“There was nothing we could do. Fan Yue immediately pulled out a bottle of medicine at the time. If we pushed the old bastard too hard, he might have drunk it and killed himself.”
“If this gets out of hand, there’ll be trouble.”
Zhu Hai and the others had been scared off by the gaze of Fan Xiwen, a mere youngster. After returning, they pondered the matter for a long time before finally coming up with an excuse. Then they hurried off to find Village Chief Zhu Gui.
Zhu Gui’s expression immediately darkened, and he was extremely displeased.
“That businessman said he’ll come to collect the land the day after tomorrow. If we still can’t settle this by then, the duck already in our mouths will fly away. Understand?”
Zhu Gui glared furiously at Zhu Hai. If Zhu Hai had not been his nephew, and if his fearsome reputation in the village did not make him somewhat useful, Zhu Gui would have kicked him long ago. They had supported this gang of ruffians with plenty of food and drink for years, waiting for the day they would be useful, yet they had turned out to be completely worthless.
“Why don’t we raise the price a little? This is a bit too—”
Zhu Hai was in a difficult position because he was especially unwilling to face that brat Fan Xiwen again.
He was only in his teens and, from what they had heard, had just entered Senior year of high school. Usually, he looked like nothing more than a bookish nerd. Yet no one had expected that such a little brat could possess such a terrifying gaze. At the time, Zhu Hai had suspected that if he did not leave immediately, he would be torn to pieces. That gaze had been far too frightening. Even someone like Zhu Hai, who usually ran rampant through the village without fear, felt shaken whenever he thought about it.
Zhu Gui turned around and stared at Zhu Hai. “Do you damn well know what you’re saying?”
Zhu Gui’s greed was indeed ugly. The difference between ten thousand yuan per mu and one thousand yuan per mu, across an orchard of more than twenty mu, was enormous.
But no matter how ugly Zhu Gui’s greed looked, how much of that difference would actually fall into the pockets of Zhu Hai and the other thugs?
If Zhu Gui had not supported them all these years, who knew how many times Zhu Hai and his gang would have starved to death? Even if they had survived, they would certainly be serving time in a detention center by now.
“All right, Uncle. Why don’t we think of another way?”
Zhu Hai was somewhat afraid of his uncle as well, so when Zhu Gui flew into a rage, he could only shrink his neck.
“Hmph.”
Zhu Gui snorted angrily. “You’d better settle this quickly. Otherwise, we can all go drink the northwest wind.”
Zhu Hai and the others exchanged glances. Zhu Gui was difficult to answer to, but Fan Xiwen was just as difficult to deal with.
“Why don’t we get a few dead snakes and throw them into Fan Yue’s orchard?”
“If that doesn’t work, we can go cut down his entire orchard in the middle of the night.”
The only schemes a gang of ruffians could come up with were low and despicable, so there was no point expecting any good ideas from them.
Still, Zhu Hai was quite tempted, because this was exactly the sort of work they did.
As long as they did not have to confront that yellow-haired brat Fan Xiwen directly, everything would be easy.
“All right. Around two or three tonight, we’ll split up and act. We’ll cut down every fruit tree in his orchard and poison that big black dog of his while we’re at it. Let’s see what Fan Yue has to say then…”
Once the plan was settled, Zhu Hai naturally took his men out drinking. Alcohol gave cowards courage, after all. The scene in the orchard earlier had been truly difficult to forget.
…
“Mom, I’m fine now. Could you make me some porridge? I’m a little hungry.”
His father had carried him home, and his mother had continued asking him question after question. Fan Xiwen could only answer helplessly.
“All right. Get some good rest first. I’ll call your Teacher and ask for leave. Stay home and rest for the next couple of days.”
Su Qing and Fan Yue left Fan Xiwen’s bedroom. Looking at the familiar yet unfamiliar furnishings inside, Fan Xiwen felt a surge of joy.
“Since I have been given another life, I absolutely will not let Father and Mother suffer the slightest harm this time. As for those who once schemed against them, I will collect the interest from each and every one of them.”
A calm smile appeared on Fan Xiwen’s face. Although he had lost all his cultivation, who was he?
The Lord of the Great Chu Divine Dynasty, Fan Xiwen, the God Emperor whose single thought had once controlled the life and death of countless living beings beneath Xinghe.
A few mortal ants could be annihilated with a flick of his finger.
“This body is completely incapable of withstanding such a powerful divine soul. It seems that if I cannot fuse my divine soul with this body as soon as possible, I will have to seal my divine sense and wait until this body grows stronger before unsealing it.”
Fan Xiwen smiled. To be honest, he was not quite used to this.
Ever since he had embarked on the path of cultivation, he had endured countless hardships and had struggled at death’s door several times, but he had never been this fragile.
This was utterly unworthy of the name God Emperor!
“As for cultivation…”
Fan Xiwen had been able to achieve orthodox ascension in only four hundred years entirely because of the supreme cultivation technique, the Haotian Formula, from the Haotian Sect of the Xinghe Continent. However, the Haotian Formula’s limit was merely the Immortal Emperor realm. Afterward, Fan Xiwen had spent several thousand years waging battles and gathering countless cultivation techniques, then pieced together the God Emperor Heart Sutra on the foundation of the Haotian Formula. Only then had he advanced to the God Emperor realm. However, its flaw was obvious: the God Emperor Heart Sutra had, in reality, only allowed Fan Xiwen to enter the Pseudo God Emperor realm. Otherwise, he would not have ended up dead and his soul destroyed when he fought the Lord of Great Han.
