Chapter 176: A Disaster of Blood and Light; Chen Changsheng You Truly Disappoint Me
Chapter 176 – A Disaster of Blood and Light; Chen Changsheng You Truly Disappoint Me
Jinshan City.
The entire Zhao Mansion was draped in lanterns and festive streamers. A flowing banquet, stretching further than the eye could see, swallowed three entire streets.
A bridal palanquin, heavy enough to require eight strong men to bear its weight, advanced at a crawl through Jinshan City.
Countless children swarmed the palanquin, singing auspicious nursery rhymes as they scrambled for the tossed wedding sweets.
The ceremony was an event of unprecedented grandeur, and the streets overflowed with joy—save for the bride hidden within the palanquin.
Adorned in a phoenix coronet and a crimson bridal gown, her face remained concealed beneath a silken veil. Yet, beneath that veil, her features held not a sliver of joy.
Unbeknownst to the cheering crowds, her pale hands gripped a pair of sharpened scissors.
…
Zhao Family Ancestral Hall.
Crunch!
“Your tribute fruits are surprisingly crisp. You don’t mind if I have a couple, do you?”
Chen Changsheng casually plucked fresh fruit from the sacrificial altar. Meanwhile, kneeling perfectly still in the center of the hall were three figures: a young man, a middle-aged man, and an elder.
Hearing Chen Changsheng’s voice, the kneeling elder hastily spoke, his head bowed to the floor.
“Senior, please enjoy as much as you desire. We only beg that Senior shows mercy and spares a single thread of the Zhao family bloodline.”
After uttering those words, the old man teetered on the verge of weeping.
He recognized the youth sitting before him. This was the same young man who sold coffins on the east street and occasionally peddled fortunes.
What was worse, he and this youth shared a “minor grievance.”
Watching the elder wear an expression fit for mourning his entire clan, Chen Changsheng immediately clicked his tongue in displeasure.
“Hold on, what are you looking so aggrieved about?”
“Three years ago, I told you your Zhao family was destined for a disaster of blood and light. Not only did you call me a liar, but you also released the hounds on me.”
“If I hadn’t bolted as fast as I did, I might have actually gotten bitten.”
“Now that the bloody disaster is knocking at your door, it proves my hexagram was perfectly accurate. You should be celebrating my skill, so why the funeral face?”
The lips of the three kneeling men twitched violently.
Your divination was indeed terrifyingly accurate, but the problem is, the bloody disaster descending upon our Zhao family is YOU!
An almighty expert of your caliber, why would you skulk amongst mortal filth selling coffins?
Had we known your true cultivation, you could have lent us a hundred gallbladders and we still wouldn’t have dared to set dogs on you!
Casting a sidelong glance at the shivering trio, Chen Changsheng couldn’t even muster the energy to properly intimidate them.
The elder groveling at his feet was Zhao Tian, the foundational pillar of the Zhao family. Within a hundred miles of Jinshan City, his cultivation was considered formidable, having already stepped into the Divine Bridge realm.
The middle-aged man was Zhao Kai, the current patriarch. His strength was merely passable for a local overlord.
He had successfully opened a Fountain, with faint ripples indicating a future breakthrough to the Divine Bridge.
As for the youth, he was Zhao Dan, the eldest son and designated heir of the clan.
His talent was barely adequate, having also managed to open a Fountain.
Had it been any other eccentric immortal chased by stray dogs, they might have wiped the Zhao family from the face of the earth with a flick of their wrist.
The reality, however, was that Chen Changsheng harbored no such grand ambitions of slaughter.
Given their pitiful cultivation, a stifled sneeze from him packed more lethality than their combined martial might. Stomping on ants offered no sense of fulfillment.
Crunch!
The cavernous ancestral hall fell deathly silent, punctuated only by the rhythmic chewing of Chen Changsheng demolishing an apple.
The three generations of Zhao men were now dripping with cold, terrifying sweat.
Having offended an unfathomable existence, the unwritten laws of the cultivation world dictated that the Zhao family be uprooted to the last blade of grass today.
The only variable left in their fate was whether this almighty Senior would graciously allow a single spark of their lineage to survive the culling.
A cup of tea’s time drifted by, and Chen Changsheng efficiently polished off three entire plates of sacrificial offerings.
Casually discarding the final pit, he wiped his mouth with deep satisfaction.
