Chapter 244: CH. 244 | Punishment for Hao Bao

Hao Bao and his two companions eventually left, still chuckling among themselves, tossing a few more insults over their shoulders as they climbed into their carriage and disappeared down the village road.

An Yue watched them go, her expression tight with concern, before turning back to Lin Tian.

"You shouldn’t have said that," she said quietly, once they were alone again in the shop.

Lin Tian glanced at her, brushing a bit of forge dust from his hands, "Said what? That I’d ruin his family?"

"That, and the way you spoke to him. You know how families like the Hao operate in places like this. They have connections, resources, people who owe them favors. Provoking him could cause problems we don’t need right now."

Lin Tian let out a short breath, setting down the cloth in his hands.

He understood exactly what she meant, and some part of him even agreed with it, though another part of him bristled at the idea of simply letting the man’s behavior slide.

"He was disrespecting you in your own home, Yue’er. I wasn’t about to just stand there and let that happen."

"I know," An Yue said gently, stepping closer and resting a hand on his arm, "And I’m grateful for that. But we agreed to live quietly here, to stay out of the affairs of mortals as much as we can. If you go around threatening to destroy a powerful family’s business, that’s the opposite of quiet."

She’s right. This is exactly the kind of thing we came here to avoid.

"Please," An Yue continued, her voice softening further, "For me, and for our child. Just let it go. Men like him talk big, but most of them lose interest once they realize they aren’t getting what they want without a fight."

Lin Tian studied her face for a long moment, the quiet worry still lingering behind her eyes despite her calm tone. He finally nodded, though the decision didn’t come easily.

"Alright. I’ll let it go," he said. "For you."

An Yue smiled, relief visible in the way her shoulders relaxed, "Thank you, husband."

Still, even as he said the words, a small, stubborn part of him doubted that Hao Bao would be the type to simply walk away and forget the exchange.

Men who grew up with that much power rarely handled rejection well, and Lin Tian had seen the look in his eyes before he left, the kind of look that promised this wasn’t over.

***

The days that followed passed much as they had before.

The shop stayed busy, customers coming and going throughout the morning and afternoon, Wei Hutong making his usual rounds delivering finished orders, An Yue managing the front counter whenever her energy allowed, and Lin Tian buried in the back room, forging blade after blade to keep up with demand.

For a while, it seemed like An Yue’s advice had worked.

There was no sign of Hao Bao, no whispers of trouble brewing, nothing to suggest the earlier confrontation had left any lasting mark.

Lin Tian allowed himself to relax, falling back into the comfortable rhythm of their quiet mortal life.

Then, four days later, the peace broke.

It started with the sound of several carriages pulling up outside the shop all at once, far more than the usual foot traffic of a normal afternoon.

An Yue looked up from the counter, her brow furrowing slightly at the commotion outside.

The door swung open, and Hao Bao stepped through first, his earlier smugness now replaced with something colder, more calculated.

Behind him followed several men and women dressed in fine robes embroidered with the Hao Family crest, their postures rigid, their auras unmistakably tinged with cultivation energy.

Unlike Hao Bao’s usual companions, these were clearly trained fighters, kept close for exactly this kind of situation.

"Miss me?" Hao Bao asked, a thin smile curling at the corner of his mouth.

Lin Tian emerged from the back room the moment he sensed the shift in energy outside, his expression calm but alert.

He counted six of them in total, all carrying themselves with the confidence of people who rarely lost.

"What do you want, Hao Bao?" Lin Tian asked evenly.

"I gave you time to think it over," Hao Bao said, stepping further into the shop, his eyes drifting toward An Yue.

"Close this pathetic little shop of yours, hand your wife over to me, and I’ll let you and your unborn child live out the rest of your miserable mortal lives somewhere far away from here. Simple terms, really."

An Yue’s hand tightened around the edge of the counter, her earlier calm faltering slightly at the blatant threat now hanging over her family.

"And if I refuse?" Lin Tian asked, his voice still steady, though something colder had crept into it.

Hao Bao’s smile widened, cruel and confident. "Then my family will make sure this entire village suffers for your stubbornness.

Every business, every home, every single person here will pay the price for your arrogance."

The cultivators behind him shifted subtly, hands drifting toward weapons and talismans, a silent show of force meant to drive the point home. One of them, an older man with sharp eyes, stepped forward.

"The young master has been more than generous," the man said coldly. "I suggest you don’t waste his patience further."

Something inside Lin Tian went very still. He’d tried, genuinely tried, to let this go, to honor what An Yue had asked of him.

But watching them stand there, threatening an entire village, threatening his wife and unborn child with such casual cruelty, that was a line he wasn’t willing to let slide any further.

I’m sorry, Yue’er.

He glanced briefly toward her before turning his full attention back to Hao Bao.

But I can’t let this continue.

"You’ve made a serious mistake coming here," Lin Tian said quietly.

Hao Bao laughed, the sound sharp and mocking, "Oh? And what exactly do you plan to—"

He never finished the sentence.

Lin Tian raised his hand, and the air around them shifted instantly, a heavy, suffocating pressure filling the entire shop in the space of a single breath.

The Void concept of his dao surged forward, bending the very fabric of space itself.

A jagged black crack tore open in midair directly above Hao Bao and his cultivators, swirling with an emptiness that seemed to devour the light around it.

The older cultivator’s eyes went wide with pure terror the instant he sensed what it truly was, "That’s... that’s a Void rift! Impossible! What cultivation realm is he—"

He never got to finish either.

The rift expanded violently, an invisible force yanking every single one of the Hao Family cultivators, along with Hao Bao himself, upward and inward, swallowing them whole in an instant.

Their screams echoed briefly, distorted and unnatural, before the crack sealed shut behind them, leaving no trace they had ever been there at all except the lingering disturbance in the air.

Silence followed, heavy and absolute.

Outside, the commotion had drawn nearly every villager within earshot, all of them staring in stunned disbelief at what they’d just witnessed.

Whispers rippled through the gathering crowd almost instantly.

"Did you see that? He just... he just made them disappear!"

"That wasn’t normal power. That was cultivation, real cultivation!"

"Brother Lin is a cultivator? All this time?"

An Yue watched the reactions ripple through the crowd, her heart pounding, aware of exactly how dangerous this moment had become.

Lin Tian felt it too, the weight of dozens of eyes now fixed on him, questions forming in their minds that could unravel everything they’d built here.

He moved quickly, forming a series of hand seals before anyone could react further, a shimmering formation array spreading outward from beneath his feet, engulfing the crowd in a soft, pale light.

One by one, the villagers’ eyes glazed over briefly, their memories of the past few minutes quietly rewritten, smoothed over into something far less alarming, a simple magic trick performed by a traveling entertainer, nothing more.

"It’s getting late," Lin Tian said gently, once the light faded, "Everyone should head home and rest. There’s nothing more to see here."

The villagers blinked, confusion flickering across their faces for only a moment before they nodded, murmuring amongst themselves as they began dispersing back to their homes, the incident already fading from their minds like a half-remembered dream.

An Yue let out a slow breath once the street had emptied, turning to look at Lin Tian with a mixture of relief and lingering worry.

"That should keep them from asking questions," Lin Tian said quietly, though his gaze remained fixed on the empty space where the rift had been moments earlier.

What neither of them could have known, not yet, was that far away in the heart of Yanzhe City, word of Hao Bao’s sudden disappearance was already reaching the ears of someone far more dangerous than the young master himself, someone who would not rest until he uncovered exactly what had happened to his son.