“Perhaps this is an opportunity.”
An opportunity to complete the God Emperor Heart Sutra!
No!
Suddenly, Fan Xiwen looked up at the Back Mountain in astonishment.
The Back Mountain was where his family’s orchard was located!
Three thousand years was too long. It had been so long that Fan Xiwen had nearly forgotten that the Heavenly Dao of Unnamed Star was damaged, making it fundamentally unsuitable as a place for cultivators to survive, because the spiritual energy of Unnamed Star was so thin.
Yet just moments ago, Fan Xiwen had suddenly remembered that he had sensed dense spiritual energy in the orchard earlier. Although it was still utterly unimpressive compared with the cultivation holy land of the Xinghe Continent, it was incredibly dense by Unnamed Star’s standards. Fan Xiwen had not remembered Unnamed Star’s condition before and had even regretted the thin spiritual energy here. But now that he thought about it carefully, there was something distinctly wrong with the spiritual energy in his family’s orchard.
“Therefore, something extraordinary must have happened on that night three years ago, when thunder and lightning raged.”
“That must be why an outsider came all the way to this impoverished backwater to purchase the orchard.”
“If my guess is correct, that outsider is probably no simple man.”
…
A faint smile curved Fan Xiwen’s lips. In his previous life, Zhu Gui and Zhu Hai had been among those who caused his parents’ deaths, but the outsider who had purchased the orchard had also been an accomplice, perhaps even the true mastermind. Unfortunately, after his father’s orchard had been forcibly taken, he had been unwilling to accept it and had taken his mother and Fan Xiwen away from the nearly isolated Zhujiachong to the city. As for the later tragedy in Zhujiachong, Fan Xiwen’s family had never set foot there again, so they naturally had no idea what happened after the orchard was purchased.
“However, whatever you plan to use it for, now that I have returned, there is no possibility of an ant like you continuing to leap around.”
If there were any Heavenly treasures, only the Chu Emperor was worthy of possessing them.
Leaning against the headboard, Fan Xiwen closed his eyes and released his immense divine sense.
Although he had suffered severe injuries in his battle with the Lord of Great Han, leaving his divine body shattered and his divine sense badly damaged, the short distance from his home to the rear mountain orchard was still within the range of his divine sense.
That was enough!
His divine sense spread through every corner of the orchard. Before long, an unusual fluctuation came up from beneath the soil.
As he carefully sensed that fluctuation, Fan Xiwen’s brows twitched.
“How could something like this exist on Unnamed Star?”
About five meters beneath an orange tree in the orchard, a section of rotten wood was actually buried underground.
The reason the orchard’s fruit turned sour and astringent every year was also because of this section of rotten wood.
The rotten wood was completely charred black, looking as though it had been burned by fire. It resembled charcoal.
But this was no ordinary piece of wood. It was Yuan Sheng Wood.
There was a great deal of Yuan Sheng Wood in the Great Chu Divine Dynasty. It was not very useful to the former Great Chu God Emperor, because its natural properties were extremely mediocre. The only remarkable thing about it was that it was like a container capable of absorbing anything. Heaven and earth spiritual energy, Power of Lightning, and all kinds of energy could be absorbed by it. If Yuan Sheng Wood were used as the eye of a Formation, it would be almost equivalent to having an endless supply of energy to power the Formation.
“What a pity. If I had known back then that a piece of this thing was buried beneath the orchard, then no matter how unwilling Father was, I would certainly have persuaded him to let it go.”
It was only a section of Yuan Sheng Wood. There was nothing particularly significant about it.
This thing was a treasure to ordinary cultivators, but to Fan Xiwen, the God Emperor, it was nothing more than trash.
After seeing the Yuan Sheng Wood, Fan Xiwen understood why such a change had occurred in his family’s orchard.
The Yuan Sheng Wood had been struck by lightning. Because of its special properties, it had absorbed the Power of Lightning before falling into the orchard. Although it had been buried five or six meters underground and little of the Power of Lightning had leaked out, it was still the force of lightning. The fact that the land had not become scorched earth was already a blessing. Then, because the Yuan Sheng Wood had continuously gathered spiritual energy to nourish the orchard, the fruit trees there had been able to cling to life. Thus, it was only natural that the fruit they produced was sour and astringent.
“Actually, if nothing else changes, the fruit produced by this orchard will become extraordinarily sweet in another two years.”
“After only ten years, the fruit trees here may even produce some spirit fruits. Although they will not compare with immortal fruits, eating them regularly will strengthen the body and promote Longevity.”
After all, the Power of Lightning contained in the Yuan Sheng Wood beneath the ground was gradually weakening, while the spiritual energy it absorbed was nourishing the fruit trees in the orchard. Combined with the spiritual energy naturally gathering in the air, this place would, given enough time, become the sort of immortal cave abode found in the xianxia novels of Unnamed Star.
Fan Xiwen’s gaze sharpened. “To harm lives for personal gain, you deserve to die.”
His voice was desolate and filled with intense killing intent.