Slowly, after a long pause, Mu Qingyu looked at Mu Yun and said, "These past nineteen years have been hard on you!"
At first, he did suspect Mu Yun, but these childhood events couldn't be fabricated by anyone else.
Most importantly, he always felt guilty.
"Hard on you? No!" Mu Yun sneered. "Without those nine years of suffering, I couldn't have pretended to be stupid for ten years, enduring hardship and biding my time, only to rise to prominence in the end."
"Yun'er..."
"Please call me Mu Yun!"
This time, Mu Yun's words carried no discomfort.
He had become one with his former self.
Looking at his father, he felt longing and reliance, but even more so, hatred.
"If you considered me your son, you wouldn't have watched me being bullied since childhood. If you considered me your son, you wouldn't have left me in Beiyun City, ignoring me for ten years. If you considered me your son, you wouldn't have watched my beloved woman be forcibly taken away, her fate unknown."
"I had no choice!"
"Choice? As the patriarch of the Mu Clan, one of the four great families of the Southern Cloud Empire's capital, of course you had no choice. Your choice was the Mu Clan, and your position as patriarch."
Mu Yun coldly laughed. "Don't think I don't know what you've done all these years. You've been enduring all this time for the position of Mu Clan patriarch, haven't you? Now, you don't need to endure anymore, and you want to get back your son?"
"Fine!"
In the end, Mu Qingyu sighed helplessly.
He slowly turned around and left the room.
"Yun'er, hate me if you want. I've come to take you away. We'll set off in three days for Southern Cloud City to get engaged to Miss Xiao Yun'er of the Xiao family. You have no choice but to agree; you can't disobey."
The calm words reached his ears, and Mu Yun cursed under his breath again.
"Damn it, are you kidding me?
It's always the same trick. First, Mu Linchen made him engaged to Qin Mengyao, and now his biological father is here, talking about getting engaged to the Xiao family's young lady.
Since being reborn, this string of romantic encounters is just too frequent!"
But Mu Yun had no time to think about these things.
Qin Mengyao had been captured. With his current strength, could he resist?
Even if he exhausted almost all his lifespan, he couldn't withstand even a tenth of the power of the Saint Pill Sect Master, Saint Wu Yi.
This wasn't about talent, but about foundation.
His foundation was ultimately too weak.
Entering Nan Yun City in three days? You tell me to go in, and I'll go in?
With this thought in mind, Mu Yun immediately stepped out of the courtyard.
"Young Clan Leader!"
"Young Clan Leader!"
However, just as he stepped out of the door, two respectful voices
rang , startling Mu Yun.
Upon closer inspection, Mu Yun realized that these two were not members of the Mu family at all, and their aura was powerful yet unrestrained, indicating they were at least at the fifth level of the Spirit Martial Realm.
"Who are you?"
"Reporting to the Young Clan Leader, we are here on the orders of the Clan Leader to protect your safety!"
"Protect my safety?"
Mu Yun sneered inwardly.
This Mu Qingyu was truly thorough, thinking of everything.
"By the way, what did you call me just now? Young Clan Leader? I am indeed the Young Clan Leader, but I am the Young Clan Leader of Beiyun City, not the Young Clan Leader of your Mu family in Nanyun City, remember that!" "Reporting
to the Young Clan Leader, the Clan Leader has already issued the Clan Leader's decree, informing the entire Nanyun Empire, appointing you as the Young Clan Leader of the Mu family, to inherit the position of Clan Leader!"
What?
Hearing this news, Mu Yun was dumbfounded, standing there in place.
Wait!
Suddenly, Mu Yun's expression turned cold, sensing something was amiss.
Mu Qingyu, as the head of the Mu family, had countless women in his main, second, and third wives; with many women, naturally, many children.
Why did Mu Qingyu insist on appointing him as the young clan leader, refusing to appoint anyone else?
The young clan leader is the core of a clan.
It's almost fair to say that in a clan, besides the clan leader, there are the elders, the second elders, and then the young clan leader, who wields the most power.
Sometimes, the young clan leader even rises above the clan elders.
"Right now, becoming the young clan leader will waste a lot of my time, but I have no choice. It seems I can only confirm Yao'er's whereabouts first before making any further plans."
After using the Great Life-Taking Technique, Mu Yun fully understood the situation.
He was powerless to change the outcome.
However, he needed to leverage power.
Mu Qingyu's appearance was precisely what he needed to leverage, allowing Mu Qingyu, as the clan leader, to grow stronger.
"Alright, whatever you need me to do, I accept the position of young clan leader. Just hope you won't regret it."
Turning and stepping into the house, a smile appeared on Mu Yun's lips.
The Mu family is a top-tier powerful family in the Southern Cloud Empire. This young patriarch should be quite interesting.
"Yao'er, wait for me! Wait for me to step on that old tortoise Saint Martial Yi's head and bring you out."
...
That night, in a simple house in the Mu family compound.
