Aristocratic Families

Xingyu Center Tower. Su Chiming had just finished meeting with the chairman of the Yushan Electric Power Group and arranged for Su Huaigu to take up a post there. Thoroughly exhausted, he rubbed the space between his brows. Running around busily day in and day out lately gave him a sensation reminiscent of the Buzhou Group's founding days, leaving him scarcely a single moment to rest. At his advanced age, pushing eighty, his body truly struggled to hold up. Yet the moment he recalled what he was currently accomplishing, an astonishing radiance flared in his eyes. Why were aristocratic families called aristocratic families? Because they penetrated every corner of a region's livelihood. Oil, salt, food, clothing, shelter, transport—everything was grasped firmly in their hands. Precisely for this reason, if any outside faction dared make a genuine move against them, they would face an all-out backlash spanning every industry across an entire city, or even an entire province. Accepting assignments while ignoring summons, feigning compliance while acting in defiance, ostracizing and reducing superiors to mere figureheads—those were child's play. At the lighter end, tens of thousands of workers would take to the streets in protest. At the severe end, full-blown riots would erupt, slipping entirely beyond control. Right now... What Su Chiming was doing was taking the very first step toward becoming an aristocratic family. Just then, Lin Xia approached to ask for instructions. "Chairman, Young Master Su just had Lei Yun call. He wishes to use the first meeting room on the sixth floor, but this afternoon you were scheduled to meet the leadership and team of Xintai Gas there..." To this day, only one person in the Su family could be referred to directly as "Young Master Su" without even speaking his name. That was Yaoguang. Upon hearing Yaoguang's name, Su Chiming did not hesitate in the slightest. "My business can be postponed. Clear out Meeting Room One for Yaoguang." "Yes, sir." Lin Xia acknowledged the order and promptly went to carry it out. Su Chiming swiftly flipped through a dossier brought over by the Yue family. It contained detailed profiles of all senior executives at Xintai Gas. He was contemplating whom to send to oversee and manage the normal operations of Xintai Gas. Before long, a knock sounded at the door. Immediately after, Su Chixin walked in. Seeing him, Su Chiming looked up. "Are things settled over at the Water Resources Bureau?" Su Chixin nodded. "They were very cooperative." Yet a trace of worry flickered through his eyes right after. "Tell me... that boy Yaoguang... what exactly is he doing?" "Isn't it obvious?" Su Chiming smiled. "He is turning our Su family into an aristocratic family." "Still... this kind of method..." "What are you worried about?" Su Chiming pointed upward. "The royal family?" He continued, "Since when does becoming an aristocratic family depend on royal approval to rise? Can a family like that even be called an aristocratic family?" Su Chixin stared blankly for a moment. "I came to understand it long ago. Dayu did not come into being because of the royal family; Dayu was born because the aristocratic families agreed to royal rule over this land." He leaned back. "Even if I don't know the specifics of what Yaoguang is doing, I know the weight carried by a nineteen-year-old Martial Saint." He smiled faintly. "Taking control of Tiannan is hardly excessive." "A nineteen-year-old Martial Saint..." Hearing these words, Su Chixin could not help feeling a sense of unreality. A Martial Saint! He had idled his entire life away in the Martial Master realm. Now well advanced in years, he had no hope whatsoever of reaching Grandmaster, yet Yaoguang... Yaoguang had shattered the shackles of the human body and ascended to become a transcendent Martial Saint... It was truly beyond belief. "Go on, handle the tasks before us, and act boldly. If anyone dares pay lip service to your orders, do not hold back. Deal with them directly if you can; if you can't, call Zhang Tianji, or call Yue Xingzhou!" Flames seemed to burn in Su Chiming's eyes. "To truly ascend to an aristocratic family, taking risks and shedding blood is unavoidable! What we truly must do is minimize our own bloodshed, seize this soaring opportunity Yaoguang has delivered to us at the lowest cost, and shoot straight into the heavens!" Having heard this, Su Chixin gave a solemn nod. Indeed! How could the Su family achieve a leap across social strata without bloodshed? If one looked forward and backward in constant dread, timid and hesitant, how could anything ever be achieved? "Chairman! Chairman!" At that moment, an urgent voice sounded from outside. Su Hua rushed in, speaking between breaths, "Chairman, Lü Jianfeng has arrived." He swiftly added, "Coming with him are Jiang Sheng and Li Cunyu." "Lü Jianfeng?! Jiang Sheng?! Li Cunyu?!" Hearing those names, Su Chiming shot to his feet. "Lü Jianfeng, the foster son of the Lü family's Martial Saint Lü Tianhe?! Jiang Sheng, the Jiang family's Grandmaster?! And Li Cunyu, the biological younger brother of the Li family head?!" "Yes!" Su Hua said emphatically. The Jiang family and the Li family were one thing. As for the Lü family... That was the foremost aristocratic family in Dayu! Their family head was an existence who held sway over Dayu's National Assembly. Martial Saint Lü Tianhe was also a military titan—an army general and the supreme commander of the Third Army Group, commanding a sixth of Dayu's military power. This was an existence in Dayu truly capable of standing on equal footing against the Liao family. Over the past century, five of Dayu's fourteen great aristocratic families had perished, while others, like the Yue and Li families, were suppressed to the point of struggling for every step, their influence unable even to extend beyond the provinces they had long cultivated. Yet no matter how heavily the