"Young Master, would you like a change of clothes?" Xuerou stepped forward, offering him a clean robe.
"No need," Zihua said, waving it off. "I've been away for three years. Walk with me a bit."
"But, Young Master, the Clan Leader ordered that unless it's urgent, you're not to leave the courtyard," Xuerou reminded him gently.
Zihua smiled. "If he wants that to matter, he'll need to say it to my face."
With that, he stepped out of the courtyard.
The Bai Manor was quiet.
As Zihua walked through the estate, he could feel the pressure in the air. The whole place felt... tense.
"A lot has changed these past three years," he muttered, his gaze turning sharp and cold.
Ever since the Bai family's old patriarch died three years ago—along with their last chance at a royal marriage alliance—the family had spiraled into decline.
The Xie family, who already had longstanding grudges against the Bai family, seized the opportunity to strike while they were down. They relentlessly suppressed the Bai family, and in just a few short years, what was once one of the top clans in the Maple Empire had fallen to second-rate status, barely holding on to a single county.
But even that wasn't enough for the Xie family.
Behind the scenes, they supported another clan in Bright Moon County—the Chen family—urging them to constantly oppose the Bai family at every turn. They even intended to wipe them out entirely.
And the trouble didn't stop there. The rot had taken hold within the Bai family as well.
Without the old patriarch's presence to keep order, the family quickly fell into chaos. Over ninety percent of the retainers who had once pledged loyalty to the Bai family left.
The few who stayed gathered around a man named Lei Lee—a Void Breaking Realm powerhouse—and formed an independent faction within the Bai family. They refused to take orders from the main family and used every trick, overt and covert, to seize the family's remaining resources and influence. Slowly but surely, they were stripping the Bai family of its authority, practically running things themselves.
At this point, the Bai family wasn't just facing threats from the outside—it was crumbling from within.
Zihua had just arrived at the training grounds when he noticed a crowd gathered in the center. Two people were locked in fierce combat.
"Hah! So, Shang—you finally broke through, huh? No wonder you had the guts to fight me. But do you really think that's enough to beat me? What a joke!" a mocking voice rang out from the arena, tinged with arrogance.
"Shang?" Zihua's expression shifted slightly as he turned his attention to the two fighters.
One of them was the same Shang who had stopped him and scolded him at the gates earlier.
As for the other one...
"Nan Lee," Zihua muttered, his gaze turning cold.
The surname Lee meant he wasn't a core member of the Bai family—he was the son of one of the retainers.
Nan was none other than the son of Lei, the leader of the rogue faction that had taken root within the family. Lei had two sons: the elder, Wei, and the younger, Nan.
"The current Bai family... Lei and his faction have become cancer," Zihua thought, eyes filled with icy determination. "If I want to bring the Bai family back to the top, the first ones I need to eliminate are Lei and his sons."
The Bai family had fallen because of him.
And now, he would be the one to lead them back to greatness—to rise again as one of the most powerful clans, not just in the Maple Empire, but across the entire Xuanwu Continent.
Lei and his sons would be the first stepping stones on that path.
Boom!
With a heavy thud, Shang was sent flying through the air and crashed to the ground. He lay there for a moment before slowly climbing back to his feet, a thin stream of blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
"Haha! I told you—trash like you could never be my match," Nan sneered proudly. "Among the younger generation of your Bai family, only Huo has a bit of skill. The rest of you are nothing but garbage. And even Huo is nothing in front of my big brother."
"You bastard!" Shang and several other Bai family members were furious, but they couldn't argue.
In martial cultivation, the stages were Bone Tempering, True Martial, Sea Transformation, Void Breaking, and Nirvana.
Bone Tempering laid the foundation, usually completed in two or three years. After that, one would officially step into the path of martial arts—the True Martial Realm.
The True Martial Realm had ten levels.
The current generation of Bai family members truly couldn't be called outstanding. The only one slightly above average was Huo, who had just barely reached the tenth level of the True Martial Realm.
In comparison, Nan's older brother—only nineteen years old—had already reached the peak of the tenth level and was just one step away from the Sea Transformation Realm.
With that level of cultivation at his age, no one in the Bai family's younger generation could compete.
No one... except one.
And that person had just arrived at the training grounds.
"Huh?"
The Bai family members, including Shang, all froze when they saw who it was.
"Shang, you okay?" Zihua looked at Shang and asked calmly.
"Mind your own damn business," Shang muttered, lips tight as he turned his head away.
Zihua didn't take it to heart and turned instead to Nan, his gaze growing cold.
"Zihua?" Nan flinched when he saw him but quickly sneered, "Oh, I thought it was someone important. Turns out it's the young master of the Bai family—the same coward who ran away on the day of the duel with the Xie family. What a joke."
He deliberately emphasized the words 'ran away', his sarcasm obvious to everyone.
Three years ago, he wouldn't have dared to speak like this to Zihua. Back then, he didn't even have the courage to lift his head in Zihua's presence.
But times had changed.
"Zihua, you're a disgrace to the Bai family. You didn't even have the guts to fight. And now you have the nerve to come back? If I were you, I'd have smashed my head into a wall and died somewhere no one could see." Nan laughed, and the group behind him joined in, mocking without restraint.
Zihua simply stared coldly at him. "Nan Lee, son of Lei, one of the Bai family's household retainers. You and your father—and your big brother—must have reaped quite a few benefits from the Bai family over the years. Let's not even talk about anything else—when your father first joined us, he was only at the mid-stage of the Sea Transformation. It was thanks to the Bai family's resources that he broke through to the Void Breaking Realm."
"And you—you've been receiving monthly supplies of cultivation resources and pills from us since the day you started cultivating. Haven't you?" Zihua added coldly.
Nan's face darkened.
"You three owe everything you have to the Bai family. In truth, you're just dogs raised on the Bai family's food. So tell me—since when do dogs get to bark at their masters?" Zihua's voice was icy.
"Zihua, did you just call me a dog?! You think this is three years ago?!" Nan roared in fury.
"Three years ago, you really were the number one genius of the Bai family's younger generation. At just fifteen, you'd already reached the peak of the tenth level of the True Martial Realm. But then you were locked away in the Anti-Demon Dungeon for a full three years!"
"As far as I know, anyone imprisoned in the Anti-Demon Dungeon is completely cut off from the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. Not only would your cultivation fail to improve, but it'd also regress significantly. So tell me, how much strength do you even have left now?"
After saying that, Nan let out a cold, sharp laugh and took a large step forward. His hand, glowing with solid spiritual energy, clenched into a fist—and he launched a fierce punch straight at Zihua.