Silence!

A deathly, suffocating silence!

Sweeping his gaze across the magnificent hall, past his sisters frozen in shock, past Ye Xuan who secretly savored the unfolding drama, and finally to his furious father...

No! That was the lofty Patriarch of the Ye Family, Ye Ding.

Ye Chuchen exhaled a deep breath of turbid air.

Straightening his spine, he felt an unprecedented, absolute sense of liberation.

"Brother Chuchen, please, apologize to Patriarch at once! It pains me to see you enrage him and our sisters like this."

Ye Xuan's sickeningly soft, desperate voice echoed through the great hall, shattering both Ye Chuchen's thoughts and the deathly stillness.

When Ye Chuchen demanded to break from the Ye Family and sever their blood ties, Ye Ding and the sisters had genuinely panicked.

He...

They despised Ye Chuchen. They looked down on this crippled waste and loathed him as a clan burden.

But...

He was still Ye Ding's flesh and blood, the blood brother of Ye Han and Ye Qingqing, and Ye Ling'er's elder brother.

Blood was thicker than water!

They merely wanted him to surrender the title of Holy Son to Ye Xuan. Was such a trivial sacrifice not simple enough?

Submitting quietly would have benefited everyone.

Why did he have to drag out threats of severing his lineage, ruining the atmosphere for them all?

They never intended to cast him out. After all, the current Ye Chuchen was no longer the most dazzling Heaven's Chosen of the Desolate Ancient Continent; he was a gutted cripple devoid of cultivation.

Stripped of the Ye Family's backing.

Shorn of Ye Ding's protection.

Bereft of his sisters' care.

Ye Chuchen would likely be reduced to a corpse in some deep mountain or desolate marsh the very moment he stepped out the front gates.

Was he blind to the venomous hearts of the cultivation world? Did he forget the Demon Beasts rampaging through the wildlands?

If he knew, what gave him the sheer audacity to demand expulsion and sever his bloodlines?!

Ye Ding was utterly baffled.

Ye Qingqing, Ye Han, Ye Ling'er, and the rest shared his confusion.

The old Ye Chuchen would grovel like a dog, fawning over them, refusing to leave even when kicked. How could he stand so...

rigidly defiant today?!

What was he relying on? Had his cultivation magically recovered?

Impossible!

Absolutely impossible!!

"Brother Chuchen, I beg you, do not be so impulsive! I never meant to cause such a rift! Do not speak out of anger!"

Sensing Ye Ding's hesitation and seeing his sisters paralyzed by Ye Chuchen's ultimatum, the ten-year-old Ye Xuan feared the Holy Son title might slip through his fingers. He instantly deployed his pure, white lotus machinations.

Stepping up to Ye Chuchen, Ye Xuan gripped his elder brother's robes with his chubby hands. With a face painted in agonizing concern, he pleaded:

"Brother Chuchen, I know you frequently pilfer our sisters' Dharma Treasures, and just days ago you shattered Patriarch's favorite pill furnace... but these are trivial flaws! They would never truly harbor hatred for you."

"If you only kneel and beg for their mercy, I am certain they will-"

"We are family! Can we not resolve this with love? Why must you maliciously threaten Patriarch and our sisters like this?"

"Patriarch is a true Saint-level powerhouse! He will never compromise just because you bluff about leaving!"

Boom-!

The instant those words dropped, the momentary hesitation within Ye Ding and the sisters combusted into a towering, nameless rage.

A threat!

So this crippled bastard was bluffing to threaten them?!

No wonder!

No wonder he dared to spout that nonsense about severing his lineage and leaving the clan.

He was weaponizing their familial mercy! He was using a fake retreat to secure the Holy Son title, attempting to force Patriarch Ye Ding's hand!!

What abyssal scheming! What venomous intent!!

The gazes of Ye Ling'er, Ye Han, and Ye Qingqing mutated into sheer, unadulterated revulsion.

