Chapter 47: Merely to Live—He Had Already Given His All

Listening to Gu He's words, Gu Qingfeng looked down at the billowing clouds and mist beneath the warship, the shock in his heart unable to settle for a long time.

His own son, turned out to be an peerless genius?

A trace of dimness appeared on his face, his eyes filled with profound grief and regret.

If only he had shown his son a little more tolerance back then, Gu Chen certainly would not have ended up in exile in the wilderness.

Could it be that all along, he was the one who was wrong?

Seeing Gu Qingfeng's expression, Gu He sighed softly beside him.

Everyone in the world knew that Gu Ci, the son of the Northern War King, was a genius who not only advanced to a rare class ahead of schedule but was also admitted to the prestigious Capital Academy.

Yet who knew how much resource Gu Qingfeng had poured into Gu Ci?

There were only two ways one could advance to become a Dragon Battle Knight: either by possessing dragon bloodline within one's body, or by receiving the blessing of the Dragon God.

Gu Ci possessed no dragon bloodline whatsoever. To ensure his successful class advancement, the resources consumed by him from childhood to the present were nearly equivalent to the entire Northern Territory's military budget for a whole year!

It was no exaggeration to say that if all those resources had been piled onto a pig, it could have been raised into an ultimate BOSS with millions of health points.

And what about Gu Chen?

From childhood to adulthood, the Gu family's investment in him amounted to nothing more than the living expenses of that single month he spent living with the Gu family.

Comparing the two, who was the true peerless genius?

Sighing, Gu He continued, "My Lord, haven't you always believed that the eldest young master was degenerate by choice and a hopeless piece of trash?"

Gu Qingfeng frowned slightly. "What, could there be a hidden story behind this?"

"According to my investigation, the eldest young master grew up in a peasant family, living a bitter and impoverished life, plagued by hunger and poverty. He was frequently bullied by the children of powerful nobles, yet despite all this, his academic grades were always stellar."

"It wasn't until he entered high school that the peasant couple who raised him passed away one after another. Left with no one to rely on, the young master found even his most basic livelihood threatened."

"Therefore, the young master had no choice but to hustle among various vendors. For a meager wage of a few hundred coins a month, he even had to skip school to do odd jobs."

"We all thought he was neglecting his studies, blaming him for lacking ambition and sinking into depravity, but we were wrong! It wasn't that he lacked ambition; he simply couldn't afford to have any!"

"You previously despised him for throwing away his future and abandoning his education?"

"He wasn't stupid. He knew better than anyone that if he studied hard now, even if he couldn't change classes or enter a higher institution of learning, he could still become a high-paid clerk and live a better life."

"But he couldn't! For every single day he spent in school, he lost a day's income and had to go hungry for a day."

"A wonderful life a few years down the line was far too distant for him. If he didn't skip school to make money, he probably would have starved to death within a week."

At this point, Gu He's expression turned complex, a mixture of pathos and irony.

The son of Gu Qingfeng, the legitimate eldest heir of the Northern Royal Family, had actually been reduced to the point of almost starving to death!

It was unimaginable how much suffering he had endured over these past eighteen years.

Silence.

Gu Qingfeng's expression froze, and his entire being fell into an indescribable, heavy silence.

Previously, he couldn't understand how someone with Gu Chen's cowardly personality could ever bring himself to kill Li Renjie.

But now, he understood.

What kind of fate awaited a peasant youth targeted by Liming City's premier aristocratic family?

Suppression, control, and a lifetime devoid of any chance to rise.

The news of the Hell-grade dungeon clearance being completely sealed off and the guaranteed admission quota being stolen were prime examples of this.

Faced with such oppression, no matter how high his innate talent was, he could never escape the Li family's grip.

Under such circumstances, only two paths lay before him.

Either bow his head as a slave and willingly become a running dog for the Li family,

or tear off the facade and drag the Li family down with him in mutual destruction.

Clearly, Gu Chen chose the latter.

He was not using such extreme methods to pressure anyone; he was merely trying to survive, attempting to grasp the meagerest scrap of mercy that fate had left him.

