After experiencing the pain of losing his son, Gao Xiong couldn’t sleep at all. In order to calm his turbulent emotions, he sat in the courtyard throughout the night.
He sat there cross-legged, meditating like a monk, and his breathing was imperceptibly shallow.
Although his eyes were tightly shut, he heard a faint disturbance. When he opened his eyes and looked at the gate to his residence, he saw one of his trusted subordinates rushing toward him.
“Family Head.” The man was still clad in heavy battle armor. Gao Xiong hadn’t slept a wink, but his closest confidants, who’d been left to deal with the aftermath, hadn’t gotten any rest either.
Gao Xiong tightly furrowed his brows, forming the character, “川” or “river” on his forehead. His subordinate’s expression only made him glower even more. The man had a grave look on his face and seemed to have something to say, but he was hesitating.
“Ayi, what is it? If you have something to say, just say it.”
The man he called “Ayi” pursed his lips, clenched his saber, then let out a deep sigh. “Family Head, I’m going to tell you something, but please, try not to get too worked up when you hear it.”
“Out with it.” Gao Xiong frowned even further. In his estimation, there was no news that could possibly get him overly worked up at this point.
At worst, they’d run into issues pacifying the city’s populace or supplying compensation for those losses, but these were all issues they could resolve with money.
Although Gao Xiong still had to prepare vast quantities of resources as a tribute to the Xiao Family, he could still afford to compensate the locals of Yellow Springs City.
Ayi pursed his lips again, took a step back, his heavy armor creaking as he moved. “Young Master Ruilong…..”
“What about him?” Gao Xiong frowned.
“He…. last night, he was murdered.”
As soon as those words left Ayi’s lips, Gao Xiong’s eyes widened. The next moment, he coughed up blood all over the cobblestone courtyard.
“Family head.” Ayi panicked and hurried to the family head’s side, pounding him on the back and infusing his body with pure spiritual energy.
As soon as his energy entered the family head’s body, he discovered that Gao Xiong’s meridians were in grave disarray. His spiritual energy was surging madly too, and damaging his pathways without any obstructions.
Ayi immediately used his own power to guide it. Finally, when Gao Xiong’s spiritual power had steadied, he pulled a pill out of a spatial ring and slipped it into the family head’s mouth.
“Cough! Hack….” After coughing up a lump of congealed blood, Gao Xiong reopened his eyes.
His gaze was lifeless, and his face pallid. He pushed Ayi away and said weakly, “You said…. Ruilong’s been murdered?”
After regaining consciousness, Gao Xiong seemed to have aged another decade. He’d already been worn out after losing his eldest son the night before, but he never would have guessed….. That in less than twenty-four hours, he’d lose his other son as well.
Ayi looked at the worn, decrepit Gao Xiong and felt a surge of heartache. He grit his teeth and nodded. “That’s right. Just now, we received the report. A servant entered Young Master Ruilong’s residence and found it in disarray with obvious marks from a fight. The young master himself was lying in his living room, and had been stabbed through the heart with a sharp object. There was also a dead woman lying there, who seems like an ordinary mortal. Her chest was pierced right though by spiritual power.”
“Ruilong.” Gao Xiong leaned into Ayi and murmured to himself. His body trembled from head to toe, and his once sharp gaze was now bleak and lifeless.
“Familly head, my condolences, but please restrait your sadness. You are now the pillar of our family. If anything happens to you, our entire family will descend into chaos.”
For a long time, Gao Xiong sat there, immersed in his grief over Gao Ruilong’s murder.
A full hour passed before he managed to just barely set his grief aside. Ayi helped him to his feet.
Gao Xiong looked at him, his eyes still rife with forlorn grief, and said, “Take me there.”
Gao Ruilong’s murder cast the entire Gao Family into uproar. After all, the family head had only declared him his successor yesterday. In three months, he was supposed to have become their leader, yet he was murdered the day after the announcement. This was a major incident for the family.
The elders and retainers.
All the Gao Family’s experts and authority figures had gathered around Gao Ruilong’s residence, including quite a few ordinary clansmen who’d come to see what was going on.
A beautiful woman in purple sat in their center. She was Gao Ruilong’s mother and Gao Xiong’s wife, the ex-wife of the Cai Family Head, and Cai Renfei’s birth mother……
Li Lu!
She didn’t cry or make a fuss.
She simply sat on the ground, dazed, her shoulder-length white hair draped behind her. Gao Ruilong’s unmoving body lay on her knees.
This sort of situation was the most worrying. Her grief was so intense, she’d died inside. This was Li Lu’s current state.
“My condolences, Mistress.” The elders and retainers all tried to comfort her, but she just sat on the ground in a daze without giving them the slightest response.
The onlookers shook their heads sympathetically. Before long, there was a mild disturbance as someone called out, “The family head is on his way.”
Instantly, they formed a path from the entrance, and before long, they saw Ayi support the family head as he hobbled into the courtyard.
“Family Head.” Everyone bowed in respect, but Gao Xiong ignored them and walked up to Gao Ruilong.
He looked emotionlessly at his unmoving son, then at the white-haired woman holding him. Li Lu was still alive, she was like a walking corpse.
The depths of his eyes welled with grief. He forced his eyes shut and let out a long sigh. “Who was the first to discover him?”
A man in simple robes immediately stepped forth and knelt on the ground. “It was this humble one.”
“You….. why didn’t you accompany our clansmen to comfort the local populace? What were you doing at Ruilong’s residence?”
Under the weight of Gao Xiong’s gaze, the man felt as if he’d been plunged into an endless abyss, and he trembled instinctively.
He had already guessed Gao Xiong’s thoughts, and he hurriedly kowtowed. “Family Head, I humbly request your understanding. Last night, Young Master Ruilong told me to wake him up at dawn to accompany him on a walk through the city. I was only obeying orders; I didn’t kill the young master.”
“Is that so? Can anybody testify on your behalf?”
“I…. This humble one…..” The man’s lips quivered, but he said nothing. When Gao Ruilong gave those orders, they were the only two present. “Family Head, please understand. This humble one is weak, and has only just entered immortality. Young Master Ruilong was already an immortal king. How could I possibly have harmed him?”
“So what you’re saying is, you’ve got no alibi?” Gao Xiong completely disregarded the servant’s explanation. His eyes flashed with cold light. “Take him away! I sentence him to death by a thousand cuts!
