Chapter 734: Seven Big Families, Looking Down on the Ancient Martial Arts
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

At the thought of the Cao Family, Ling Lie took in a deep breath of air as he sat there solemnly without saying anything.

Evidently, he thought of what happened to the Ling Family 18 years ago when Ling Yun mentioned the tragedy of the Cao Family.

After a long while, Ling Lie finally sighed and shook his head. “Ai, Cao Junxiong has always been incomparably careful and cautious with everything he did. In the end, this still happened to his family…”

Ling Yun recalled that Cao Shanshan mentioned that Chen Jianwei was her cousin.

Since he was her cousin, it meant that the family heads of the Cao Family and Chen Family, Cao Junxiong and Chen Jingtian, were related by marriage of their son and daughter.

Ling Lie looked at Ling Yun and tried to explain. “Cao Junxiong’s second daughter is married to Chen Jingtian’s third son, Chen Haishan…”

Paternal cousin!

Ling Yun couldn’t help but smile in his heart. The Chen Family is indeed vicious enough to eliminate their “relatives” before anyone else!

Ling Lie smiled faintly as if he had figured out what was going through Ling Yun’s mind. “Yun Er, this is actually very normal. After what happened to our Ling Family 18 years ago, the Chen Family managed to rise through the ranks to become one of the top three families.”

Among the seven big families in Beijing, the rankings were as follows: Long Family, Ye Family, Chen Family, Sun Family, Cao Family, Li Family, and finally, the Ling Family.

However, an election for the leaders of China would occur once every five years. In 18 years, there had been three changes in leadership and numerous thrilling and perilous incidents throughout these changes.

This was basically the survival of the fittest, and with all the drastic changes in the environment throughout the 18 years, there was naturally the emergence of a few newer clans and families. In order to secure their own place, after representatives of these families were elected, they immediately channeled large amounts of wealth and benefits for their own families. After attaining these benefits, they naturally planned to raise a large army to help grow their family’s strength.

Among them, there were also many large families in Beijing that received the support of some ancient families and secluded sects. Besides having a strong foundation and history, the strength that they displayed had already surpassed the Ling Family. This was also why the Ling Family was basically a joke to the rest of the families in Beijing.

What kind of place was Beijing? The political center of China!

Without authority, without money, and without talent… It actually wasn’t hard to make a big family collapse in an instant.

It was actually an incredible feat that the Ling Family could hang on for 18 difficult years, maintaining the title of one of the seven big families in Beijing.

Throughout this period, the Long Family’s support for the Ling Family definitely played a crucial role. However, there was another hidden factor that couldn’t be neglected.

This hidden factor was someone all of the seven big families in Beijing knew, the one who everyone worked hand in hand to force out of the martial world — the Devil Sect’s Holy Virgin.

Back then, the Devil Sect’s Holy Virgin was only 19 years old, yet she managed to successfully cultivate the Devil Scheme and reached Xiantian Realm Level Nine. She was outrageously talented in her devilish cultivation.

Back then, the Holy Virgin was nine-months pregnant and wanted to protect the infant in her stomach. She managed to anger the Devil Sect and its enemies, which basically meant that she offended both sides of the world. If it wasn’t for her baby, an absolute talent and stubborn character like the Holy Virgin would never be able to watch Ling Xiao waste his own cultivation and marry some other woman like that.

For 18 years, nobody knew where the Devil Sect’s Holy Virgin was hiding or what she had been doing. So, of course, nobody knew what her current cultivation realm was either!

It was true that 18 years ago, the Devil Sect’s Holy Virgin was indeed pregnant, but now, she was all alone in the world without anything to worry about!

Once this woman became unwilling to be left out and returned, nobody knew what would happen to Beijing.

Some of the newer families who had no idea what happened back then were naturally more daring. They talked bad about the backbones of the Ling Family, blaming and mocking the Ling Family for wasting the title of the seven big families in Beijing. On the contrary, those who knew what happened 18 years ago were all fearful of this hidden factor of the Ling Family.

Anyone daring enough to push the Ling Family down or kill Ling Xiao would most certainly die. It was almost inevitable that the previous Holy Virgin would fly out in a rage to kill the culprit!

However, it was different for the Cao Family. The Cao Family and the Li Family were originally the last two families of the seven big families in Beijing. There was a direct relationship between their rankings and the strength of their strongest experts.

The Cao Family’s old head, Cao Junxiong, was merely at Xiantian Realm Level Four. The new head of the family, Cao Xingchang, was only at Xiantian Realm Level One.

As for the Li Family, it was even worse. There were only one or two Xiantian experts. In fact, the Li Family only managed to squeeze into the seven big families in Beijing because of their robust financial resources.

In terms of financial resources, the Li Family was first without a doubt. This was because their family controlled China’s electricity and coal. It was simply hard for them to be poor in a time where such resources were so valuable.

