Chapter 44: Cruelty

Tinghe Villa had been passed down to He Gan’s hands, marking exactly the fourth generation.

The He family was not a cultivation family. They had built their wealth because a He family ancestor had once risked his life to save the family of a cultivator. Out of gratitude, the cultivator had gifted them a large amount of spirit stones, which became the foundation of the He family’s fortune.

By the time the wealth accumulated to He Gan’s generation, Tinghe Villa was already a wealthy estate famous far and wide. Yet no matter how wealthy they were, they remained ordinary mortals, separated from cultivators by an insurmountable chasm.

He Gan had wanted to cultivate since he was a child. He wanted to become a cultivator, wanted it so badly he was practically driven mad by the desire.

He even dreamed of awakening a spiritual root, joining Yonglu Mountain, and becoming a powerful figure of his own. But this beautiful dream ended when he turned eighteen.

Just like his forefathers, he had no spiritual root and could not cultivate. He was destined to spend his entire life as a mediocre, wealthy merchant. What made him even more envious was that a boy from a branch family who brushed horses for his household had awakened a five-element spiritual root.

Even though he knew a five-element spiritual root was considered terrible talent among cultivators, and the boy might only ever reach Foundation Establishment at best in his lifetime, he was still consumed by jealousy. Why! Why did this spiritual root not grow in him, but instead in a lowly member of a branch family!

He Gan refused to accept this. He schemed and plotted, trying to use his wealth to pry open the gates of cultivation. But it was not that he was not rich enough, but that he could not even find where the cultivators’ gates were!

For a mortal, gazing upon the immortal gates was the greatest distance in the world.

He Gan had also thought about resigning himself to his fate, but he could not bring himself to do it. He could not live out his life like his father did. He wanted to ride the clouds and mist, to summon the wind and rain. What use was money? He wanted longevity, eternal youth, and to stand above all others!

With this mindset, He Gan began to stray down a dark path.

Money was a good thing after all. Since the righteous cultivators would not open their doors to him, he sought out unorthodox paths. Perhaps heaven took pity on him, for he actually found a feasible path.

He Gan looked like a shrewd and worldly businessman, but in reality, he was more like a madman driven insane by his unfulfilled desire for cultivation!

When he was twenty-three, he brought back a girl from the outside and insisted on marrying no one but her. The old villa master naturally could not sway him and could only hold a wedding ceremony for them, even inviting a cultivator to offer blessings.

Not long after the wedding, He Gan had a lovely daughter and named her He Qinqing.

Seeing their son finally settle down, the old villa master and his wife let go of their worries. Not long after, they passed away from illness. He Gan took up the heavy responsibility of Tinghe Villa. He was indeed very skilled in business, and under his management, the scale of Tinghe Villa more than doubled.

But perhaps as a trade-off for his business success, his wife died in an accident when their daughter was three years old.

After that, he never remarried. Outsiders praised him for his devotion, but in truth, only He Gan knew that women would only slow down his progress on the immortal path. If not to give birth to this half-demon daughter, he would never have married and had a child.

Yes, that was right. No one knew that the beloved wife he had overcome all obstacles to marry was actually a low-grade minor demon.

He had saved her, won her heart, and then used a “magic method” he bought at a high price to make her give birth to a child.

Because he was not a cultivator, He Gan did not know how to identify a half-demon. As his daughter He Qinqing grew day by day, she seemed no different from a mortal. He had even secretly spent a large sum of money to have someone test her spiritual root, but they still could not detect anything.

He was anxious, constantly worried that his years of scheming would go to waste, and lived in a state of perpetual dread.

It was not until the beginning of this year that He Gan finally reached the half-demon’s “transition period.”

Though called a “transition period,” it was known in the demon realm as the Differentiation Phase. Half-demons were not accepted by either world, so when a half-demon reached adulthood, they had to choose to become either human or demon. If they chose to be a demon, they had to return to their maternal clan, as demon cultivators had their own unique inheritance methods. But if they chose to be human, the demon blood in the half-demon’s body would eventually condense into a spiritual root, and it was guaranteed to form one.

In other words, though half-demons seemed rejected by heaven, in a way, they were also favored by it.

The benefactor who taught him the “magic method” told him that when the half-demon regressed to an “oviparous state” during the Differentiation Phase, if a direct blood relative consumed and digested them, that relative would obtain the spiritual root the half-demon grew upon choosing to become human.

This method was, of course, incredibly evil and unheard of, but He Gan felt it was worth a try. Or rather, he had no other choice. She was just a daughter, and he figured he could afford the loss.

And now, his daughter’s half-demon differentiation had finally begun.

He Gan was ecstatic. He thought the immortal path he had waited so long for was finally opening to him. However, what he did not expect was that the half-demon’s differentiation was far more drawn out than he had imagined.

It was also much more difficult than he had imagined. At first, it only required a large amount of vitality-replenishing herbs, but soon ordinary herbs were not enough. It required spiritual energy, and miraculous spiritual elixirs.

But soon, even those ordinary low-grade pills stopped working, and his daughter’s body began to rapidly deteriorate.

He was anxious and burning with worry, even thinking about finding a spiritual doctor or a cultivator to take a look, but in the end, he suppressed the urge.

Fortunately, however, his daughter’s condition soon began to improve, and she regained consciousness. Just when he thought he had completed ninety-nine percent of the journey, his daughter found out about his scheme.