"Ye Chuchen, your schemes are sickeningly deep! If Xiao Xuan hadn't exposed you, I would have actually fallen for your bluff!"

"Exactly! Demanding to leave the clan and cut your blood ties? I'd like to see you muster the actual guts to walk out that door!"

"To wield such vicious manipulation against your own blood... Ye Chuchen, you sicken me!!"

...

Facing their venomous accusations, Ye Chuchen didn't waste a single breath on self-defense. He merely flicked his wrist, violently swatting away the hands Ye Xuan had clamped onto his robes.

He could clearly see this pure white lotus fanning the flames, but he harbored zero desire to correct them.

To Ye Chuchen, cleanly severing his blood ties and escaping this rotting clan was the ultimate objective.

He was utterly, permanently finished with this so-called family!

The more Ye Xuan stoked their rage, the faster he would be expelled.

What a beautifully vicious white lotus.

"Unfilial bastard! You treacherous bastard!"

"If you poured half this venomous scheming into your cultivation, perhaps your shattered Meridians would have healed by now!"

His delusion shattered, Ye Ding erupted into absolute fury. Apocalyptic Saint Pressure crashed down from the heavens, attempting to physically crush this rebellious dog onto his knees so he could be beaten, scolded, and broken into begging for mercy just like the old days.

Crack! Crack!!

Under the horrifying weight of a Saint, the sickening crunch of fracturing bone echoed out. Fresh trails of crimson blood slid from the corners of Ye Chuchen's lips.

Yet, no matter how apocalyptic the pressure became, Ye Chuchen kept his spine locked and his chin raised. Relying purely on his crippled mortal shell, he tanked the Saint Pressure head-on, allowing it to shred his internal organs.

In this life, he, Ye Chuchen, would never bow his head!

Never!!

"Hmph, you vile wretch!!"

Mere inches before the Saint Pressure pulverized Ye Chuchen into a paste of blood and bone, Ye Ding issued a freezing snort and forcibly withdrew his aura. Yet the revulsion boiling in his heart toward this son reached a historical zenith:

"Bastard, you brought this upon yourself!!"

Even a rabid tiger would not eat its own cubs. Ye Ding ultimately dared not execute Ye Chuchen:

Moreover, the boy remained the Ye Family's supreme benefactor. If he butchered him in plain sight, how would the clan ever revere him as Patriarch again?!

But if this crippled dog thought he could bluff his way through a threat, assuming Ye Ding lacked the iron will to expel him, he was catastrophically mistaken!

As the Patriarch and a mighty Saint-level powerhouse, Ye Ding loathed nothing more than being threatened.

Least of all by his own rotting waste of a son!!

If this bastard dared threaten him today, who knew if he might draw a blade on him tomorrow?

Utterly outrageous!!

Driven half-mad by his own righteous fury, Ye Ding roared:

"I hereby decree-!"

"Patriarch! Patriarch, wait!"

Just as Ye Ding prepared to banish Ye Chuchen into the void, hurried footsteps shattered the tension. The head steward, Uncle Fu, clutching a jade Pill bottle, practically tumbled into the great hall.

No one gave a damn what the old steward was shouting. Every eye instantly locked onto the emerald-green Pill bottle clutched in his trembling hands.

Ye Xuan's eyes lit up with sheer greed, the fire-attribute Spiritual Qi within his body unconsciously surging in hunger.

Even corked shut, the suffocating density of fire-attribute Spiritual Qi bleeding through the jade instantly arrested the entire hall.

The grade of the Pill inside was definitively supreme!

Ye Chuchen furrowed his brows. Crap. He suddenly remembered exactly what was about to happen next.

Meanwhile, desperate to clear the Holy Son's name, Uncle Fu screamed at the top of his lungs:

"Patriarch! Young Misses! You... you have falsely accused the Holy Son!"

"The Holy Son never consumed the Millennium Fire Lingzhi! Instead... instead, the moment he heard Young Master Xuan needed it to shatter his Bottleneck, he..."