Not a single moment was spent mourning the death of Ximen Aotian; it was now a chaotic melee for family power!
Ximen Aotian's three children were busy rallying everyone present. Some immediately voiced their support for the Eldest Master, while others sided with the alliance between the Second Miss and the Ninth Young Master.
There were also neutral factions shrinking into the corners, trying their best to lower their presence and wait things out, unwilling to take a side just yet.
The Second Miss and the Ninth Young Master were in a surface-level alliance, but in reality, they were wary of each other, ready to backstab the other at any moment.
The assembly hall was a mess of confusion that eventually devolved into something resembling a village brawl. People slammed tables and shouted abuse, unsheathed artifacts to threaten their opponents, and some even quietly used communicators in the corners to contact their confidants outside.
"The Ximen family cannot be without a head. I am the eldest, possessed of both virtue and talent. It is only right that I succeed the position."
"Virtue and talent? What do you have besides being old? What contributions have you made to the family all these years?"
"At least I'm better than you two—one who only knows how to scheme and another who only knows how to act profound."
"Who are you calling a poser?"
Amidst the arguing, no one noticed the space in the center of the assembly hall suddenly distort for a brief moment.
Then, a voice abruptly rang out: "None of you are qualified to inherit the Ximen family!"
The assembly hall fell silent instantly. Everyone turned their heads simultaneously to look at the source of the voice.
Yue Shi stood right in the center of the hall, his long black hair slightly disheveled. He scanned the surroundings with his gaze, the snow leopard perched on his shoulder with its limp tail hanging down.
Ximen Qing's pupils shook with shock as he subconsciously took half a step back. "It's you?!"
The Second Miss reached for the artifact at her waist, ready to strike, while the Ninth Young Master quietly looked for an escape route.
An elder from a side branch asked with a trembling voice, "The Family Head... where is the Family Head?"
Yue Shi smiled and said, "Your Family Head is very tired. He's resting."
No one dared to ask what 'resting' specifically meant.
Ximen Qing forced himself to calm down, straightening his back. "What does Your Excellency intend to do by coming here?"
Yue Shi took a step forward and announced loudly, "I possess the qualifications to take over the Ximen family. Why shouldn't I be here?"
The crowd was greatly alarmed. Was he planning to wipe out the entire Ximen family in one go?
"Actually, my relationship with Ximen Aotian is quite extraordinary," Yue Shi said leisurely.
Everyone was even more shocked. What did that mean?
In an instant, countless soap opera-style family dramas flashed through many people's minds.
After all, the private lives of the Ximen family members were indeed very messy, so they couldn't help but overthink things.
Could it be that this long-haired person was...
"You've guessed correctly. I am Ximen Aotian's long-lost biological father!" Yue Shi said, his eyes welling with tears.
The entire hall was silent—a deathly silence where not even the sound of breathing could be heard.
Ximen Qing's eyes nearly bulged out of his sockets, his mouth agape and his jaw practically hitting the floor. "What did you say?!"
The Second Miss's mouth opened and closed repeatedly, while the Ninth Young Master was quietly moving in a certain direction.
Yue Shi repeated with a face full of sincerity, "I said, I am Ximen Aotian's father, which makes me your grandfather."
An elderly clan member trembled with rage. "Absurd! Utterly absurd! The Family Head's father passed away when he was very young. We all saw his remains."
Yue Shi shrugged. "What does passing away matter? Are rebirth secret arts that rare?"
"I finally managed to return from the dead, and I only wanted to come back and see my son, to take him to celebrate Children's Day one last time. I didn't expect my son wouldn't even recognize me. It has truly broken this old father's heart!"
"There was no other way. I had no choice but to let the white-haired man bury the black-haired one..."
Veins bulged on Ximen Qing's forehead. "Bullshit! My grandfather didn't look anything like you. Besides, you look younger than I do!"
Yue Shi sighed. "Why are you all so difficult to communicate with? I'm a long-lived species, I've maintained myself well. Do you have a problem with that?"
The Second Miss finally snapped out of it and sneered, "To be able to tell such a lie... you are truly shameless."
Someone muttered softly, "Is there something wrong with his head?"
Yue Shi suddenly broke into a brilliant smile, showing a row of pearly white teeth, though his eyes remained cold and dark. "You people really don't understand humor..."
"In that case, all of you can just die!"
Outside the window, the sky changed abruptly.
The azure sky turned an eerie, unclean, deathly white. A moon rose over Thousand Faces City, emitting a sickly, gray-white moonlight.
Everywhere the moonlight touched, all things began to mutate.
Inside the assembly hall, the first to be touched by the moonlight was a young clan member standing by the window.
He saw the moon outside and, not knowing what it was, suddenly felt an itch on his face. He reached up to touch it, only to find his hand covered in slime.
His face was melting, his skin dripping down like wax from a candle. Bones poked out from the melting flesh, and white bone shards twisted in the air, reshaping themselves into a deformed structure that belonged to no known species.
He opened his mouth to scream, but his mouth no longer existed; there was only a mass of writhing tumors.
"Don't let the moonlight touch you! Get away!" the Second Miss screamed.
But the moonlight could penetrate anything. Spells couldn't block it, and walls couldn't stop it. The moonlight was pervasive; it was a concept. From the moment the moon rose, evil covered the entirety of Thousand Faces City.
Black scales had already begun to grow on half of Ximen Qing's face. The edges of the scales were as sharp as knives, slicing through his skin as blood seeped from the cracks.
He gritted his teeth and charged toward Yue Shi, condensing the last bit of his mana in his hand. "I'll kill you!"
Yue Shi lightly flicked a finger. Ximen Qing's body froze in mid-air, then bloomed from within like a flower in full blossom.
His flesh, bones, and organs simultaneously curled outward in that instant, turning into something that looked like both a flower and coral, hanging in the air of the assembly hall and slowly rotating.
Under the moonlight, Thousand Faces City became a purgatory.
The magnificent floating buildings looked like rows of tombstones, with moonlight seeping through the gaps between them, dyeing the entire city gray-white.
Screams, sobs, and roars echoed from every corner of the city, converging into a profane symphony.
Buildings were corroded and rotted, collapsing directly. Countless residents died miserably in the streets, their bodies rapidly mutating before melting into a semi-fluid meat slurry under the high concentration of moonlight radiation.
There were so many residents in Thousand Faces City. Under the glow of the moonlight, countless corpses melted, their meat slurry merging with internal organs and bones to become a river of flesh slurry.
Within this foul, roiling river of meat, new aberrations constantly emerged to hunt down the living and drag them into the depths.
The meat slurry gradually submerged several nearby blocks before initiating a new round of mutation.
Life was finding its own way. Certain microorganisms adapted to the current environment, splitting at extreme speeds. Every generation produced mutations, evolving as rapidly as the origin of life itself, from microorganisms into profane lifeforms.
The Evil Moon hung in the sky, motionless, its light spilling evenly across every inch of the land.
The entire Thousand Faces City was transforming into a demon's lair, a domain of utmost evil, and a breeding ground for mutations.
"Dammit, Yue Shi is using this move again?!"
Qin Sansi held up an umbrella, cursing as he fled the city.
He still remembered the horrific calamity the moon had brought to his own world.
Rate on N.U.
