Chapter 177: The Original Form, The Price of Growing Up

Chapter 177 – The Original Form, The Price of Growing Up

The blaring procession of gongs and suonas ground to a halt.

The jubilant grin on Zhao Ke’s face twisted into a dark scowl.

Because blocking the road ahead was a filthy eyesore.

It was an emaciated youth clad in ragged, heavily patched garments.

A rancid stench of sweat and alleyways clung to him, and even the sword gripped in his hands was shattered.

Yet, despite his destitute state, his spine was forged of unyielding iron, and the broken blade was leveled with terrifying conviction.

Glaring down at Chen Shisan, Zhao Ke’s features contorted with pure irritation.

“Brat, what exactly is your goal here?”

“Someone begged for your miserable life outside Wan Hua Lou two days ago, and I graciously spared your dog carcass.”

“Now you dare to block my path? Do you truly believe my blade is too dull to sever your neck?”

Unmoved by the threats, Chen Shisan spared a quiet glance toward the bridal palanquin in the distance and spoke evenly.

“Aoxue Hongmei will die if she goes with you. I am taking her away.”

With a steady hand, he retrieved a blood-stained pouch from his robes.

Staring at the pathetic four taels and seven qian of silver spilling from it, Zhao Ke rolled his eyes to the heavens.

“Are you completely deranged?”

“You intend to buy a person from my estate with those coppers?”

“Even if you came seeking death, could you at least use your brain first?”

“You should have simply charged over with your sword bared and roared, ‘Today, I am taking her away, no matter the cost!’”

“If you had the spine for that, this young master might have actually spared you a glance of respect.”

“But pulling out pocket change? Are you hoping to squeeze pity from me, you brainless mutt?”

Weathering the barrage of mockery, Chen Shisan silently pocketed the blood-soaked silver.

“Hongmei once told me that this world is governed by reason. Only when words fail should steel be drawn.”

“Four taels and seven qian is my entire fortune. It is within reason that you refuse.”

“Therefore, I will now use this blade to carve her a path to freedom.”

Slowly, methodically, Chen Shisan raised his shattered sword, the jagged tip aimed squarely at the mounted Zhao Ke.

Seeing this, Zhao Ke sneered, a venomous smile curling his lips. “That’s more like it.”

“If word spread that I slaughtered a raving lunatic without cause, I’d become the laughingstock of the city.”

He flicked two fingers forward, and over a dozen armed guards instantly surged outward, encircling Chen Shisan.

“Make it quick. Do not delay my auspicious hour.”

“Beat him to a bloody pulp, then chop him into pieces for the hounds. I don’t want his corpse fouling my mood.”

On command, the Zhao family guards roared, their weapons whistling through the air as they converged on the solitary youth.

Although Chen Shisan wielded the divine broken sword bestowed by Chen Changsheng, even the sharpest celestial blade was mere scrap iron if it could not bite flesh.

He had only ever practiced crude, foundational sword forms, pieced together from his own raw understanding of violence.

How could such an unpolished, instinctual style compete against the coordinated brutality of trained enforcers?

In the opening breaths, the sheer weight and edge of the broken sword allowed him to parry their strikes.

But the moment the guards deciphered his rigid movements, steel bit into Chen Shisan, opening jagged, bone-deep trenches across his flesh.

…

High above the mortal dust.

Chen Changsheng, having polished off the braised pig’s head, was now methodically tearing into a roasted chicken.

Peering down at the blood-drenched figure of Chen Shisan, he smacked his lips, his voice laced with a strange weariness.

“System, am I being too vicious here?”

“I could sever these mortal chains with a single thought, yet I’ve forced this whelp down the most agonizing path possible.”

“With my intellect, orchestrating a scenario that safeguards Chen Shisan’s Dao Heart while effortlessly plucking Aoxue Hongmei from danger would be trivial.”

In response, the system’s voice chimed within his consciousness.

“From a logical standpoint, Host possesses the capability to do so.”

“But according to my deductions, Host will never take such an action.”

“And why is that?”

“Because Chen Shisan embodies the original form of all cultivators: stubborn, unyielding, and openly defying the heavens.”

