This situation would be a bit difficult to resolve.
It wasn’t that Ye Zichen had never been Outside, but he’d visited outer space, which was stable. This, however, was a violent and explosive spatial fault. He’d never encountered anything like it.
The rift looked like someone had taken a knife to a rubber ball. Turbulent spatial storms surged within.
Glancing within the rift, just the sight of the violent spatial winds made him uncomfortable. He was well aware that this was his body warning him: this spatial storm was more than he could handle. If he fell inside, at his cultivation, it would be difficult to return.
The winds raged rampant, and as they surged, the opening expanded.
Gu Xuande still had him by the collar, and Ye Zichen could practically feel the spatial winds cutting across his face.
How did things end up this way?
Ye Zichen knew he’d crossed a line earlier, and he didn’t treat Gu Xuande with the appropriate respect, but this wasn’t entirely his fault. Gu Xuande had tried to put him in his place first, before he even entered Gu Xuande. If he were less capable, he might not have even made it into the city.
Then, after ascending the tower, Gu Xuande was cold and proud, and his invitation to enter the Gu Family came out of nowhere.
Although Ye Zichen’s Upheaval Alliance wasn’t even remotely comparable to the Gu Family, he’d built it up bit by bit over time. He’d worked so hard to build up his faction. Did Gu Xuande think a single sentence was enough to make him change his surname? How could Ye Zichen agree to that?
Besides, when you invited someone to your side, you had to show your sincerity.
Gu Xuande’s attitude had been forceful; he just pressed down on people’s heads and made them submit. What did he think this was? The criminal underworld?
Were this a law-abiding society, he’d inevitably eat a bullet!
But it didn’t matter how offended or irritated Ye Zichen felt; the situation had already turned out this way.
And even if Gu Xuande’s behavior was even more forceful, this wasn’t the Modern Realm he’d once lived in, and there was no law and order here.
This was an upper realm!
Gu Xuande was a local tyrant, and moreover, the Gu Family stood at the very peak of this world, their very name enough to terrify all others. They could practically blot out the sun in a single hand. Bitter as Ye Zichen felt inside, there was no place to complain.
“Family Head Gu,” Ye Zichen laughed, then stretched out his hand to brush the dust off Gu Xuande’s shoulders.
But with Gu Xuande holding him by the collar, Ye Zichen couldn’t even raise his arm. He just hung there in the air and laughed awkwardly. “Why get so angry? If you have something to say, let’s sit down and take our time discussing it. Although I’m afraid it’ll be difficult to accept your request that I join the Gu Family, so long as we sit down and have a nice chat, it’s not entirely impossible!”
“Drop all the nonsense. I don’t have the patience for it.” Gu Xuande exerted force through his arms, lifted Ye Zichen off the ground, and set him near the rift.
The spatial winds howled, and so close to the rift, they even cut several bloody gashes in his ears. Red blood dripped from his ears and into the rift, only for the turbulent winds to swallow it up immediately.
Seeing how briefly the blood lasted within the winds, Ye Zichen made a rough estimate: if he fell inside, there was no way he’d last more than an hour.
More importantly, the Gu Family lived in a separate dimension, apart from the external, main universe.
If he fell into the rift, finding an exit would be far more difficult than if he inadvertently plunged into a similar rift in the outside world.
“Family Head Gu, let’s talk this over!”
“Will you join us or not?” Gu Xuande completely ignored Ye Zichen’s words. He just brought Ye Zichen closer and closer to the rift.
“Whatever else you might say, I’m the head of an alliance! I have dozens of imperial lords at my beck and call! Practically the whole god race is under my command, and I’m on good terms with the Yao Realm’s Eastern Kingdom. You want such a vast force to join the Gu Family, but you’re offering no benefits in return? Even if you don’t give me anything, you ought to offer my subordinates a little something, right?”
“An opportunity to join the Gu Family is a blessing from a virtuous past life. You want me to reward your subordinates? Hmph! Don’t even think about it! Stop spouting all that useless crap and answer my question: are you joining the family or not?”
He sure thought highly of himself!
The way Gu Xuande put it, entering the Gu Family was a blessing from a previous life.
He’d really let his confidence get to his head. Even though the Gu Family was a peak-level clan, that didn’t mean literally everyone would want to join them. The way Ye Zichen saw it, there was no way the clans of the god race’s Holy Lands would rush to join them. After all, they each had their own unique inheritances and histories.
Casting aside their family to ascend the heavens? They couldn’t possibly make such a choice.
But Gu Xuande sure was something: he was trying to force Ye Zichen to join, without offering any concrete advantages. He just wanted to swallow up the fruit of others’ labor, creativity, and resources.
Wasn’t he afraid he’d choke biting off more than he could chew?
If Gu Xuande had tried to negotiate properly, Ye Zichen might have, out of consideration for his current disadvantage, have decided to give Gu Xuande face. Yet Gu Xuande just had to push him.
Of those who reached Ye Zichen’s current level, who didn’t have a bit of a temper…?
Gu Xuande’s words had set Ye Zichen’s temper on fire.
“Don’t even think about it. You want me to join this stupid family? There’s no way! If you’re got the skills, go ahead and toss me in. You’d best hope I die in there, because if I make it out alive, I’ll come back, and sooner or later, I’ll slaughter the entire Gu Family.” Ye Zichen glared and shouted in fury, his words carrying the dense smell of gunpowder.
Qing Li stood off to the sidelines. She wanted to intervene, but she was already so shocked she could just stand there covering her mouth, her eyes wide. She’d wanted to persuade Gu Xuande not to quibble with Ye Zichen.
But after what Ye Zichen had just said, Qing Li knew…
There was no hope of that!
Although Gu Xuande was playful in private, Qing Li knew that in his heart of hearts, nothing was more important to him than the Gu Family.
Even if Ye Zichen had only said all that stuff about “slaughtering the entire Gu Family” in a fit of rage, there was no way Gu Xuande could tolerate it.
“What did you just say?”
“I said, if you toss me in there, you’d best hope it kills me, because if it doesn’t, I’ll come back and slaughter the entire Gu Family! Especially you, you damn geezer!”
“Say that one more time!”
“Good words don’t need repeating! Stop talking nonsense! If you’ve got the balls, go ahead and toss me in!” Ye Zichen’s eyes practically spit flames, but then, so did Gu Xuande’s.
The hand holding Ye Zichen by the collar shook uncontrollably. Then, Qing Li watched as he raised Ye Zichen into the air, holding him right over the spatial rift.
“Xuande, don’t….!” Qing Li rushed over to stop him, but she was just one step too late. She could only watch as Gu Xuande relaxed his grip on Ye Zichen’s collar, dropping Ye Zichen straight into the spatial storm within the rift.
“You want to die?” said Gu Xuande. “Then I’m happy to oblige!”
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