Family

Xiaowen hadn't gotten enraged like this before. The previous owner's emotions were getting in his way. Had he not held back his voice, remained confident, and controlled the entire conversation he felt like things would've gone worse.

He could already imagine the previous owner throwing his fist into her face. How amusing that would've been.

Laughter rippled through his robes and his tight lipped smile curled and shook as he hardly contained himself from bursting from laughter.

He took a second to himself in a long hallway and continued onward. His head turning the strong waves that roamed his brain into calm waters then he began to search for a solution to his problem.

How to cultivate efficiently. He did have thoughts about wrenching a servant girl into his room and beating her. However, that would be to… Savage.

He would beat everyone equally.

However, he would have to read through the cultivation manual so he could understand anything that he may have missed.

He sat himself within his room, he had pulled a chair and centered right in front of the door and fell into deep thinking. Before, he had called for a servant to get him tea. It was boring to read a book without drinking something healthy.

So he crossed his legs and then elegantly aligned his elbow onto the armrest of the chair and began to read the manual over.

He nodded most of the time as he read it over as if a rhythmic beat had entered the side of his ear. He found that there was a skill he could perform now that his dantain was filled with some fear from his servants.

He raised his hand and just as he was about to will a piece of fear into the pits of his hand. A shaky servant girl inched the door open and peeked her eyes in first before sticking her entire body through the doorway.

She gave a mechanical and shifty bow as she entered, her hands carrying a sizable tray that only held a single cup on it.

Her mouth shook as she spoke, "H-here is your tea, Your Majesty the 2nd Prince…"

Xiaowen's eyes fell upon her like a predator and he looked her over as she stood still. With a half amused smile he gestured her over.

She inched forward, nearly walking on the tips of her toes as she moved a wooden table next to his arm. His eyes never ceased to watch her movements. She gripped the table with her hand and shifted it just so slightly so it would be easy for him to reach over and grab his tea whenever he wanted.

His calm silence permeated the room and pulled her usual swift movements into rigid actions. His eyes playfully shrugged away from her leaving a cold stare in her heart. She gave a graceful sigh and quickly placed the tea down.

Just as her hand was leaving the tea. Xiaowen latched onto her arm and pulled her in close. She gasped and immediately winced in pain. His strength was 10x more painful than usual and his eyes permeated dread.

"I don't recognize you." He spoke.

"What do you mean?" She attempted to deny it.

Xiaowen pulled her in closer and leaned into her shoulder, "I said 'I don't recognize you'."

"P–Please… Lord!" The corners of her eyes began to water, "Whatever I've done please forgive me! If I have offended you– please forgive me, Your Highness!"

"You have done nothing to offend me." Xiaowen spoke calmly. "I just don't recognize you."

The girl winced in pain and shrieked. Her elbow accidently knocked down the coffee table that carried down the tea that shattered against the ground and burnt her leg.

Xiaowen's eyes suddenly trailed down to her injured leg, "Look at what you did." He let go of her arm.

"Lord!" She was rugged with fear, "I have done nothing to offend you so please! Please don't punish me!"

Xiaowen's brow jumped, "Whose the maid that usually takes this job?" Xiaowen had stood up and walked around her.

"Su Hualing!" She immediately jumped at his question.

"A last name for one of my maids?" He kneeled down, "How peculiar. What's their rank?"

Most of Xiaowen's maid staff weren't part of the nobility because of his bad habits. They were all peasants who desperately needed the job or so low of nobility that they had shifted to a different palace owner.

"T– Their… I don't know." She shook her head, then eagerly tried to rectify her mistake, "They shouldn't be too high up…"

Xiaowen nodded, "Leave."

She took a bitter nod and struggled to stand up. Xiaowen grabbed her upper arm and lifted her up with ease, "Send yourself to the palace doctor… tell them the 2nd prince has sent you."

Usually maids who were commoners. If they were abused the issue wouldn't even be raised and that extended to any physical abuse done to them. They wouldn't receive help for it.

"Go… carry on now. Make sure to limp past your fellows as you walk out." He abruptly let her go.

He watched her limp out of his door. Her clothes were ruffled and it was damp around her legs. He shook his head as he watched the scene as if a monster tugged sharply on his collar.

He slumped into his chair as the door opened and closed. His hands tapped the armrest peculiarly for over 2 minutes at a time until he eventually stood up again.

His dantain churned and revolved as the black mass in his dantain grew over and over. The maid had given him plenty of fear and as she left he found that he was getting even more fear before it completely cut off.

He took the time to expand his cultivation into Middle Qi Condensation. The dense black mass grew into a thicker liquid like sludge that resided in his dantain. He also felt his senses increase.

"That's why I found you interesting." he whispered to himself.

Xiaowen had searched his memories over and over again on why that maid was so important to him.

Yet, his memories always dwelled back to the assassin the way they held their blade as they cut their face. The way they held was eerily familiar to his brother's swordplay; his first brother, was a crude monk but Xiaowen's memories knew better than that.

A crude monk? Some of his memories were filled with watching his brother's swordsmanship during his childhood when they were truly brothers. Xiaowen had organized his mind better. He spent a couple of hours just watching all of his family history.

His eldest brother was a master in fighting. He was also the most likely to inherit the throne but that was if he wasn't so stuck up on a certain woman which now belonged to Xiaowen, a servant. If the first prince demands a servant away from someone else it would reveal his weakness.

Which is why Xiaowen's brother Zheng Qing couldn't walk into his little brother's room and demand the maid that he was holding away from him. He could coerce his little brother but they had a falling out a few years ago.

Xiaowen shook his head once more. All of the greatest falling outs revolved around women just like ancient stories of the time. However, this one was perhaps more deeper than the surface level; his foggy mind couldn't fully comprehend why they fell out against each other but more like there was just an event and then the next day.

The brothers hated each other. That's how it went in his memories but going back to those moments felt harder to remember. As if the original owner of the body had mentally blocked out that day.

It was the same with his actual mothers death. The events on that day were foggy. He didn't see his father actually kill his mother. The day was fogged out and blocked. Yet, it was just this natural sort of fact that his father had killed his mother.

There were some events that were strong in his mind, there were some that had been fogged out near to the point that it was locked. The previous owner of the body must've wanted to erase those memories, he thought. It wasn't the right course of action but it happened and these fogged memories were holding him back ever so slightly.

Xiaowen frowned. He didn't want this to affect his growth in the future. Perhaps, eradicating his father and his brothers, perhaps his fiancee could fix the faded architecture of the host's brain.

He held some grudges against the entire empire. Perhaps, destroying the empire would be the right course of action. If he did that then maybe he could go to another empire and wreak havoc there and continue on with his life.

Xiaowen yawned. It had been a very long day. He had walked from the slums. Cultivated twice. And terrified the inhabitants of the castle walls with his mere presence. A smile playfully lined his mouth, that was a good day for a dead demonic cultivator.

Xiaowen slowly reclined in his chair and closed his eyes. He thought of the girl that he had just terrorized in his room momentarily. He hoped he hadn't gone too far.