"Now you know what they mean by 'the hearts of parents everywhere,' eh? All of us tying ourselves in knots, running ourselves ragged, just so a certain young man could get his training in—all of us playing along with you." Lin Dongfang laughed.

"Wait a moment. If this jade pendant of mine was made by Sun Jichuan, then what about Elder Jiao? What's the story with Elder Jiao? A living, breathing man can't very well have been made by him too, can he?" Wei Zhao asked hurriedly.

"No, that he wasn't. Jiao Yazi's a real person, right enough—seems he was your grandfather's martial nephew or something of the sort, it's all a muddle, and I can't sort it out cleanly myself. You can go ask them yourself later. The long and short of it is, your whole family and your master too have run into serious trouble," Lin Dongfang said, his voice grave.

"Because of the Center?" Wei Zhao asked at once.

"Just so—because of the Center! Li Bozhao was your grandfather's classmate back in the day. That man is no small matter. Sun Jichuan's level of technology is impressive enough, isn't it? Set beside him, Li Bozhao is not one whit inferior—otherwise the Center could never have commanded such hyper-advanced, era-surpassing technology. That man is a formidable enemy!" Rarely did Lin Dongfang speak with such a solemn face.

He had known even before this that the feud between his family and the Center traced back to his grandfather's generation, but hearing it spoken of now, Wei Zhao still felt dazed. He truly had not expected that his family and the Center were enemies across three full generations!

In fact, until this moment he had found it all rather baffling. Plainly there was no irreconcilable hatred between himself and the Center, yet for some reason the two sides always ended up at odds, consciously or not—conflicts of every kind kept breaking out. He had even come to regard the Center as a nuisance because of it. But looking at it now, this had been fixed fate all along!

In that case, from here on he would not be merely making small moves against the Center. Even if he ground the Center to dust, Wei Zhao would feel no guilt—this was, after all, simply what he ought to do.

"Putting it that way, you've loaded me with crushing pressure," Wei Zhao said with a bitter smile, though the look on his face was resolute. Not knowing these things had been one thing; now it was different. The burden on his shoulders had grown heavier. With the Center confirmed as a powerful ancestral enemy, anyone in his place would feel the weight—and though he had never feared heaven or earth, even he could not help feeling it pressing down on him.

"What pressure do you have?" Lin Dongfang curled his lip dismissively, then said with a chuckle, "The Center may be no one to trifle with, but up to now, at most it's taken note that a person like you exists. For the time being it won't be throwing its full strength at a greenhorn like you. If you want to talk pressure, that's all on your master and your parents—they're the ones facing the Center's true power."

"Then where exactly are my master and my parents now?" Wei Zhao pressed eagerly.

Earth was certainly out of the question—otherwise, with modern communications as they were, he could not have failed to catch even a whisper. His guess was that they were either on another plane like Cloud Terrace Island, or out in deep space. True, by the standards of present-day secular technology that sounded far-fetched, but one had only to remember that both the Center and his own side's Sun Jichuan commanded era-surpassing technology far beyond the secular world—so it was not entirely impossible.

"That I don't know in any detail, because I've never been there myself. Broadly speaking, they should be on another plane." Lin Dongfang's answer was just as Wei Zhao had expected.

"The same as Cloud Terrace Island?" Wei Zhao's eyes lit up.

"There's a difference, actually. From what I understand, it's a transit point in four-dimensional space. For certain reasons, they're dug in there now, locked in a standoff with the Center. As for how things stand exactly, that I couldn't tell you." Lin Dongfang sighed.

"Can I go?" Wei Zhao's heart suddenly surged. He had never laid eyes on his own parents, but in his master Yang Zhao he had absolute faith, so he was not overly worried about Yang Zhao's circumstances or his parents'. Still, to say he had no worries at all would be a lie—and besides, he truly did want to see his parents as soon as possible. That was only human nature.

"You? With your piddling strength, what would you go there for? To be cannon fodder? A dead weight?" Lin Dongfang glared at him.

"Uh..." Wei Zhao reflected that with the strength of his present primal-spirit body, a mere peak Foundation Establishment cultivator who couldn't even make his way in the Primordial Alliance, there was no point in even talking about going to reinforce his master Yang Zhao and the others. So he said, "What if it were my true body? Early-stage Mystic Ascension—would that be enough?"

"Leaving aside whether your strength would be enough, even if it were, I don't know how to get there. What use is asking me?" Lin Dongfang shook his head, then said with earnest gravity, "You—the most important thing before you now is still to train hard. Once your strength is great enough, whatever you do will yield twice the result for half the effort. As for that four-dimensional space, save it until you have the strength to run rampant across Cloud Terrace Island. Talking about it now is all empty air—far too early."

"This..." Wei Zhao hesitated, pondering for a moment, then gave a heavy nod. "All right. I know what I need to do."

Just as Lin Dongfang had said, his present strength was still plainly insufficient. His true body might, at early-stage Mystic Ascension, wield power comparable to a titan-level expert, but even that was far from first-rate on Cloud Terrace Island, still a very, very long way from the true top experts—let alone the unfathomable Center.

One day, when he truly had the strength to run rampant across Cloud Terrace Island, then he could truly help his master Yang Zhao and his parents. Impatience was impatience, but for now all he could do was turn it into drive, train hard, and strive to ascend another level as soon as possible.

"All right, that's enough talk for today. As for the rest, you can go ask them yourself, slowly, later on. Come on, let's eat." With that, Lin Dongfang hurried off to fight over the dishes.

Wei Zhao had meant to seize the chance to ask a few more questions, but when he turned his head, Lin Dongfang was already running faster than a rabbit, not even a shadow left. He was caught between laughing and crying—the old man was his grandfather, after all, yet he had not an ounce of proper decorum before his own grandson...(To be continued.)