The only thing that irked Lin Shunhe was his son’s secretiveness. Wasn’t he hiding things a little *too* well?

He thought back to the wonderful future he had painstakingly planned for their family. With his son’s current power, he could probably achieve it all with a mere wave of his hand. The thought was rather disheartening.

"Forget about your son for a second, what about you?" Yao Shan’s temper flared. "You’ve been hiding so much, and you’re so powerful! If we hadn’t run into trouble today, were you planning on deceiving me for the rest of our lives!?"

"I... I was just trying to do what was best for the family..." Lin Shunhe’s voice trailed off.

"Then what about you!?" Lin Shunhe suddenly remembered something. He slammed his hand on the small table inside the carriage and pointed out the window at a group of guards in white armor walking slowly alongside them.

The group had just arrived. The three leading them were all experts at the Priest level.

He could tell by the Void Power swirling around their weapons.

Three Priests, one at the Circulation realm, and nine Inner Strength Martial Artists had rushed out, knelt before Yao Shan, and addressed her as the Holy Mother of the Sheng Yuan Dharma Sect. They declared they were here to protect her on the Sect Hierarch’s orders.

And just like that, everyone was dumbfounded all over again.

No one had any idea where these Priests and the Circulation realm expert had come from. Lin Shunhe could even faintly sense a trace of a deathly aura about them.

When they asked Yao Shan, she was evasive. She would only say that she had joined a mysterious sect and that it wouldn’t bring any harm to their family. In fact, she claimed she had joined specifically to protect them.

"Sigh..." Watching the couple, Lin Shunhe and Yao Shan, still bickering.

Liu Shenglan and Liu Xiao couldn’t help but sigh.

In the beginning, everything had been so normal.

They had left the main branch of the Liu Family, and Liu Shenglan had chosen Lin Shunhe, a poor boy from the Outer City who had been willing to risk his life to save her. Their union was considered her marrying beneath her station.

She had originally thought that in the union between her family and the Lin Family, her side had gotten the short end of the stick, and that they were the ones helping the Lins out the most.

But in the last hour, after witnessing one shocking event after another, that perception had been completely overturned.

First, Lin Shunhe had suddenly made his move, transforming from a portly merchant into a powerful Martial Artist capable of holding off a Priest.

Then, the ever-gentle and humble Lin Hui had sent a suspected Palace Master-level expert flying into oblivion with a single sword strike.

And finally, Yao Shan, who should have been the most ordinary and unremarkable of them all, had inexplicably summoned a large group of masters to act as guards.

Tallying it all up, Liu Shenglan was speechless. She realized that in this family, not a single person was a simple character. Every one of them was hiding trump cards and ultimate moves. Only her family of three were truly straightforward.

Yes.

"I was so foolish... truly..." Liu Shenglan sighed again, looking up to meet her daughter’s gaze. They could both see the same speechless, chaotic mess of emotions reflected in each other’s eyes.

"Right now, I just hope Big Brother gets here soon..." Liu Xiao sighed.

She felt that if she stayed with this Lin family any longer, she was bound to have a heart attack.

Especially just now, when Lin Hui had acted, resisting the suppressive aura of a Palace Master-level expert. In that instant, her heart had nearly leaped out of her throat.

"Right, right, and Ah Jun! If Ah Jun were here, that whole situation wouldn’t have happened!" Liu Shenglan nodded emphatically.

"Mother, you’re overestimating Big Brother. He wouldn’t have been able to handle that Palace Master... He most likely would have been crushed," Liu Xiao sighed, shattering her mother’s delusion.

"Sigh..." Liu Shenglan was speechless, unable to say another word.

"But Mother, Big Sister, why are you sighing?" Lin Xiaoliu, nestled in her mother’s arms, suddenly asked. "Aren’t we a family?"

"..."

"..." The two women shook their heads, unsure how to explain the concept of their family’s pecking order to Lin Xiaoliu.

"As long as we’re still family, Brother Hui would never chop me," Lin Xiaoliu whispered.

’Such a simple, childish worldview...’ Liu Xiao mused.

Yes, the one thing she was thankful for was that this unfathomably devious person, Lin Hui, was on their side.

Putting herself in his enemies’ shoes, if they knew he was hiding his true strength—a power that spanned at least three major realms—wouldn’t they immediately flee into the Fog Area, never to return?

For most people, hiding a single realm of power was already outrageous. But this guy...

At this thought, Liu Xiao glanced again at the bickering Lin Shunhe and Yao Shan.

The father: appears to be an ordinary person, but is actually someone fused with a replica Evil Soldier, clearly backed by a major power.

The stepmother: appears to be an ordinary person, but can summon Priest-level guards with a single Protective Talisman. She’s also a formidable character with a powerful backing and high status.

The son: appears to be an Inner Strength Martial Artist, but is actually a top-tier expert at the Palace Master level.

Looking at it this way...

This family is really something else...

The crucial part was, they didn’t seem to know the truth about one another...

Wait, I’m part of this family now...

’But why don’t I have any hidden trump cards?’ Liu Xiao fell into thought. ’Am I too naive?’

"Speaking of which, it seems the people from Qingfeng Dao don’t know about Ah Hui’s situation either..." Liu Shenglan’s words suddenly piqued Liu Xiao’s curiosity.

"I’ll go see." She lifted the carriage curtain and vanished in a flash.

At the rear of the procession, the members of Qingfeng Dao were deep in a heated discussion.

