Long Ziwei had the female disciples he had brought with him get to work, and he told Long Chen to wait for a moment. After a short while, Long Ziwei ran over with a steaming bowl of noodles for Long Chen.

“Big Brother, before I tell you the story, please eat this bowl of noodles.”

Long Chen looked at Long Ziwei oddly and asked, “You needed that many people to make me a bowl of noodles?”

“Please eat it. This is a gesture of your junior brother’s sincerity,” insisted Long Ziwei.

Though Long Chen found the situation amusing, he didn’t reject the gesture. He started eating while speaking.

“Why did you bring the golden bulls away and come back with just the chariot? Oh, wow! This beef isn’t bad!” he praised between bites.

“Them? They’re cursing away in the distance,” laughed Long Ziwei.

Long Chen was startled and quickly understood where this beef came from. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

One of the women covered her mouth as she laughed, “The four forelegs only had a fist-sized of essence meat extracted from them. They were perfect for this bowl of noodles.”

“Hehe, this is to express my respect for Big Brother. In any case, they didn’t die. They’ll be fine after recovering a bit,” said Long Ziwei with a smile.

Fang Liude and the others watched this exchange with odd expressions. They wanted to laugh but didn’t dare to. Could it be that the stronger the person, the stranger their brain was? Long Chen finished the noodles quickly, and everyone sat down together. Long Chen introduced everyone, and to his satisfaction, Long Ziwei didn’t behave arrogantly toward any of them—whether it was Gui Jiu, Fang Liude, Yu Ying, or the others. He greeted each one respectfully, which Long Chen appreciated.

However, it was Long Ziwei’s women who maintained a noticeable distance from them, as if they were from entirely different worlds. Despite their surface-level respect, their inherent arrogance remained unchanged.

When Gui Jiu appeared, Fang Liude and the others had been extremely respectful to him. However, now that they were sitting with Long Ziwei, Gui Jiu didn’t even dare to breathe hard. Moreover, Long Ziwei was being very careful in front of Long Chen. The entire atmosphere was rather awkward.

As Long Chen went back to his questioning, Long Ziwei explained how Long Zhantian had first come to the Long clan. Back then, Long Ziwei had been competing on the martial stage. After he had beaten someone, the alarm rang out.

In this era, the Long clan’s people had almost forgotten what their alarm sounded like. After all, it had been countless years since it last rang. The Long clan was unmatched in the Heavenly Desolation Domain, so no one dared to come knocking on their door to cause trouble.

As for the devil sea, although countless sea demons and sea devils came out of it, the Long clan’s experts would always carry out campaigns against them multiple times a year. These campaigns served to train their disciples and to prevent the sea demons’ numbers from growing too quickly.

As a result, everything was under control, and the Long clan’s territory had always been the safest place. People had nearly forgotten the last time the alarm had rung.

When Long Zhantian arrived in the Long clan, the experts receiving him intentionally made things hard on him, wanting him to prove that he was a member of the Long clan. As a result, Long Zhantian killed them, and countless experts of the Long clan immediately surrounded him.

However, Long Zhantian didn’t even speak to them. With a single sword, he slaughtered his way into the Long clan’s main palace. Wherever he went, he left devastation in his wake.

It seemed as if Long Zhantian wanted to challenge the entire Long clan on his own. In the end, the Long clan’s Heaven Saints were unable to stop him, and even one of the four Heavenly Saints lost his arm.

The leader of the four Heavenly Saints was the first Heavenly Saint, Long Qihua. The two of them stared at each other in front of the palace. Long Ziwei was present at that time, and he saw that while neither of them moved, the space around them twisted to the point that spatial blades ran rampant. The day instantly became night. It was like the end of the world.

When Long Ziwei described this scene, he grew particularly excited. Countless experts of the Long clan had personally witnessed it and were all shocked.

Just as Long Qihua was about to attack, the patriarch appeared and stopped the battle. After that, he spoke with Long Zhantian alone. However, no one knew what they said. Afterward, Long Zhantian stayed in the Long clan. As the Long clan’s higher-ups didn’t want too many people to pay attention to him, they locked down most of the information about him.

They only announced that Long Zhantian had become a new member of the four Heavenly Saints, replacing the one whose arm he had cut off. They also announced that Long Zhantian had used his privilege as one of the four Heavenly Saints to give the mercenaries greater room to hunt and move.

If any of the Long clan’s disciples arbitrarily killed the mercenaries, Long Zhantian would use his authority to execute them. He wanted to give the mercenaries more dignity and hope.

This decision caused an uproar in the Long clan, with countless people voicing their objections. To them, these mercenaries were practically an inferior lifeform—beggars, slaves. How could they be given so many more rights?

However, the higher-ups of the Long clan left no room for debate. They declared that anyone opposed to the new laws could challenge Long Zhantian. If they defeated him, they would earn the right to overturn these changes.

Afterward, the Long clan fell silent about it. While most of them were unhappy, the mercenaries and rogue cultivators in the Heavenly Desolation Domain were so moved that they wept. As for why Long Zhantian would do such a thing, no one knew.

“Let me explain it.” At this point, Yu Ying bravely took over Long Ziwei’s story. “When Saint Emperor Zhantian came to the Heavenly Desolation Domain, he stayed for a short time in Mercenary City. He saw the outer disciples of the Long clan bully us as they pleased. They even killed us with no consequence. That was why he stood up for us. He once told us to protect the kindness and righteousness in our hearts. He said the Heavenly Daos would not always favor evil, and our chance would soon come. Saint Emperor Zhantain is a god in our eyes, and we will forever remember his words. No matter what kind of grief or humiliation we suffer, we will always protect our original hearts.”

“Your chance would come? Protect your original hearts?” asked Long Chen.

These words struck Long Chen like a heavy wave. Was this a secret message his father had left for him? With his father’s intelligence, there was no way he would do something meaningless. Why had he stayed in Mercenary City for so long? What had he seen? What deeper meaning could there possibly be?

Fang Liude added, “Saint Emperor Zhantian also said that while this world is covered in black clouds, they will only last for a while. There will come a day when we will see a glorious starry river that we’ve never seen before.”

“Starry river?”

Long Chen suddenly slapped his leg and jumped up excitedly.

“I think I understand my father’s intentions!”