Lingshan City.
Song Residence.
Song An sneered as he looked down at the young girl tied up in the secret room. "Still trying to find that idiot sister of mine? Do you really think she'd dare to let you out of here?"
"In your dreams! You beast! To commit such perverted acts and still expect me to submit to you!" the girl spat back, her voice cracking with pain and defiance.
Her soul felt as if it were being gnawed by countless venomous snakes. The torment cut deeper than anything she had ever known. Previously, when the torture had reached its peak, it would create a strange sense of separation between her flesh and her soul. Though painful, it was not completely unbearable; she could grit her teeth and push through it somehow.
But what was happening now was different. This pain went straight to her soul, like ten thousand snakes tearing at it from the inside. Her soul had been damaged, and the agony sat heavy and endless.
This kind of deep-seated suffering was something a normal person could not endure for even a single second. The girl's tears fell like rain, and her heart turned as cold as dead ashes inside her chest.
Her parents had died in the mouth of a Yao beast years ago. Song Junyi, the second young miss of the Song Family, had taken pity on her back then and accepted her as a maidservant. She had even passed down a cultivation technique and taken the time to teach her how to cultivate properly.
Although her talent was poor — it had taken her over half a year just to reach the first level of Qi Refining — at least her life had been decent. She never worried about food or drink, and that alone had been enough to make her feel satisfied with her place in the world.
But one day, Song An had taken a fancy to her. While Song Junyi was away from the residence, he had tried to force himself on her. She had refused to yield, struggling with all her might to push him away.
Then this beast in human form, Song An, had locked her away in this secret room and begun torturing her in every way he could think of. She was not the first girl to suffer like this at his hands.
Just two days earlier, she had seen with her own eyes another woman being beaten to death by him. He had snapped the poor girl's waist in two without a second thought. After that, the beast had casually fed the corpse to the dogs outside.
She finally understood where all those missing maidservants and young girls had gone over the months. They had all been violated and tortured to death by Song An before their bodies were thrown to the Yao beasts as food.
There were no fewer than twenty of them that she knew about. Yet in Madam Song's eyes, her youngest son remained filial, kind, and a true gentleman. It was truly laughable how blind she was to the truth.
"Why pretend?" Song An said with a cold laugh. "Once I'm tired of playing with you, I'll send you straight to the Spring Red Brothel. Even beggars will be able to mount a stinking bitch like you!"
The girl wept bitterly, her whole body shaking, but Song An did not stop. The whip kept falling again and again.
It lasted until the girl fainted once more and woke up again, her eyes full of tear stains as she cried and begged for mercy in a broken voice.
Her will had been relatively firm at first. She knew that giving in would only make him push further and enjoy it more. But she could not hold on any longer.
At this moment, thoughts of chastity, escaping the Song Family, or even getting revenge — none of it mattered anymore. The pain had stripped everything away.
Song An finally dropped the whip, walked over to her, grabbed a handful of her hair, and lifted her face up roughly.
Then a heavy, powerful slap landed ruthlessly on her delicate face.
Slap—
She was knocked straight to the ground, her mouth filling with blood and several teeth shattered from the force.
"Ungrateful bitch. It's your honor that I'm taking you, understand?" he growled.
Just as Song An was about to continue, a knock sounded at the heavy door of the secret room.
"Young Master, Madam is about to return," a servant called out nervously from the other side.
Song An cursed loudly under his breath, kicked her hard in the stomach, and turned to leave without another glance.
"Have you figured out that person's background yet?" he asked the servant as he stepped out and straightened his clothes.
"Young Master, he spends most of his time at the inn, occasionally visiting the Treasure Building and the Tide Listening Pavilion. Aside from Xia Ruoqian, he hasn't had much contact with anyone else."
"A loose cultivator? Hmph. Xia Ruoqian is indeed quite good-looking, even prettier than the women I've handled before."
Song An's smile grew increasingly lewd as he pictured her. Since the man had no major background or connections…
A mere nobody had dared to act up in front of him.
He had already found the path to his own death.
He was surely a dead man.
"S song An, why did you take another thousand high-grade spirit stones from the warehouse?" A beautiful woman wearing a sky-blue dress walked over, her face full of clear anger.
