6 BING FAMILY

Tiexue Continent, Sanxin Country, Bing family.

Today the patriach of the Bing family, Bing Tao was in high spirits. Although this was the case, nobody could actually make that out from his facial expression. Given the numerous scars on his face, one could never actually tell whether he was happy or not, as they would get the feeling that he was always grumpy and was itching to kill someone.

Bing Tao was in his late fifties, had a bulky muscular built coupled with a white beard and long greyish-black hair that fell up till his shoulders.

Although the numerous scars on his face hid his joy, his eyes couldn't hide his excitement as they were gleaming brightly like the sun.

This was because he had just received the news that his daughter-in-law had given birth to twins, a boy and a girl and with this news, he had finally become a grandfather !

Upon receiving this news, he had hurriedly ran to the resting quarters of his daughter-in-law to meet his newborn grandchildren.

He saw his son, Bing Lei who was just outside the resting quarters and was looking towards in the direction wherein his wife lay.

" Lei'er, you have finally become a father today! ahaha. This is such great news, finally we have two direct descendants in our lineage in one go, you must have inherited some of my skills, hehe." laughed out Bing Tao, he felt truly happy and that he could boast about it to his other fogey friends.

When Bing Tao had become the patriach, he had wanted to reform the Bing family such that the resources which were distributed and the support given by the family towards its younger generations be on the basis of their hard efforts and talent and not on the basis of whether they were from the branch family or the main family.

This led to a huge internal conflict within the family, where the people who were from direct lineages opposed him. Since if they allowed the reform to happen, they would lose out a sufficient share of their resources. This led to a huge blood bath and Bing Tao had to kill his younger brother and his uncle who had rebelled against him and this indirectly lead to the deaths of their descendants as well, this was done to remove all the weeds and uncertainties of the future.

And with his actions, Bing Tao firmly established his position and prestige as the patriach.

The reform was then done and people in the family were judged purely on the basis of their hard work and talent and not by whether they were from the branch family or main family.

Other forces which were planning to attack the Bing family when they were having internal conflicts changed their thoughts when they got to know how Bing Tao killed his own uncle and brother to establish his prestige. And from this, they concluded that Bing Tao had definitely broken through to a higher realm and given his ruthless demeanour, nobody willingly would want him as an enemy. Hence, those forces stayed silent and quietly retreated.

Although Bing Tao's decision ultimately benefitted the family as many previously ignored people of the younger generation began to slowly show their talents. And by receiving support from the family, they began to shine in their respective fields. Hence, in the previous two decades the Bing family was on the rise. But the fact of the matter that remain unchanged was that the main family had lost many of its direct descendants.

The only people that remained from the direct-line of descendants were Bing Tao and his son, Bing Lei but now with the addition of his grandchildren, they had four direct descendants in the Bing family.

Seeing Bing Lei outside and looking a bit worried, Bing Tao asked:" Lei'er, why are you waiting outside? shouldn't you, who is the father already be inside the room, holding onto your children?"

Seeing Bing Tao who had just arrived, Bing Lei felt a bit relieved and explained: " It turns out that after the twins were born, the girl was completely healthy. But the boy was showing some strange symptoms, so the nurse had called onto doctor Mu to look into the matter. It has already been a while since doctor Mu had gone in to take a look at the symptoms. I feel so worried."

Bing Tao frowned, given how this grandchild of his would be the one to continue his line, he certainly didn't want anything untowardly to happen to him. Plus Bing Tao had long ago decided in his heart that he would rigorously train the boy so that he becomes a strong expert in the family, if he had inherited the martial talents of his parents then he would definitely be able to become the next patriarch of the family, if he worked hard.

Clearly, Bing Tao didn't believe that his own son, Bing Lei would ever become the next patriach. Given how kind and soft going the latter was, it would have been a wonder if he still managed to survive in this cruel cultivation world if he didn't have a prominent background.

As the father and son were standing outside the quarters with a frown as they looked nervously towards the quarters, the rest of the family members who had also arrived to congratulate and meet the newborn twins had to stay at the side and wait too, hence, the whole atmosphere around the surroundings suddenly became tense and quiet.

Soon the door creaked and doctor Mu, who was dressed in white scholarly robes coupled with his thick black brows, bald head and a thin white-long beard, walked out from the quarters towards Bing Lei and Bing Tao.