For him, simply staying alive had already required exhausting every ounce of his strength.

Gu Qingfeng took a deep breath, his heart jolting violently as if pierced by thousands of steel needles leaving him riddled with holes.

He could not bear to believe that every single minute and second of these past eighteen years, Gu Chen had lived humbly in the cracks of survival.

He had once thought that hardship would serve as tempering for Gu Chen, but he was wrong. Hardship was simply hardship—it was not worth pursuing, nor would it ever make Gu Chen any more extraordinary.

No wonder Gu Chen chose to sever ties with the Gu family. In this moment, Gu Qingfeng fully realized his own grave mistake.

Grief and indignation surged within his heart, and a towering rage flared from the depths of his soul.

"Fine, what a wonderful Liming City Li Family! To dare bully even my, Gu Qingfeng's, son! I will eradicate your entire Li clan down to the last root!"

Gu Qingfeng turned to look at the ethereal sea of clouds beneath the warship, gazing toward the direction of Liming City, a bone-chilling, piercing murderous intent leaking from his eyes.

"Gu He, notify the Royal Guards. Wipe out the Li family completely, and leave none alive!"

"Understood!"

Receiving the order, Gu He didn't waste a second before communicating with the Commander of the Royal Guards.

The very instant the message was delivered, hundreds of elite royal guards stationed outside the Li family's estate in Liming City drew their sharp blades and charged into the manor.

In a flash, the members of the Li family present in the estate were brutally slain. While this was only a small fraction of the Li clan—with the majority having already ventured deep into the wilderness—it mattered not. Those who had gone out to hunt down Gu Chen were already on the hit list and had nowhere to run.

This was the Northern Territory, after all. Anyone Gu Qingfeng wanted dead could not escape, even with wings.

Deep in the Wilderness.

Just as Lin Yuan and the others had guessed, although Gu Chen was heading in the direction of the Linlian Pass, his ultimate destination was the Bone-Burial Dungeon located south of the pass.

"Look, Brother Chen, if we keep going straight along this path, we'll reach Linlian Pass."

"Fifty years ago, it was invaded by the Abyss and has now become the territory of alien races. Last year, five successive teams went in to complete missions, mostly consisting of Tier 4 powerhouses, and in the end, only three people walked out alive."

amidst the black fog, a noble-looking youth with an extraordinary bearing walked beside Gu Chen.

The youth was named Xu Xia, whom Gu Chen had met at a vanguard outpost of the Abyss-Suppressing Army.

Unlike other professionals in the wilderness, Xu Xia was not there to kill alien creatures. His purpose in visiting the outpost was to search for a rare material.

This material could only be produced in the Tier 2 Abyss Bone-Burial Dungeon and served as the core component for crafting Level 10 Epic equipment.

Upon learning that Xu Xia intended to forge Epic-grade gear, Gu Chen knew he had run into another pampered scion of immense wealth.

After chatting for a bit, Xu Xia stated that if Gu Chen managed to acquire that material, he was willing to purchase it for 800,000 coins.

Xu Xia stared at the compass in his hand for a moment, then stepped sideways and pointed toward a sector in the dark fog.

"Brother Chen, that's the direction of the Bone-Burial Dungeon. Walking there will take at least three hours."

With that, Xu Xia snapped his fingers.

The next second, the black fog before them surged violently, and a sleek, deep blue sports car materialized on the ground beside them.

"However, if we take my levitating sports car, it will take at most half an hour."

"Levitating... sports car?"

Looking at the luxury sports car resembling a deep-blue beast before him, the corner of Gu Chen's mouth twitched slightly.

Such a massive vehicle—how on earth did it appear out of nowhere?

A car was neither equipment nor a consumable item; it couldn't possibly be stored in an ordinary inventory space!

"By the way, what was your class again? Spatial Mage?"

Xu Xia smiled. "I failed my class advancement; I'm just an ordinary person. Get in, we'll be at the Bone-Burial Dungeon in no time."

With a subtle shift of his gaze, Gu Chen noticed a faint, obscure gleam on Xu Xia's finger.

It was a dark-silver ring—a spatial ring.