids later."
"As expected of Tianming. Mine is a Five-Nine Heavenly Tribulation." Li Tianqi likely chimed in.
Without missing a beat, Li Tianyi, standing nearby, casually stuffed a Rank 6 spirit medicine into his storage ring. "Seriously envy you two," he added nonchalantly, "Mine's just a Three-Nine Heavenly Tribulation."
The moment he said this, his two brothers frowned, staring intently at Li Tianyi.
"Big Brother, that's going too far!!"
Li Changsheng didn't believe a syllable of it. Rolling his eyes in contempt, he thought, "No wonder Great-Granduncle called these three the most shameless elders of the Tian generation. If their tribulations were truly that weak, not even a ghost would buy it! Especially Uncle Tianyi – he received the combined legacies of all the past Azure Cloud region seniors! He's practically blessed by the Qi Luck of Heaven and Earth itself!"
"Uncle Tianqi... over the past century, the number of times he'd narrowly escaped death supposedly surpassed that of all other Li family members combined. And rumor had it, each near-death experience allowed him to break past his previous limits. 'Uncle' Tianming... his true strength was a mystery. However, rumor had it he carried an extremely heavy burden of Killing Karma. It was said High Ancestor Yaowen had taken him under her wing years ago, partly because after cultivating the Path of Fate, she perceived he was inherently a 'bad seed' – the type of person destined not to live a long life."
He suspected these three 'Uncles' might actually be the most terrifying geniuses the family possessed.
Just as the three brothers were gleefully dividing the spoils, all five (the three Tian brothers, Changsheng, Changyao) froze where they stood. Before each of them, an Ancestral Spirit Tablet rose into the air. As they received the message transmitted by the Old Ancestor, their expressions simultaneously turned exceedingly grim.
"Great-Granduncle Yunlin has been trapped by Nangong Yazhi?"
Li Changsheng furrowed his brow. "I suspect Nangong Yazhi's ambitions here are considerable," he murmured. "However, since the Old Ancestor is already aware and observing, rescuing Great-Granduncle shouldn't prove too difficult." He turned towards Li Wei's hovering Spirit Tablet and bowed deeply.
"Old Ancestor, Changsheng has devised a plan!"
"..."
Li Wei tilted his head back, gazing up at the perpetually bright sky within the Tian Xing Cultivator Abode.
"Right then," Li Wei thought with resignation. "Yet another plan."
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