Xiao Jiu brought Shen Yun along as they continued their patrol in the sky.
Although the range of Divine Thought was nowhere near as vast as signal waves, it could unearth hidden enemies.
Although they had not found He Anhe, Xiao Jiu and Shen Yundu appeared relaxed and carefree.
After all, this wasn't a hot-blooded protagonist fighting above his weight class; it was a Demon King bullying small fry.
Suddenly, lightning violently erupted around Shen Yun's entire body. Before he could even react, he shot off like a bullet toward a certain direction in the city. In an instant, the surrounding high-rise buildings blurred into a continuous line in his vision.
"Xiao Jiu?" Shen He asked in his mind.
Before he could receive a reply, he came to a sudden halt. The surroundings... it was the hospital where his younger sister was undergoing her examination.
"I'm sorry... Master." Xiao Jiu's voice trembled slightly, carrying a tearful tone tinged with self-blame.
However, Shen Yun remained very calm. His gaze, crackling with electricity, swept the surroundings. He didn't see the bodies of his father and sister. Instead, he saw a young man wearing an arrogant smile, along with the girl standing beside him—his sister's best friend.
"So that's it. I understand now," Shen Yun thought. "My father and sister are naturally protected by the military here. However, if the best friend who was released alongside my sister came to visit, she would have an opportunity to get close." That explained why his sister's best friend had been released.
The surrounding soldiers had already Locked their weapons onto He Anhe. There was even a lieutenant colonel at the Divine Thought Stage guarding the place, yet he too didn't dare to act rashly.
"He Anhe?"
Shen Yun hovered in mid-air like a Thunder God. Even though his words were ordinary, they seemed to carry an endless, crushing pressure. "Did you realize you had nowhere to run, so you decided to come and get revenge on me?"
His gaze landed on the Bronze Tripod by He Anhe's feet. A tripod appearing in a hospital was extremely suspicious no matter how you looked at it.
"Master, that is an Ancient Inheritance Treasure," Xiao Jiu's voice rang out in Shen Yun's mind. "Sister Jiayi and Master's father are both inside. They aren't seriously hurt, and neither are the thousand or so missing people. I can erase this guy's Refining Mark and snatch this Inheritance Treasure away... Good thing this guy is an idiot, otherwise..."
Xiao Jiu felt a profound sense of lingering fear. Just from hearing her voice, one could almost picture her patting her chest and panting in relief.
"As long as they're fine," Shen Yun breathed a sigh of relief and comforted her in return. "As long as everyone is safe, nothing else matters." It was impossible not to worry, but this world was full of unexpected accidents, and no one could guarantee absolute safety. Even if the worst had actually happened, he could only accept it. Fortunately, it was just a false alarm.
Speaking of which, this was the first time Shen Yun realized that a Golden Core's Divine Thought could so easily erase the marks and connections left on a treasure by anyone beneath the Golden Core stage. If that was the case, then He Anhe, who was standing right in front of him, had made a terribly ignorant blunder.
Meanwhile, He Anhe didn't seem to notice the odd expression on Shen Yun's face. He took a step forward, his inexplicably confident smirk radiating blind self-assurance.
"Relax, I'm not that stupid. Your family members are all very safe, but only for now—"
BOOM!
A bolt of lightning crashed onto his body in the blink of an eye, and he immediately collapsed to the ground. He wasn't dead yet, though; Xiao Jiu's strike was only meant to make him suffer a bit. "Otherwise, how can I make up for my dereliction of duty?" she thought.
"If I were you..." He Anhe struggled to climb up from the ground. The smile on his lips didn't wane in the slightest, though he looked somewhat indignant. "I wouldn't do something as pointless as venting your anger like this. Because if I die, your family will also—"
BOOM!
Another bolt of lightning struck down, and it was even heavier than the last one. Even with Divine Thought protecting his body, He Anhe found it incredibly difficult to stand back up. His skin was completely covered in severe burns, leaving him without a shred of his former handsome appearance.
"Did you... not understand a word I just said?! The lives of your entire family are in my hands!"
BOOM!
Yet another bolt of lightning served as his answer, though this time, it deliberately waited for him to finish speaking.
He Anhe could no longer smile. The agonizing pain wracking his entire body twisted his expression into a hideous grimace, accompanied by an overwhelming sense of panic. "It shouldn't be like this," he thought. "Doesn't this guy dote on his younger sister in front of everyone? He even rushed over thousands of miles in a single day! Could it all just be an act?"
"You hypocrite! You phony siscon!"
BOOM!
This strike was far heavier than any of the previous ones, even directly inflicting severe damage upon He Anhe's Divine Soul.
"To think he actually dares to insult Master!" Xiao Jiu thought, her heart brimming with a chilling, murderous intent. She didn't even want to let this man die so easily.
"B-Bastard!"
The feeling of impending death from his heavily injured Divine Soul finally brought a look of utter despair to He Anhe's face, filling his heart with intense unwillingness. He realized that whether it was running away or coming here to take hostages, there had only ever been a sliver of hope for him. But he truly never expected this outcome. He bitterly thought that this Lightning Perfected Lord, who outwardly seemed like a massive siscon, was actually a total fake who didn't care about the lives of his family or those one thousand other people at all. If he had known earlier, he would have been better off surrendering to the military to eke out an ignoble existence!
"If I die, the thousand-plus people inside will all die too! You'll be condemned by the masses!" He Anhe screamed with all his remaining strength. He was genuinely terrified—so scared that his entire body trembled uncontrollably. He agonized over how this was supposed to be his era, and how he could have even achieved immortality. How could he just die here so easily?
"You're... talking to me about being condemned by the masses?" Shen Yun's expression soured slightly. He thought, "Whether it's kidnapping, planting Gu worms, ordering his subordinates to riot, or even committing murder—everything was obviously done by this man right in front of me. Yet now he claims that I'm the one who will be condemned by the masses?"
"Heh heh, COUGH COUGH, heh heh heh." He Anhe suddenly burst into a fit of laughter mixed with coughing. Combined with his badly burned face, he looked exceptionally miserable. "It's not that easy being a hero. The gap between us and mortals will only continue to widen. Don't you know that pride and envy are two of humanity's Seven Deadly Sins? Mortals will only remember what you did wrong, not what you achieved!"
He wanted to stall for time. He knew that even if Shen Yun wanted to kill him, as long as he dragged things out until the military commander arrived, he would still have a chance to live. He reasoned that there was no way the military would ignore the lives of over a thousand people.
"...Idiot."
Rendered speechless for quite a while, Shen Yun could only respond with that single word. Shen Yun found it ridiculous that the man was clearly a perfectly fine Evil Cultivator of China, yet was spouting nonsense about the Seven Deadly Sins. Therefore, Shen Yun decided to remind him of what reality truly was.
"Whether I'm a hero or a villain, whether I receive praise or condemnation, it isn't up to you. It isn't up to me either. Instead... it's up to the strength of the propaganda." Shen Yun slowly descended from mid-air to the ground and walked over step by step, his tone exceedingly casual. "People like you, who get a bit of power and immediately let it get to their heads—as long as they aren't the protagonist—usually don't survive past twenty chapters. Oh, right, thanks for the treasure you delivered."
Before He Anhe could even ponder the meaning behind the four words, "strength of the propaganda," he heard the final sentence.
"Treasure..." he murmured.
He Anhe desperately marshaled his Spiritual Power, attempting to probe the Bronze Tripod stored inside the gift box in front of him. After all, it was his fortuitous encounter, his inheritance, his very own treasure, and above all, his greatest trump card.
However—