In nearly twenty years of life, Rong Huanxuan had seen her nominal father fewer than five times. When he appeared without warning in her courtyard now, her first reaction was not joy — it was terror.

She was not unintelligent. From the moment the news of Xi Yun’s sudden death had arrived to the moment he appeared before her — something must have been exposed. He had killed her mother, and now he had perhaps come to take her life as well.

Wu Youzi looked at the girl before him — a flower that had withered and gone to ruin — his gaze shifting from its initial blankness, to distance, and finally to cold, hating indifference. He spoke: “You knew long ago that the child being raised in the Lang Family was your niece. Not only did you take her tendons and bones — you would not even release her living soul. Is that right?”

Rong Huanxuan’s pupils contracted sharply. She swallowed. “I…”

“Do not try to argue your way out of it. Arguing is useless.” Wu Youzi suddenly raised one finger to his lips in a brief, hushing sound. “If you have the courage to admit it, I can give you a swift end, little sister — and I might even commend you for having the proud bones of our ancestors. But if you refuse to admit it, then you and your mother are the same — equally vile, equally repulsive — and you will die the same death she did: tendons stripped, bones sliced away, cut apart a thousand times over.”

Rong Huanxuan listened, and her body began to shake. An image flashed into her mind unbidden. She looked at the man before her, whose aura was dark as death itself, and felt with certainty that he was not threatening her. He was stating a fact.

He meant it.

He had truly killed her mother. And now he was simply giving her a choice in how she would die.

Rong Huanxuan’s tears came in a rush — pure, overwhelming terror forcing them free. Her lips trembled: “I did not know at first. It was Mother who told me afterward. It was the family head who had me absorb her tendons and bones to rebuild and reinforce my cultivation foundation. I — I had no other choice. I am the Rong Family’s young master. I cannot lose. I cannot fail.”

Her tear-filled eyes turned toward Wu Youzi: “I hated her — hated her for being your daughter. While I… was not. But I could only keep moving forward. They drove me forward, too. You know what the Rong Family’s situation is right now — you were young master once, too. You understand it better than I do. You understand what kind of man the family head is. I did not want to end up like you — crippled, hidden away in a corner, invisible to everyone. If I were crippled, I would be discarded like worthless refuse. The family head would never permit someone with no value to occupy resources and contribute nothing.”

Even being his own daughter would earn no special treatment. Was the man standing before her not proof of that?

Wu Youzi listened without expression, no trace of any feeling visible on his face.

Rong Huanxuan let out a broken, bitter laugh. “And yet I was crippled anyway. Drawing water in a basket — all of it, for nothing. Young Miss Xuan. Ha. He couldn’t even leave me the title of eldest young miss of the main line.”

Her greatest pride had always been her identity as the Rong Family’s young master — the one who would one day become the family head and hold the clan’s absolute authority. And now she had nothing. No identity, not even the standing of a main-lineage eldest daughter that would have kept others from slighting her.

Young Miss Xuan — nothing more than a wretched little pawn that could be discarded at any time.

Rong Huanxuan felt a sudden, total loss of any will to live. “If you are going to kill me, then do it. It makes no difference anymore.”

As a child she had craved this so-called father’s attention, his affection and concern. Later, she stopped wanting it. Later still, she felt she no longer deserved it. And now — dying at his hands was perhaps better than dying at anyone else’s.

“Dying is easy enough. Rong Yiming destroyed your cultivation — but he also kept you alive, leaving you the means to live or to die. If you wish to die, you may take your own life at any time. The fact that you say this tells me you do not dare — you simply lack the courage to face death, and you want another’s hand to do it for you.” Wu Youzi stripped away her pretense with cool contempt, then continued: “You cannot face death, your cultivation never advanced as it should have — because your spirit is not resilient enough. You are not ruthless enough. What befell you today — first, it is the karmic retribution of consequences coming due, intelligence squandered in the wrong direction; second, your spirit is not strong enough; third, you are not ruthless enough.”

Rong Huanxuan’s entire body went still.

“But none of that matters now. What happened to all of you is nothing but the natural repayment of what you yourselves have sewn — Heaven’s karma, working itself out. You made your own evil; of course you bear your own ruin.” Wu Youzi studied her with a cool, appraising look. “But you were right about one thing: everything began with Rong Yiming’s greed. Since you say you no longer wish to live — why not drag down what he holds most dear, and take it with you into the underworld? He betrayed your trust, did he not?”

His voice was like that of a seductive spirit, coaxing, patient, deliberate.

Rong Huanxuan’s body gave a faint shudder. Life returned to her hollow eyes — a subtle, barely visible flicker. She murmured: “You want to use me to move against him.”

“Exactly. I want him to see how pitiable he is — how he ends up utterly abandoned and alone.” Abandoned alone would not be enough. He wanted Rong Yiming to watch the heir he had carefully cultivated and groomed turn against him and tear him apart in betrayal.

Death was too simple for her. Rong Huanxuan should make herself useful, atone a little for her crimes before the end.

“What do you want me to do?” Rong Huanxuan asked, her voice trembling.

Wu Youzi bent slightly toward her, his voice dropping low, laced with a compelling, inciting cadence: “Rong Yiming speaks of severing family ties in the name of righteousness — says it is for the Rong Family’s honor — but you know the truth of it as well as I do. It is nothing but sacrificing the pawn to protect the king. He crippled you to preserve himself and everything he values most: that hypocritical face of his, and the Rong Family’s power. So when you became a hot and troublesome burden, he discarded you without a second thought. But you cannot reconcile yourself to it, can you? You were the young master. You cultivated without rest, trained in the Dao arts without pause, and the Rong Family’s power should by rights have passed into your hands. I believe that with your temperament — what you cannot have, you would sooner destroy. Am I right?”

Rong Huanxuan’s breath came rapidly now. A dark gleam flashed through her eyes. A morbid, feverish excitement and vicious satisfaction crept across her pallid face. What you cannot have, you destroy —

“The Rong Family’s clan-protection array is anchored by the blood of the main lineage — but the core focal point is the soul-consciousness of each successive family head. In other words, Rong Yiming is the current focal point. You were young then — you may not know that a great array also has its weakness. A spirit and soul that shares his bloodline can awaken the focal point and draw corrupted energy into it, causing the array to collapse from its innermost core. When that happens, the first to suffer the backlash will be Rong Yiming himself. With the array broken and its protection gone, the clan grounds will be defenseless — anyone, even wandering spirits with ill intent, will dare come to seize and plunder its resources.”

Rong Huanxuan stared: “But you also carry the blood of the main lineage…”

“I have not turned demonic. I carry no corrupted energy. Whereas you are filled with it.” Wu Youzi cut her off, his tone turning ominous. “Even if I could, there would be more meaning in having you do it personally — a betrayal from within. Otherwise, how does it do justice to his great righteousness in severing family ties? How does it repay the bond of blood he gave you?”

Dog biting dog — fur everywhere. There was nothing more entertaining than that.

“All right — I agree!” Rong Huanxuan’s excitement was so intense her body shook.

Wu Youzi watched her state — the look of someone on the verge of going madly demonic — and laughed coldly within his heart. At the same time, a faint, rising thrill stirred in him: the clan-protection array collapsing from within, sapping Rong Yiming’s vital essence; and from without, himself and Lang Jiuchuan bearing down like tigers, fracturing the Rong Family apart. Rong Yiming would be cast down into a place of utter, irrecoverable ruin.