"Brother Chu Feng, death is irreversible. Please accept my condolences."
Seeing Chu Feng suddenly clutch his face in pain, Kong Tianhui—who had no idea what was really going on—assumed Chu Feng was grieving over Chu Xuanyan's death and hurried forward to console him.
"Big brother Chu Feng, don't be too sad. If Uncle Xuanyan were still here, he wouldn't want to see you like this."
"Chu Feng, you need to be strong."
Right after, Long Ning and Kong Ci stepped forward as well, offering their own words of comfort.
This left Chu Feng at a loss for what to do. He had been wearing that pained expression because he felt he had let his father down—fallen short of his expectations. Yet somehow everyone had jumped to the conclusion that he was mourning his father's death.
And the worst part was, he couldn't tell them that his father was still alive.
"Senior, how did Senior Chu Xuanyan pass away so suddenly when he was perfectly fine?" Xian Yun asked the City Lord of the Ancestral Martial Dragon City.
That question hit the mark. Every pair of eyes turned to the City Lord—they all wanted to know why Chu Xuanyan had died so abruptly when there had been no signs of trouble.
"As I understand it, it seems to be related to his cultivation. His cultivation went out of control, he fell into qi deviation, and it ultimately led to the tragedy," the City Lord explained.
"It was because of that?"
"That's…"
*Sigh…*
The younger generation felt even more grief upon hearing this. None of them had ever met Chu Xuanyan in person, but his reputation across the Ancestral Martial Starfield was simply too great. The older generation who had encountered him had nothing but the highest praise for Chu Xuanyan.
As a result, even though these juniors had always held the Chu Heavenly Clan in contempt, they all held Chu Xuanyan in the deepest respect. Many of them even regarded him as an idol.
So upon learning of his death, their pain was genuine and acute.
"Qi deviation, huh?"
"I've got to hand it to you, old man. You really know how to cover your tracks."
Compared to everyone else, though, Chu Feng was more impressed by his father than anything. He hadn't even learned of his own father's supposed death yet, and already the Ancestral Martial Dragon City knew about it. Moreover, judging by the City Lord's demeanor, it seemed like quite a few people had already gotten word.
That meant someone had been secretly watching the place where his father was imprisoned—someone other than the Chu Heavenly Clan. Presumably, the powerful sealing formation his father had set up had long since been discovered.
That formation—no one should have been able to break it open except Chu Feng. Those people must have realized from the sheer power of the sealing formation that Chu Xuanyan's strength hadn't weakened at all. If anything, it had grown stronger.
That, no doubt, was why they feared Chu Xuanyan.
But why would such a sealing formation suddenly appear? That was something worth thinking deeply about.
Now, his father and the Old Ape were both dead—and they had supposedly perished due to a lapse in cultivation. That explanation neatly tied everything together. The sealing formation had been set up so that his father could enter seclusion to cultivate in peace, and when his cultivation went awry and the tragedy occurred, the formation naturally released on its own.
Everything fell into place.
"Chu Feng, I know you're hurting. In truth, all of us feel the same grief over this."