Yan Qing was still slightly weakened from the poison, but he pressed on.
"The poison will fade with time thanks to the healing pill… I just need to stay alert—for attacks, bloodbeasts… and most of all, him."
His gaze landed on Lin Shu, who ran ahead with noticeable ease. Despite moving in the same direction, Lin Shu was widening the distance between them, and Yan Qing didn't trust him—not after what just happened.
Meanwhile, back at the Jiang clan's carriages, Jiang Liechen sat silently inside one of them, staring out the window. His youthful face betrayed no emotion, but his eyes were full of confusion. The usual sadistic smile that curled on his lips had long since faded.
He watched the servants address him with sweet voices, calling him Young Master, showering him with flattery—something he was still not used to.
"Just a few months ago… I was a bastard," he thought coldly, "the son of a slave toyed with by the patriarch… now I'm suddenly a Young Master? What changed?"
Even though his cultivation talent was only Rank 2, he was being lavished with resources, respect, and privileges as if he were born of the main bloodline.
"What about the real heir… my half-brother from the main family? Why am I allowed to even be considered as a candidate for the heir position?"
His thoughts darkened.
"I'm not naïve enough to think the patriarch suddenly grew a conscience. He didn't start treating me like a son out of love or guilt. This is the Jiang Clan. They don't do kindness."
Jiang Liechen wasn't foolish. He had lived a brutal life under the clan's shadow—trampled, scorned, and trained not as a warrior, but as a disposable pawn. He had starved, bled, cried, and broken under that clan's cold gaze.
Now, they smiled at him? Accepted him? Treated him like a true heir?
He didn't believe it.
"Maybe I do have something valuable—something even I can't see, but the patriarch can. But I refuse to believe something so childish. No one suddenly sees worth in someone like me unless they want to use me."
Unlike the other candidates—his half-siblings who, despite their own past suffering, now tried to please the patriarch and win his approval—Jiang Liechen remembered everything.
He hadn't forgiven. He hadn't forgotten.
And he never would.
He continued to search for reasons—any reason—for why things had changed. But no matter how much he thought, he couldn't find a clear answer.
"I can't figure it out. But maybe it's better if I stop trying to stand out… or challenge any of the main family candidates. They have elders backing them. I have no one."
Even the other outer branch candidates, the ones like him—he knew better than to provoke them.
"I shouldn't challenge them either. No… I need to be invisible to them. Untouchable, unnoticed. Until I get into the Venomheart Sect."
That was his plan. Get into the sect. Then disappear from the Jiang Clan's grasp.
It wouldn't be too hard—at least, not with his current cultivation level.
But even that didn't make sense to him.
"How did I get this strong so fast?"
He remembered the elixirs the clan had provided after they all became candidates. Potent things, full of hidden power, that pushed his cultivation to the high stage of Rank 1 in such a short time it almost felt unnatural.
"That must be the reason they made us swear a binding oath—never to speak of those methods."
The memory of that oath still made his stomach churn. Whatever the clan gave them wasn't meant for just 'helping'—it was for something else.
The carriages continued to roll through the forest path, swaying gently, but his thoughts were far from calm.
"Once I enter the Venomheart Sect, I'll leave this clan behind. I'll disappear. That's the only way I'll be safe—until I learn the truth about why they're helping me."
He clenched his fists in his lap, his young face still unreadable, but behind his eyes, a storm brewed.
"I refuse to be a slave again."
He remembered what he used to be—nothing more than a slave to those stronger than him. The Jiang Clan… even now, they hadn't truly accepted him. They had given him elixirs, yes, but not much else. No powerful arts. No proper guidance. Everything he had, he earned through his own effort—through a mixture of intelligence and desperation. The techniques he used now were his own creation, built from scraps: a patchwork of low-tier martial skills, pieced together and refined by constant trial and error.
His mind slowly drifted into the past, pulled there by the weight of his thoughts.
Liechen… the son of a slave.
His mother had no cultivation, no status—just a quiet face and calloused hands. She belonged to the Jiang Clan as property, not family. And yet, until the age of three, he had lived in her gentle shadow.
