The name Chu Jingzhuo made everyone present jump in shock.
Ever since Chu Jingzhuo left the Chu family, they had never paid attention to him again.
In everyone's minds, his spiritual root was damaged. After so many years, he's likely already regressed into an ordinary person.
That once dazzling, astonishing genius had thus melted into the crowd.
Who could've thought he would actually come back?!
As for father and son Chu Tianbai and Chu Jinglin, they exchanged a glance, their eyes full of intense shock and doubt.
—Chu Jingzhuo actually dared to come back?!
Chu Tianbai's heart gave a jolt.
Could it be that the men he sent failed?!
Chu Tianbai hated the father and son Chu Tianling and Chu Jingzhuo.
Although Chu Tianling was his younger brother, Chu Tianling was too outstanding, so outstanding that he regarded him as an enemy.
If Chu Tianling were allowed to continue growing, everything he had would be taken away!
And Chu Jingzhuo actually surpassed the blue and outshone the indigo!
So, don't blame him for being cruel!
In Chu Tianbai's view, the Chu family had developed to this day all because of his years of effort.
Chu Tianbai and this younger brother Chu Tianling were over twenty years apart.
With his parents dying early and crises on all sides, Chu Tianbai worked hard to prop up the Chu family.
Just as he finally got the Chu family to develop, Chu Tianling displayed his talent and strength!
Everyone began to support Chu Tianling!
How could that be?
The things he had worked so many years to obtain, how could he let someone else snatch them away?
Even if that person was his younger brother, it's not allowed!
Although with Chu Tianling the Chu family's development would be even better.
But, a Chu family that didn't grow and strengthen in his hands, what meaning did its existence have?
Chu Tianbai could distinguish priorities and pros and cons.
After Chu Tianling died, Chu Tianbai turned his gaze to Chu Jingzhuo.
He just hadn't expected that Chu Jingzhuo had some ability and could run away quickly.
However, Chu Jingzhuo's spiritual root was already damaged, his future could be imagined.
These years, Chu Tianbai's thoughts were all on the Chu family and his own child, he had no time to bother with the mother and son Chu Jingzhuo, merely occasionally having people keep an eye on Zhou Wanyao.
They couldn't stir up any waves anyways.
He hadn't expected that Chu Jingzhuo's spiritual root had actually been repaired!
That wouldn't do!
Chu Tianbai made a snap decision, used a pretext to coax Zhou Wanyao back, then had her lead the way and sent people to hunt down Chu Jingzhuo.
Those three were all mid Golden Core, not weak in strength. To deal with Chu Jingzhuo, mother and son, was absolutely no problem.
So what's going on now?
"Chu Jingzhuo? A member of your family?"
Amid the bizarre atmosphere, Tan Fangjun spoke first.
This sentence of his successfully brought everyone back to their senses.
"Yes, he's my cousin," Chu Jinglin tugged stiffly at the corner of his mouth. "He joined a small sect early on and hasn't come back for many years. I didn't expect he'd suddenly return today."
"Oh? Which sect?"
"Just a small sect, the kind no one's heard of."
"Is that so?"
"That's right!" Chu Tianbai spoke, chuckling, "His spiritual root was damaged. The physicians said the difficulty of repair was extremely high, so he ran off on his own."
"Spiritual root damaged?" Tan Fangjun was quite surprised. "That's no small matter!"
Not merely no small matter, this was a heaven-collapsing, earth-sundering event!
The spiritual root is the foundation of everything. With damage to the root, the path to immortality thereafter becomes faint.
"Yes." Chu Tianbai shook his head and sighed, speaking half-truth, half-lie, "We originally wanted to help find a way to repair his spiritual root, but the child's temper was stubborn, and he ran off on his own."
He looked outside, "I don't know why he suddenly ran back."
"Could it be that little sect of his had an accident?" someone beside him speculated.
"Possibly!" Others chimed in one after another. "I heard his mother mention it, their sect supposedly had only a few disciples inside and out. If they encountered some danger, they might be wiped out just like that!"
"A few disciples?" Tan Fangjun raised his brows. "A sect… that small?"
Small fry, yet they still had the face to call themselves a "sect", wasn't that a bit too arrogant?
Their Changtian Sect had twelve peaks, and inside and out, up and down, numbers in the hundreds of thousands.
Even the ones who did odd jods in charge of stoking fires outnumbered people from such a tiny sect many times over!
"Yes." Chu Tianbai's smile returned to natural. "We previously told him to stay at home, but he simply wouldn't, we could only let him go."
"That's right, our Patriarch treats him very well! It's just that the child is too unfeeling and ran off directly!" Others followed along, lying through their eyes.
"Then what did he come back for this time?" Tan Fangjun asked.
It wasn't that Tan Fangjun was especially curious, but since he happened to be at the Chu family and had run into this, he asked a couple more questions.
"Perhaps he's come back to seek help!" Chu Tianbai wore a solemn face. "After all, he's the family's child, we can't just watch him get into trouble."
"Maybe he heard that you, Steward Tan, have come, so he wants to come back to see you!" Chu Jinglin smiled at Tan Fangjun.
At this, others slapped their thighs one after another, "That's really possible!"
"Indeed, who doesn't know the prestige of Changtian Sect? Perhaps he wants to join Changtian Sect to use that to repair his spiritual root?!"
"My heavens! Is he dreaming? Steward Tan is here for Jinglin! Why does he have to compare everything with Jinglin, he can't compare!"
"I said so, he hasn't shown up for all these years, suddenly returning now can't be for anything good!"
"Alas, this child! His conduct in the world is really too… alas!"
"Blame it on his father's early death, there's no one to educate him!"
"He can't be compared with Jinglin at all! Jinglin is only twenty-one and has already established his Foundation. He's only one year younger than Jinglin, his spiritual root should be completely severed by now!"
"Jinglin, don't be too kind. Everyone has their fate, cultivate well and don't let him drag you down!"
Listening to the crowd's various baseless guesses, which in the end turned into praise of Chu Jinglin, the guard who had come in to report wore a face that cycled through blue, white, red, and green, particularly splendid.
Looking at the harmonious crowd before him, the guard finally clenched his teeth, shut his eyes, and shouted loudly, "Chu Jingzhuo brought a few people over, saying he was chased to be killed by these people and wants to come seek justice!"
Whoosh, on the spot, everything fell silent.
Everyone's eyes snapped to him, "What did you say?!"
The guard gritted his teeth, and just as he was about to continue explaining, loud beast roars sounded from outside.
"Ang——"
"Lì——"
The roars and bird cries made everyone's faces change.
"Hou——"
A shrill beast roar made Chu Tianbai's face transform dramatically, "Batian?!"
Batian was Chu Tianbai's contracted beast, a third-rank Jadebone Lin Beast, looking somewhat similar to a tiger.
In the Chu family, only Chu Tianbai possessed a contracted beast.
Precisely because of this uniqueness, his status in the Chu family was transcendent.
Of course, Batian's status here was also transcendent, it liked to play around everywhere and often scared people.
But now, Batian's cry made Chu Tianbai's heart ache.
—Batian was being bullied!
Chu Tianbai immediately rushed out at once.
When he reached the doorway, the scene before his eyes made his eyes split with rage!
—His contracted spirit beast was being pounded by an Iron-Eating Beast!
"Stop!"
What answered him was the Jadebone Lin Beast dropping from the sky, landing before him and kicking up a cloud of dust.