Chapter 2: The Patriarch of the Luo Family?

"May I ask if you are still hiring here?"

"We're not hiring anymore. Get lost!" Luo Zongqi waved irritably without even lifting his head.

He was examining a rather fine medicinal herb he had just acquired. It had reached the level of a great medicine; if he sent it back to the main clan and put it up at auction, he would make at least a hundred thousand source stones!

"Father, you... look at him..."

"Look at what? Why are you so shocked, you little brat?"

Luo Zongqi frowned and raised his head in annoyance.

Somewhat familiar, as though he had seen him somewhere before...

He remembered a painting hanging in the family ancestral hall. The man in the portrait seemed somewhat like this one.

Luo Zongqi set down the sacred medicine in his hands, stepped closer, studied him, and made his judgment.

Not somewhat alike at all, but almost identical. Anyone who did not know better would think they were twin brothers!

Hm... wait?

Thud!

"What are you doing? Trying to scam me? Let me warn you, I have no money. If you try to pull that on me, you've picked the wrong person!" Luo Yan said warily. In this fantasy world, there were even people who tried to extort others with fake injuries?

"Ancestor! It's truly wonderful that you are still alive! Our Luo family is saved!" Luo Zongqi burst into tears and clutched at Luo Yan's robes.

"Who are you calling ancestor? I don't even know you! Besides, I don't even have a wife. If you keep slandering me like this, be careful I beat you!" Luo Yan kicked him aside, his face full of disgust.

Luo Zongqi showed no shame at all. He lunged at Luo Yan's feet again, wrapped both arms around his leg, and wailed, "Ancestor, with you gone, those people have all been bullying our Luo family..."

"I..."

He had merely come into a shop to look for work, yet he had been forced to recognize a whole line of descendants. Luo Yan was utterly depressed. Who was he supposed to reason with?

Luo Yan guessed that this so-called Luo family was probably the descendants of his original body. There must have been a portrait hanging in the clan, or else they could not possibly have recognized him at a glance.

More importantly, these people did indeed share the same bloodline as him. At first he had thought it was merely a coincidence, but now it seemed otherwise.

"That person looks like Elder Luo Zongqi of a top family in the Southern Domain, doesn't he? He's calling that young man ancestor? The Luo family has an ancestor?"

"I remember the Luo family seems to have had a sage realm ancestor, didn't they? Wasn't there a rumor that he had already passed away? How has he appeared again?"

"Wait, if the Luo family's sage ancestor is still alive, then the pressure the Radiant Light Sacred Land was applying to them earlier..."

The cultivators in the medicinal hall all showed expressions of shock.

A living sage!

That news was enough to shake the entire Southern Domain.

In this era, sage-level powerhouses were nearly extinct. The strongest remaining figures were only top cultivators at the great power level.

"Are you really my descendants?"

"Strictly speaking, not your direct descendants! Ancestor, you never married or had children in your whole life. Our forebear was your elder brother!"

Luo Yan immediately felt relieved. Good!

Compared with the result, he preferred the process.

"What did you mean just now when you said the Luo family was in danger?"

"Replying to the ancestor, not long ago an elder from the Radiant Light Sacred Land took a liking to a direct-born daughter of our Luo family. She is the most gifted person of our clan's generation, and she possesses the legendary Primordial Chaos Divine Body. Our Luo family was unwilling, so that elder used the Radiant Light Sacred Land to pressure us!

"The Radiant Light Sacred Land is a top-tier sect passed down from the ancient wilderness. They have countless Dragon Transformation cultivators, as well as Heaven Terrace experts and even half-sages! Our Luo family was once glorious beyond measure, but aside from you, not to mention a sage realm expert, we don't even have a single Heaven Terrace cultivator. We have survived to this day only by relying on the remaining prestige you left behind!

"As of now, including myself, our clan has only three Dragon Transformation cultivators. Now that you, Ancestor, have not only survived but returned once more, it is truly heaven blessing the Luo family!"

