"Well —"
Even though Chu Zhixiao was the Goddess of Slaughter, whose mental defense was so strong that she could break out of the Puppet King's bewitchment, she was still so shocked by Yun Haixin's words that she broke out in a cold sweat.
Li Yao exclaimed in shock deep inside his soul, wondering what kind of complicated family drama was this?
"My surname is Yun. You must've guessed that I'm from the Yun family, one of the four Kurfürst families of the Imperium of True Human Beings."
With a smile, Yun Haixin said bitterly, "Twenty years ago, I only advanced into the Yuanying stage by luck with a secret technique that I accidentally found. Together with my luck and my ruthlessness, I was lucky enough to advance into the Yuanying stage.
"In a regular family of Immortal Cultivators, the experts of the Yuanying stage are perhaps the pillars of the family. They are enough to hold the position of the elders of the family.
"However, the four Kurfürst families are each as prosperous as a country. There are too many experts and tough generals. Even the experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage are too many. What is a minor Yuanying of a secondary branch of the family?
"Tall trees attract the wind, and it is lonely at the top. For the descendants of the secondary branches like us, once we advance into the Yuanying stage, we will be able to touch the interests of the main branch of the family. We will either beg for mercy below the feet of the main branch of the family and be pushed forward as their lackeys and chess pieces, or we will be killed by their schemes and traps without bloodshed.
"Hehe. Let's just talk about the seemingly magnificent, unstoppable 'counterattack of the Imperium'. If it were the real core of the family, it would naturally be the command center of the expedition army in the rear that commanded thousands of soldiers. However, the rising talents from secondary branches such as us, who might threaten the position and interests of the main branch, would be sent to the frontline to carry out the most dangerous missions.
"If the missions could not be accomplished, we would naturally be killed without leaving any survivors. It would also show the might and bravery of the family, indicating that the Yun family was also a family of heroes who were willing to bleed and sacrifice for the country.
"Even if we are lucky enough to complete the mission, we will often be heavily injured and pay a terrible price. Sometimes, our cultivation will be stagnant for the rest of our lives. Just like that, there will be another more dangerous mission waiting for us.
"This is the fate of the collateral branches of the four Kurfürst families!
"I saw through everything twenty years ago, and I deeply hated this kind of life. But I was in the situation, and my family had to rely on my family for survival. If I didn't work hard to move forward, what else could I do?
"Just like that, I treated myself as a war machine and slaughtered numbly. Finally, I was attacked by the army of the Holy League in a battle. All my comrades around me were blown into pieces. Even I was blown high into the sky by the blast and fell into a coma before I hit the ground.
"When I woke up, I was already captured by the Holy League and sent to the rear."
Chu Zhixiao and Li Yao listened attentively.
The fact that Yun Haixin had become a captive on the battlefield wasn't unexpected. They continued to listen attentively.
"My wounds were so severe that I didn't recover until I stayed in the medical cabin for an entire year."
Yun Haixin continued, "At that time, I was already prepared to die for my cause. I was looking for an opportunity to kill myself at any moment, not because I was loyal to the Imperium and the true path of immortality, but because I was too used to the gory and cruel stories after I was captured by the Holy League in the Imperium. I even saw 'lurkers' who were captured by the Holy League and brainwashed. I was absolutely unwilling to be deprived of myself and my memories and end up as neither a human nor a ghost!
"It was a pity that my bones and veins were all broken at that time. I didn't even have the strength to commit suicide.
"As time went by day after day, under the stimulation of the nutrition liquids, the medical drugs, and the cell growth drugs, my bones, veins, and muscles gradually returned to normal. But the 'dreadful people of the Holy League' never brainwashed me.
"It was like the legends of the Imperium where a dazzling light hit one's head and made them forget everything in their dizziness. Such a feeling had never happened before.
"Time is the best anesthetic. After staying in the medical cabin for a year, my suicidal thoughts gradually faded, but my curiosity grew stronger and stronger. What was even more intense than my curiosity was my uncontrollable homesickness.
"I don't have the slightest attachment to the Yun family, but my marriage wasn't an exchange of interests. My wife and I truly loved each other. She even gave birth to a pair of very cute twins for me. My son and daughter gradually grew up and reached the most beautiful age of their lives.
"The three of them were the only light in my gloomy life. I wanted to know what happened to them. Although I was not the pillar of the Yun family, I was indeed the sky of my own small family. Now that my sky had collapsed, what would happen to my wife and my children?
"Curiosity and longing. The two intense feelings gnawed my soul like two vipers, making me toss and turn, unable to sleep at night. Every day felt like a year.
