Meng Hao was enraged, but Meng Ru’s words caused his heart to tremble. It was impossible to describe what they meant to him; after all, Meng Chen’s grandmother was his Grandma Meng as well!

His Grandpa Fang and Grandpa Meng had gone missing, and his Grandma Fang had long since pa.s.sed away. To suddenly find out that his Grandma Meng was still alive caused his heart to begin to pound, and he wished he could be at her side instantly.

However, he hadn't lost his ability to think straight, so although he sped as fast as possible in her direction, he also concealed himself so that no one could detect his presence. He soon appeared in the air outside of the ancestral mansion, and then sped off into the distance with Meng Ru.

Meng Ru was in the Nascent Soul stage, so to her, her older cousin Meng Chen, who was in the Immortal Realm, was the most promising and important person in the bloodline. He had an incredible cultivation base, and was in fact the hope of the entire bloodline. Although Meng Ru didn't understand the vast gap between the Immortal Realm and the Ancient Realm, in her mind, the speed with which they were traveling was something that should come naturally to someone like her cousin.

In fact… to her, Meng Chen was the Heaven of their bloodline!

If anyone could have observed what was happening, they would be shocked. In the s.p.a.ce of a few breaths of time, he took Meng Ru across the starry sky to appear... directly on the continent where his grandfather’s bloodline resided.

He didn’t need any directions from Meng Ru to know where to go. He flew across the continent, sending his divine sense spreading out until he found a village on the border which almost seemed like a city of mortals. There, he identified a mansion which appeared to be filled with quite a few grieving people. In the instant that his divine sense touched the place, he noticed one room... in which he sensed an aura that had to be a blood relative.

“Grandma Meng....” he thought, trembling. He had never even imagined that his grandmother would still be alive, so at the moment, his heart was pounding in the same way that Meng Chen’s would have were he here. With Meng Ru in tow, he shot toward the village and then appeared inside the mansion.

Almost immediately, cries of astonishment could be heard in response to his arrival. As he looked around he noticed that, of the dozens of people in the residence, all were women. Not a single man was present!

“It’s Chen’er! Chen’er’s back!”

“Big bro....” Almost immediately, everyone began to get excited, and their eyes turned red as tears welled up.

Meng Hao glanced at everyone, but there was no time to examine them closely. He instantly walked toward the room where his grandmother was located. The other clan members stepped back, making a path for him as he sped forward like the wind. As soon as he entered the room, he saw an old woman lying on a wooden pallet.

Next to the old woman sat two old men, who seemed to be wheezing and in pain, as if it were difficult to even just be sitting up straight. They were very old, as if they had lived for countless years, and their auras were very weak. It even seemed a struggle for them to keep their eyes open, as if they were staying alive by sheer force of willpower.

There were also three middle-aged women in the room. They had clearly been beauties when they were young, but had been ravaged by the pa.s.sing of years, and were also very weak. They also seemed to be hanging on by sheer force of willpower.

As for the woman on the pallet, she was completely covered with wrinkles, and seemed profoundly ancient. She radiated the stench of decay, and was withered to the point of being little more than skin and bones. Her aura was so weak that it seemed as if she might die at any moment.

However, despite that frail aura, the old woman had a certain strength to her. The wrinkles on her forehead seemed to bear testimony to all of the pressure she had lived with throughout the years. As soon as Meng Hao laid eyes on her, he trembled and walked forward.

This was his Grandma Meng... and the mere sight of her caused tears to spill down his cheeks. His heart hurt as he examined her body, finding more than a dozen internal injuries. Furthermore, her qi pa.s.sageways were completely withered.

As soon as he entered the room, the three middle-aged women turned to look at him. “Chen’er, you’re back....” one of them said.Their gazes were kind, and they did their best to hide the grief in their expressions, but Meng Hao wasn’t Meng Chen, and as such, he could see it.

As for the two old men in the seats, they struggled to keep their eyes open as they looked at Meng Hao with kind gazes.

Meng Hao wasn’t sure who all these people were, but after laying eyes on the old men, he could guess. He also had his speculations about who the three middle-aged women were.

He immediately dropped to his knees and kowtowed, knocking his head onto the ground. Then he got back to his feet and approached his Grandma Meng, who lay there with her eyes closed. Meng Hao reached out and placed his hand onto her arm, then sent some of his life force surging into her. However, almost as soon as it entered her, it immediately dispersed. That caused a gleam of shock and anger to flicker deep in his eyes.

He quickly sent some divine sense into his grandmother, and was shocked to find that hidden inside her body were nine black spikes. They were buried deep within her flesh, and even stabbed into her soul.

Those nine nails were preventing Meng Hao’s life force from entering his grandmother’s body. Even more infuriating to Meng Hao was that inside his grandmother, he could detect... poison!

It was a unique poison designed to corrode the cultivation base and eat away at her life force. Any other person would probably be dead already, but Meng Hao's grandmother was hanging on tenaciously, presumably because her cultivation base had been so profound.

Meng Hao pulled his hand back, eyes flas.h.i.+ng. Next, his right hand performed an incantation gesture, and then he rapidly pushed down on her body nine times. Each time he pushed down, he did so in the location of one of the black spikes.

