Chapter 149: Chapter 147: Bother (Please Subscribe)

The clan added two new members, which can be considered a joyful event. Although cultivators are not bound by mundane customs, such an important affair as marriage must certainly be organized.

According to Zhouyang’s request, aside from those who absolutely cannot make it, all other cultivators returned to Jade Spring Peak to attend the wedding ceremony of the two new couples, giving the newlyweds proper respect.

This approach also helped Tan Qiu and Huang Yi, two foreign relative cultivators, quickly meet others in the clan, preventing any embarrassing situations of not recognizing each other in the future.

After the wedding celebration, everyone dispersed, and Zhouyang, who had been busy for a year, also returned to his cave dwelling to continue consuming spirit pills for refined cultivation.

However, what he didn’t expect was that shortly after his return, his twelfth sister, Zhou Yuanzhen, who had just become a bride, ran into the cave dwelling to cry to him.

“Brother Nine, you must stand up for your sister! Isn’t his behavior a marriage fraud? He wants me to be a widow for the rest of my life!”

In Zhouyang’s cave dwelling, Zhou Yuanzhen, still wearing her bridal gown, came in tears and began crying, accusing her husband Huang Yi of “marriage fraud.”

It turned out that after the wedding, Huang Yi did not consummate the marriage with her.

The reason for not consummating the marriage was simple: he wanted to temporarily retain his Primordial Yang Body to see if he could cultivate to Ninth-Layer Qi Cultivation before turning sixty.

According to Huang Yi’s own words, if he could reach Ninth-Layer Qi Cultivation before sixty, he would take the risk to challenge the Foundation Establishment Stage, striving with all his might!

“Nonsense! I have no objection to his wanting to establish a foundation, but his current course of action clearly aims to use my Zhou Family’s resources to aid his cultivation. What love for the grand path? Does he think we are fools? If he dies, our Zhou Family will not only have wasted resources but also end up having you, Twelfth Sister, remain a widow for life!”

Zhouyang looked at the tear-streaked face of Zhou Yuanzhen, his expression full of anger, loudly scolding.

Indeed, he was irate in his heart. Huang Yi’s courage to attempt Foundation Establishment without a Foundation Establishment Pill was certainly admirable.

If he had announced this intention before the wedding ceremony, Zhouyang would have considered postponing his and Zhou Yuanzhen’s wedding, encouraging them simply to get engaged and still sponsoring his cultivation.

But he chose to reveal his plans after the wedding celebration, behaving exactly like Zhou Yuanzhen cried about, a blatant “marriage fraud.”

At this moment, Zhouyang was quite vexed, realizing he lacked experience. Otherwise, during the use of the Divine Inquiry Technique earlier, he should have asked more detailed questions, ascertaining this person’s intentions, which would have prevented the current situation.

Unfortunately, due to the necessity of numerous individuals for spellcasting at the time, he aimed to conserve time and divine sense, asking only the most pertinent questions without probing too deeply into these matters.

Now, regretting after the fact is too late. After fuming for a while, he gradually calmed down and then, with a serious expression, asked Zhou Yuanzhen: “So, Twelfth Sister, what are your plans now? Do you intend to divorce him? Whatever decision you make, Brother Nine will certainly support you!”

The crux of the matter lies in Zhou Yuanzhen’s thoughts; he had already erred once and mustn’t err again.

“I…”

Zhou Yuanzhen wiped the tears from her face with her sleeve, her pretty face scrunched up into a frown.

She had come to seek justice and support from Zhouyang, only to find that Zhouyang had handed the problem back to her for resolution, leaving her unsure of what to say.

She frowned and thought for quite a while, unable to come up with a solution, finally bursting into tears again: “Sob, sob, sob, I don’t know what to do!”

And as she cried, she grabbed Zhouyang’s arm, saying: “Brother Nine, you’re the smartest, help your little sister decide. I’ll listen to everything you say!”

Seeing this, Zhouyang was in a difficult position. If he truly had a good solution, he would have already stated it earlier.

Moreover, he understood Zhou Yuanzhen’s concerns; in fact, those were also his concerns.

Yet, he knew all too well Zhou Yuanzhen’s personality; this clan sister had always been well-protected by the family, inherently indecisive. Asking her to make decisions on such significant matters was truly demanding of her.

Thus, after contemplating for a while, he suddenly looked at Zhou Yuanzhen and asked: “Well then, Twelfth Sister, what is your reason for not wanting to divorce him? Is it an unwillingness to let go of this marriage or a fear of gossip resulting from divorce?”

“Both, both a bit!” Zhou Yuanzhen replied hesitantly, her face conflicted.

After speaking, she hurriedly added, as if fearing any misunderstanding from Zhouyang: “The latter is more important!”

This was as Zhouyang had suspected; therefore, he nodded and continued to ask: “If you were to divorce him, would you wish to find another husband?”

“This…” Zhou Yuanzhen hesitated slightly, then gritted her teeth and said: “No, I’d rather go to Haoyang Mountain to cultivate fields for the rest of my life than find another!”

Going to Haoyang Mountain to cultivate fields for life was evidently a self-exile behavior to avoid clan gossip.

Upon hearing this, Zhouyang somewhat understood.

So he immediately said, “Then Brother Nine knows how to handle it, just listen to me.”