Luo Yan remembered the Radiant Light Sacred Land. When the Radiant Light Holy Son was young, he had been chosen by the line of the ruthless one. Though he possessed only a mortal body, he had relied on the Heaven Devouring Demon Art to gain the ability to swallow other constitutions.

He appeared gentle and refined, amicable toward others, but in truth his schemes ran very deep.

I fear the one who set eyes on the Primordial Chaos Divine Body was not some elder of the Radiant Light Sacred Land, but rather the "source vessel" selected by the ruthless one's lineage for the Radiant Light Holy Son!

"How did you know I was dead? And if the clan has only three Dragon Transformation cultivators, why are you guarding this place alone?"

The Luo clan member before him was the only hidden Dragon Transformation cultivator in Mysterious City!

"Reporting to the ancestor, before your last seclusion, you left behind a soul lamp in the clan. If the soul lamp went out, it meant that you, Ancestor... had passed on!

"Speaking of which, Mysterious City was actually founded by our Luo family. A thousand years ago, Ancestor, you were in seclusion here. In order to protect you, we built the city here and concealed the truth from the world! Every hundred years, the Luo family would send a highly important clan member here to await your return!

"One hundred years ago, your soul lamp suddenly went out... At the time, everyone in the clan believed you had ultimately failed to weather that tribulation. None of us expected that Ancestor, gifted beyond measure, would actually live out another lifetime!" As he spoke, Luo Zongqi's face flushed with excitement. As long as the ancestor was alive, what was a mere sacred land elder worth? Even if the entire Radiant Light Sacred Land came together, their Luo family would not fear it!

Others did not know, but they did know that their ancestor had already stepped into the sage realm thousands of years ago. How far he had gone since then, no one could say.

"All of these were instructions you gave, Ancestor. You also said that if you had not appeared one hundred years after the soul lamp went out, it would mean you had fallen completely!

"Counting the time, this is already the one hundred and twenty-first year since your soul lamp was extinguished!" Luo Zongqi said. He had originally intended to leave, but to his surprise, after waiting all this time, he had truly witnessed the ancestor's return! After all, as one of the few Dragon Transformation cultivators of the Luo family, and with the clan now in peril, he naturally had to live and die with the Luo family!

Luo Yan nodded slightly. So that was how it was!

It seemed the original body had truly cared deeply for the descendants of his elder brother.

"I did not live out a second life!" Luo Yan shook his head, cutting off Luo Zongqi's delight.

"Strictly speaking, I am indeed someone who has died once. If I fail to break through within three hundred years or find an entire immortal medicine to consume, then after three hundred years, I will surely die.

"In short, my condition is terrible, and I have lost nearly all my memories!" Luo Yan said, releasing the deathly aura around him. In an instant, his entire body transformed into that of a hunched, half-buried old man.

A moment later, he returned to his original appearance.

At any rate, he had no place to stay for now. Returning to the Luo family was fine; using his own people would be more reassuring.

Although he knew those places contained immortal medicines, they were also extremely perilous lands. In the past, they had followed an emperor, so it would not be appropriate to act too directly!

Wherever he traveled, it was all still travel anyway!

Hearing Luo Yan speak of his physical condition, Luo Zongqi froze. "Ancestor, you... you are also at that point? No wonder you were so guarded earlier! So you too have reached the utmost limit..."

He felt somewhat sad. Even a figure such as the ancestor, who had been supremely gifted and all-powerful, would one day reach the end of his lifespan.

Beside him, his son quietly asked, "Father, what is an immortal medicine?"

Luo Zongqi turned around angrily and glared at his useless son. "I told you to study hard and broaden your horizons, but you wouldn't listen. You insisted on loafing around and becoming a cowherd. You don't even know what an immortal medicine is, and now you've gone and embarrassed yourself in front of the ancestor. Just wait until we get home and see how I deal with you!"

"Ancestor, please forgive the scene!" Luo Zongqi kicked his son aside, then said to Luo Yan.