The Retard

Wu City housed five major powerhouses which are the Long clan, Yun Pavillion, Xiao clan, Luo manor, and lastly the imperial family, Wu clan. The strongest of all of them is the Wu clan and the Long clan is second to them. Another name for Wu city was Imperial city because this city was where the imperial family was located in.

Although Wu empire wasn't the strongest empire in the continent, it still had enough influence to put in the top 100 strongest empires. There were many hidden tigers and dragons hiding in the Wu Empire which was what put it in the top 100 strongest empires in the continent. The ranking was made by the mysterious sect Heaven Peaking sect. There were many more rankings created by them and many people liked to gossip about the rankings.

Inside the Long clan's manor, there was a particular individual that was disliked by most of the clansmen. He was Long Tian, the son of the grand elder who was born retarded, or so they thought. Long Tian wasn't actually retarded, but a label given to him by his clansmen. Since the day he was born, he barely spoke any words. When he was given the most basic cultivation technique of the Long clan, it took him many hours just to comprehend the first part.

The grand elder of the Long clan felt that it would bring shame to his name of he kept a son like him around so he disowned him. This world wasn't a peaceful world, but one where the strongest will reign and the weak will suffer. Disowning his son wasn't actually his true goal, but to indirectly protect his son. When he was young, the grand elder was known to court trouble and he had made a lot of enemies. If he spoiled his son or even acknowledged him as his son, Long Tian's life would never be safe. Even inside the clan, there would be people who would target him. If Long Tian had a bright future ahead of him, then the grand elder wouldn't need to do this, but Long Tian had a not-so-promising future. Most likely, he would remain in the first stage of Qi Condensation for many years to come.

The person in question was sleeping carefreely on his bed. What he didn't know was that after a year of being disowned, there were some people who used to be envious of him that began to scheme against him. With no one to protect him, Long Tian would surely suffer under their hands. Tonight was the night they planned to carry out the plan and dispose of this retard.

One of the people was Xun Lei, a disciple of the Long clan who had a promising future. He wanted to be the disciple of the grand elder two years ago but was rejected. He took his anger out on Long Tian, but before he could harm him, the grand elder beat him to a pulp. He didn't recover until a month ago from the internal injuries caused by the grand elder. Xun Lei decided that tonight, he will get vengeance against the grand elder by dumping his biological child into the most dangerous place, The Hole of Abyss. In the entire continent, no one dared to venture deep into this hole. Even if they wanted to, there was no known bottom to this hole. Legend has it that anyone who fell into that hole would keep falling for eternity. Another name for this hole was the bottomless pit.

During the night, several people sneaked into Long Tian's small court. Two stood near the entrance to look out for people while the rest went toward's Long Tian's small abode. In the Long clan, the disciples of the clan were divided into two categories which were outer disciples and inner disciples. If you were from the Long clan, then you would be an inner disciple, but if you enter the clan by passing their exams, then you would be an outer disciple. A way to differentiate inner and outer disciples were by their names. Only inner disciples would have Long in their name.

The leader of the group spoke with a serious tone, "Make sure to not alert anyone or else we are done for."

The rest: "Roger that."

*Woosh*

It didn't take them a long time to enter Long Tian's room and feed him a sleeping pill without waking up Long Tian. Now that Long Tian was force-fed a sleeping pill, the mission will be way easier.

They put Long Tian in a leather bag with a hole made for breathing. As soundless as they came, they left without making a sound. From just this alone, one can interpret that these group of kidnappers were true experts. If they had made a single mistake of making sound, the Long clan would've been alerted. Long Tian's father especially kept an open ear during the night in case he heard the sound of Long Tian. He knew that if Long Tian called for help, no one would lift a finger, for Long Tian was just a dead weight in the clan.

The abyss hole was located right in the center of the continent. The Wu empire was right next to the abyss hole but the journey would take a while. Even by carriage, the fastest they can arrive there was by 16 days. The kidnappers, however, weren't going to take a carriage but travel by a different method. In Xuanhuang continent, there were many methods to travel and one of the famous methods was by carriage. But for cultivators, they could use spirit swords to fly from one place to another or even those who had reached high realms can fly on their own.

