"Such despicable tactics!"
Li Xiangping's long hair scattered, revealing sparse white hairs. He had lived to the age where ordinary farrs would be enjoying their grandchildren, never having suffered much injustice in his life. Now, the only thing he couldn't stop worrying about was the Li Family, surviving among the cracks of nurous powers.
Dense black qi erged from the void, lting his gray-black eyes, withering his body. Li Xiangping coughed up a mouthful of black blood from his throat and hoarsely said,
"In this life, I have already lived a full one!"
Flashbacks of countless scenes flashed through his mind, finally slowly settling on a andering river, where a young boy, having caught a green fish, curiously lifted up a tattered and ash-gray Mirror, the morning sun illuminating his face with a radiant smile.
The black qi ca quickly and left just as fast, shriveling Li Xiangping's body. Just as it was about to slip back into the void, it saw a gray light erging from Li Xiangping's Shengyang Mansion.
The black qi halted, surged into Li Xiangping's Shengyang Mansion, and like a starving ghost who had seen a feast, dove into the Talisman Qi, disappearing without a trace.
All that remained was Li Xiangping's withered corpse kneeling on the ground, a faint white light erging from his Sea of Qi Acupoint, gently slipping into the void. Below him, the cries of the people rang out, Ahuilar's eyes nearly splitting as he shouted,
"Sorcery, it's a killing curse! Mu Jiaoman, you scoundrel!"
"Family Head!"
Chen Donghe kneeled in front of Li Xiangping's body, tears streaming down his face. He bowed his head and wept for a while, his fists clenched until they bled, with nothing but sobbing sounds in his ears. Li Qiuyang's eyes were red as he staggered close.
"Buzz buzz buzz..."
Suddenly, a noisy flapping buzz filled the air. Chen Donghe froze for a mont, stifled his cries, and knelt on the ground, moving a few steps with a grieving expression, leaning in to listen to Li Xiangping's body.
"Silence!"
Chen Donghe frowned and shouted, and the voices of the people imdiately quieted down. After he listened to Li Xiangping's body for a while, he carefully laid it down.
Chen Donghe's trembling fingers slowly reached for Li Xiangping's pale lips. Pressing his own lips together, he gently exerted pressure, and the noisy flapping sound imdiately intensified. Ahuilar and Li Qiuyang, standing to his left and right, also stiffened their expressions and knelt down to check.
"Buzz..."
With a push from Chen Donghe, a gray-black locust suddenly leapt out of Li Xiangping's mouth, with spikes all over its body and leaf-like patterns on its thin wings. It hopped on Chen Donghe's hand for a mont and then flew away.
"This..."
"Locusts! Loads of locusts!"
The people below shouted. A few of them hadn't even realized what had happened when nurous gray-black locusts erged from beneath Li Xiangping's corpse, buzzing upwards into the sky, forming a black storm as they ascended aimlessly, causing pain with their random crashing, forcing people to keep retreating.
"Donghe... what is this..."
Ahuilar spoke in a daze; Chen Donghe stepped back a few paces, his face still wet with tears, as he picked up Li Xiangping's Green Crow Bow and glanced at the now invisible corpse.
As the locusts in the sky slowly rose, Chen Donghe ground his teeth and said,
"Let's go! Don't let them catch you!"
————
Lijing Mountain.
"Harm."
A shimring white pill suddenly erged from the void, dropping into the ashen-gray Mirror on the stone platform, stirring up a wave of faint white moonlight. A distant sigh echoed in the courtyard.
"Li Xiangping, you've been with
for about twenty-five or twenty-six years..."
The mory of the boy who fished was still clear in his mind, but Li Xiangping from the west had already fallen. Lu Jiangxian's emotions were complicated, words at the tip of his tongue, yet he didn't know what to say.
Lu Jiangxian could feel his Divine Sense and Mana increasing continuously. The information stored in the Mysterious Pearl Talisman Seed slowly flowed into the Mirror. Li Xiangping had died due to a curse, his Cultivation Level at the peak of Fetal Breathing, yet the Mana surge from the Mysterious Pearl Talisman Seed far exceeded Lu Jiangxian's expectations.
"The feedback from the Mysterious Pearl Talisman Seed seems to not only be related to Cultivation Level, but also involves elusive and intangible aspects such as fate and incense. He stole Ganixi's fate and took away Shanyue's incense."
Lu Jiangxian's Mirror surface flowed with radiant light, and the Taiyin Profound Light wandered over the mirror's body. Its power was now enough to annihilate cultivators at the Qi Cultivating Peak. The increased limit of Mana allowed him to release five beams of Taiyin Profound Light in a row. If he encountered a Foundation Establishnt Cultivator, he could put up a fight, though afterward, it would take three days to recover.
