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Seeing the Grand Elder appear in the private room, Chen Yi hastily wiped his mouth and walked up to him.
"Follow me." The Grand Elder's voice was not loud, but it carried an unquestionable authority. As soon as he finished speaking, his wide sleeve gently flicked, and a soft yet powerful force enveloped Chen Yi. The next second, their figures seemed to merge into the air, suddenly vanishing from the private room.
They reappeared in a scenic spot outside the city. Chen Yi suppressed the discomfort in his stomach and looked at the Grand Elder, who had his back to him, about to speak.
The next moment, a purple object was placed in front of Chen Yi by the Grand Elder.
"This is that Lightning Spirit, with over two thousand three hundred years of cultivation. Not bad."
Chen Yi looked closely and saw a "skeleton" with a disproportionately small head, eye sockets sunken into two black holes with only faint electric sparks flickering weakly within, and a body so shriveled it clung to its bones, as if a light touch would shatter its paper-thin Spirit body.
"This is a Lightning Spirit?!" Chen Yi was astonished. Lightning Spirits are Spirits nurtured by Heaven and Earth, and these creatures, above all else, are absolutely top-tier in appearance. The Snow Empress, the head of the three Heavenly Kings of the Extreme North, was just like this, considered one of the most beautiful beings in the entire Douluo series.
But the Lightning Spirit before him looked like a skeleton wrapped in poor-quality beast hide, utterly devoid of beauty.
The Grand Elder made no further pretense and recounted what the Rich Family had done to this Lightning Spirit.
Listening to the Grand Elder's narration, Chen Yi remained silent, finally just quietly asking:
"Don't Spirit Hall and the Heaven Dou Empire care?"
The answer was naturally negative. The Grand Elder merely said coldly, "It's just a Lightning Spirit. Not to mention Spirit Hall doesn't know about it, even if they did, they wouldn't act against a prominent noble of a Kingdom for this. After all, the other party didn't commit widespread slaughter; at most, it's a matter of private moral failing, not a major mistake."
"The Heaven Dou Imperial Family is even less likely to intervene; their own hands aren't clean. Yi'er, remember this: some matters weigh only a few ounces until they're put on the scale, then they become too heavy to handle. No power rises cleanly; all are accompanied by little-known filth and sordidness."
Chen Yi remained silent. He was never a bleeding heart, knowing full well that the Law of the Dark Forest is the essence of every World. The strong prey on the weak, an unchanging rule of survival in both advanced societies and primitive tribes. Killing itself is not a fault.
However, while he accepted killing, he absolutely did not condone cruelty to life. The Rich Family's actions were no different from those of degenerates, just like the scum of his previous life. Years of education had long drawn a bottom line in his heart: slaughtering livestock and hunting Spirit Beasts is a necessity for survival; but to torture and kill a complete life for the sake of so-called "health preservation"—this was something he could never accept.
In fact, from the moment he stepped onto the Douluo Continent, Chen Yi knew that the descriptions in novels of his previous life were just the tip of the iceberg. Take the two Empires, for instance: they explicitly forbade slave trading, yet in the largest auction house in Heaven Dou City, cat-eared girls were still openly displayed on shelves, without even the slightest attempt at concealment.
It's important to know that "anomalies" like cat-girls and leopard-girls, resulting from Spirit mutations, while differing in appearance from ordinary people, signify dense Bloodlines and extraordinary talent. According to Chen Yi, people who exhibit such mutations have never had Innate spirit power lower than rank seven. What does this mean? Even Zhu Zhuqing only had Innate rank seven spirit power.
In other words, these individuals, if they grow up, would at least be Spirit Saint-Grade powerhouses. They would be pillars of strength in any faction, and even more valuable combat power for the two Empires. Yet, despite this, the Imperial Family still chose to stand by and even secretly participate.
This was with explicit prohibitions and pressure from Spirit Hall. If these constraints were removed, Chen Yi couldn't even imagine how chaotic the order of the Douluo Continent would become.
Just like those nations in his previous life that proclaimed themselves "beacons," the whole World knew of their hypocrisy, but when the list from that island was exposed, it still shocked the entire World. Just as the Grand Elder said, some matters weigh nothing until they are put on the scale, but once on the scale, they become too heavy to handle.
The Grand Elder raised his hand and patted Chen Yi's shoulder, his tone heavy: "I know you might find it hard to accept, but I must tell you, in the future, you will see even more egregious things than this."
Having spent these past few years together, he understood Chen Yi too well. On the surface, this young man seemed to command the World, treating everything as a plaything in his palm, but in his eyes, Chen Yi was merely "talking on paper." If he were truly made to do those dirty deeds himself, he would never be able to. Because deep in Chen Yi's heart, there was an insurmountable bottom line: reverence for life.
He couldn't say whether this was Chen Yi's Innate "Saint heart" or simply too much naivety, but he knew that this bottom line would eventually lead Chen Yi to choose "to end killing with killing" in the future. The Douluo Continent was inherently a "man-eating" World. If Chen Yi were to reach the peak in the future, he would inevitably have to clean up the filth in this World. But to clean up filth, the prerequisite is to first be immersed in it and see what the filth looks like. What he had to do now was to shatter Chen Yi's illusion of a "beautiful World" and make him confront the truth of this World.
Chen Yi took a deep breath and slowly said, "It's not that I can't accept it; I just think that there should still be some difference between humans and beasts."
As a World with extraordinary power, the existence of slaves in the Douluo Continent might be understandable, but its biggest problem lay in this—the extraordinary power here was not yet strong enough to completely disregard mortal order. It was precisely because of this that the powerhouses of the Sects were wary of the two Empires, leading to a structure where "Kingdoms dominate the World, and Sects exist in dependence," rather than Sects unifying the Continent.
Thus, a ridiculous scene emerged on the Douluo Continent: it had the institutional framework of a feudal state, yet it also adhered to the Law of "power above all" from a Fantasy World. These two systems twisted together, revealing a pathological deformity.
Chen Yi looked at the distant mountains and scoffed softly, "Heh, what a ridiculous deformity."
They were clearly deterred by the number of ordinary people and mortal order, so they formed a civilized society, yet they engaged in acts no different from barbarians. This ridiculous behavior was itself a deeply ingrained pathology.
Chen Yi took a deep breath, his fingertips moved slightly, and a cold-gleaming dagger was taken out of his spirit tool. He slowly squatted down, looking at the Lightning Spirit at eye level, his gaze indifferent without a ripple, falling directly into its sunken black eye sockets.
Seeing the calm in those eyes, and then glancing at the dagger, a faint glimmer suddenly lit up in the Lightning Spirit's lifeless eye sockets—it wasn't fear, but a desire mixed with anticipation, like a dying person seeing the last ray of light.
"Pfft."
The subtle sound of a blade entering a body rang out. In the Lightning Spirit's eye sockets, that faint glimmer brightened suddenly, its gaze towards Chen Yi filled with gratitude, and then, with complete liberation, it slowly closed its eyes.
The next second, a solid purple spirit ring slowly rose from its shriveled Spirit body, emanating a faint aura of lightning.
"I never dared to hope this World could be the same as before, but at least… it should be like a normal society."
Chen Yi murmured softly in his heart, then no longer hesitated. He sat cross-legged, condensed a wisp of spirit power at his fingertip, gently guided the purple spirit ring, and slowly drew it towards his body.