71 Chapter 71: The Fall of the Zhao Family

Before the flood dragon could reach me, however, Lu Bu stopped it. Swinging his huge halberd, he left an ugly scar on the flood dragon's snout and drove it off. The titanic creature snarled and recoiled, whirlpools raging around it. Lu Bu didn't hesitate and struck it once more, his halberd piercing its armored scales and sending a red mist of blood into the air.

"That war spirit should belong to the Zhao family!" Grandma shouted. "Hand it over! Trash like you have no right to wield it! You should give it to somebody who's more talented and competent!"

"What is wrong with you?!" Mu Rong Shu was fed up with her insults. "You keep calling my husband trash for no reason! And what right do you have to take his war spirit away from him? NONE! He earned his war spirit himself! He explored tombs, risked his life, survived dangers and overcame all sorts of adversities to triumph. He obtained his war spirit himself, without any help or assistance from the Zhao family whatsoever! You kicked him out and left him to fend for his own. He didn't receive any resources, not even a single word of encouragement! He was just kicked out and ridiculed! And you think you're entitled to grab whatever he has worked so hard to earn himself?"

"Of course!" Grandma replied arrogantly. "Because he's trash!"

"WHY DO YOU KEEP DELUDING YOURSELF THAT HE'S TRASH?! MY HUSBAND IS NOT TRASH! STOP CALLING HIM THAT!"

"Because a Daoist priest said so. His brother, Zhao Huan Wang, is the treasure and will lead the Zhao family to new heights! This Zhao Huan Shi is simply trash and the cause of calamity for the Zhao family. That's why we must drive him out!"

Mu Rong Shu stared at her in disbelief.

"So you ill treated him, kicked him out and abused him…just because a fraud Daoist priest told you so?"

Why did that sound familiar? Oh, right. Maybe I should change my name to Han San Qian.

"Who cares about that!? JUST DIE!" Grandma screamed at me. "Why was Huan Wang the one who died instead of you?! You should be the one who died! Not him! Now hand over your war spirit and die for the greater glory of the Zhao family!"

The flood dragon bore down on me, only for Lu Bu to drive it away with his halberd. With a determined yell, Lu Bu used his noble phantasm…ahem, I mean divine treasure, Fang Tian Hua Ji, and obliterated the charging flood dragon in one strike. The poor legendary beast burst apart into vapor, with millions of water droplets raining down on us.

"It's over," I said to grandma. "And I don't owe the Zhao family anything. Not since you kicked me out."

"I don't care! DIE!" Grandma lunged at me, revealing a dagger in her hand. Before she could reach me, Mu Rong Shu kicked her in the gut and sent her flying. The dagger spilled from grandma's hand and my wife snatched it up before plunging it deep into her heart.

Grandma gurgled and stared at her in disbelief for a few moments before she collapsed. Blood spilled from her chest and mouth, and her eyes glazed over. I watched her unsympathetically for a few moments, but Mu Rong Shu mistook my expression for regret.

"Sorry, I wasn't thinking. My training kicked in and I killed your grandmother before I even knew what happened."

"No, you did me a great favor." I smiled and hugged her. "I'm actually very grateful to you. For so long, this bitch has been abusing me, oppressing me and now she's trying to kill me. Finally she's dead! I no longer have to put up with her nonsense!"

"I don't mean to sound callous," Huang Hong Lin remarked. "But that lady sounds insane. And what's this about a Daoist priest?"

"Don't mind her, she's just copying Nan Gong Qian Qiu from I am Han San Qian."

"…who? What? And you ar Han San Qian? When did you change your name?"

"No…" I groaned and sighed. "The title of the story is I am Han San Qian. Since all the readers indicated in the comments that they hate my story, they drop the story, they hate the fourth wall breaking, they think I'm pathetic, they are sick of my whining and bitching, then they can go read I am Han San Qian instead. I'm not going to bother with this story anymore. One of them even swore to never read my story simply because I use handdrawn illustrations for the story's cover picture. Also, when I offer to give free codes for Webnovel coins, not a single reader responded or asked for them. This is evidence that nobody is reading this story. ZERO readers. So why should I continue writing it? I'm done."

"What story? What are you even talking about now?" Huang Hong Lin was becoming more and more confused. I shook my head.

"I mean…everything is going to end here. We've won the Summoner War, so let's just end this once and for all."

"Wait."