“To be perfectly reasonable, I’m not actually here to make trouble for you today.”
“The only reason I stepped through your doors is because of your second young master.”
“His incoming eighteenth concubine happens to be the beloved of a certain friend of mine.”
“My friend intends to crash the wedding and steal the bride, so I just came to secure a front-row seat.”
At these words, Zhao Kai abruptly jolted upright.
“Senior, rest assured! I will personally march out there and shatter that little bastard’s legs into paste.”
“Furthermore, the Zhao family will drain our treasuries to host the most glorious wedding imaginable for Senior’s friend and his beloved!”
Speaking rapidly, Zhao Kai scrambled to his feet to execute the order.
“Hold on, what are you getting so worked up for?”
Chen Changsheng waved a hand, halting the patriarch in his tracks.
Hearing that lazy tone, the sweat that had just dried on Zhao Kai’s forehead broke out in a fresh, icy torrent.
“Se… Senior, does this arrangement displease you?”
“It’s not about being displeased. I merely have a philosophical query I can’t quite wrap my head around.”
“Your second young master taking Aoxue Hongmei as a concubine was conducted through proper, lawful channels. My presence here, interfering with mortal affairs, is blatant bullying.”
“Does your mighty Zhao family truly harbor no resentment? Not a single thought of drawing your swords in defiance?”
Horrified by the implication, Zhao Tian, still plastered to the floor, screamed out his loyalty.
“My Zhao family holds absolutely zero objections!”
“Senior is the very Heaven overarching Jinshan City! If Senior decrees that our Zhao family is in the wrong, then the Zhao family is profoundly in the wrong.”
“We do not possess the arrogance to extinguish Senior’s wrath. We only pray Senior shows mercy and leaves behind a solitary drop of blood for our ancestors.”
Finished, Zhao Tian slammed his forehead against the stone tiles with a sickening thud.
Observing the old man’s pathetic display, Chen Changsheng smacked his lips, his brows knitting together.
“I understand your logic. I even comprehend the primal terror gripping your hearts.”
“But I am actively trampling on your dignity. Are you simply bowing your heads to fate like livestock?”
Hearing this, Zhao Tian roared back from the floor.
“Before Senior’s celestial might, the Zhao family dares not defy fate!”
“To surrender so easily… you truly disappoint me.”
“Compared to my friend out there, you are nothing but dust.”
Catching the drift of Chen Changsheng’s words, the violently trembling Zhao Dan forced an obsequious smile.
“Senior jests. How could mere ants like us ever be compared to Senior’s esteemed companion?”
“As long as Senior spares our clan, I will drag that bastard Zhao Ke by his hair and force him to surrender every single one of his concubines!”
Staring at the three generations of spineless cultivators, Chen Changsheng sighed, all the energy draining from his voice.
“I’ve suddenly lost all desire to hear your voices. The three of you, stay planted on your knees.”
“My friend will arrive shortly to steal the bride. Until the deed is done, none of you are permitted to leave this hall.”
Leaving those words behind, Chen Changsheng rose and sauntered out the door, swaying like a drunken scholar.
The moment his shadow vanished, the three generations of the Zhao family collapsed in a collective heap, exhaling violently.
Judging by the outcome, it seemed the unfathomable Senior had truly spared their lives.
…
High above the mortal dust.
Chen Changsheng reclined on the wind, cradling a braised pig’s head he had looted from the heavens knew where, gnawing on it until his chin glistened with grease.
Simultaneously, his oceanic Divine Sense rippled outward, sweeping through the entirety of Jinshan City.
Chen Shisan’s agonizing marching pace and the ticking clock of the wedding ceremony were all laid bare within his mind.
He had meticulously cultivated this fragile, terrifying standoff for one singular reason: he wanted to witness firsthand if Chen Shisan possessed the marrow to withstand the crushing wheel of fate.
The reason mortal men cowered before the Dao of Destiny was simple.
When fate struck with a heavy hand, it piled mountains of corpses and painted the valleys in rivers of blood.
Yet sometimes, it was the gentle fates—the ones that brushed past like a warm spring breeze—that cut the deepest.
Surrounded by squalor and starvation, the two lovers had forged an unbreakable bond, clinging to their pure intentions.
But once the crucible of suffering was removed, could Aoxue Hongmei still hold fast to that unblemished heart?
And he, Chen Shisan… would his iron will remain unbending to the very end?