"What's it to you? Mother let you manage the ledgers, and you actually think you're someone important now?" Song An sneered, his eyes filled with open disdain and contempt.
So what if she was his biological second sister?
With nothing but a pseudo-spiritual root, it was impossible for her to reach Foundation Establishment in this lifetime.
But he had a dual-attribute medium-grade spiritual root. He had a real chance to reach the Golden Core or even the Nascent Soul stage one day. He was the future hope and the pillar of the entire Song Family.
Wasn't it only right for him to use more resources than anyone else?
Regardless of right or wrong, the family elders would always stand on his side in the end.
Song Junyi's teeth itched with pure rage. Relying on being pampered since birth, this fellow had been arrogant and reckless his whole life.
Did low talent really destine someone to have no status at all in this family?
She had managed the family's assets and business diligently for so many years, yet compared to Song An, she was treated like a mere servant.
Completely dispensable.
"What did you even buy this time?" she demanded. "The resources you've used this year have severely exceeded your quota. If you keep going like this, what about everyone else in the family?"
"A waste like you has no need for resources anyway. It would be a complete waste on someone like you," he shot back. "I'm eight years younger than you, yet I'm already at Qi Refining perfection and preparing for Foundation Establishment. And you? Still stuck at the seventh level of Qi Refining. What right do you have to yell at me?"
"You— Song An, one of my maidservants has gone missing. Was it your doing this time?"
"So what if it was?"
"Bastard! Do you want to torture her to death too? Let her out this instant!" Song Junyi was beyond furious. All her accumulated resentment surged forward at once, and she raised her hand to slap him across the face.
"Junyi!"
Her hand stopped in mid-air. She turned to see a gorgeous, dignified, and elegant middle-aged woman standing there watching them.
"Mother…"
Song An immediately put on a wronged expression and threw himself into the woman's arms. "Mother, Second Sister wants to beat me to death…"
Madam Song frowned and looked at her second daughter. "Junyi, he is your biological younger brother. How can you even think of hitting him?"
"Mother, I didn't," Song Junyi quickly explained, lowering her hand.
Song An spoke up in an aggrieved tone, his voice trembling just enough to sound pitiful. "Mother, someone stole my spirit fruits and medicinal pills. My resources weren't enough, so I only withdrew a little bit more. Who knew Second Sister would get so angry? She called me a spendthrift and cursed at me…"
"Who dares to steal my son's things?" Madam Song's face was instantly full of rage as she first turned to reprimand her second daughter.
Song Junyi grew even angrier, but she could not help reminding her mother, "Mother, what he says might not be true. We should investigate clearly first before jumping to conclusions."
"Shut up! You don't care when your brother is bullied, and now you say such things? Do you even consider yourself part of the Song Family anymore?"
Madam Song's expression was stern and unyielding. "An'er, Mother will definitely find this person for you and get you the justice you deserve."
"Mother is the best… In this world, only Mother is truly good to me…"
"Good child. If Mother doesn't dote on you, who else will?"
…On the other side of the city.
"Senior, why are we following him?" Xia Ruoqian asked with a strange expression on her face as she crouched low and hurried along behind him, trying to stay out of sight.
Wu Qin kept his aura tightly restrained and his presence hidden as he watched a young cultivator walking ahead of them. "He is just a utility disciple of the Lingyun Sect, yet he has bought many medicinal pills and spiritual plants over the past two days. He even gave three whole bottles of pills to two female cultivators. Where do you think his resources came from?"
"He… maybe he's buying them for someone else?" she suggested quietly.
"His behavior is clearly that of a nouveau riche," Wu Qin explained. "He grins from ear to ear every time he buys something and loves to show off in front of pretty female cultivators. It's a typical display of suppressed vanity."
"Senior, I don't understand what you're saying. What suppression?"
"It means he wants to connect with them and feel important," Wu Qin said simply. He felt that the man had encountered a sudden stroke of luck, so he quietly checked him using the system function.
Sure enough, he was a Child of Destiny.
He was still just starting out, having only recently obtained an opportunity and a golden finger, and he remained at the eighth level of Qi Refining.
A classic utility disciple protagonist…