He thought he had made complete preparations. For example, he had worried his daughter would grow close to her mother and choose to become a demon, so he had disposed of the minor demon beforehand. Of course, he also detested demons, and tolerating her for three years was already his limit. He had also carefully raised his daughter over the years, tilting all the villa’s resources toward her.

But he did not expect that even after he had gone to such lengths, this ungrateful half-demon still refused to become human!

How could he tolerate this!

In a fit of rage, he put her under house arrest, planning to wait until she regressed directly into an egg and then consume her. He had not expected the half-demon to be naturally cunning, escaping in the dead of night! Fortunately, he had confiscated her talismans and magical artifacts beforehand. Otherwise, if she had alerted the city lord’s niece, Xia Ying, his plans would have truly fallen through!

But He Gan knew that Xia Ying and his daughter were very close, and the excuse of her running away with a lover would not hold up for long. So after sending Xia Ying away, he immediately took out the spiritual talisman gifted by the “immortal master.” He had to find his daughter as quickly as possible.

He could not wait another second!

He Gan was a clever businessman. In fact, if not for his obsessive, almost maniacal fixation on cultivation, he would never have summoned an evil cultivator at this moment. But when desire took over, a person could not think calmly or rationally.

He knelt upon the formation left behind by the evil cultivator, as devout as a believer begging a deity for a blessing.

Yet, the evil cultivator would show him no mercy. She would only drain He Gan to the very marrow of his bones. After all, evil cultivators were never kind enough to grant the wishes of their followers.

“I beg you, please, you must find her!”

The summoned evil cultivator was wrapped in a black cloak. The hood was large, revealing only a sharp, thin chin, but even that was enough to show that the aura radiating from the figure was incredibly malevolent.

“At the foot of Yonglu Mountain… you certainly know how to pick a place to live. I recall you used to live much further away.”

The evil cultivator’s voice rang out, impossible to distinguish as male or female. Anyone who saw this figure would never believe they belonged to an orthodox sect, yet He Gan called them “Immortal Master” without blinking. His tone was so devout that even an evil cultivator would be pleased by it.

“Immortal Master, I beg you! As long as you can help me find my daughter, I am willing to offer you all the wealth of Tinghe Villa!”

But the evil cultivator only let out a harsh, cackling laugh. “Your wealth?”

“Yes! This entire villa can be yours!”

The evil cultivator laughed even harder. “But it was always supposed to be mine, wasn’t it?”

He Gan froze. When he looked up, the hood of the evil cultivator’s cloak had slipped down at some point. A pale, familiar face crashed into his mind. In an instant, sheer terror and dread swept through his entire body. “You-“

“Why does my husband look at me so? Do you dislike this face of mine?” The evil cultivator deliberately pitched her voice high, her face full of malice. “Or are you thrilled to find that I’m not dead?”

Terrified, He Gan turned to flee, but before he could even move, a powerful suction dragged him back. As he turned his head, that haunting face appeared right next to his ear. “Aaaah-“

“Scream again, and I’ll kill you.”

He Gan clamped his hand over his mouth instantly, but the terror in his eyes spilled out uncontrollably.

He Gan wept in terror; he was simply too afraid of death.

“You didn’t really think you fathered our daughter, did you?” The evil cultivator giggled with delight. “Husband, you really do tell the best jokes. But thank you this time. If you hadn’t notified me so quickly, I wouldn’t have known our daughter was actually a half-demon.”

Hearing this, He Gan’s eyes nearly split with rage. He utterly refused to believe it. “You’re lying! I delivered the child with my own hands! How could she-“

“Spells, of course. Husband, you really are foolish. You’re just a mortal. If I hadn’t faked my death, do you really think someone like you could kill a demon?”

Humiliation, an overwhelming humiliation, turned He Gan’s eyes bloodshot. But no matter how much he hated her, he still could not struggle.

Those who did not cultivate were nothing but ants.

Why was heaven so cruel to him! He did not ask for much. Why would it rather give it to a groom than fulfill his wishes!

“Alright, you can die now.”

The evil cultivator’s demonic voice whispered in his ear, “Thank you, husband.”

In an instant, He Gan felt his very soul shudder. He knew he probably wouldn’t survive this. To think that after a lifetime of scheming, he would end up…

“Tch, being at the foot of Yonglu Mountain really is troublesome. They arrived so quickly!” The evil cultivator smirked. “Well, it saves me a lot of trouble. They’ve delivered themselves right to my doorstep.”

When Xia Ying arrived at Tinghe Villa with A’qing, she immediately detected the aura of an evil cultivator inside.

Sensing trouble, she only had time to send a transmission talisman to her uncle before being pulled into the villa by the evil cultivator’s power. She had no time to leave a message for Wen Xu and Bian Chunzhou.

Her heart sank, and she silently prayed that the two of them wouldn’t follow. But clearly, her wish was in vain.

“Three in the Qi Refining Stage? You certainly have courage!”

Xia Ying held A’qing tightly in her arms. Looking at He Gan collapsed on the ground not far away, she shouted sharply, “Vile creature! How dare you cause trouble in my Langyuan City!”

Just then, Wen Xu and Bian Chunzhou neutralized the lethal trap and rushed into Tinghe Villa.

Seeing the disciple robes on the two of them, a delighted expression appeared on the evil cultivator’s face. “So you’re new disciples of Yonglu Mountain. It seems luck is on my side. If I can make a major sect suffer a setback, my reputation as Madame Shen will surely echo across the continent!”