Ji Fengyan held her breath.
“Save him from Gong Qiang’s clutches… please…” Gong Rui’s voice was full of helplessness but at the same time revealed something that no one knew…
Regarding Zhai Xing Lou, regarding Gong Qiang, regarding those innocent children…
Gong Qiang was a powerful gold cultivator and his actions had been uncontrollable since the time when he was at the Kingdom of Gui Suo. His cruelty and thirst for blood was spine-chilling.
Gong Qiang had been using gold cultivation to enhance his own body since a long time ago. As a result, even after 50 years of age, he maintained the appearance of a youthful man in his twenties. But these enhancements made Gong Qiang impotent and he could not conceive his own children.
Under such circumstances, Gong Qiang started adopting some promising orphans inside the Kingdom of Gui Suo. By leave of Gui Suo’s Emperor, he could pick any child he wanted inside the kingdom. Even… those children with parents would be forcibly separated from their family. And after taking away the child, Gong Qiang would have everyone in the kid’s life—including parents, relatives and neighbors—secretly killed.
Those taken away by Gong Qiang would become his children in name and forced to undergo an intense brainwashing to make them forget their past.
Gong Rui wasn’t the first child to be adopted by Gong Qiang. He was already about five to six years old when he was taken by Gong Qiang and still kept some of those memories. He remembered there were about seven to eight other children slightly older than him at Gong Rui’s place.
Gong Qiang had him address those children as brothers and sisters.
But before long, Gong Rui discovered that those brothers and sisters started vanishing one by one. Eventually, he became the only “son” left in Gong Rui’s hands.
At that time, Gong Rui was still too young to understand what was happening. For long periods of time, he would be kept in isolation and infused with many weird gold-cultivated potions. He endured heart-wrenching torture day and night, until he believed that he would die one day from this hell.
Until…
A pair of twins were brought before him.
Gong Qiang named them Gong Zhiyu and Gong Huiyu and had Gong Rui take care of those three-year-olds.
From that moment on, Gong Rui suddenly felt he was no longer alone. He now had a pair of adorable little brothers. He was their elder brother and he needed to take care of them and protect them.
After a few years, Gong Qiang incited a major public furore within the Kingdom of Gui Suo. His Emperor had no choice but to sentence him to exile. Gong Qiang then fled to the Free Valley with “his children”, and took control of Zhai Xing Lou.
After establishing Zhai Xing Lou, Gong Rui continued to bring back a few more children. By then, Gong Rui had grown up and discovered his “father’s” bizarreness. He started going out of his way to protect his brothers and sisters. Whenever Gong Qiang had a mission, Gong Rui would be the first to volunteer.
And there were not only missions but also ongoing gold cultivation experiments which Gong Qiang needed life subjects. Consequently, to protect his brothers and sisters, Gong Rui ended up in this wretched existence.