When he was finished, his grandmother s.h.i.+vered, after which he performed another incantation gesture and then pushed his hand down onto the pressure point beneath her nose, pouring more life force into her.

When the three middle-aged women saw what was happening, their eyes began to s.h.i.+ne brightly, and they seemed surprised. However, they didn’t seem to be suspicious about what was happening. In contrast, the two old men who were sitting there in seeming discomfort suddenly trembled, and they stared at Meng Hao with wide, disbelieving eyes.

As Meng Hao’s life force slowly flowed into his grandmother, the aura of death and rot that had previously filled her suddenly dissipated a bit. Before, her soul fire had been on the brink of being extinguished, but now it burned a bit more brightly than before. Even her complexion looked a bit better.

Meng Hao pulled his hand back. He didn’t dare to pour in too much life force. His grandmother was already on the verge of dying, so if he wasn’t careful, he could easily push her over that edge.

However, he was still confident that with a bit of care, she would be able to recover fully. After he pulled his hand back, he slapped his bag of holding to produce a medicinal pill, which he then placed in her mouth. Finally, he stood up and looked over at the two old men, who were clearly very shocked.

If he wasn’t mistaken, these two old men would be the blood brothers of his Grandpa Meng, making them his granduncles. Apparently, they and his Grandma Meng were the only surviving members of the Senior generation.

As for the three middle-aged women, the fact that they were here in this room and not outside indicated to Meng Hao that they were the beloved partners of his uncles, the blood brothers of his mother.

It was at this point that Meng Hao was shocked to find that the three women, as well as his two granduncles, all had nine spikes buried inside their bodies. The main difference was that the spikes inside the women were silver and not black.

Meng Hao quietly produced some medicinal pills, which he respectfully handed to his two granduncles. The two old men looked at him. Although they were so weak that it seemed even a mortal could kill them, it was possible to see the power and dignity that still existed in their eyes as they looked at Meng Hao.

Gradually, their gazes turned kind. Opening their mouths, they consumed the medicinal pills and then closed their eyes.

Meng Hao clasped hands and bowed, then turned to leave. As he did, the three middle-aged women watched him with puzzled looks.

After leaving the room, Meng Hao’s face darkened. He looked over the dozen or so younger women outside, which included Meng Ru.

“What happened here?” he asked in a gravely voice. His words almost immediately seemed to calm the surrounding bloodline clan members.

“It was the Xu Clan [1. Quick note about the Xu Clan that the character Xu here is not the same character as Xu Qing's surname].... They pushed things too far. They kidnapped Meng Han, and then sent people here to say that we had to send them grandmother’s corpse to get her back.”

“The Xu Clan has gone too far. They’ve bullied us for years, but we’re surnamed Meng! We're actual members of the Meng Clan! They’re just a va.s.sal clan who was given land on this continent by the clan. What right do they have to bully us like this!?”

“It wasn't even the direct bloodline of the Xu Clan that did this, just one of their auxiliary branches....”

“Just what are they thinking? Twenty-seven members of our bloodline have already died at their hands over the years, and all in vain! n.o.body speaks up for us at all... and this time, they actually threatened grandmother, who has protected us for all these years!!”

“I’m here to help Grandma Meng, and defend the clan on Meng Chen’s behalf,” Meng Hao murmured to himself. “I’ll continue to do the protecting around here.” He sent his divine will out, and then began to walk forward, quickly vanis.h.i.+ng. When he reappeared, he was in midair, looking down at the continent below. It only took a moment for his divine sense to locate the auxiliary branch of the Xu Clan that had just been mentioned.

It wasn’t too far away, located in a good-sized city that resembled the Meng Clan ancestral mansion, meaning that it wasn’t a true city, but rather a clan stronghold.

At the main gate of the city was a sign with one large character.

Xu!

Quite a few clan members inhabited the city, and most were mortal. There appeared to be only a dozen or so cultivators, virtually all of them in the Spirit Realm. There was only one old man who was in the Immortal Realm. Even counting him, no one in the city counted as anything more than ants to Meng Hao.

Fury burning in his heart, he stepped forward and was inside the Xu Clan’s ancestral mansion. No one detected his presence, and as he went along, he didn’t hurt the mortals, but he crippled the spirit meridians that would allow them to practice cultivation. As for the cultivators... it didn’t matter what they were doing at the moment, they simply exploded into clouds of gore.

As for the old man in the Immortal Realm, his head exploded even as he sat cross-legged in meditation. All of the cultivators died.

Meng Hao left, taking an unconscious youth with him, a young man who was covered with wounds as if from torture. Despite the injuries, his jaw was clenched shut, as if to indicate that he hadn’t begged for mercy even once.

Killing only this handful of people didn’t abate Meng Hao’s fury in the least. Sending his divine sense out, he found another of the Xu Clan’s auxiliary branches, and headed in that direction next.

One, two, three... Meng Hao went to a total of sixteen auxiliary branches. Not a single cultivator saw his face there; all of them exploded.

With that, Meng Hao eyed the Xu Clan ancestral mansion in the center of the entire content. He snorted coldly and was preparing to go exterminate the entire clan when, all of a sudden, his expression flickered, and he looked back in the direction of his grandfather’s bloodline.

He could sense that his Grandma Meng had awakened.