47: Showing off one's sharpness

"Boom."

It was as if an invisible, blood-colored bolt of thunder exploded in Lin Jingyu's mind. A bone-chilling killing intent, cold enough to freeze the Soul, pierced through his chest like a giant spear forged from ten-thousand-year-old profound ice.

It turned out that behind his sister's forced smile lay such unbearable humiliation.

The brief, genuine smile Lin Jingxia had shown while holding Little Ash flashed through his mind, but now it felt like a red-hot branding iron, searing his heart ruthlessly.

A surge of violent rage crashed and burned within his internal organs, nearly bursting through his flesh and blood to incinerate everything before him.

He took a deep breath, suppressing the fury.

A trace of extreme, contemptuous mockery flashed across Lin Jingyu's face.

"Heh..." A short, cold sneer escaped his tightly pressed lips, like a cold wind blowing through icicles. "He's at his wits' end."

His voice was terrifyingly calm, yet more heart-stopping than a roar. Every word was like an ice needle dipped in cold poison, stabbing into the air.

"Besides using such low-life methods, like a maggot in a gutter, to disgust and humiliate people, what other new tricks can this old dog... possibly have?"

Lin Jingyu's eyes were as deep as a cold pool, yet at the bottom burned the fires of purgatory.

He knew Lin Chengyuan all too well. That old thing was both cowardly and greedy; before he was absolutely certain, he wouldn't dare cause actual physical harm to Jingxia. But this kind of mental humiliation was more damaging than any sword.

Lin Lingkuang panted heavily like a wounded beast, his clouded eyes filled with spiderweb-like blood vessels, and humiliated tears welled in his eyes.

"The Lin family... the Lin family ancestors pioneered through hardships... licking blood off their blades... the bit of reputation they earned... that old dog has thrown it all into the cesspool. This... this feels worse than being killed with a single blow."

His voice choked up, filled with guilt toward the ancestors and powerlessness before reality. The dust-covered spirit tablets in the Ancestral Hall seemed to be silently weeping blood in accusation.

"Let him hop around for a few more days." Lin Jingyu's gaze pierced through the foul air, looking toward the Ancestral Hall from afar. Deep within his eyes, purple lightning flashed like a dormant Vicious Beast.

"Once the Clan Head emerges from seclusion and the Qi Refining Seventh Layer pressure descends, he will naturally purge the sect and sweep away these monsters and demons."

The calm and powerful words Lin Lingshan had transmitted in the Ancestral Hall that day still echoed in his ears.

As the head of the family, he would never allow the Lin family to fall apart under the Grand Elder's manipulation.

"Right!" Lin Lingkuang seemed to have been injected with a stimulant, suddenly straightening his hunched back as a fierce light burst from his eyes.

He grabbed a half-filled coarse ceramic water ladle nearby, tilted his head back, and gulped down most of the cold water. Icy droplets rolled down his tangled stubble and splashed onto the mud floor.

He wiped his mouth roughly, his coarse palm slapping the stone trough beside him with a dull thud, and said through gritted teeth:

"The Clan Chief will definitely skin this old dog alive and dig out his filthy heart and liver to feed the pigs." His fierce expression made it seem as if he could already see Lin Chengyuan's end.

Leaving the Pig Farm, the suffocating stench behind him was gradually dispersed by the evening breeze. Lin Jingyu walked along the bluestone path toward home, his fingertips subconsciously brushing over the inconspicuous grey Storage Pouch at his waist.

Beneath the cold leather, there seemed to be a lingering aura of the despair Chen Biao, the Grand-Uncle felt when he was blasted into charcoal by the thunder fiend talisman.

He had come this time firstly to ask about what had happened, and secondly to demonstrate his own means and potential. Gaining someone's trust couldn't be done just by making empty promises and talking.

He had to produce actual results to be convincing.

From the very beginning when Lin Lingkuang showed goodwill to later risking his life at the Clan Meeting to stand up and oppose the Grand Elder alongside him—what for!

Wasn't it all a bet on Lin Jingyu's promising future? Since the man had staked his life, Jingyu naturally couldn't ignore it.

Having advanced to the Qi Refining Third Layer today and obtained a Storage Pouch, he naturally had to reveal them.

Only then would Lin Lingkuang support him even more wholeheartedly.

The burning, almost fanatical trust and expectation in Lin Jingyu's eyes were like a blazing fire.

He did not deliberately restrain his Qi Refining Third Layer spiritual power fluctuations. That aura, several times more solid than before, was like a stone thrown into a calm lake, sending ripples through the Lin family in the twilight.

He greeted everyone he encountered.

Since he had already completely offended the Grand Elder and that old dog Lin Chengyuan anyway,

there was no need to hide anymore; he might as well show his edge.

However, he carefully hid the Storage Pouch. It was an item from Chen Biao, the Grand-Uncle; if Lin Chengyuan recognized it, it would be troublesome.

That old dog might even become desperate enough to do something reckless.

On the way home, more and more clansmen appeared. As Lin Jingyu walked past, those clansmen who were originally in a hurry, looking down and calculating their livelihoods for the next day, all instinctively stopped, their gazes falling on him with suspicion and uncertainty.

"Eh? Is that Jingyu?"

"This aura... it's so solid. Much stronger than a few days ago."

"Hiss... Qi Refining Third Layer? How old is he?"

"Goodness, it really is the Qi Refining Third Layer. Remarkable."

"Jingyu has done well. He's really brought honor to our branch."

Praise, astonishment, and discussions rose softly in the twilight. In those gazes, there was surprise, envy, and complexity, but more than that, there was the instinctive gratification of seeing a young junior emerge.

However, this gratification was soon covered by a thick shadow. Almost every clansman who recognized him and saw his cultivation level couldn't help but let out a deep sigh after their praise, their eyes revealing an unmistakable pity.

"Alas..."

"What a pity..."

"Yeah, of all people, he had to offend..."

These sighs were like blunt knives, silently cutting through the air. Everyone knew that in the Lin family, the absolute authority of the Grand Elder and the presence of the Third Elder at the Qi Refining Fifth Layer hung over them like a thorn in their sides.

Lin Jingyu, this newly sprouted tender seedling, was stubbornly growing on the edge of a blade. The Elder Council would never tolerate the growth of a threat that had publicly challenged their authority and possessed such startling potential.

The path ahead was destined to be covered in thorns and filled with killing intent.

The bluestone path gleamed with a cold, hard luster under the dim light of the sky. Lin Jingyu's steps were steady, but as he was about to reach the fork in the road leading to his small courtyard, his pace faltered slightly and imperceptibly.

He turned his head, his gaze like physical shards of ice, looking toward the area where a few dim yellow lanterns were lit in the deepening night—that was the courtyard of the Third Elder, Lin Chengyuan.

Lin Jingyu's right hand hung naturally, and under the cover of his wide sleeves, his fingertips quietly slipped into the inner layer of the Storage Pouch at his waist.

The cold, hard Bronze Square Box was within reach, and deeper inside were two Talismans wreathed in purple lightning and containing destructive power, like sleeping Vicious Beasts.

There was also that bane bone soul-chasing nail containing Evil Qi, which, once activated, was enough to pierce through a Qi Refining Sixth Layer Cultivator.

"Old dog, just you wait until I've killed your precious grandson, Lin Jingxie. Then I'll settle the score with you!"

The two incredibly powerful thunder fiend talismans were the source of his confidence to stand tall.

Even the Grand Elder would likely find it difficult to escape unscathed from those thunder Talismans.