Family Cultivation: I Become a Mirror-Chapter 88 He’s Here

Li Xiangping raised his head to look toward the distant mountains at that moment, but on the mountaintop erupted the neighing of a horse. A steed, utterly black without a hint of another color, was joyfully galloping with hooves barely touching the ground, moving forward on the uneven terrain—surprisingly, it was a demonic beast with a Qi Refining Level.

The black hooves lightly stepped in the mud and then took off into the air, the rider clad in leather armor without any bone or Jade Stone decorations, appearing as a living person.

Ganixi gently patted the head of his old companion and, squeezing his legs around its belly, turned to gaze down at the village below the mountain.

It was said that Ganixi of the North Foothills had four eyes and eight arms, but in fact, Ganixi’s appearance was quite ordinary, even his eyes were somewhat small and his eyebrows sparse. If he stood in the fields with his eyes closed and hands on his hips, no one would take him for someone of significance.

Yet, when those amber eyes opened and fixed quietly on someone, it sent shivers down one’s spine.

"My king, the territory ahead belongs to the Demon Sect," the long-braided attendant behind him said.

Hearing this, Ganixi raised his eyebrows, his amber eyes scanning the military formations below the mountain, and he nodded:

"To break through them, will take a quarter of an hour."

His voice was light, with a high pitch and a neutral tone, as if reading aloud.

The long-braided man bowed his head slightly, listening quietly to Ganixi speaking, with not a single soldier visible behind him. As the king who united the Shanyue of the North Foothills, he had marched into the territory of the Green Pond Sect with just one entourage, a mere three hundred zhang from Li Xiangping’s military tent.

After a few glances, Ganixi lost interest in the clan soldiers below the mountain, squeezed with his legs, and the horse obediently turned back the way they came, walking on the rough mountain road as if on flat ground.

"We don’t have much time, no need to wait any longer."

The long-braided entourage urged his horse to catch up, hesitatingly saying:

"Just, mortals are cunning, and we don’t know how many human witches are in this Demon Sect army. My king, be not overconfident."

Ganixi chuckled softly, lifting his long knife a bit and looking up at the moon shrouded by dark clouds, his lips silently moving.

"Who said I was going to fight them?"

————

When Chen Sanshui woke up groggily, he found himself staring at a Shanyue in leather armor, a large hand gripping his collar tightly, choking him.

"Plop."

He was violently thrown out of the yard, landing so hard that stars burst before his eyes and two teeth were knocked out. As everything spun around him, and he saw the stiffly standing Shanyue soldiers on both sides, Chen Sanshui wiped the blood off his face and fumbled for his teeth.

But his hand was stepped on, and as he raised his head and looked into those amber eyes, Chen Sanshui had to face the harsh reality—in the quarter-hour in which he had slept, Lichuan Entrance had fallen without a chance of resistance.

"How could it be so quick?!"

The clan soldiers led by Li Xiangping, stationed across the river, had they been defeated without a sound?

What about Li Tongya, who soared high in the sky? And the other Immortals of the Li Family? How did these people silently take control of Lichuan Entrance? Chen Sanshui’s mind was suffocating, the pain in his mouth no longer concerned him as countless questions flooded his thoughts.

"Where is the Li Family’s stronghold?"

The man stepping on his hand asked calmly, and as Chen Sanshui looked at his sparse eyebrows and those daunting eyes, only one question remained in his mind.

"If Father Chen Erniu were here, what would he do?"

Very soon, Chen Sanshui could no longer contemplate. Ganixi casually ripped off his left arm, bringing a flood of blood and tissue while Chen Sanshui’s eyes rolled back, spit rushing out of his mouth, as pain overwhelmed all his thoughts.

"It hurts... so badly."

Ganixi touched his head and cast a spell on him to clear his consciousness, to let him fully experience this suffocating agony, meanwhile keeping him alive so he wouldn’t bleed out and die.

"Li... Lijing... Mountain."

As the thought of being a hero briefly struggled to surface in his mind, the urine and feces beneath him reminded him: he was just an ordinary man. He was not an impassive martyr; he was not his father, not Li Xiangping, and even if Li Xiangping were in this situation, it wouldn’t necessarily be any better.

"Take us there."

Chen Sanshui was hoisted up, suspended upside down, staring at the feet of the Shanyue moving around him. The fatal instinct that his father Chen Erniu had desperately tried to instill in him for over twenty years finally awoke. Chen Sanshui knew he was surely going to die, as memories of the foolish things he had done in his life filled him with a profound sense of isolation.

The Shanyue clan soldiers began to move; talisman script was carved on their ankles, which made them move in utter silence. Two groups of Shanyue clan soldiers followed Ganixi out of the Lichuan Entrance, heading towards Lijing Mountain.

Chen Sanshui caught sight of a Shanyue man behind Ganixi, also holding someone—a backbone of the village—and he understood that lying about the route would only add to his own suffering. Bitter thoughts raced through his mind:

"How cunning the people of this world are."

Since he was young, he had lived in the shadow of the Li brothers, just as his father Chen Erniu had lived in the shadow of Li Mutian. He always heard his father say:

"Among the four Li brothers, Li Changhu is gentle and pitiable like a good deer, Li Tongya is composed and cautious like a python, Li Xiangping is vicious and fierce like a starving wolf, and Li Chijin is intelligent and handsome like a white fox."

"Then what about me?! What am I!"

Chen Sanshui looked at his father with eager anticipation, his face full of expectancy.

"A waste."

Greatly disappointed, Chen Sanshui truly became a waste, getting married and having children in a daze, relying on his father’s reputation and power to frivolously indulge himself.

Until Ganixi tore off his left arm, it was as if he had finally awoken to everything. Everything became startlingly clear before him, and he even resented Ganixi for not having torn off his arm ten years earlier, so he wouldn’t have caused his father so much worry for all these years.

"How often do you communicate with those soldiers?"

Ganixi spoke softly; he had long realized the man in his hands was too terrified to lie to him, yet he was unaware that the person had awakened from his chaotic past. He was no longer holding the thirty-year-old Chen Sanshui, but rather it was like he was facing the sixty-year-old Chen Erniu.

"Every three hours."

Chen Sanshui’s heart was calm as water. He pretended to tremble as he spoke, finally feeling a trace of peace, having not failed his masters after twenty years of brocade clothes and jade food.

Lijing Mountain was gradually coming into view. Ganixi reigned in his horse and casually twisted off Chen Sanshui’s head. Looking at the headless corpse twisted with tendons and blood, the ground dyed red with fresh blood, he laughed coldly.

"Waste!"

As the world spun around him, Chen Sanshui’s head lightly fell by the roadside, his eyes staring blankly into the cloudy night sky, with only one sentence flashing through his mind:

"Li Xiangping, this is all I could do. You’re damn tough, but it seems you’ve hit a wall!"