Zhouyang’s solution was simple. For now, they wouldn’t reveal Huang Yi’s intention to marry under false pretenses related to his attempt to reach Foundation Establishment, but instead let Zhou Yuanzhen mention through the family’s Seventh Elder, Zhou Xuanying, that he hadn’t decided to break his Primordial Yang Body to have offspring yet.

This way, other cultivators would see that their Yuan Yang and Yuan Yin remained intact and couldn’t gossip about them.

As for Huang Yi, who engaged in “marriage deception,” he certainly couldn’t be let off easily.

Zhouyang summoned him to the cave abode, first gave him a thorough beating, then sternly warned him that if he couldn’t cultivate to the Ninth Layer Qi Cultivation Stage before age sixty, he’d have to stay in Zhou Family’s Fengyue Tower until his death!

Zhou Yuanzhen was fairly satisfied with Zhouyang’s handling, and Huang Yi had nothing further to say.

He originally had a gambler’s mentality, and seeing the outcome now, he had indeed gambled correctly. The Zhou Family cared more about the reputation of the clan cultivators and wouldn’t force him in this regard.

Of course, he knew his actions deeply hurt Zhou Yuanzhen and greatly offended Zhouyang, who was privy to the truth.

So if he couldn’t succeed in Foundation Establishment in the future, his end would undoubtedly be miserable.

But if he succeeded in Foundation Establishment, that would be a different story.

As for Zhouyang, he was well aware of Huang Yi’s gambler mentality but encountered such things with people as stubborn as rolling stones, he was at a loss!

After all, Huang Yi even had the resolve to attempt Foundation Establishment without a Foundation Establishment Pill; what could Zhouyang do?

He was also quite helpless!

Fortunately, such problematic affairs weren’t common, otherwise, as Clan Leader, he would truly be driven to madness.

Moreover, half a year after Zhou Yuanchun and Zhou Yuanzhen’s wedding, another happy event occurred in the Zhou Family: the three Golden Rock Sheep that Zhouyang had hurriedly brought back finally became pregnant!

When Zhouyang received the news, he immediately rushed to the Zhou Family’s Spirit Beast Garden, then under the guidance of the Spirit Beast Garden steward Zhou Xuanzhao, they went to the pen where the three Golden Rock Sheep lived.

Though he brought back the three Golden Rock Sheep, the trainer had always been Zhou Xuanzhao, the Tier Two Beast Tamer, and usually, Zhouyang rarely came to the Spirit Beast Garden.

Upon reaching outside the sheep enclosure, he immediately used his Divine Sense to scan the two mother sheep with visibly larger bellies, and indeed discovered the developing fetuses inside them.

Normally, a Sheep Demon would produce only one offspring per birth, as it was easier to care for, and the survival rate of the offspring was higher.

However, the Zhou Family’s two Golden Rock Sheep mother sheep were raised by cultivators from an early age, and had never worried about food. Thus, this time, each mother sheep was pregnant with two.

To avoid disturbing the developing fetuses, Zhouyang didn’t dare use Divine Sense to observe for long. After confirming the normal vital signs of the fetuses inside the mother sheep, he retracted his Divine Sense and said to Zhou Xuanzhao beside him:

“In terms of Demon Beast husbandry, Seventeenth Uncle, you understand it more than I do, so I won’t offer my opinions.”

“However, what I want to tell Seventeenth Uncle is, by all means, ensure the safe delivery of both mother sheep and protection of the lambs’ healthy growth. For anything related, if you need supplies, report it to the clan, and anything the clan can find, will be secured for you!”

“Additionally, the milk from these two mother sheep should preferably be given to the lambs first; any surplus should be handed over for the clan to distribute!”

Currently, the Zhou Family has newborns with Spiritual Roots almost every year; the milk of the Golden Rock Sheep provides foundational benefit for child cultivators just entering cultivation. If consumed merely for Qi Cultivation Stage cultivators to increase cultivation, that would be quite wasteful.

As for selling, that’s absolutely out of the question. Even if the Zhou Family has two mother sheep now, or even if they have twenty in the future, the milk wouldn’t suffice for every Qi Cultivation Stage cultivator to have a single cup!

That’s why Zhouyang insists that the sheep milk be submitted to the clan for unified distribution.

“I remember the Clan Leader’s words and will do as spoken.”

Zhou Xuanzhao nodded solemnly, clearly understanding Zhouyang’s intentions.

After inspecting the sheep pen, Zhouyang paid a brief visit to check on another Tier Two Top Grade Spirit Beast within the Spirit Beast Garden, the Flame-devouring Spider.

Currently, the seven Flame-devouring Spiders raised here on Jade Spring Peak all hatched from spider eggs he brought, and from a young age were trained by Zhou Xuanzhao, the beast tamer. Their ferocity was significantly lesser compared to the wild Flame-devouring Spider devoured by water demons in Haoyang Cave.

As long as the Zhou Family continuously fed them, the Flame-devouring Spiders could yield spider silk worth hundreds of Spirit Stones annually. When calculating the input-output ratio, they vastly outperformed the Spirit Field and Medicinal Garden industries.

Unfortunately, hatching eggs from raised Flame-devouring Spiders was quite difficult, and the Zhou Family has a long way to go to scale this business.