At that moment, Ye Dexian looked at Ye Chong, his face flushed with excitement. "Is what you just told me true?"

"It's true, Grandpa Jiu!" Ye Chong was ecstatic.

The moment Xu Ke finished the acupuncture treatment and left the room, Ye Chong had impatiently begun to cultivate. When he circulated his True Qi using his cultivation technique, he made an incredible discovery—his cultivation speed was about fifty percent faster than usual. What a massive boost in efficiency!

That was why, as soon as Xu Ke had left, Ye Chong rushed to share the news with Ye Dexian. The sudden joy made the wound on his arm seem far less painful.

"How is this possible?!" Ye Dexian was in shock. His Dantian had just been shattered, yet his cultivation speed had nearly doubled in the blink of an eye?

"I thought it was impossible too, which is why I wanted you to take a look, Grandpa Jiu," Ye Chong said.

Ye Dexian hurried forward and placed his left hand on Ye Chong's Dantian. "Alright, cultivate for a moment."

"Yes." Ye Chong quickly closed his eyes and began cultivating at a rapid pace. Generally, a Martial Artist would never let someone place their hand on such a vital spot, but Ye Chong's relationship with Ye Dexian was extraordinary, so he naturally had no reservations.

A moment later, Ye Dexian's eyes flew open. "It's real!" His lips trembled, and his eyes shone with an incredulous light. By his observation, the speed at which Ye Chong absorbed True Qi was indeed much faster than before.

This was simply unheard-of!

At that realization, Ye Dexian was overcome with ecstasy. "Chong'er, you... you have a real chance of succeeding now!"

"Yes!" Ye Chong opened his eyes, which were filled with excitement.

"Right now, your older brother, Ye Fan, has a firm grip on his position as the top talent in the Ye Family. Meanwhile, your younger brother, Ye Feng, is completely focused on the Martial Path and has no interest in competing for the Family Head position," Ye Dexian said. "If your Dantian had been crippled for good, you would have had absolutely no chance of becoming the heir!

"Among the Family Heads of the six major families, only Wong Qifu is without cultivation. At the time, she was the only viable successor the Wang Family had. Otherwise, why would she constantly stay behind the scenes and rarely appear in public? Isn't it because she's afraid of being assassinated by an expert?

"But our Ye Family can't afford that. After all, even if your brother is a good-for-nothing, he'll still reach the Innate Great Perfection realm by the time he's fifty.

"But now… not only will your Dantian not be crippled, but your cultivation speed far surpasses what it once was. At this rate, won't you soon catch up to your younger brother and firmly surpass your older brother? When that time comes, becoming the heir will be a sure thing!"

Ye Dexian's old face was wreathed in an ecstatic smile. He was so excited that his logic became a little jumbled.

Hearing this, a look of delight appeared on Ye Chong's face. "Yes, Grandpa Jiu. With powerful cultivation on the Martial Path, I'll be much more confident in my fight for the Family Head position."

Ye Dexian nodded repeatedly. "It seems having your Dantian shattered was a blessing in disguise. You've been reborn from the ashes." He had long heard tales from the martial world about people who, rather than succumbing to despair after their Dantian was destroyed, instead awakened an unbelievably fast cultivation speed.

It seems my grandson is one of those people!

But in the next moment, as Ye Dexian recalled everything that had happened that night, his expression suddenly changed. "But isn't this all too strange?"

"What?" Ye Chong was taken aback.

"When things are this abnormal, there must be something sinister at play," Ye Dexian said, the initial elation giving way to a sobering thought. "You were just treated by Xu Ke, and your cultivation speed increased this dramatically. Could there be some kind of trick involved?" As he calmed down and connected tonight's events with Xu Ke's past actions, the whole thing started to seem incredibly suspicious.

Ye Chong's pupils constricted. He frowned, deep in thought, before finally asking, "Grandpa Jiu, why would you think that?"

"Think about it…" Ye Dexian's eyes glinted. "Xu Ke already faked his death once to deceive our Ye Family and the Huang Family. He made us lower our guard, which allowed him to capture everyone and led to the death of that useless wastrel, Ye Chen.

"So what if he's repeating his old tricks? What if he deliberately arranged for you to capture Wang Qiya, created an opportunity to treat you, and then secretly poisoned you? He could make you mistakenly believe your cultivation speed has increased, when in reality, your life is in grave danger... Don't you think that's possible?!"

In Ye Dexian's mind, tonight's incident was exactly like Xu Ke's faked death. Xu Ke was just repeating his old strategy. First, he put himself in a dangerous situation, but that was just a pretense to get close to Ye Chong and cripple him. That would also explain why Xu Ke so bizarrely appeared at Golden K tonight—it was his design from the start, a trap to eliminate Ye Chong. It would explain why Wang Wu was late, because that was part of the plan, too. If Wang Wu had shown up earlier to protect Wang Qiya, Ye Chong would never have assumed victory was his just because he had more men, nor would he have been careless enough to be crippled. It would also explain why he himself was intercepted—those men were prepared and waiting to stop him. And finally, Xu Ke offered to treat Ye Chong, making it seem like his cultivation was soaring, only for him to die at Xu Ke's hands in the end. Xu Ke had planned every step, and they had walked right into his trap. And Wang Qiya, that little white rabbit he'd initially scoffed at, was actually the bait from the very beginning, luring the entire Ye Family into this scheme.

Thinking of this, Ye Dexian's face changed drastically.

Seeing the look on his grandfather's face, Ye Chong was startled for a moment, then gave a wry smile. "Grandpa Jiu, you're overthinking this." What on earth is he talking about?!

"Why do you say that?" Ye Dexian asked, taken aback.

"When Xu Ke was treating me, weren't you all watching? Did the two doctors say he poisoned me?" Ye Chong said helplessly.

How can they connect all these dots? It's absurd. In fact, Ye Chong had thought their theories were ridiculous from the start. He felt the same way about the whole "faked death" incident—it was just wild speculation. It had to be a coincidence. Xu Ke couldn't possibly be such a meticulous planner! If Xu Ke had really calculated everything, then why did Ouyang Shuang manage to escape? Couldn't he have just sent eight or ten Innate masters to capture her?

Hearing Ye Chong's retort, Ye Dexian fell into deep thought. That does seem possible...

"Then how do you explain Xu Ke being there? Isn't that too much of a coincidence?" Ye Dexian frowned. "Could it be that Wang Qiya realized something was wrong while they were drinking and called Xu Ke ahead of time?!"

"Impossible!" Ye Chong explained. "I orchestrated Wang Qiya's arrival; I calculated it precisely. If she knew her role was to be bait rather than the prey I was about to capture, do you think her acting would be that convincing?"

He still remembered the panic on Wang Qiya's and Zhou Yiyi's faces. It was absolutely genuine.

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