"Consider yourselves lucky! I will not cripple you. Now get out of here!" Yushan took the spoils with a smug look and waved the squad away.

The squad had no intention of lingering, of course. Seeing that Yushan was letting them go, every one of them felt a great weight lift from his heart and hurried off.

"Ha! Brother Nitian, your name alone carries such weight! You just stand there — no need to speak, no need to circulate a single technique — and they hand over their treasures of heaven and earth like lambs!" Yushan's points had now broken past the five-hundred mark, and Feng Nitian's had climbed past eight hundred. All along the way, plundering and searching alike, they had reaped a rich harvest.

"This suits me well enough. It saves me the trouble of lifting a hand. I will conserve my strength to help you deal with Yubing," Feng Nitian said haughtily.

"Who knows where that wretch Yubing, that short-lived coward, has hidden himself? Why have we not run into him by now? He would not be deliberately hiding from us, would he?" Yushan was growing impatient. Once Yubing was crippled, the seat of Yu family head would be his beyond any doubt.

Although the Yu family had long shown an inclination to let Yuning take over, Yushan knew that sooner or later Yuning would become the Yu family's ancestral guardian — an existence like that of Grandfather — and the family's affairs would still need a patriarch to manage them, just as Yu Xiaochen did now.

This, then, was the opportunity he had to seize.

These words happened to fall upon the ears of Yubing, who had just arrived. He was so enraged that he clenched his fists, and could not keep himself from saying, "I am a wretch, am I? Then what are you? We are brothers of one house — does that make you a little wretch?"

"Oh? Is this not my dear eldest brother? You have finally come to throw your life away? You have no idea — your little brother has been dying to see you!" Yushan turned his head, caught sight of Yubing, and a cold gleam flashed in his eyes. So he had delivered himself at last!

"Dying to see me? Or dying to see me dead?" Yubing asked mildly.

"Bah, even so, we are blood brothers — you might put it a little more delicately!" Yushan laughed. "I hear you found yourself a formidable helper, one who even crippled Zhang Nai Pao? What a pity — no matter how formidable he is, before Brother Nitian he is no better than garbage!"

"I would not put it that way. The fact that he could defeat Zhang Nai Pao means he does have some strength. It is only because of my technique that I am an invincible existence below the Earth rank," Feng Nitian said with a wave of his hand, putting on great airs.

"Yushan, you really do not seem to have an ounce of goodwill about you, do you know that? I have come to cripple you," Wei Zhao said coolly. "I will make Yubing the head of the Yu family. As for you, a stumbling block — well, this is a fitting occasion to clear you away."

"Hmph!" Yushan sneered. "You fool. Truly, ignorance makes one fearless! With death at your door, you still dare to spout such arrogant words? Do you not know that before Brother Nitian, you are nothing at all?"

"If I am nothing at all, then you are even less than garbage." Wei Zhao wasted no more words and struck straight at Yushan with his palm.

Seeing Wei Zhao come at him, Yushan neither dodged nor flinched. A mocking edge curved at the corner of his mouth. "Brother Nitian, freeze him! We will take our time playing him to death!"

But the moment Yushan finished speaking, Wei Zhao's palm had already landed on his chest, sending him flying. His body traced an arc through the air and crashed into the snow not far off, smashing out a great crater. Then, with a wet retch, he vomited a great mouthful of blood mixed with fragments of his internal organs, and his face turned deathly pale in an instant.

"I am an idiot — why did I not dodge? My Heaven-Defying Divine Art needs time to gather its power!" Feng Nitian said, half choked with fury at Yushan's incompetence, before hastily forming a few strange hand seals in the air. Only when Wei Zhao turned and struck at him again did he finally unleash the Heaven-Defying Divine Art.

In that instant, Wei Zhao was frozen where he stood, still holding the posture of his palm strike, yet unable to move a muscle — and unable to speak, either.

"Huh?" Yushan had not expected Feng Nitian's Heaven-Defying Divine Art to require a charge-up time. He had thought Feng Nitian could unleash and retract it at will. A wave of bleak sorrow washed over him. How could he be so unlucky? He had been all set to torment Wei Zhao and Yubing at his leisure, and now he had been beaten half to death by Wei Zhao.

Now the meridians and organs in the upper half of his body were all damaged. Even if his meridians were restored with a Meridian-Clearing Pill, his organs could not be restored. Even if he recovered, his strength would surely plummet. Never mind inheriting the position of family head — it was not even certain that he would receive his full allotment of cultivation elixirs when he returned.

As a member of the clan, Yushan understood the ways of the Yu family all too well. In the Yu family there was scarcely such a thing as kinship; there was only family interest. The family would not grant him special care merely because he was a Yu descendant. If he was crippled, the family might keep him fed, but it would certainly not pour any more cultivation resources into him. Even if his own father wanted to fight for it, Grandfather would never permit it.

"Brother Nitian... you... why did you not say so sooner?" Yushan clutched his caved-in chest and said wretchedly.

"How was I to know you would be stupid enough not to dodge when someone strikes at you? You are at least a mid Mystic rank expert. Even if you are inferior to a late Mystic rank expert, you should not be unable to dodge a single blow. You are utterly useless! I truly regret listening to you and joining hands with you!" Feng Nitian gave Yushan a cold glance. In his eyes, Yushan no longer had any value to exploit. He was a cripple now, and the terms he had promised would never be honored.

"I am sorry, Brother Nitian... But I beg you, Brother Nitian, avenge me! If Yubing becomes a cripple like me, then I will still have a chance to recover my strength, and when that time comes, all my promises will still hold!" Yushan saw the disappointment in Feng Nitian's eyes and said hastily.

Moreover, he had already calculated it all out. Among the men of the Yu family's younger generation, only he and Yubing were outstanding. If Yubing were also gravely wounded and crippled, then he would be standing on the same starting line as himself. The Yu family could not allow both of its finest young talents to be ruined, so it would surely spare no effort to heal them. Then there could be no question of favoring one at the expense of the other, and he too would be treated.

So crippling Yubing was his last hope.

"Do not worry, I will help you take revenge!" After hearing Yushan's words, Feng Nitian pondered briefly and grasped the reasoning as well. Seen in that light, it was not as though there was no hope left at all.

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