Then she died. Not by illness, not by fate—but by the hands of jealous mistresses within the clan.
And he—he was thrown into the orphanage of the Jiang Clan.
That place was no haven. It was where the weak, the unwanted, the untalented were raised not as people, but as tools—servants and pawns bred for the convenience of the powerful. The orphanage trained them to obey, to endure, to be loyal no matter the cost. Only the elite among them, if they survived long enough, were sculpted into foot soldiers.
Liechen had been one of those meant to kneel.
He remembered the harsh training, the sleepless nights, the cold food that barely passed for nourishment. He remembered the eyes of arrogant young masters, the cruel laughter of elders' children, the beatings, the humiliation—all endured in silence. Just like every other child like him: weak, frail, and forgotten.
He had no one to protect him. No one to shield him.
That was his life.
Until, by some strange twist of fate, he was selected—chosen as one of the few candidates to compete for the heir's position.
He hadn't believed it at first.
Not until he and the other illegitimate children of the Jiang patriarch were brought into the great hall.
They saw him.
The man behind all their misfortune, all their fear—and now, the man offering them a future.
Jiang Wuyu.
His hair was long and brown, flowing past his shoulders. His face looked young, far too youthful for his true age. His eyes, however—green and sharp—pierced through them with an ancient stillness, emotionless and unreadable. He was short in stature, almost unimposing, but the pressure he gave off was suffocating. He wasn't trying to intimidate them, but their instincts screamed at them.
PREDATOR.
That was what he was.
He sat alone in a massive chair at the center of the hall, his presence dominating the room even in silence.
"Since it's obvious you all know who I am," he said coldly, "let's skip the greetings."
They stood still, too stunned to speak. The hall was silent, save for soft murmurs of disbelief. Every child had wide eyes. Disbelief. Shock. A trembling flicker of hope.
But the guards at the sides of the room, and the few elders who stood at attention, remained calm. Unmoved. As if this had all been decided long ago.
"You are here because I am giving you all a chance," Jiang Wuyu continued. "A chance to become candidates for the heir's position."
Gasps. Wide eyes. Some children stepped back out of pure disbelief. The idea alone was madness. Them—slaves, orphans, bastards—competing for the position of heir?
Jiang Wuyu's tone didn't change.
"By the law of the clan, all who carry my blood are eligible to compete. That includes you. Just like the ones from the main family, just like those who once competed against me—you have that right."
Liechen stood there, his mouth open, his mind racing.
Is this it? My chance? My way out of being a pawn? A servant?
He looked around and saw it in every face: awe, disbelief, and ambition.
Stars had ignited in their eyes—dreams that had never existed before now blazing to life.
Yes. This is my chance. My calling.
The patriarch went on.
"To make the competition fair, you will each be given some techniques and support to become true candidates."
He stood from the chair.
"Follow me. Now."
The children obeyed without question.
They followed him through a massive black and gold door, one that only he could open. Behind it stretched a long corridor, the walls white with streaks of black, like veins through marble. Their footsteps echoed softly as they marched through the hall. At the end stood another door, far smaller and simpler than the one before.
Jiang Wuyu made several hand signs.
The door clicked, trembled, and opened.
Liechen, filled with naive joy and optimism he never thought he'd feel, stepped through with the others. They continued down a smaller hallway until they arrived at a modest chamber—stone walls, simple decorations, but something about it felt heavy… sacred.
The patriarch finally turned to face them.
"To close the gap between you and the main family candidates, each of you will be given something... special. But before that, you will perform a binding oath. You must swear to never reveal what you are about to see—not to anyone."
From beneath a hidden tile in the floor, Jiang Wuyu pulled out a sealed box.
He opened it slowly.
Inside sat a vial, glowing faintly with a liquid redder than blood, deeper than wine. The elixir seemed to shimmer with a pulse of its own, like it was alive.
"This," he said, "is called the Crimson Ruby Elixir."
Gasps filled the room again.
Every child stared, frozen in awe.
Their eyes locked on the vial. A single drop of that liquid seemed more valuable than their entire lives.
And perhaps… it was.