In less than a quarter of an hour, every living person in the Medicine Hall had been reduced to scattered white bones, and not a single one was intact.
Jiang Chen was truly enraged this time.
The extermination of a family!
This had absolutely crossed Jiang Chen's bottom line. No matter how little feeling he still held for the Jiang family, he would never stand by and watch something like this happen without lifting a finger.
The Shangyang Kingdom was indeed one of the top powers among the Sixteen Surrounding Kingdoms. Because it backed onto the Purple Sun Sect, the Shangyang Kingdom had always conducted itself with arrogance within the alliance, inheriting the sect's style.
And the Shangyang Kingdom's King, Wu Tan, himself held the position of an unlisted Elder of the Purple Sun Sect, with extensive connections within the organization.
King Wu Tan harbored grand ambitions of conquest, and Crown Prince Wu Hong was equally ambitious.
Half a year ago, Wu Hong had traveled to the Purple Sun Sect on a visit. At great cost, he befriended numerous disciples of the sect. Through one of the Purple Sun Sect disciples who had participated in the Grand Selection, he learned of Jiang Chen's affairs and received some instructions. This caused Wu Hong's ambitions to swell even further.
Jiang Chen, a commoner who had risen from the Eastern Kingdom, had turned out to be a once-in-a-lifetime prodigy. He had stunned everyone at the selection trials and ultimately slain Long Juxue, who possessed an Innate Spirit Body.
What kind of inheritance had this Jiang Chen obtained?
From top to bottom, no one in the Purple Sun Sect was not curious.
It was precisely out of this curiosity, combined with the outside world's consensus that Jiang Chen could never escape, that the Purple Sun Sect had reached an internal understanding: raid the Jiang family and see if any traces of the inheritance could be found within.
And Wu Hong, in all of this, was merely a pawn.
However, Wu Hong had received numerous promises from the Purple Sun Sect's higher-ups.
In the Shangyang Kingdom's state prison, the Jiang family's senior members were each on their last breath. Clearly, the prolonged interrogations had drained them to the point where only a thin thread of life remained.
Among them, a white-haired old man was none other than Elder Xi, the highest-ranking member of the Jiang family. Blood trickled ceaselessly from the corner of his mouth as he cursed under his breath: "You damn bandits! If you've got the guts, just cut me down with one stroke! You think you'll squeeze any intelligence out of me? Not a chance!"
Beside Elder Xi sat a middle-aged man — Jiang Zheng, also twisted into an unrecognizable shape by torture.
Though Jiang Zheng had no cultivation background to speak of, his spine was made of iron. Over these days, every manner of torture and all eighteen varieties of cruelty had been applied to him, yet he had steadfastly refused to talk.
"Elder Xi, don't be afraid. If the Young Master finds out, he'll definitely come save us!" Despite being beaten beyond recognition, Jiang Zheng's tongue remained as sharp as ever.
"Save you?" A man in brocade robes sneered. "At this point, you still won't give up hope? That fellow Jiang Chen has already been suppressed beneath the Immortal Spirit Mountain. No one in heaven or on earth can save him!"
"Bullshit!" Jiang Zheng erupted in fury. "My Young Master has the favor of the gods themselves! Forget a single mountain — even if the sky collapsed, he could hold it up!"
Jiang Zheng may not have had many merits, but his blind worship of Jiang Chen was absolute — the textbook definition of a die-hard fan.
The brocade-robed man smiled thinly, pressing the tip of his whip beneath Jiang Zheng's chin. "You're a loyal servant, I'll give you that. But it's a foolish loyalty. Just cooperate with me and tell me about Jiang Chen. I guarantee you unlimited wealth and glory in the Shangyang Kingdom. Wouldn't that be far better than languishing in some backwater like the Eastern Kingdom?"
"Go to hell!"
Jiang Zheng spat. "I may not amount to much, but the Eastern Kingdom is my home! I was born a member of the Jiang family, and I'll die a ghost of the Jiang family! What's so impressive about your Shangyang Kingdom? Offend my Young Master, and in the span of a wave of his hand, he'll bring your kingdom to ruin!"
The brocade-robed man, now furious, raised his whip and lashed down hard once more.
"That's enough. Beat him any more and you'll kill him."
Another young man who had been sitting to the side suddenly spoke. This young man wore a python-patterned robe — none other than Wu Hong, Crown Prince of the Shangyang Kingdom.
Wu Hong smiled, apparently recognizing that Elder Xi and Jiang Zheng were tough bones that would be difficult to crack.
He walked over to another Jiang family elder. "Old man, I can see your status in the Jiang family is nothing special. Rather than dying here for nothing, why not cooperate? Tell me — what inheritance did that fellow Jiang Chen obtain? Any leads at all?"
The elder started, clearly hesitating.
But what inheritance had Jiang Chen obtained? He had no idea either. He only knew that this good-for-nothing young master had been beaten up in the Eastern Kingdom and had suddenly become enlightened. As for the reason, none of the Jiang family members had the faintest clue.
"Prince Wu Hong, it's not that this old man doesn't want to cooperate. It's that Jiang Chen never had much of a relationship with us to begin with. His affairs — he would never let us in on them. Apart from this Jiang Zheng here, no one else in the family has any deep understanding of Jiang Chen. And frankly, Jiang Chen was never close to us. Your Highness, you've truly captured the wrong people. If we had any real connection to Jiang Chen, wouldn't we have gone with him to the Tiangui Kingdom? Jiang Feng and Jiang Chen, father and son, were the ones who shut us out even back when they were in the Jiang family."
The man was silver-tongued, attempting to talk his way out of death.
Wu Hong listened, then let out a cold laugh. "So you're saying you know absolutely nothing about Jiang Chen's affairs?"
"That's right."
"If you know nothing, then you're useless. Why should I keep you alive?" Wu Hong's blade flashed in a streak of cold light, and the old man's head rolled to the ground.
Wu Hong swept a frosty gaze across the room, his eyes locking onto Jiang Zheng and Elder Xi. His voice was a hoarse hiss: "My patience has limits! Today is the final deadline. If I still don't get useful information today, every last one of you will be joining the Jiang family's dead on the road to the underworld!"
Jiang Zheng let out a wretched laugh. "If you're going to kill, then kill! Why all the talk? Sooner or later, my Young Master will come for you. Making an enemy of my Young Master is suicide! The Long family — they're the precedent for what's coming to your Wu royal clan!"
The brocade-robed man saw that Jiang Zheng still dared to talk back to the Crown Prince and flew into a rage. He raised his whip, ready to step forward and deliver another beating.
Wu Hong waved a hand, stopping him. "He's the type who won't cry until he sees the coffin. If we can't crack his mouth, the sect's people will have their own ways. Time is almost up — the ones sent from the sect should be arriving soon."
As Wu Hong spoke, a long, piercing cry suddenly echoed across the sky above the entire Shangyang Kingdom.
The cry rolled across the heavens like spring thunder, unending and surging with overwhelming momentum, crashing down like a tidal wave. In an instant, the sky above the Shangyang Kingdom's royal capital was blanketed in dark clouds, as though a wall of blackness was pressing down upon the city.
"Wu Hong, get out here and face me!"