C3 Pawned Property

"Fuck your mother!" Chen Si hadn't anticipated Ling Yifei's counterattack. Struggling, he tried to rise from the ground. "You've got a death wish, huh?"

"Shut up!" Ling Yifei pinched Chen Si's throat with three fingers, ready to exert force and tear his neck apart at any moment.

The humiliation he and his father had endured over the past three days flooded back to Ling Yifei.

His hand shook uncontrollably on Chen Si's neck, the urge to end Chen Si's life overwhelming him. Channeling the Vital Spirit into his fingertips, he pressed on Chen Si's acupoint.

"Ah!" Chen Si cried out, only to be met with a swift slap from Ling Yifei.

"I can kill you whenever I choose!" Ling Yifei gritted his teeth, fighting to control his rage. "If you have any sense, you'll tell me who's behind this. Maybe then I'll spare your life."

Ling Yifei's resentment ran deep; this situation was far from straightforward. He vividly recalled how his father's life had crumbled after taking out a high-interest loan – it was anything but normal.

Clearly, someone was pulling the strings, using underhanded tactics to force a merger. Uncovering the puppet master was far more critical than indulging in fleeting satisfaction.

"Scum! Filthy cur!" Chen Si hurled insults, seething with rage. "I'll rip your guts out!"

Ling Yifei delivered another slap and targeted a different acupoint on Chen Si's body. Chen Si immediately struggled to breathe, his lungs powerless to draw air.

"Talk!" Ling Yifei pressed on Chen Si's chest, further impeding his speech.

"You son of a bitch!" Despite his labored breathing, Chen Si mustered his remaining energy to curse at Ling Yifei.

Realizing that half-measures wouldn't suffice, Ling Yifei took out all his silver needles and plunged them into the thirty-two most painful acupoints on Chen Si's body.

Unexpectedly, before he could finish, Chen Si's eyes rolled back, and he died right there on the ground.

Ling Yifei checked his pulse only to confirm that Chen Si was indeed dead.

Ling Yifei was shaking with rage. He hadn't finished tormenting that bastard Chen Si!

"Damn it!" Ling Yifei cursed, furiously kicking Chen Si in the stomach.

But there was no reaction from the dead man.

Realizing it was unwise to linger, Ling Yifei knew he had to quickly get his father, Ling Zhiyu, out of there.

He pushed open the door, scanning the warehouse and room. There were more than ten of his underlings, right? If only his Vital Spirit were replenished, he could whisk them all away in one fell swoop, even transporting the corpse to another dimension.

But now, he had to rely on his wits.

"Big brother, what happened to you?" He suddenly yelled at the entrance to the surveillance room.

The shout reverberated through the warehouse, prompting the dozen or so lackeys to rush over.

"What's wrong, what's wrong?"

The men hurried to the surveillance room's entrance, not realizing that the screamer was Ling Yifei himself.

"Look at the big brother!" He pointed at Chen Si, sprawled inside the monitoring room.

The crowd crammed into the cramped space, all eager to see what had happened to Chen Si.

From behind, Ling Yifei channeled his Vital Spirit to give the ruffians a nudge, shoving them into the room. He then swiftly locked them inside without another word.

"A bunch of morons..." Ling Yifei sneered at the door, amazed they had fallen for his ruse so easily. "I can't take you down today, but I'll spare your lives..."

He quickly freed his father and they left the warehouse.

Indeed, they were in the western suburbs of Liu Tu City. They ran through the night before daring to hail a cab home.

"Dad, you need to get out of Liu Tu City right away!" Ling Yifei urged Ling Zhiyu as soon as they got home. "Those people will definitely come looking for you!"

"But..." Ling Zhiyu hesitated, reluctant to abandon his responsibilities. "I can't just leave the factory..."

"The factory's done for. It's closing, and there's nothing left to manage!"

Ling Yifei's words were like a triple blow, deeply paining Ling Zhiyu. He was heartbroken thinking about the decades of hard work that had gone into the business, now ruined. They had once lived in a spacious two-hundred-square-meter duplex, but as the factory's losses mounted, their living space had dwindled, shrinking to a mere sixty-some square meters.

"If only your mother were still with us..." Ling Zhiyu sighed wistfully.

Ling Yifei had been too young to remember his mother when she passed away—barely three years old. Yet, the weight of emotion in his father's voice was unmistakable.

"Dad, let's go back to our hometown," he suggested.

"Alright," Ling Zhiyu agreed reluctantly, "but I need to borrow some money before we leave."

"Borrow more money?" Ling Yifei asked, puzzled.

"The workers' severance pay needs to be settled."

The bank had seized the factory, but the workers were still on the job. Ling Zhiyu had been through thick and thin with over a hundred workers and felt a deep sense of responsibility to them. He was determined to provide them with some form of severance, no matter what.

The dilemma was finding a source for the loan. The house was the only asset of value left. After some thought, he decided it would be best to sell it—it could fetch at least a couple hundred thousand.

Ling Yifei, eager for his father to leave Six Diagrams City quickly and avoid the clutches of predatory lenders, didn't press the issue. The sooner these matters were resolved, the better. With the decision made, Ling Zhiyu retired for the night.

Watching his father drift off to sleep, Ling Yifei settled to the floor and began practicing his unique cultivation technique, the Clear Origin Technique. This foundational version was derived from his master Dao Hongtian's Upper Clarity Body Refinement Technique.

The Upper Clarity Body Refinement Technique encapsulated the quintessence of nearly all elementary Dao Arts. It emphasized harnessing the spiritual Qi from the environment, purging the impure Vital Spirit, and refining one's energy to its purest form.

The Clear Origin Technique was a near-perfect iteration of these elementary arts. It didn't rely on external spiritual Qi; as long as one possessed a pure Vital Spirit, self-renewal was continuous. The cultivation pace was slower, but it eliminated the need for excessive reliance on medicinal pills, magical instruments, and other aids.

Living in the heart of Six Diagrams City, where spiritual Qi was non-existent and the air was rife with impurities, Ling Yifei had no choice but to cultivate using this technique.

"Why has my realm fallen from No-origin?"

The stages of cultivation progress from the Initial Heart Stage to the Qi Path Stage, Initial Spirit Stage, Spirit Movement Stage, Spirit Transformation Stage, Body Destruction Stage, Body Transformation Stage, Origin Transformation Stage, and finally, the No-origin Stage. Ling Yifei had reached the pinnacle of cultivation, having ascended to the No-origin Stage in three thousand years. It was akin to publishing a doctoral thesis at the age of nine and being the lead author.

But why had he regressed?

Ling Yifei attempted to regain his No-origin Stage strength by sitting down and entering a deep meditative state.

...

"Yifei?" Morning had broken. Ling Zhiyu had tossed and turned all night, and upon waking, his first act was to grab his property deed, ready to mortgage it at the real estate office. "Why are you sitting on the floor?"

"Oh, nothing." Ling Yifei quickly stood up.

"Let's hurry and sell the house!"

They rushed to the nearby Yi'an Real Estate Company branch, intent on selling their property. They were greeted by a young woman.

Yet, this young woman appeared to be a novice, struggling with the paperwork. After more than half an hour, she still hadn't completed it.

How could such a newcomer be left to manage the desk alone?

While Ling Zhiyu was anxiously pondering this, someone unexpectedly called out to him.

"Ling Zhiyu?" The voice belonged to a middle-aged woman.