Before I could do anything, a familiar voice called out to me. Turning around, I caught sight of Dad, Mom and the remaining members of the Zhao family approaching me. I frowned and waved Lu Bu forward. No doubt the Zhao family would want revenge on me for killing their matriarch.

To my total surprise, all of them knelt down, as if to pledge their allegiance to me.

"All hail the new patriarch!"

"What the fuck?!" I spluttered, staring at them in astonishment. "Get up! Stop bowing to me! I'm not your patriarch!"

"You killed Mom…your grandmother. You're now the patriarch." Dad was solemn and dead serious. My jaw dropped.

"That's not how it worked. Also, I wasn't the one who killed grandma. My wife was the one who did it. So she's the matriarch now?"

"Well…yeah, as your wife, she certainly will be the matriarch of the Zhao family."

Mu Rong Shu raised an eyebrow, but she didn't say anything. She glanced at me, and her meaning was clear. She would leave the decision to me.

I laughed.

"No. I'm not of the Zhao family, and never will be. You're the ones who kicked me out, and I'm happy to stay where I am right now."

"It was your grandmother who kicked you out, and now she's dead," Mom pointed out.

"So what?" I glanced at my relatives. "When I was being abused, oppressed and bullied, when I was kicked out, not a single one of you came to help me. Some of you even joined in the bullying. I went and prospered on my own, I was one of those who won the Summoner War, and now because of these achievements, you suddenly want me back? You think I'll happily return to the place where I was bullied and ill treated? Insulted and called trash? Don't delude yourselves. Your Zhao family can take care of itself. I have nothing to do with it."

Then I turned to Mu Rong Shu and the Huang siblings.

"Let's go."

They didn't hesitate, leaving the stunned Zhao family behind.

In time, the Zhao family would fall into decline. With Zhao Huan Wang dead, and the rest of my cousins not being spectacular, they weren't able to compete with the other big summoner families. With that, they were suppressed and drop in status. They didn't die out, but they never reached their former heights.

As for me, I went to the Spirit Realm with my friends and wife. We would return, Mu Rong Shu and I helping out the Mu Rong family, and they would grow richer. Mu Rong Lao was more than happy to preserve their role as an assassin clan, staying in the darkness, but with the newfound wealth and strength backing them up, we were practically able to control the country from the shadows, monopolizing many economic stuff and military powers.

There wasn't much else for me to say. Due to readers telling me they will drop the story, complaining about the fourth wall breaking (yeah, I'm doing that right now), whining about how I'm bitching about other son-in-law stories and demanding that I stop it, or even that they will never read the story just because my cover picture was a handdrawn illustration, I might as well stop wasting my time on it. Stop complaining about other stories, you say? Dude, I wrote this story just to make fun of son-in-law stories, and because I'm frustrated by their nonsense, complete lack of logic, one-dimensional characters (I couldn't even call them characters, they were exaggerated caricatures who existed solely for the protagonist to slap their faces), clichés that make no sense whatsoever, and harem shenanigans (what's the point of being a son-in-law story when the protagonist is going to sleep around and cheat on his wife, despite claiming to love his wife? Disgusting). I was sick of those clichés and nonsense, of the stupid harem and beautiful women flocking to the protagonist EVEN THOUGH HE WAS ALREADY MARRIED. I was annoyed at the protagonist claiming to love his wife, but doing the exact opposite (cheating on her, having a harem, keeping secrets from her and lying to her by concealing his identity and doing absolutely nothing when being insulted, as if he doesn't care about her pride and feelings). I wanted to tear my hair out whenever a villain provoked the protagonist for no good reason whatsoever (because he's…trash? What sort of stupid reason was that?). Of course I was going to write an entire story condemning every single one of that nonsense? If you didn't want to read me grumbling about that, then fine. I'll stop writing. Because the whole point of me writing was to complain about the sheer stupidity of other son-in-law stories, that's all. Otherwise there was no reason for me to write. No reason at all.

Well, I've said my piece, and the story ends here. Goodbye, and good riddance. Not that it matters, because I know for a fact that absolutely NOBODY is reading this story, and those who do will have dropped it within the first chapter. My writing is awful, I'm pathetic, the story is boring as fuck, I use too many clichés despite complaining about the clichés in other stories, so…yeah, I'm a hypocrite, my stories aren't worth reading, and I should quit writing forever.

Farewell, readers (not that anyone is reading this story so I don't even know why I bother). At least I got the whole annoyance at son-in-law stories off my chest. That's something, I guess.