“There is an ancient axiom in the cultivation world: ‘My fate is forged by my own hands, not dictated by Heaven.’”

“Novice fledglings carve those words into their bones, while ancient immortals merely spit on them in derision.”

“To cultivate the Dao is to claw one’s way upward. Living beings covet power solely to shatter their shackles.”

“The chains take many forms: the cruelty of a mortal lifespan, the boots of absolute experts, the very laws of Heaven and Earth.”

“Every soul that steps onto the path of immortality believes they will be the one to sunder these chains.”

“But as eras bleed into epochs, their spines bow, and their knees touch the dirt.”

“They become like the Zhao family. To cling to another breath, they will sacrifice dignity, bloodlines, and worldly wealth.”

“Everything peripheral to survival is callously thrown into the pyre.”

“Such pragmatism guarantees survival, yet in the process, the ‘original aspiration’ rots away to ash.”

Hearing this, Chen Changsheng slowly lowered the half-eaten fowl.

“System, when Zhao Tian first touched the Qi of Heaven and Earth, what was his original aspiration?”

“To achieve the Great Freedom. To stand invincible beneath the heavens and never bow to another soul.”

“And now?”

“To sustain a meager clan’s prosperity, to cower in the shadows like a rat, and to pray for a few more years of borrowed breath.”

Silence pooled in Chen Changsheng’s ancient eyes.

He was suddenly pulled back to the Heavenly Talent Assembly from thousands of years ago.

In that golden age, the Kunlun Holy Land overflowed with peerless paragons, each young prodigy burning with ambitions high enough to pierce the firmament.

Though not all were absolute monarchs of their generation, every single one harbored the unshakable delusion that they were invincible, and that history would remember them as the apex.

Among them, the most tyrannical and spoiled was undoubtedly Zuo Xinghe’s daughter, Zuo Jing.

In those days, she fiercely believed the Xuanwu Kingdom was an absolute titan, and that her beloved Su Tian was unparalleled under heaven.

Confronted with the brat’s arrogance, he had employed a minor trick to shatter her narrow well, revealing the terrifying vastness of the true world.

Forcing her to witness that the Xuanwu Kingdom was a mere speck of dust, and Su Tian was anything but invincible.

In the aftermath, she quietly faded from the bloody conquests of the Middle Heavens.

The second time their paths crossed was during the era when the Zifu Holy Land first cast its shadow over the Middle Heavens.

A grand alliance was struck between the Zifu Holy Land and the Xuanwu Kingdom, with the latter emptying its reserves to back Wu Li’s ascent.

By then, the sharp, unruly edge of her youth had been ground away. She had become dignified, graceful, an exemplar of steady court etiquette.

Ironically, she never wed her Su Tian. She possessed the crushing self-awareness to know she could no longer keep pace with his soaring Dao.

In the eyes of the world—including Chen Changsheng’s—her transformation was the absolute correct choice.

But in the end, she had surrendered her original heart.

Or rather…

She had grown up!

At the thought, Chen Changsheng tightened his lips, a bitter taste sitting on his tongue.

Zuo Jing had grown up, and the rest of them had followed suit.

Ye Hensheng, Su Tian, Gongsun Huaiyu, Zi Ning…

Back then, they would have butchered gods and buddhas to seize the Heaven’s Mandate. But with his abrupt arrival, and the emergence of other anomalies…

They severed that impossible obsession, turning their gazes toward lesser peaks.

To yield was mathematically correct. Engaging in the war for the Heaven’s Mandate guaranteed only their bodily annihilation and the collapse of their Dao.

Yet, no matter how high they climbed the mortal peaks, the fiery youths they used to be had already died.

“Sigh…”

Exhaling a breath that tasted of ages passed, Chen Changsheng looked down at the staggering, bleeding frame of Chen Shisan.

“I pushed you onto the most agonizing road in this universe. I truly do not know if I am your savior or your butcher.”

“Without my interference, you would have been trampled into the mud, a nameless corpse.”

“Death wipes the slate clean. Perhaps… fading into nothingness would have been kinder than an eternity of this torment.”