In Donghai City, within Ye Family Manor.

The afternoon sunlight carried a hint of laziness, piercing through the lush branches and leaves, casting mottled light and shadows on the grass.

Zhou Huai sat quietly in his wheelchair, enjoying this rare warmth.

In his hand was a small notebook with a black cover, and the fountain pen in his fingertips occasionally brushed across the paper, making a slight rustling sound.

He continuously wrote down some names.

Or he would completely cross out the existing names on it with a ruthless cross.

"Young Master, you seem to be in a pretty good mood today."

Uncle Fu carried a plate of exquisite pastries, walked into the garden with light steps, and wore a respectful smile on his face.

Zhou Huai raised his head, squinted his eyes against the sunlight, and a faint smile hung on the corner of his mouth.

"It is indeed alright."

Uncle Fu placed the pastries and freshly brewed black tea on the small stone table beside Zhou Huai, his gaze inadvertently falling on the small notebook filled with names.

He asked somewhat curiously, "Young Master, what are these names you wrote on it?"

Zhou Huai's gaze fell back onto the notebook, his tone casual, as if he were discussing today's weather.

"These are all parasites growing on Great Xia Nation."

As his voice fell, the fountain pen in his hand moved again.

The nib drew a big cross over a name called'Sun Guomin'.

Uncle Fu looked at that glaring symbol and asked again, "And what does this cross mean?"

Zhou Huai smiled, picked up the teacup, and gently blew away the misty heat.

"It means that this parasite has already been eliminated."

The smile on Uncle Fu's face stiffened slightly, and then he resumed that profound yet bewildered expression.

He asked no more questions, only respectfully topping up Zhou Huai's tea.

However, what Uncle Fu did not know was this.

At the very moment Zhou Huai put pen to paper, thousands of miles away in the Imperial Capital, a powerful general surnamed Sun in the Central Military Department would have his head decapitated by the suddenly appearing Yasuo.

Even Zhou Huai himself was somewhat surprised.

He had originally thought that the Liu Clan accounted for the bulk of the traitors in Great Xia Nation.

As a result, based on the endless stream of news coming from the Information Bugs, he discovered that the Liu Clan was at best just the tip of the iceberg.

High-ranking military officials, wealthy tycoons of prominent households, various major families, and even major Classer guilds.

All had people secretly colluding with Sakura Country.

And this was just the Imperial Capital alone.

To what extent other provinces and cities had been corrupted was still unknown.

He had originally thought that this eastern lion was merely somewhat exhausted.

Now he realized that its interior was already riddled with holes and covered in pus.

Just thinking about it was terrifying.

Therefore, Zhou Huai had to cut through the gordian knot swiftly.

Discover one, kill one.

The notebook in his hand had truly become a literal Death Note.

As for what kind of chaos the military or Great Xia Nation would fall into because of this, he did not care.

As the saying goes, without destruction, there can be no construction.

Scraping the bone to cure poison—even if there were growing pains, it was necessary.

Only by clearing out these parasites could Great Xia Nation welcome a true rebirth.

Now he had already received news.

The Pendulum of Life had appeared in Sakura Country.

Therefore, a battle between him and Sakura Country was inevitable.

Before that, he had to excise all these internal tumors completely.

Lest he be fighting on the front lines later, only for someone to stab him in the back.

As for the trouble and mess left behind, he would leave Marshal Zhao to have a headache over it.

Zhou Huai took a sip of the warm black tea, and the fragrance of the tea permeated his lips and teeth.

Suddenly thinking of something, he asked, "Right, is that old man awake?"

Upon hearing this, Uncle Fu nodded hurriedly.

"The Master is already awake."

Afterwards, a hint of difficulty appeared on his face, and his voice lowered by a few degrees.

"Young Master, are you going to go see him?"

"These past few days, the Master basically hasn't eaten anything. I'm afraid... I'm afraid he doesn't have much longer to live."

"He is your grandfather, after all..."

The "Master" in Uncle Fu's mouth was naturally the former overwhelmingly powerful head of the Zhou Family, Zhou Ting.

As one of the few survivors of the Zhou Family.

After being rescued by Zhou Huai from the ruins of Donghai City, he had always been placed in the Ye Family Manor.

Zhou Huai put down his teacup, his fingertips tapping lightly on the armrest of the wheelchair.

He truly ought to go see this so-called "grandfather".

After all, he still had many questions about the Zhou Family that had not been answered.

For instance, how on earth did the Zhou Family know the secret of the ruins?

And how did Zhou Feng so precisely know the location of the Divine Artifact, the Heaven-Suppressing Seal?

As well as how many unknown secrets were hidden behind the deaths of the original owner and his mother back then.

Thinking of this, Zhou Huai nodded.

"While I'm still in fairly good spirits right now, wheel me over to see him."

Upon hearing this, Uncle Fu's face instantly showed an overjoyed expression, not expecting that Zhou Huai would actually agree.

He hurriedly nodded in agreement, carefully pushing Zhou Huai's wheelchair through the garden and coming to a secluded courtyard of the Ye Clan.

Pushing open the courtyard gate, an aura of decay and decline hit them head-on.

At a glance, Zhou Huai saw a haggard old man sitting motionlessly on a bench in the courtyard.

The old man was wearing washed-out old clothes, his figure hunched and his bones sticking out.

A head of graying hair flew disheveledly in the wind like dead grass.

He stared blankly at the long-withered flowerbed ahead with lifeless eyes, his gaze hollow as if his soul had long since drifted away, leaving behind only a decrepit shell.

Who could have imagined that this was once the overwhelmingly powerful head of the Zhou Family who dominated Donghai.

Hearing the sound of someone entering the courtyard, Zhou Ting didn't even look, only moving his chapped lips.

The hoarse voice was like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing against each other.

"You guys go out. I said, I won't eat anything."

What answered him, however, was a youth's casual rhetorical question.

"What? The dignified head of the Zhou Family plans to die in such a cowardly and useless manner?"

This sudden voice finally caused a trace of fluctuation in Zhou Ting's deadened eyes.

Before he could even turn his head, that voice sounded once more, every word like a blade, every sentence striking at the heart.

"How many commoners of Donghai City have you caused to be displaced and lose their families?"

"How many soldiers lost their lives to the mouths of fierce beasts, leaving not even a skeleton behind."

"To let you die just like this, isn't it letting you off way too easily?"

Hearing this, Zhou Ting's body suddenly shook violently!

His stiff neck made clicking sounds as he slowly turned his head.

When his gaze fell upon that young face sitting in the wheelchair, one that was both familiar and strange.

Those cloudy, long-since lifeless eyes suddenly widened at this moment!

His chapped lips trembled, and a weird rattling sound came from his throat, as if an invisible hand was choking his neck.

After a long while, he squeezed a few broken syllables from between his teeth.

"You... You are... Zhou Huai?"