"That black qi from the curse was originally a spell transford from Talisman Qi, swallowed in one gulp by the Talisman Qi within Li Xiangping's body. It's uncertain what kind of transformation has occurred."
Lu Jiangxian had been studying the structure of that curse for the past few days in the courtyard with little progress. Luckily, he required neither food nor sleep, nor had any needs, so he could afford to spend decades researching without haste, slowly grinding away.
"It is that Treasure Bead, though."
Lu Jiangxian swallowed a nonexistent drop of saliva. His desires had diminished significantly since becoming an Artifact Spirit, and he tried to maintain emotional fluctuations by observing the mortal world from the mountain. Nonetheless, the Treasure Bead that Li Xiangping had acquired ignited a deep craving from within his heart.
Outside the courtyard
Li Tongya was explaining swordsmanship to Li Xuanling in the courtyard when his heart suddenly fluttered, and he abruptly stopped.
"Father, what's wrong?"
Li Tongya's brow furrowed, feeling a bit uneasy. He waved his hand dismissively and said in a low voice,
"It's all right,"
he thought to himself,
"The great formation on Lijing Mountain must be set up sooner. Without the protection of a formation, there's always an uneasiness in my heart."
"Clang!"
A loud explosion ca from the door and windows, causing Li Tongya and Li Xuanling to turn back and look.
Li Xuanling walked over cautiously, opened the window, and saw a weak, gray-black locust that had smashed itself to death against it. Its upper body was beaten to a pulp, barely sticking to the window. He plucked it off with a puzzled look and turned to his father.
Li Tongya's spiritual sense had already seen everything clearly, and he felt inexplicably sad as he took the locust to examine it closely.
"Eh."
Under the scrutiny of Li Tongya's spiritual sense, he noticed that there was no trace of demonic qi on the locust, but rather a faintly familiar sensation.
"I'll go into the mountains again tomorrow to inquire about Xiangping's whereabouts."
Shaking his head, he pushed the thought to the back of his mind, Li Tongya tossed the locust out of the window and said softly,
"Don't get distracted, focus on reading the 'Mysterious Water Sword Technique'."
Amidst a burst of noise, Li Xuanxuan ca in happily holding a swaddled baby, speaking in a low voice,
"Uncle!"
Li Tongya's eyebrows rose slightly, and a look of joy appeared on his face as he asked,
"Has the child been born? Boy or girl?"
Li Xuanxuan had married an outsider with a spirit aperture as his wife the year before last. Her talent was not high, only at the level of the Fetal Breathing and Xuanjing Wheel. Li Xiangping arranged a few ordinary won with good looks to be his concubines. This child was the first offspring of the direct lineage.
"It's a boy!"
Li Xuanxuan's smile could not be hidden as he tightened his hold on the child and saw Li Tongya say with a smile,
"This is the first third-generation descendant of our Li Family. Have you thought of a na?"
"According to the generational sequence, it should be Yuanxiu!"
Li Xuanxuan laughed heartily, murmured softly to the child for a while, and then responded,
"Let's na him Li Yuanxiu."
"Li Yuanxiu..."
Li Tongya nodded and smiled, glanced at the child, and said quietly,
"Not bad, not bad."
"How many children do your concubines have?"
When Li Tongya suddenly spoke, Li Xuanxuan looked up and replied,
"One son and one daughter, both under the age of five."
Li Tongya pondered with a serious tone,
"From now on, children of the Li Family's main branch who are born without a spirit aperture will, upon dividing the family, beco a minor branch, while those with a spirit aperture will be grouped with the direct offspring into the main branch. Minor branch mbers of three generations without a spirit aperture will be demoted to a side branch, and those with a spirit aperture can be recognized back into the main branch as ancestors."
Li Xuanxuan was stunned for a mont but then nodded, asking with confusion,
"The Ye Clan now has more than two thousand people. If those with spirit apertures are recognized back into the side branch, how should they be handled?"
"They shall remain in the minor branch."
After pondering for several monts, Li Tongya replied.
Currently, Li Qiuyang was a mber of the Li Family's side branch. If his legitimate offspring were to possess a spirit aperture, they could be elevated back to the minor branch, but even if they have descendants with spirit apertures, they cannot be elevated back to the main branch.
"This way, it is guaranteed that everyone within the main branch is from grandfather's lineage..."
Li Xuanxuan nodded in comprehension, noticing Li Tongya's unease, he asked,
"Uncle, why are you doing this?"
Li Tongya opened his mouth and, looking sowhat exhausted, said in a deep voice,
"I am still worried about Xiangping. I'll make a trip to the west tonight; you all take care of the house."
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