Money could make the devil turn millstones. The Li Family had plenty of money, and their family was never particularly enthusiastic about fighting for power, which was why they managed to maintain a neutral position throughout all the elections. They maintained their good relationships with the other six families and even some of the newer families. Therefore, everything had been smooth-sailing for them.

As for the Cao Family’s old family head, Cao Junxiong, he was still the same cautious man. He was never interested in the money and cared more about power and position.

During the Cao Family’s most glorious days, they actually had three seats among the nine core leaders in China!

Interests and goals determined the direction of his hard work.

Hence, the people from the Cao Family had always been busy trying to manage their network of connections in search of important talents. They weren’t as concerned about their martial arts, which was why Cao Junxiong remained stagnant, especially during the last few years. He had already turned the Cao Family into a connection iron panel but had completely given up on his cultivation. In fact, his cultivation even showed signs of decaying.

Cao Junxiong led his Cao Family like an aircraft carrier, but he had deviated from the planned route. While everything appeared well and fine, it was no longer the case.

The greater the influence the Cao Family had, and the wider their connections, the harder the Cao Family was going to fall due to becoming a true worldly family.

This caught the eye of the ambitious Chen Family, who was impatient to rise up the ranks. On the surface, they pretended to be close with the Cao Family, flattering them while they started planning all kinds of schemes against them in the dark. Eventually, they managed to land a fatal strike.

Why Chen Jianwei? Why the Blood Clan? And why The Embrace?

This was because The Embrace was the only way to have complete control over the two generations of family heads of the Cao Family. This was the only way to get them to listen to everything the Chen Family had to say and wanted them to do!

By holding the feudal overlord, one could control his vassals!

Even after Cui Lao had explained everything that happened to the Cao Family to Ling Lie, Ling Lie still smiled despite his solemn expression. “Among the seven big families in Beijing, the Long Family had always been leading the way. The Ye Family conceals their strength and bides their time. The Sun Family got dirt on their face and was swept clean by you in Qingshui City. As for the Cao Family, they couldn’t even withstand a single blow. And there’s no need to mention the Li Family and our own family…”

“Hence, the Chen Family’s plan to make use of the transformed Chen Jianwei to attack the Cao Family was undoubtedly an excellent move!

“The Li Family only has money and only cares about money, which means that they are nothing to worry about, while our Ling Family isn’t even worth considering. The foundations of the Chen Family coupled with the Cao Family’s worldly influence and the support of the Blood Clan and Japanese ninjas… They could have really caused a lot of trouble for the Long Family…

“However, they would merely be able to cause trouble, that’s all. Given the power that the Chen Family revealed, it was simply an impossible dream for them to think about taking over the Long Family’s throne!

“Chen Jingtian has been outrageously arrogant and conceited over the years. He really hasn’t regarded the Long Family highly enough, and an arrogant army is bound to lose!

“In fact, even the Ye Family could easily deal with the current Chen Family, let alone the Long Family!”

Ling Yun was stunned. “Grandpa, are the Long Family and the Ye Family really so strong?”

Ling Lie nodded in a serious manner. “Yun Er, to be honest, you were really fortunate this time. No, incredibly fortunate. Grandpa can’t believe that you actually ambushed the Chen Family twice and even killed hundreds of their experts…”

“If Grandpa knew about your plan, I would definitely have stopped you!”

Ling Yun was tongue-tied as he asked, “Why?”

Ling Lie spoke with a certain level of fear as he said, “This is because there are at least three people who can defeat you in the Chen Family. Even if you have plenty of hidden trump cards, if the three of them, or even two of the three, joined hands to take you on, you would definitely lose!”

Ling Yun stood up in shock, refusing to believe it. “What? No way!”

“Grandpa, didn’t Cui Lao tell you about this before? Your grandson has a secret technique, and once I execute my Dragon Elephant Divine Force, I can become ten times stronger…”

Naturally, there was no need for Ling Yun to hide this from Ling Lie. He immediately said, “Considering my current level of strength, I don’t think I would lose to an expert at the pinnacle of Xiantian Realm Level Nine!”

Ling Lie furrowed his brows before shaking his head at Ling Yun. “Yun Er, what kind of expert is your master? Didn’t he tell you?”

Ling Yun asked, “Tell me what?”

Ling Yun had no master of any kind, and everything he said was simply based on his own judgment and battle experience.

Ling Lie was astonished. He stood up and looked over at Cui Lao for a moment before turning back to Ling Yun. “Yun Er, didn’t your master tell you anything about how everyone below Xiantian Realm Level Seven is considered an ant?”

Ling Yun was dumbfounded. “This… I did hear this before…”

However, this wasn’t told to him by a master. In fact, Ling Yun only heard it from Akamatsu the day before.

Ling Lie sighed as he continued, “Yun Er, given your current strength, and even ten times that… We can’t be sure that you would even be able to escape safely from the hands of an expert in the early stages of Xiantian Realm Level Nine…”

“You’re really looking down on the ancient martial arts!”