Chapter 237: Promotion [2]

Peng Tianqe could not accept it.

He remained on his knees, his eyes bloodshot as he stared at Xiang Haoti’s departing figure. The royal decree continued to echo in his mind, each word feeling like a hammer striking his skull.

The Lin Family was supposed to fall.

The Hao and Peng families were supposed to profit from its destruction.

Once the Lin Family was gone, the two families would have been able to divide its resources and expand their influence without worrying about retaliation.

Everything had been planned carefully.

The Xu Family’s destruction had been the catalyst.

When the Peng and Hao families seized the Xu Family’s territory, they discovered a scroll hidden deep within its treasury.

The moment they examined its contents, both families realized they had stumbled upon something far more valuable than the Xu Family’s accumulated wealth.

The scroll contained records of a carefully prepared scheme in Yew Woods, one whose primary target was the Lin Family.

Recognizing the significance of the information, Peng Tianyuan and Peng Tianqe took great care to ensure that not a single word of it leaked beyond their control.

The records revealed that the Xu Family had been preparing for a plan involving extensive bloodshed, one in which countless cultivators would be sacrificed to eliminate the Lin Family.

When the two families understood what was about to happen, neither patriarch considered informing the Lin Family.

Instead, they began making their own preparations, quietly calculating how they would divide the spoils once the Lin Family had been destroyed.

Among the items they secured were pills capable of protecting cultivators against the strange mist. With those pills in their possession, the two families could prepare for the coming disaster without exposing themselves to the same dangers that would consume their rivals.

The plan itself was simple. A teleportation array buried deep within Yew Woods years ago would be connected to the sea of mist in the Tianhe Empire, allowing the mist to spread into the forest and eventually reach Azure Willow City.

Once that happened, the Xu Family cultivators would consume their purification pills and launch their attack.

The mist possessed a terrifying property: it obstructed the flow of spiritual qi, rendering cultivators unable to use their cultivation properly. Without the pills, even powerful cultivators would find themselves reduced to little more than mortals, helpless against an organized assault.

With the pills, however, the Xu Family could move freely through the mist while their enemies struggled to defend themselves.

It was a cruel plan, one that would sacrifice countless lives to ensure the Lin Family’s destruction.

When the Peng and Hao families first uncovered these records, even their patriarchs and elders had been stunned by the sheer ruthlessness of the scheme. Yet the Xu Family’s Patriarch and elders had died in their hasty confrontation with Lin Xuan before they could carry out their preparations.

That was what troubled the survivors most.

If the Xu Family had already devised such an elaborate plan, why had its Patriarch and elders chosen to attack Lin Xuan directly? Why risk everything in a confrontation that could have been avoided by simply waiting for the mist to spread?

Neither the Peng nor the Hao family could find a satisfying answer.

However, one detail in the records had captured their attention even more than the plan itself.

The purification pills.

As far as the patriarchs and elders of both families knew, a recipe capable of producing such pills was exceedingly rare. A pill that allowed its user to absorb spiritual qi even under conditions that would normally obstruct its flow was no ordinary treasure.

If such a recipe were common, the cultivation world would have already made a Live Extending Pill.

And the only family capable of providing such a rare resource, possessing a sufficiently powerful background, and having a deep hatred for the Lin Family was the Qin Family of the Tianhe Empire.

The hatred between the Qin Family and the Lin Family, particularly toward the current Lin Patriarch, was hardly a secret among those who paid attention to the rumors circulating throughout the cultivation world.

Connecting the Qin Family to the scheme required little imagination. The evidence was insufficient to prove its involvement, but the circumstances aligned too neatly to dismiss.

For the Peng and Hao families, however, the truth behind the scheme mattered less than the opportunity it presented.

Whether the Qin Family had personally arranged everything or merely stood behind it, the outcome appeared clear enough.

The Lin Family was about to face a calamity, and the Peng and Hao families intended to profit from its destruction.

All they needed was the right opportunity.

Yet the plan failed miserably and even the royal family turned their back.

Peng Tianqe’s fingers dug into the fractured ground.

How had everything gone wrong so quickly?

His mind returned to Peng Tianyuan’s final moments.

The patriarch had escaped the three enormous serpents, only to encounter the silver wolf.

But that encounter had not been a matter of simple misfortune. Peng Tianqe had deliberately lured the beast toward the place where the patriarch was trying to escape.

He had made sure Peng Tianyuan would not return.

With the Peng Family Patriarch dead, Peng Tianqe could seize control of the situation and guide the family toward the rewards he had envisioned.

But that had only been the beginning.

Hao Zhenshan had become a problem of his own. The Hao Family Patriarch was not someone Peng Tianqe could afford to let act independently. If Hao Zhenshan began having doubts or decided to pursue a different course, he might ruin everything.

So Peng Tianqe had poisoned him.

He had chosen to do it in public, with Lin Xuan standing nearby and the royal envoy present. The sudden death of another patriarch would strengthen the accusations against Lin Xuan, while Peng Tianqe could present himself as a grieving elder demanding justice.

It had been a cruel but effective plan.

At least, that was what he had believed.

Now, both families had been sentenced to destruction, and Lin Xuan had been handed the royal authority to carry it out.

Peng Tianqe’s breathing grew ragged.

He had wanted to use the royal family to bring Lin Xuan down. Instead, the royal family had given Lin Xuan a legitimate reason to erase the Peng and Hao families from the kingdom’s political landscape.

Worse still, the man responsible for their downfall was standing right in front of him, alive and unharmed.

Peng Tianqe slowly raised his head toward Lin Xuan.

The young patriarch’s expression was calm, almost indifferent, as though the destruction of two established families was nothing more than an inconvenience that had finally been resolved.

A chill crept into Peng Tianqe’s heart as he wondered whether the problem had never been the plan itself.

Perhaps he had simply underestimated the person he had chosen to oppose.

Peng Tianqe could not accept it.

He remained on his knees, his eyes bloodshot.

How could this happen?

“Why?!” Peng Tianqe suddenly screamed, his voice hoarse with disbelief.

His shout startled the surrounding cultivators, and he struggled to raise his head beneath Lin Xuan’s oppressive aura.

“Why would the royal family do this to us? What happened to the royal family’s duty to protect its subjects? Are we not citizens of the Loushi Kingdom? Have our families not served the kingdom for generations?”

His eyes swept across the crowd, desperately searching for someone who would agree with him.

“We are cultivation families that have faithfully upheld the kingdom’s laws! Our ancestors shed blood to protect this land, and this is how the royal family repays us? By handing our lives to another family and calling it a promotion quest?”

His voice grew louder, trembling with anger and desperation.

“Today, it is the Peng and Hao families! Tomorrow, whose turn will it be? If the royal family can authorize the destruction of two established families whenever it wishes, then what protection do the rest of us have? Are we all nothing more than stepping stones for the powerful?”

Several onlookers exchanged uneasy glances.

Peng Tianqe’s words were provocative, and everyone understood what he was trying to accomplish. He wanted to turn public opinion against the royal family, hoping that the surrounding cultivators would sympathize with the Peng and Hao families and question the legitimacy of the decree.

Unfortunately for him, the people listening were not fools.

The royal family had not ordered Lin Xuan to destroy the two families without reason.

Peng Tianqe himself had spent the entire confrontation accusing Lin Xuan of murdering their patriarchs and plotting to seize Southwatch City.

Now that the royal family had given Lin Xuan a formal promotion quest, he was suddenly complaining about the very authority he had appealed to moments earlier.

The contradiction was difficult to ignore.