Mu Linchen and Mu Qingyu stood facing each other. "Linchen, I've wronged you
all these years ." "Hehe...Brother, you're too kind. For the Mu family, you've sacrificed no less than I have." Mu Linchen chuckled, his facial muscles gradually changing. In the blink of an eye, Mu Linchen's face underwent a complete transformation, becoming a completely different person. And upon closer inspection, his face was remarkably similar to Mu Qingyu's. "Yun'er has suffered so much these past years. You've watched him grow up, but do you know why he suddenly became…so unbelievable?" "I don't know either. This child, sometimes he seems arrogant and domineering, sometimes he seems melancholic; he's really hard to understand." "Never mind, I'm truly an incompetent father." "Big brother!"
Mu Linchen said lightly, "What happened back then can't be blamed on you. After all, Yun'er's mother came from there. In her eyes, the Mu family was nothing but ants."
"I understand. That's why I let Yun'er succeed as the clan leader this time. This way, I can go about my business without worry."
"But, brother, Yun'er only grew up in Beiyun City. The Mu family is rife with various factions, and with the interference of the Xiao family, Gu family, Lin family, and the royal family, can he handle it?"
"Before, I also felt he couldn't. I just wanted him to live a peaceful life with you. Now it seems not impossible. Anyway, the Mu family is under our control now. Letting him cause some trouble is good, to prevent some people from harboring ill intentions."
"I understand!"
Mu Qingyu and he were practically brothers. The reason he was willing to stand behind Mu Qingyu was because Mu Qingyu always saw further than he did.
He also believed that the Mu family would become even stronger in Mu Qingyu's hands.
...
That night, the moon was high in the sky. Mu Yun sat in the room, a faint true energy emanating from his body.
"Hoo..."
Mu Yun slowly let out a sigh of relief, his brows furrowed as he opened his eyes.
"Still not enough..."
After the battle, he had already broken through to the tenth level of the Physical Body Gathering Realm.
However, to advance from the Gathering Realm to the first level of the Spiritual Acupoint Realm, he needed a massive amount of true essence to break through the Hegu acupoint. He could rely on the Immortal Slaughtering Diagram for this true essence, but advancement in realm still required gradual accumulation.
That's why he hadn't used the Immortal Slaughtering Diagram.
Another point was that because he had always focused on improving his physical body, at the tenth level of the Physical Body Gathering Realm, his punch possessed a force of 100,000 jin, even stronger than some first-level Spiritual Acupoint Realm martial artists.
But it was precisely this that caused him immense resistance in breaking through to the Spiritual Acupoint Realm.
His physical body was too powerful; to break through the Hegu acupoint, he needed an even greater amount of true essence.
"You can't get fat overnight, why am I getting so anxious?
"
With a wry smile, Mu Yun stood up, his thoughts beginning to wander.
Having spent half a year in Beiyun City, he had developed an attachment to this place.
In this life, he is no longer a Celestial King, but merely a mentor, a son, and a man.
Tomorrow, he will leave Beiyun City for the imperial capital—Nanyun City, where even greater challenges await him.
However, there are some people he should perhaps meet.
It's late at night at the Sacred Pill Pavilion; it should be closed, but the main hall is brightly lit.
A table of food and drink is set, and an aged figure sits at it, seemingly waiting for something.
Slowly, a figure enters from outside and unceremoniously sits on the other side of the table.
"Hehe, it seems Master Miao knew I was coming!"
Picking up his chopsticks and a piece of meat, Mu Yun chuckled.
"You rascal, you always have questions for me. You're quite patient; this old man has been waiting for you for three days," Miao Qing said with a wry smile.
For some reason, he had remained hidden in Beiyun City, his identity unknown, yet this Mu Yun seemed to see right through him.
"Speak, Master Miao."
"Speak?"
"Your identity…"
"…"
Coughing, seeing Mu Yun's beggar-like appearance, Master Miao said, "My name is indeed Miao Qing, but I am not a third-grade alchemist, but a seventh-grade alchemist."
"Oh…"
Oh!
Oh?
Seeing Mu Yun's casual manner, Miao Qing almost spat out a mouthful of blood.
"A seventh-grade alchemist, only slightly better than that Mo Wen!" Mu Yun curled his lip, unconcerned.
"You…"
Miao Qing was about to get angry, but remembering that Mu Yun had met Mo Wen before, and that Mo Wen, a sixth-grade alchemist, could call him brother, it seemed understandable that he wasn't surprised to see him.
"And what about you?"
"Me?" Mu Yun asked, puzzled. "I am Mu Yun, Master Miao. You wouldn't be thinking of taking back the Heaven-Sealing Cauldron from your Holy Pill Sect, would you?
" "Hehe... that Heaven-Sealing Cauldron, it might be better to give it to you. Geniuses who are proficient in both alchemy and weapon crafting are extremely rare throughout history."
"That's good, that's good!" Mu Yun exaggeratedly patted his chest and took a breath.
"Let me tell you about yourself! Your father was a genius who caused a sensation throughout the entire Southern Cloud Empire back then. I once thought that you wouldn't be mediocre, but I didn't expect..."
"You didn't expect this young master to be such a genius, did you?"
Looking at Mu Yun's shameless narcissistic appearance, Miao Qing actually found that he really couldn't refute him.