Family Management Game In Immortal Continent

Chapter 606: Home

”That,” he said, ”is the one place I have wanted to escape from my entire life.”

”Are your clansmen terrible people?” she asked. ”Like my uncle?”

Fan Feixuan recalled the past; from the day she was born, she had been nothing more than a sacrificial pawn.

Li Xingchen frowned. ”I suppose you could say that,” he said. ”Back home, many people call our family a clan of the unorthodox path. My people have countless enemies, and those enemies hate them to the very depths of their bones. Their hands are stained with blood. Compared to my clansmen, any pirate you could name would seem like a saint.”

Hearing this, Fan Feixuan took Li Xingchenʼs hand, her dark brows knitting together in concern.

Li Xingchenʼs gaze remained distant.

”I grew up in a simple, rustic village,” he said. ”In those days, I only had my father, my mother, and my grandmother with me. I thought I would spend my entire life there, never leaving that little fishing village.

Then one day, a kinsman of mine came to the village. He told me countless stories, stories of how I had many elders whose famous names alone were enough to strike terror into the hearts of their enemies.”

”But to me, at least, thatʼs not who they are.”

Fan Feixuan was an excellent listener. She wanted to understand the man with whom she would now spend her life.

She listened as Li Xingchen spoke, his voice soft and low. When he spoke of his clan, the normally carefree and boisterous Li Xingchen became gentler than she had ever seen him at sea.

”I have an Old Ancestor,” he said. ”He is shrouded in mystery. He has slain countless beings who were thought to be beyond reach, yet he always protects me when I am in danger. In the future, he will protect you and our child, too. He is everywhere.”

”My clansmen are ruthless; they will stop at nothing to achieve their goals. The number of people each one of them has killed far surpasses that of any pirate.”

”And yet, no matter what I might want, even if they curse me for it, the very next day the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures I need will appear by my bedside.”

Fan Feixuan frowned. ”Then why did you run away?”

Li Xingchen let out a long sigh.

”Because I know,” he said, ”that I can never surpass them. You see me leading all these pirates at sea, but compared to them, I am nothing. I would only become their burden. I would waste their precious Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures. And I would... become a weakness for the clan, a tool for our enemies to exploit.”

”I had to run away,” he said. ”Flee to this vast sea, to a place where no one could ever find me.”

”But... I still made a mistake.”

A sudden understanding dawned on Fan Feixuan. She gently stroked her belly.

Li Xingchen continued, ”Weʼve lost many of our people before. To our family, our kin are everything. No matter the mistakes we make, we always find a way to fix them. We may be scattered across the world, but each of us fights with our lives on the line for the clan.”

”Some have fallen to the demonic path, some have gone mad, some have been thrown in prison, and some have become the lapdogs of our enemies. But every single thing they do,” he said, his voice filled with a fierce pride, ”is a desperate struggle for the sake of the clan.”

”So that our child can grow up safe and sound,” he said, ”they will do some truly insane things.”

Li Xingchen crouched down, sensing the new life taking shape in Fan Feixuanʼs belly.

”The Old Ancestor once said,” he murmured, ”that even if one earns eternal infamy, if it allows the children to live a life of peace and happiness, then the price is worth paying.”

”And perhaps,” he added softly, ”it has already begun.”

He remembered the resolute expressions on his clansmenʼs faces when he left the Ancestor Space a few days prior.

Fan Feixuanʼs eyes filled with a hopeful light. Her uncleʼs clan was large, and its children constantly schemed and fought for power. To secure an alliance with the Sea Serpent Clan, her uncle had killed her father and given her mother away to them. And now, it had been her turn.

She found it hard to imagine that the clan Li Xingchen described could actually exist in the real world.

Fan Feixuanʼs voice was soft.

”Xingchen, then why did you run away?” she asked. ”Perhaps itʼs precisely because of everything youʼve said that your people are so powerful?”

”Mm.”

On the surface of the sea, the ship sailed onward. The face of the once-arrogant young man was now filled with shame as he gently stroked the slender womanʼs belly.

”Xingchen,” she said, ”I want to hear more of your familyʼs stories.”

”Alright.”

To the sound of the waves and the snap of the sails in the sea wind, Li Xingchenʼs voice was calm and distant.

”I have a cousin,” he began. ”When I first met him, he was carefree and boisterous. He had been wandering since the age of ten, for five long years, before he finally found us...”

”From that day forward, Iʼve always envied him. Heʼs the person I admire most in the world. Heʼs been to places Iʼve never gone, done things I wouldnʼt dare to dream of. My own love for sailing to distant shores is, in large part, because of him.”

”But I know Iʼll never be able to catch up to him. Because he is always pressing forward, while all I have ever wanted to do is escape.”

”He became the adopted son of one of our familyʼs greatest enemies. It wasnʼt until I asked him about it the last time we parted ways that I finally understood his reasoning: only by getting close to your enemy and learning from them can you ever hope to surpass them.”

”Now, he is an assassin. And his twin blades are always ready to pierce the throats of our familyʼs enemies.”

....

Pfft!

Within the Imperial Capital, at an intelligence agency belonging to the State Preceptorʼs faction, shadowy figures slipped inside.

A sinister-looking young man in a black robe and gloves pulled his dagger from a cultivatorʼs eye socket and casually shoved the corpse aside.

Behind him stood figures clad in black, all veterans of the border battlefields.

The corpses of numerous cultivators now lay scattered throughout this secret location.

Li Xinghuoʼs voice was low and eerie.

”Search the jade slips,” he commanded. ”I want to know exactly what Prince Qian took with him from the Imperial Capital when he left for the Duravia Trade Prefecture all those years ago.”

”Yes, Commander!”

As the assassins began to search the premises for jade slips containing all manner of secrets, the sound of frantic footsteps echoed, followed by cries for mercy. One by one, captives were dragged in, all of them weeping and begging for their lives, their bodies stained with blood.

”This has nothing to do with me!” one cried. ”I donʼt know anything! The Prince left the Imperial Capital centuries ago; weʼve had no contact with him since!”

”I am Prince Qianʼs maternal uncle!” another shouted. ”By doing this, you are making an enemy of the Imperial Family!”

”Madmen! You are all madmen!” a third roared. ”Do you have any idea who I am?!!”

Li Xinghuo paid them no mind, as if he hadnʼt heard a word.

He stepped forward and looked down from his superior height at a lavishly dressed, middle-aged woman. Her face was deathly pale. Li Xinghuoʼs voice was low and spectral.

”Consort Shu, mother of Prince Qian,” he said. ”It took a great deal of effort to drag you out of the inner palace. Now, if you would be so kind, tell me... what secrets has that son of yours been hiding?”

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