The Lay Flat Life: My Wife's Cultivation Makes Me Stronger - Chapter 25

“Thank you so much, Senior Brother. I’m truly grateful,” Han Feng said, rubbing his hands together awkwardly.

“Senior Brother, as a mere servant disciple, I’ve spent all my savings on this formation. I don’t even have a communication jade slip.”

“You don’t even have a jade slip?” Jiang Huayang sighed, shaking his head. “You’ve really had it tough, haven’t you? With such good potential, yet trapped as a servant disciple, living in poverty all these years.”

He rummaged through his storage pouch and pulled out a communication jade slip, handing it to Han Feng. “Here, take this one. I happen to have an extra. Feed it with your spiritual energy to activate it. My divine sense imprint is inside, so you can contact me directly.”

“Thank you, Senior Brother. I’ll owe you for this. I’ll return the money another day.”

Han Feng accepted the jade slip gratefully.

“Forget about the money. We’re family now. What’s a little debt between us? Alright, I should be going now. Don’t worry, I’ll find evidence of Ye Longyuan’s involvement and punish him and his family accordingly. See you around.”

With that, Jiang Huayang stood up, and along with Lu Yufa, started heading toward the door.

“Take care, Senior Brother.”

The two Enforcement Hall disciples left with the assassins’ corpses, heading back to the Enforcement Hall headquarters.

Han Feng stared at the jade slip in his hand for a few moments before tucking it into his storage pouch.

Then he flopped onto his bed.

Sleep time.

The night’s chaos had passed without much consequence. To Han Feng, it was just a minor incident. If there was any real benefit from the ordeal, it was that his “brother-in-law” seemed to have taken a liking to him, thinking him talented and level-headed.

But it didn’t matter much to Han Feng—he wasn’t particularly interested in Jiang Surou or her brother.

As Han Feng drifted off into comfortable sleep, somewhere else, someone was having a very different kind of night—a sleepless one.

At the Ye family’s ancestral home, Ye Longyuan sat on his bed, clutching a jade slip in his hand. He had been struggling with himself for over an hour, wrestling with the decision of whether or not to tell his father what had happened.

After all, he hadn’t sent out his own personal assassins—these were family-trained death warriors, valuable assets to the clan. Four of them were now dead, and he couldn’t sweep that under the rug without some sort of explanation.

Better to confess early and face lighter consequences than to hide it and face harsher punishment later.

Finally making up his mind, Ye Longyuan left his room and walked toward the master bedroom. When he reached the door, he knocked softly.

“Is that you, Longyuan? Come in,” came a voice from inside.

Ye Longyuan pushed open the door to see two people sitting cross-legged on meditation mats in the center of the room.

One was a middle-aged cultivator, and the other was a beautiful woman who appeared to be in her thirties—his mother, still full of grace and elegance.

“Father. Mother.” Ye Longyuan bowed respectfully.

His father opened his eyes and asked, “What brings you here at this hour, interrupting my cultivation?”

Ye Longyuan knelt down and said, “Father, I’ve come to confess my wrongdoings.”

“Confess? You’re usually so cautious and never cause trouble. What could you possibly have done that requires you to confess?”

“Father… it’s about Jiang Surou. You know I’ve been pursuing her for years. A few days ago, during the matchmaking event, I bribed one of the elders to manipulate things in my favor…”

Ye Longyuan then recounted everything he had done in great detail—every action, every scheme, every misstep.

By the time he finished, his father’s face had darkened considerably. “So, not only did you get four of our death warriors killed, but you also drew the attention of the Enforcement Hall and made an enemy of the Jiang family?”

Cold sweat trickled down Ye Longyuan’s forehead as he pressed his head to the floor. “I know I’ve committed grave sins. I’m willing to accept punishment. Please, Father, punish me.”

“Punishment? You think a simple punishment will suffice for something like this? You deserve to be beaten to death.”

Ye Longyuan’s father’s eyes blazed with anger, his stern gaze piercing through him.

At that moment, Ye Longyuan’s mother opened her eyes and spoke up. “You old fool, how can you speak to our son like that? He just made a small mistake! Is that worth killing him over? If you dare lay a hand on him, I’ll beat you senseless first!”

She hurried over to Ye Longyuan and helped him to his feet. “Get up, my boy. It’s not that big of a deal. This mess is your father’s fault anyway. If he had gone to the Jiang family to propose marriage earlier, none of this would’ve happened.”

Ye Longyuan’s father shot his wife a helpless look and sighed heavily. “You coddle him too much! That’s why he keeps messing up!”

Pointing a finger at his wife, he continued, “It’s because of your doting that he’s grown so reckless. He’s still young and makes mistakes because he hasn’t learned better yet. But what kind of father lets things reach the point where his son doesn’t even trust him enough to ask for help when he’s in trouble?”

The woman glared at her husband and snapped, “Oh, shut your mouth! He’s your son; he’s still young! Of course he won’t get everything right! When he’s in trouble, shouldn’t he come to you for help? If he can’t trust his own father, then the problem lies with you!”

“You…! I’m not angry because he made a mistake! I’m angry because he failed to handle such a simple task!”

“He couldn’t even get rid of a mere servant disciple after several days of effort. That’s incompetence! How can someone like that inherit the family business? How can he compete with my elder brother’s sons for the position of future head of the family?”

Though still angry, Ye Longyuan’s father seemed to calm down slightly as he added, “At least you didn’t personally kill Han Feng. If the Enforcement Hall had caught you red-handed, even I wouldn’t be able to protect you. Old man Tie Lian enforces the law strictly and without favoritism.

Don’t worry about the Jiang family either—we’re not afraid of them. But we need to discuss your methods for handling this situation.”

“Father, I’m ready to listen,” Ye Longyuan replied eagerly.

“First of all, destroying someone doesn’t always mean killing them outright. There are countless ways to make someone’s life miserable without taking their life—ways to make them wish they were dead.

If you want to teach someone a lesson yourself, wait until the Ancestor’s Ceremony next month. There, you can deal with Han Feng openly. Cripple him so badly that he’ll never be able to cultivate again. That will give you real satisfaction.”

Ye Longyuan thought for a moment and said, “But Father… Han Feng is already just a ‘waste.’”

“And yet you’ve failed to deal with him three times!” Ye Longyuan’s father glared at him sharply before continuing, “Even if he’s a waste, you shouldn’t let him use the Enforcement Hall against you. Why can’t you flip the situation and use the Enforcement Hall against him?

What does he do for work? Can’t you think of a way to exploit that?”

“There are people in the Enforcement Hall who are on our side. If he refuses to confess, can’t we apply some torture? Beat him within an inch of his life—cripple him and cast him out of the sect. Once he’s outside the sect, we can kill him however we please.”

Hearing this, Ye Longyuan’s eyes lit up. Bowing deeply, he said, “Father, your strategy is brilliant! I understand now. Thank you for your wisdom!”

“Enough. Go back to your room. As for the death warriors we lost, I’ll file a false report saying they died on a mission.”

With a dismissive wave of his hand, Ye Longyuan’s father sent him away.

“Thank you, Father.”

As Ye Longyuan left the room, his father shook his head and muttered, “Still too green… He needs more experience before he’ll be ready.”