royal family suppressed them, the Lü family had always remained Dayu's foremost aristocratic family—a clear banner uniting all the great clans. Now, the foster son of Martial Saint Lü Tianhe, someone fully capable of representing this Martial Saint and the will of the entire Lü family, had personally come to their Buzhou Group?! "Quick! We must go out at once to welc—" Su Chiming began, intending to go greet them in person. Yet having taken just a single step, he seemed to realize something and halted. "Did they state their business?" "No, they went straight to the first meeting room on the sixth floor," Su Hua said. "The first meeting room." Su Chiming pondered this, connecting it with Yaoguang's earlier phone call. Gradually, realization dawned upon him. Immediately after, a broad smile spread across his face. "Good! Good! Good!" After saying "good" three times in succession, his mood soared, and he could not help bursting into hearty laughter. "Hahaha! I underestimated it! I underestimated the significance carried by a nineteen-year-old Martial Saint! Hahaha!" "Chairman, should we..." "No hurry." Su Chiming waved his hand. "If they've come, they've come. No need to make a fuss." Su Hua was bewildered. What did he mean, no need to make a fuss? Shouldn't they be heading out immediately to receive them? After all... That was a core figure of Dayu's foremost aristocratic family—the Lü family! Not to mention the Grandmasters from the Jiang and Li families beside him. With so many grand figures arriving, they weren't going out to receive them? Since when had the family head become... so conceited? "They are Yaoguang's guests. Instruct the conference service team to provide initial hospitality of the highest standard, and leave the rest to Yaoguang." Su Chiming sat back down, regaining his unhurried composure. Yet from the slight trembling of his right hand resting on the desk, one could still see just how turbulent his emotions were. ... Xingyu Center Tower. Grand figures who might maintain low profiles within Dayu, but who without exception possessed the power to sway the balance of entire provinces, arrived one after another. Welcomed by hastily deployed Su family personnel, they were swiftly ushered into the first meeting room on the sixth floor. Grandmaster Xu Dengfeng of the Xu family was no exception. Leading a retinue of assistants and subordinates totaling over a dozen people, he entered the meeting room. "Grandmaster Xu." Yue Nanxing, who was handling reception, greeted him with a smile. "Family Head Yue," Xu Dengfeng replied. However, upon noticing Lü Jianfeng and Jiang Sheng, who had arrived first, he immediately stepped forward. "Mr. Jiang and Mr. Lü arrived so early?" "Take a seat." The one responding was not Lü Jianfeng, whom outsiders presumed held the highest status as foster son and personal disciple of Martial Saint Lü, but Jiang Sheng. Pointing toward a seat where only core figures of the nine families were qualified to sit, he said with a smile, "We had to come. If it wouldn't cause too great a stir, the Old Master might have wanted to come in person." "Old Master Jiang?!" Xu Dengfeng's heart trembled. He turned his gaze toward Yue Nanxing. "Then... Family Head Yue, your news is true?!" "Haven't you all already seen whether it's true or false? The video is proof! Furthermore, who would dare joke with the life of a Martial Saint?" Yue Nanxing said. The Martial Saint's life he spoke of was none other than Fang Lu. Although whether Fang Lu truly counted as a genuine Martial Saint remained up for debate in everyone's eyes, her obtaining a Level 10 certificate representing a Martial Saint was a concrete fact. "Six years ago, I had the fortune of seeing President Ji Pingtian take action. He had indeed attained spirit intent and become a Divine Realm Martial Saint. With the perfect fusion of spirit intent and fist techniques, even ordinary Martial Saints could hardly withstand his edge. And according to the video provided by Family Head Yue... he is even stronger than he was six years ago," Jiang Sheng remarked. "A Divine Realm Martial Saint!" "Even stronger than six years ago?!" Xu Dengfeng and the head of another aristocratic family revealed shocked expressions at the same time. "Yet..." Jiang Sheng drew a sharp breath of cold air. "Formidable as Ji Pingtian is, he failed to do anything to Lord Yaoguang, a young Martial Saint of a mere nineteen years!" His eyes shone with yearning. "It is truly unimaginable what a brilliant, vast future Lord Yaoguang will possess if he is allowed to keep growing." At these words, Xu Dengfeng fell silent. Without needing to guess, a Divine Realm Martial Saint was certainly not his limit. He would not even stop at Hunyuan Martial Saint! A Heavenly Being! That was his true pursuit! If a Heavenly Being descended upon the world... Why would these aristocratic families ever fear the Liao family's suppression, or the overbearing tyranny of Chixing? "So, have you all made your decision?" Li Cunyu asked with a smile. "The moment we sat down here, our decisions were already made." "If we don't take action, the number of perished aristocratic families won't stop at five. Soon there will be a sixth, a seventh, an eighth... You must have felt it yourselves: especially over the past decade, the Liao family has grown increasingly unscrupulous. No matter what, we must do something. At the very least, we must show them the power of our aristocratic families." "Originally, we saw no hope, only able to let the Liao family slice away at us with a blunt knife while we dragged out our meager existences. But now..." The core figures of the various families exchanged looks, instantly understanding one another's thoughts. Just then, Yue Tianfeng hurried over. "Family Head, Lord Yaoguang has arrived." Yue Nanxing nodded. Jiang Sheng rose to his feet at once. "Everyone." He walked directly toward the door. "Let us go together to welcome Lord Yaoguang."