All the disciples’ faces were flushed with excitement as they endlessly discussed the Daoist Master’s invincible and heroic display, turning the tide and single-handedly facing down a Palace Master.

They wished they could just unload every magnificent, glorious, and powerful word they had ever learned in their entire lives onto Lin Hui.

Praising him to the high heavens was all that mattered.

"It’s no wonder everyone’s so worked up. Even I feel like I’ve hit the jackpot! What did I, Wang Hongshi, ever do to deserve following a terrifyingly supreme figure like the Daoist Master?! I must have been blessed in three lifetimes! Truly, three lifetimes!"

Near the horses at the front of the group, Wang Hongshi led his finally-calmed white horse while chatting with Chen Sui and Huang Shan at his side.

"The Daoist Master is a true prodigy, the kind of fated hero you only see once in a thousand years! He’s like the protagonist of a storybook. He doesn’t make a move, but when he does, the heavens fall and the earth shatters, sand and stones fly, the sky darkens, and even gods and ghosts cry out..." Xiaohu was clearly drunk, spouting praise while taking swigs from a wine pouch.

Among the top ten disciples, there were few who weren’t drinking.

They were all incredibly excited, drinking medicinal wine to restore the courage that had been scared out of them moments before.

"Your vocabulary is certainly expanding, isn’t it?" Huang Shan gave Xiaohu a deadpan look.

"Of course! I enrolled in a literature academy. I go study for an hour every day. I’m not the same man I was before!" Xiaohu explained, his eyes wide.

"That’s great, Xiaohu. Very ambitious!" Huang Shan smiled, patting his arm.

"Senior Sister Shanshan is amazing too! Achieving Inner Power Perfection at your age is incredibly rare in the entire Outer City!" Xiaohu chuckled.

"I... I’m still a long way off..." For some reason, despite the praise, a hint of disappointment crossed Huang Shan’s face, devoid of any joy.

The others nearby noticed and had their own suspicions.

In truth, there wasn’t a single one of Qingfeng Dao’s top ten female disciples who hadn’t been the subject of scandalous rumors involving the Daoist Master. Yet, very few ever bothered to refute them.

Everyone could see it, really. The female disciples of the Daoist path practically worshipped Lin Hui. If he were to actually engage in the debauched behavior the rumors described, they probably would have been more than willing.

Unfortunately, the Daoist Master was like the moon’s reflection in the water or a flower in a mirror: seemingly within reach, yet impossibly far away.

"After this... what do you think will become of Qingfeng Dao?" Huang Shan changed the subject, her voice soft.

"Is that even a question? We’ll obviously grow stronger, expand rapidly, and enter the Inner City!" Xiaohu answered first.

Wang Hongshi and the others, however, remained silent, lost in thought.

After the initial shock and excitement wore off, they began to contemplate the future, trying to deduce the potential consequences of their Daoist Master, Lin Hui, revealing such terrifying power.

After all, each of them had families and friends. The future of Qingfeng Dao would inevitably have a profound and immense impact on their lives.

What the future held, and what part they would play in it—these were things that required careful thought.

Outside, some of the celebrating disciples began to have similar thoughts, and the crowd gradually grew quiet.

*

*

*

Far off in the Fog Area, a squad from the Profound Eagle Sect—clad in black clothes and armor, their faces hidden by masks and helmets—watched from a distance as the processions from the Lin Mansion and Qingfeng Dao slowly disappeared.

Tao Xuehai and his partner, a man from the Wanhua Sect, stared blankly in that direction, remaining silent for a long time.

"Was that... your master?" the partner asked. He wore a white mask, and the sharp, heroic air he once carried had vanished, replaced by a somewhat timid, dazed stupor.

"Yes," Tao Xuehai admitted.

"That’s... really over the top..." the man from the Wanhua Sect couldn’t help but sigh.

What he really wanted to say was that it was just too devious. A Palace Master-level expert disguised as a common Inner Strength Martial Artist...

Who the hell wouldn’t lose their mind if they ran into something like that?

It was like cleaning out a chicken coop, only to have a Tyrannosaurus Rex burst out from a flock of fluffy yellow chicks.

An unassuming little chick on the outside, but it transforms when it reveals its true self, and then the T-Rex clears the field by eating everything in one bite.

How could anyone even touch that?

If the Palace Master who got attacked died, then so be it. But if he was lucky enough to escape, he would probably be psychologically scarred by fluffy yellow chicks for the rest of his life...

"Sigh... Your master’s sect..." the white-masked man sighed again, at a loss for words.

He decided he would quit the Wanhua Sect the moment he got back. His heart really couldn’t take these constant shocks.

Tao Xuehai glanced at him but said nothing.

He was also rather speechless. His teacher’s hidden strength was, indeed, a bit too much...

So much so that his own head was still spinning.

"From this day forward, Qingfeng Dao... will probably become the stuff of legends," his companion’s voice echoed beside him.

Tao Xuehai didn’t reply, but in his heart, he agreed.

Suddenly, his eyes flashed. He looked up toward the distant sky.

"Teacher is here."

His companion hurriedly looked up as well.

Just in time to see three figures streaking down from the sky, heading straight for the Qingfeng Dao procession.

The three figures flew in a V-formation. Leading them was none other than the Daoist Master, Lin Hui, with a Ruyi scepter at his waist and his black hair flowing down to his back.

His face seemed to wear an eternal, unchanging smile.

Tao Xuehai had once found that smile warm. Now, however, he sensed something else in it... an inexplicable, high-and-mighty... contempt!