Chapter 647- An Arrogant Brat
The villagers fell. One by one, they dropped to their knees, their foreheads touching the dirt. The same people who had shoved Suyin aside, called her cursed, closed their doors, turned their backs. They knelt before her now, trembling, begging.
Suyin ignored them.
Her large brown eyes scanned the crowd. She found her son — the small boy, standing at the edge of the kneeling mass, his eyes wide, his face a mixture of confusion and awe. She descended. Her bare feet touched the dirt. She walked to her son, her thick body moving with a new, composed grace — the bearing of a cultivator, not a broken widow. She picked him up. He clung to her neck.
"Mother," the boy whispered. "You’re glowing."
"I am, baby," she said. "Mama is strong now."
She looked toward the ridge. Toward the pond. Toward the figure standing there.
Tianlong stood on the ridge, his dark silk robe materialized around his body, his gold-crimson eyes watching. He gestured — a small, casual motion of his hand — toward the mountain. Toward the Plum Blossom Sect.
Suyin understood. She rose into the air, her son in her arms, her Core Formation qi carrying her upward. She flew toward the mountain — toward the sect where her older son waited, where she would be cared for, where she would live.
She didn’t look back at the village. Not once.
Tianlong watched her go. Then he turned — toward the east, toward the internal regions, toward the market towns where the other two women waited.
He flew.
The market town of Qinghe was a bustling, noisy, crowded place.
Located at the junction of three trade routes, it served as a commercial hub for the surrounding region — a place where merchants, cultivators, travelers, and locals converged to buy, sell, trade, and gossip. The main street was wide, lined with shops and stalls and restaurants, the air thick with the scent of roasted meat and spirit wine and cheap incense.
Tianlong walked through the market.
His dark silk robe drew attention — the fabric was too fine, too clean, too obviously the garment of someone far above the local population. His golden eyes, his towering frame, his otherworldly bearing — people moved aside as he passed, their instincts warning them that this was not a man to be bumped into.
The market was alive with commerce. Stalls selling spirit herbs, beast cores, formation flags, and cultivation pills lined both sides of the street. At one corner, a crowd had gathered around a bidding platform — an auction of raw spirit stones, the bidding driven by shouting merchants waving jade tokens. At another, a blacksmith displayed swords of varying quality, his hammer ringing against a blade as he demonstrated its edge.
Tianlong walked past it all. His gold-crimson eyes scanned the crowd, his divine qi extending in invisible tendrils, searching for the cultivation signature that matched Luo Han’s bloodline — his sister, married to a mortal merchant who mistreated her.
He didn’t find her. Not yet. The town was large, and his divine qi, suppressed by this world’s natural laws, had limited range.
He stopped at a restaurant.
The establishment was mid-range — a two-story wooden building with a covered terrace overlooking the main street. The ground floor was a common dining hall, filled with merchants and travelers eating noodles and drinking tea. The upper floor was reserved for private rooms, accessible by a staircase at the back.
Tianlong entered. The restaurant owner — a fat, sweating man with a red face — rushed forward, his eyes wide.
"Lord Immortal — please — honor my humble establishment — the best room — the best food — please —"
Tianlong was led to the upper floor. A private room — clean, simply furnished, with a window overlooking the street. He sat. Tea was brought. He waited.
He didn’t wait long.
The commotion started downstairs.
A young man — early twenties, handsome in the pampered way of merchant families, his robes silk and embroidered, his hair oiled and pinned — entered the restaurant with two guards. The guards were cultivators — Foundation Establishment, mid-stage — their auras carrying the disciplined edge of hired swords.
The young man’s name was Xu Renjie. The only son of the Xu trading house — one of the wealthiest merchant families in Qinghe. He was accustomed to deference. To obedience. To getting whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, from whomever he wanted.
He walked to the staircase. The restaurant owner intercepted him.
"Young Master Xu — your usual room is ready —"
"No," Xu Renjie said. His voice was sharp, nasal, carrying the petulant tone of a man who had never been told no. "I want the best room. Someone is in it."
"L-Lord Immortal is —"
"I don’t care if the Emperor himself is in it. Get him out. I want that room."
The restaurant owner’s face went pale. "Young Master, I — I cannot —"
Xu Renjie pushed past him. He mounted the stairs, his silk robes swishing, his two guards following. He reached the private room. He pushed open the door.
Tianlong sat at the table, drinking tea. His dark silk robe hung open at the chest, his golden eyes regarding the young man with the flat, disinterested gaze of a predator examining something beneath its notice.
"You," Xu Renjie said. "Get out of my room."
Tianlong sipped his tea.
"I said GET OUT. Do you know who I am? I am Xu Renjie of the Xu trading house. My family owns half this town. This restaurant, this room, this TABLE — all of it exists because my family allows it to exist. Get out before I have my guards throw you out."
The two Foundation Establishment guards stepped forward. Their hands went to their weapons.
And then they felt it.
Tianlong’s divine qi — suppressed, restrained, barely a fraction of his true power — brushed against their spiritual senses. The effect was instantaneous. Both guards froze. Their hands dropped from their weapons. Their faces went white. Their cultivation bases — Foundation Establishment, mid-stage — stuttered, their golden cores flickering in their dantians like candles in a hurricane.
The first guard — the older one, a scarred veteran named Zhang — dropped to one knee. His head bowed. His voice came out strangled.
"Young Master — we — we cannot — this person —"
"What?" Xu Renjie spun. "What are you talking about? He’s just some —"
"Young Master," the second guard said, his voice trembling. "We must leave. Now. This person — his cultivation — I cannot — I cannot sense the boundary. I cannot feel where his power ends. He is — he is beyond —"
Zhang — the veteran — kowtowed. His forehead hit the wooden floor. "Forgive us, Lord. Forgive this one’s master. He is young and foolish. He did not know. Please — show mercy —"
Xu Renjie stared. His handsome face went from red to white to grey. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"What — what are you — GET UP. What are you doing? He’s — he’s nobody — he’s just some —"
"Young Master," Zhang said, his voice barely a whisper, "kneel. Kneel now. Or we will all die."
The certainty in the guard’s voice — the absolute, terrified certainty — cut through Xu Renjie’s bluster. His silk robes rustled as his knees buckled. He didn’t kneel — his pride wouldn’t allow it — but he staggered backward, his face grey, his hands shaking.
"This — this is — you —" He pointed at Tianlong. "You — how dare you — my family — my mother —"