"It was not until I couldn't stand the torment of loneliness anymore and roared in the medical cabin day and night, asking the people of the Holy League to kill me as soon as possible, that the illusion of the Ultimate Benevolence Masters finally appeared before me."
"Which Ultimate Benevolence Masters were they?"
Chu Zhixiao asked.
"The Water Clan. They were the masters who were responsible for the spiritual field, the leadership, the battlefield command, and the ambush behind the enemy's rear."
Yun Hai said to himself, "However, it has always been an illusion in front of me. I don't know if it's him or not. You know, nobody has ever seen the real face of the Ultimate Benevolence Masters. All the Ultimate Benevolence Masters are hidden behind the scenes and only show up as illusions and the aura of their souls.
"At that time, I was so angry and anxious that I did not care about the other party's identity and whether they were real or not. I only roared like a beast and asked them what they wanted. They could either kill me with one slash, brainwash me deeply, and wash away all my pain. They could even send me to the torture table and serve me with great torture. That would be better than leaving me aside and not asking about me at all.
"The Ultimate Benevolence Masters did not answer my question directly. Instead, he gave me tremendous videos. I was so shocked that my heart almost exploded when I watched them. Those … Those were the videos of the daily life of my wife and my children that the Holy League snuck into the Yun family!"
"Huh?"
Chu Zhixiao was slightly stunned. Then he said, "The rulers of the Imperium are dissolute, and the people at the bottom want to die with them. It's not strange that the spies of the Holy League can infiltrate the nerves of the Imperium. However, why did they take videos of your wife and your children? To threaten you with them?"
"No. They were not threatening me. They were trying to … help me."
Yun Haixin seemed to have lost his soul. "My wife and children are having a difficult time in the Yun family. They're not good."
"Why do you say that?"
Chu Zhixiao said, "You were captured because you couldn't fight on the battlefield. It's not a stain, is it? Chances are that you will be regarded as a martyr. Can't the Imperium take care of the widow and descendants of a martyr?"
"Hehe …"
Yun Haixin narrowed his eyes, with intense hatred beaming out of his eyes. He said, "If the Imperium were fair and united, and every military order and law were carried out to the bottom level, the Holy League would've been annihilated five hundred years ago. How could we have ended up like this today?
"Besides, as you said, my body was never found, but the bodies of many of my comrades were left on the battlefield. Their Crystal Suit and the crystal cameras on their crystal tanks might've captured the scene where I was captured by the Holy League. Then, it would be a fact that I was captured in humiliation because of my cowardice.
"The widow and children of a martyr are naturally blessed, but what about the wife and children of a cowardly captive?
"Like I said just now, I was born in a secondary branch of my family.
"For branch families like us, we don't have deep connections and enormous resources to make use of, so we can only rely on our worthless lives. We will fight, rob, and tear at everything we can. It's inevitable that our table manners will be a little unsightly, and it's inevitable that we will make a lot of enemies on our path of rise.
"If I were really dead, everything would've been over. But now that I've become a captive, my enemies will have a perfect excuse to humiliate my family.
"A weak and helpless woman with no one to rely on and two half-grown children who have yet to grow up. In a place as dangerous as the Yun Family, surrounded by enemies, it is easy to imagine what kind of treatment they will receive."
Chu Zhixiao nodded solemnly.
"The Immortal Cultivators love to brutalize each other and are extremely cruel to their own people. They are always scheming against each other. They are certainly not as united as the Holy League," Chu Zhixiao said.
Chu Zhixiao said, "I can imagine how your wife and children were treated after you were captured."
Li Yao knew what the internal conflicts of the four Kurfürst families were like. He had seen more than a thousand similar examples in the relevant files.
If the leadership and the main bloodlines of the four families hadn't been so harsh and demanding on the secondary branches and the bottom-level Cultivators, how could the coalition fleet of the four families have fallen apart so quickly?
Many bottom-level Cultivators of the four families hated the leadership of their families even more than they hated the reformists. It was not an exaggeration to say that they could not wait to mince the leadership of their families into pieces and swallow the minced meat.
The support of the bottom-level Immortal Cultivators of the four families was also very important for the reformists such as Li Linghai to support Li Jialing to ascend to the throne together with the Cultivator.
Of course, Li Yao was not naïve enough to completely believe Yun Haixin's words and that he was as innocent as he claimed to be.
What did he mean by 'accidentally finding a book on mental techniques'? That was bullsh * t. Were secret techniques like promotional leaflets in the mall that would fall from the sky randomly?
Chances were that he had killed somebody and looted their secret techniques and magical equipment. Now that everything had changed, it was his turn to fall. Naturally, he was scared that his family would be punished, too.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
