After being reborn, the villain comes with a spoiler tag.

Faced with this sudden plea, Long Yucheng glanced at Wang Shizhen, who looked resigned to his fate, and then turned his gaze to Huo Yu, who remained expressionless, without saying a word.

However, my senior brother seems to be in a good mood right now, so he will most likely grant the request.

As Long Yucheng had expected, Huo Yu simply uttered a single word:

"speak."

Upon hearing this, Wang Shizhen felt as if he had been granted a pardon and immediately recounted in detail the numerous difficulties that the Wang family had recently encountered.

The Wang family has been based on the shores of Taihu Lake for over a thousand years, and their history goes back even further to the time when ordinary people farmed and raised silkworms.

Around Taihu Lake, except for the southern region which was difficult to access due to the miasma and rampant monsters, the rest of the area was initially controlled by the royal family.

At that time, the Wang family was at its zenith, at its most prosperous moment, with four Golden Core elders presiding over the clan at the same time!

However, what goes up must come down, and what reaches its extreme will inevitably reverse.

The younger generation of the Wang family were born during the most prosperous period of the family and thought highly of themselves. However, they did not know that in the vast world of cultivation, Taihu Lake was just a shallow pool, and they were nothing more than frogs at the bottom of a well on the shore of Taihu Lake.

When the heir of the Wang family was traveling, he inadvertently provoked the Qingluo Sect, the most powerful sect in the southern region of the Chuyun Kingdom, which brought annihilation to the family. Of the four Golden Core ancestors of the Wang family, three perished and one was seriously injured.

From then on, the Wang family added a new family rule: before reaching the Foundation Establishment stage, the younger generation of the clan can only move around in the area from Taihu Lake to the river valley, and are strictly prohibited from taking even half a step outside.

Unfortunately, it was too late to mend the fence after the sheep were lost.

When the Wang family's power was weakened, the Shi and Ji families, who were originally subordinate to the Wang family, seized the opportunity and took over the west and north shores of Taihu Lake in one fell swoop, forcing the Wang family to retreat to the east of Taihu Lake.

If these two families hadn't been wary of Wang Yi, a Golden Core cultivator from the Wang family who was also cultivating elsewhere, and feared his retaliation, the Wang family would probably have disappeared from the shores of Taihu Lake.

From then on, the situation in Taihu Lake changed from the Wang family's sole dominance to a tripartite balance of power, a situation that lasted for nearly four hundred years.

The last pillar of the Wang family, the ancestor who narrowly escaped from the hands of the Qingluo Sect's experts but was severely injured, lost his lifespan after that fierce battle and ascended to immortality after only forty years.

From then on, the Wang family only had one ancestor, Wang Yi, who was cultivating in the Vermilion Bird Kingdom. The last time Wang Yi returned to Taihu Lake was because the family urgently summoned him back to maintain appearances. He then intimidated the Shi and Ji families before leaving, but unexpectedly, he never heard from them again.

The Wang family managed to survive for a while longer by taking advantage of Wang Yi's reputation. However, Wang Yi has not returned home for three hundred years. The Shi and Ji families have long suspected this, but have kept it hidden.

But the situation has recently taken a subtle turn.

Two months ago, the heir of the Ji family was accepted into the Qingluo Sect and became an inner disciple.

Not long after, the prodigy of the Shi family emerged from seclusion and officially entered the late stage of Foundation Establishment. This young man was not even sixty years old yet, and it was already a foregone conclusion that the Shi family would soon have two Golden Core cultivators.

In contrast, the Wang family has neither a Golden Core ancestor to oversee things, nor are the younger generation of the clan having any successors. Their decline is evident in comparison.

The Shi and Ji families had long considered the Wang family as their own, but they were suspicious of each other, fearing that the other would benefit from their struggle with the Wang family, so they had kept quiet until now.

As both families celebrated their own happy occasions, they seemed to have reached some kind of consensus. Both the Shi and Ji families sent people to the other to deliver congratulatory gifts. Anyone with eyes could see that this was a signal that they were going to join forces to divide up the Wang family's property.

The rent increase for shops in the River Valley Market signifies that the three families of River Valley have also made their stance clear: they no longer wish to have any personal dealings with the Wang family. This is undoubtedly adding insult to injury for the Wang family, which is already in dire straits.

Wang Shizhen had already made plans to have Wang Shili and another uncle who was at the Foundation Establishment stage lead all the Wang family members under the age of forty away from Taihu Lake to find a place to settle down and continue the Wang family bloodline; while he and the rest of the Wang family members would stay behind to guard the ancestral hall and live and die with Lingshan.

As for those ordinary people who had once been protected by the Wang family, Wang Shizhen was powerless to help them.

At this point, Long Yucheng, who was engrossed in listening, suddenly interrupted:

"You are in this demonic realm, yet you still have the mind to protect those mortals?"

Wang Shizhen smiled wryly and said slowly:

"My Wang family was originally just an ordinary family by Taihu Lake. We were fortunate to be guided by an immortal and were able to embark on the path of cultivation. We were ordered to cultivate diligently without ceasing. Our ancestor left us an ancestral instruction: If any of our descendants engage in demonic activities or slaughter innocent people, they will be severely punished without exception and dealt with according to the clan law."

"Furthermore, the Wang family has suffered a decline in talent over the past century, and has had to select those with spiritual roots from the mortal villages they shelter, change their surnames and names, and induct them into the Wang family. On the eastern shore of Taihu Lake, cultivators and mortals have long been interdependent."

Upon hearing this, Long Yucheng sincerely praised:

"I see. Fellow Daoist Wang's ancestral teachings are indeed the righteous way, and are truly admirable."

Wang Shizhen couldn't tell whether the senior in black was affirming or mocking him, so he could only cup his hands and smile bitterly.

At this moment, Huo Yu, who had been silent all along, nodded slightly:

"I will handle this matter."

Huo Yu didn't actually listen closely to the grudges and entanglements between the Wang family and the other two families, but he had done this kind of thing countless times before, and knowing the target and its location was enough.

Upon hearing this, a glimmer of hope suddenly shone in the eyes of Wang Shizhen and Wang Shili, the siblings. They struggled to contain their overwhelming joy and respectfully bowed their heads in greeting.

"We, the Wang family, will forever remember your great kindness!"

……

After leaving the Wang family, Long Yucheng scanned the Wang siblings who were still standing in front of the mountain gate seeing them off with his divine sense, and asked Huo Yu with great curiosity:

"Senior brother, how can we help the Wang family?"

For Huo Yu, such matters were already second nature; after all, he, as the Demon Lord, was used to dealing with these kinds of troubles in the past. Therefore, he simply said:

"Let's go to the Ji family first."

Before setting off, Wang Shizhen had given the two a detailed map of the area around Taihu Lake. The Ji family was located on the north bank of Taihu Lake, only a few miles away from the Wang family.

Long Yucheng was quite familiar with this kind of thing. Although he had never experienced it himself, in cultivation novels, it was just a basic operation for the protagonists to slap the face of an entire family or even an entire sect at once.

He had already secretly decided that when he arrived at the Ji family's residence, he would keep his eyes peeled and carefully observe his senior brother's operations, in preparation for any future needs.