Before the latter could ask and bombard him with questions, he quickly said: " The symptoms are strange, his body temperature is continuously fluctuating. It is sometimes normal but after a while, there is a sudden spike but after a moment it returns back to normal. It is following such a cycle. But that is not the most worrying thing."

Hearing this, the duo felt more tensed. Bing Tao asked: "what could be more worrying than that? and is there anything that we can do?"

doctor Mu replied: " when I was diagnosing the boy, I found that his soul was very weak. If you have any soul nourishing resources, I urge you to use the most nourishing one now to help the boy. If his soul is not nourished properly, I fear it might dissipate."

" soul nourishing resources? Those things are much more scarce compared to normal resources, Even our powerful Bing family has a limited amount of those. And if we are talking about the most powerful soul nourishing resource... "Bing Tao contemplated.

" Jade azure soul grass ! " Bing Lei said. This was the most precious soul nourishing resource in the Bing family.

"no" said Bing Tao.

Bing Lei's eyes were filled with disbelief as he looked at his father and said: " I know that its very precious, but how can you hold back on the resource which could potentially save your grandson's life?!"

Given the Bing family's new reform, now its resources were distributed to its members based on their hard efforts and talent, these resources were infact the ones stored in the family's treasury and didn't include one's personal resources. The Jade azure soul grass was something that personally belonged to Bing Tao, as he had got it in a chance-encounter in an ancient ruin which he had visited in his younger days. So it wouldn't be a problem if he used the Jade azure soul grass for his grandchild, but seeing such negative response from his father, for first time in his life, the kind hearted Bing Lei felt angered.

Even Bing Tao felt some apprehension since he had never seen this side of his son, but he knew his son had misjudged him.

Bing Tao indignantly replied: "cough* cough* what I meant is that I have a much powerful soul nourishing resource than the Jade azure soul grass. We will use the Vermillion jade fruit that I got from the core of the same ancient ruin from which I got the Jade azure soul grass. Although the Jade azure soul grass is precious, I found it on the outer skirts of the ancient ruin, whereas the Vermillion jade fruit was found right at its core! Although its been years and I still can't identify what it really is, But what I am sure of is that it possesses tremendous soul nourishing properties, Its just that there is something off about it....."

Originally Bing Tao had some plans on using the Vermillion jade fruit to advance his cultivation realm, but he kept feeling that the fruit was truly not simple. Given his level of cultivation, just this feeling of instinctual caution terrified him a lot and this was why he didn't consume that fruit for all these years.

But what he was sure of was that the Vermillion fruit did infact have powerful soul nourishing properties, if his estimate was right, then if a person whose soul was about to dissipate was to consume the fruit, then his soul would be restored to its peak in an instant and the person would possibly make a breakthrough in his cultivation realm as well !

But what rang alarm-bells in his mind were those small omnious black designs on the surface of the fruit, even after many years Bing Tao couldn't really tell what type of fruit it really was even after going through countless ancient records, he was nearing his limit of patience as well and had later on decided to consume the fruit for himself, but just then his grandchild was diagnosed with a weak soul, so he decided to use this fruit. As he was sure of its powerful soul nourishing abilities, it would not only nourish his grandchild's soul but also strengthen it immensely. With a strong soul as foundation, his later on progress in cultivation would be smooth and solid at the same time.

Bing Lei was taken aback. " what Vermillion fruit? you never told me that you got such a thing from that ruin"

" hmph. Such a precious thing, obviously I couldn't afford to let its knowledge spread or people would have their designs on it. When your close ones wouldn't know, then obviously your enemies and other outsiders will surely not know ! " replied Bing Tao as he took out a white Jade case from his storage ring.

" This case is made from millennium-old white jade, it can preserve medicinal herbs for centuries without any decline in their quality, but in the Vermillion jade fruit's case it was barely satisfactory, I had to layer the inner walls of the case with ten thousand year-old white jade and yellow chryst then only was I able to preserve it properly. This fruit has blown a small hole in my wallet." said Bing Tao as his eyes flickered with a strange light, given his position as the patriach, he did indeed have many resources at his disposal but he had made a huge expenditure just to ensure proper preservation of the Vermillion jade fruit.

After he had taken out the white jade case, he didn't bother about how much time and money he had spent on it anymore, because to him his grandson's life was more important than anything else.

Perhaps the Jade azure soul grass would have been enough, But Bing Tao didn't care. He had a much powerful soul nourishing resource with him, so how would he dare to compromise when it came to his grandson's life?!