"Impossible!!" Wu Wei couldn't and would never, accept the truth.
There was no way Wu Han was innocent!
"You're calling me a liar?" The Second Elder felt insulted.
Soul searching was the final method of investigation because it drained both the caster and the subject. He looked at Wu Wei with anger now that he knew the truth.
"Then how do you explain my wife and my child!?" Wu Wei demanded an answer.
"If you dare step forward, I'll kill you myself!" The Second Elder moved to protect Wu Han. His earlier stance, trying to help Wu Wei step down smoothly, was gone, leaving everyone curious about what he had seen.
"Don't worry, young one. I promise to bring justice to you!" The Second Elder held his ground firmly, confusing even Wu Wei.
"What did you see, Second Elder?" the other elders began to ask.
The Second Elder looked back at Wu Han for permission. The boy nodded.
"It wasn't he who forced himself on your wife, it was she who forced him!"
The revelation made everyone gasp, but the most shocked of all wasn't Wu Wei.
It was Wu Zhen.
"YOU WHORE!! WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY GRANDSON!!" Wu Zhen's rage filled the hall as he charged forward without restraint toward Haoyu. But Wu Wei regained his senses and leaped out to intercept him.
"Stop!"
All the other elders rushed down to pull the two apart, yet even they couldn't stop Wu Zhen from shouting furious insults at both Wu Wei and Haoyu.
"Is this true?" Wu Wei turned back to his wife, demanding an answer. His face was pale and horrified.
"Not only that, but you also brought two of our warriors to kill him, and both are now missing, which is out of record," the Second Elder explained the crime he saw from the soul searching.
"And if you ask how she forced herself on him while he is stronger, it was your Ten Poison Toad Dagger!"
Everyone was shocked when they heard the news, even Wu Zhen.
The Ten Poison Toad venom was their trump card in case they were invaded by stronger enemies.
To think Haoyu had access to such a treasure could only mean she got it from Wu Wei.
"B-But you said it was for your master!" Wu Wei asked his wife, shocked.
"I… I didn't do it!" Haoyu tried her best to deny it.
"So, it's confirmed that you gave her the tools to assassinate him," the Second Elder used his words against him as evidence.
"If it wasn't for the poison-block technique my master taught me, I would have died…" Wu Han began to sob, and his grandfather quickly came to comfort him.
"It's okay now, my boy," said Wu Zhen.
"There's no way…" Wu Wei's face went blank. How could this be?
He thought he might have had a revenge card to finally turn the tables and reclaim power.
When he made love with his wife, he thought they would reignite the ambition of their youth.
But it turned out to be a massive lie.
She lied to him and everyone, all of it for her lust to make the boy her plaything, and she dragged him down with her!
"I can't accept this!" Wu Wei's hand pointed toward Haoyu and with his Qi, he pulled her down, sliding her across the floor, bruised.
"Soul search her with me! If it's true, then I'm willing to kill myself right here!" Wu Wei demanded final justice.
He was concerned; his last straw was that the Second Elder might also have joined with Wu Zhen's side and lied to everyone.
And by offering himself, they had no point in rejecting the offer.
He was still one of the strongest members of the clan and could easily bring one of them down with him if he fought back by burning his own life.
"I'm not against it," the Second Elder accepted after seeing how horrible a situation Wu Han had endured through because Haoyu had forced him.
Soul searching her was an acceptable choice.
Even if it would result in her brain being damaged.
Weak cultivators could hardly endure soul searching, what would happen to a normal person like her?
And two people doing it at the same time at that.
"N… No! Please dear, please! Help me!!" Haoyu screamed for help.
She looked at Wu Han, but Wu Zhen quickly blocked her and restrained himself from killing her on sight.
She looked at him with a completely horrified expression, the look of a victim.
"A… Agh!!!"
The moment both the Second Elder and Wu Wei touched her head, her mind began to melt from the force.
Her facial expression melted into that of a simpleton as she let out noises like an animal.
People who saw it turned their eyes away.
This was much worse than a public execution, it was an assassination of humanity, and what was left was far from desirable.
At the end, Haoyu fell on the ground with tears leaking and a big smile.
"Hehehehe…" She couldn't even form a word or thought now, and never again.
Her job was done, for now.
Wu Han, seeing her in such a state, let out a smile, but it was mistaken for a smile of relief from an abuser.
The Second Elder's face turned pale and disgusted.
He almost vomited from the combined effect of exhaustion, the sight he had witnessed, and the things he had learned.
"This… this can't be!" Wu Wei stumbled to the ground.
He looked at his wife… no, this thing who had once been his wife.
She had done this to a boy, forced him to serve her while she bargained with the antidote.
Riding him, forcing him to lick her, using him like a toy.
An old woman like her using the boy as nothing more than a slave.
To think he had married someone like this.
"Now, you honor your part of the deal." The Second Elder, mustering his strength, demanded.
Wu Wei was silent, then he laughed.
All this time, since birth, he thought he would live a life full of honor.
Once hailed as a genius among his peers, then became a renowned warrior respected by others in the town.
He ended as a clan leader who failed to make his clan prosper and instead led it toward ruin.
He married his childhood lover, only to find she was nothing but a lustful toad.
His son was a dud, no talent, wasting countless resources and fortune.
He couldn't even keep him alive long enough to marry into the Luo clan for future benefit.
All his life had been a tale of complete failure, one after another.
"Good… good!" Wu Wei drew out his sword, a jade blade that signified the clan leader's position, the strongest weapon their clan possessed.
Naturally, everyone went on guard, even Wu Zhen, ready to sacrifice his life if it meant protecting Wu Han.
"If my death is what it takes to make the Wu Clan move forward, then so be it! Wu Zhen, I relinquish my title as leader and grant it to you! But remember, the start of your lineage came from my blood!"
Slice!
Wu Wei honored his deal and slit his own neck before collapsing headless to the floor.
The crowd fell silent. Even the elders stood still.
Even his wife began crying uncontrollably from the depths of her soul, some lingering part of her still aware of what had happened here.
This was the end of the bloodline that had held their clan for generations…
and the beginning of a new one.
Wu Zhen walked up to Wu Wei's corpse and picked up the bloodied sword.
He raised it high.
Wu Zhen raised the blood-stained jade sword high.
His voice cut through the silence like thunder.
"From now on," he shouted, breath trembling, "I, Wu Zhen, am the clan leader!"
The crowd erupted.
"Clan leader! Clan leader!" disciples roared, pounding their chests.
Wu Zhen's face twisted with grim pride.
"I promise you all," he bellowed, "we will rebuild our clan!"
A wave of cheers rolled through the hall.
"No longer will we live as bottom feeders like before!"
"We will no longer stay down here!" he roared.
The roar of the clan shook the hall's pillars.
"From now on," Wu Zhen declared, voice hoarse but unyielding, "I, the elders, and my grandson will aim for the top!"
"All hail Clan Leader! All hail Elders! All hail Young Master!" echoed from every direction until the very walls seemed to tremble.
Everyone started cheering and clapping.
Joy had returned to them, and all awaited the new dawn of the Wu Clan.
And one among them was far more joyful than anyone else.
Wu Han smiled.
His eyes weren't looking at his grandiose grandfather, but at the headless corpse of Wu Wei.
The final piece of the puzzle had been acquired!