The reason why these experts were hired by Xun Lei was that they were efficient and got things done quickly. He had to fork up tons of gold just to hire them, but it would all be worth it. If Long Tian is gone, then the inner demon that had been slowing down his cultivation would be gone. He might even have a break through to the next stage.

Inside the leather luggage, Long Tian still remained fast asleep due to being drugged. He was being carried by the leader of the group as they flew on their spirit swords. The leader of the group was thinking about how easy it was to kidnap the biological son of the grand elder of the clan. The patriarch of the clan should've at least sensed them with his high realm. The leader felt that there was more to the story than just being paid by Xun Lie to perform this mission.

The leader's thoughts were right on point. Xun Lie wouldn't dare to order experts to kidnap an inner member of the Long clan. Moreover, he wouldn't be able to afford to hire these experts. Who was behind this mission was unknown, but they were able to hinder the patriarch and the grand elder from detecting anyone breaking into the clan's manor. The leader thought that the person behind this must've most likely timed when the grand elder and patriarch weren't inside the manor. Thinking of all of this, the leader felt pity for Long Tian because even inside his clan's manor, he wasn't safe. Forget about being guarded against disciples, his father also needed to indirectly guard him against elders.

Back in the Long clan, it has already been a while since Long Tian has been kidnapped. Somewhere in the Long manor, there were two people discussing inside a somewhat dark room.

Unknown person #1: "Has it been accomplished?"

Unknown person #2: "The first half of the mission has been accomplished, elder."

Unknown person #1: "Mhm, that's good. Since they were able to accomplish the first part, the second part will surely be accomplished too. But who knows what the future holds. You can leave."

With the elder's command, the second person left the room. Inside the room, only the elder remained as he stared at the moon from his window. When the moon sets and the sun rises, the patriarch and the grand elder would be back. They had left earlier this day for a meeting held by the Wu clan. The city lords of every city must be present and the patriarch of the four other major powerhouses in Wu clan must be present too. This meeting would be to discuss the future of the empire and improving the daily life of the common people.

The previous patriarch of the Wu clan never held these meetings, but once the empress took the throne, the lives of everyone in the empire improved. Many, in fact almost all of the people in the empire supported her reign, for her changes made their lives better. The ones who didn't support her were those who were against women from being rulers.

Wu Zetian was known to be a fierce, strong, and independent woman. Although only a royal concubine, she was the favorite of the emperor. Once the emperor died, she became the concubine of his son, the new emperor, who later elevated her from a concubine to his empress. The new emperor was a sickly one and eventually died from his illness. Due to his death, many clans who harbored for the throne began to cause a ruckus and tried to pit the royal princes and princesses against each other. No one considered Wu Zetian would step up and proclaim herself as the new ruler of the empire.

At the time, many were against this, but Wu Zetian wasn't like any other lady. She was known to be decisive and fierce and those who tried to plot against her met bad endings. Even some of the princes and princesses were put to death by her because they threatened her reign.

The ones who supported Wu Zetian's reign the most was the Long clan. The patriarch of the Long clan saw Wu Zetian has a ray of hope for the common people that were suffering and all the women that were oppressed.

After hours later, the sun rose and as foretold by the elder, the patriarch and the grand elder were back. The moment they landed, the grand elder checked on Long Tian. The patriarch who saw this couldn't help but saying, "If you still care about him, why did you abandon him at first?"

Grand elder: "Hais, elder brother, I didn't abandon him because he was a 'retard', but to protect him."

Patriarch: "Foolish! With me behind you and being the grand elder, who dares to mess with little Tian?"

Grand Elder: "That's what I also thought too, but people still dare to do so. Remember that Xun Lie kid? He even dared to vent out his anger on my child. I truly planned to skin him alive if you didn't stop me."

All of a sudden, the grand elder's expression changed.

Patriarch: "What's wrong?"

Grand elder didn't answer, instead, spread his spiritual qi around the whole manor trying to sense for Long Tian. Yet, he couldn't find Long Tian anywhere.

Grand Elder looked at his brother as his face lost all color. The grand elder spoke to the patriarch, "Elder brother, this is bad. I can't find Tian'er in his court nor in the whole manor. Something must've happened."

Patriarch: "Don't panic, maybe he went to the city or something."

Grand elder shook his head as he knew that Long Tian never left the manor. In fact, he barely ever left his court and mostly stayed in his court. Thoughts like Long Tian went out to the city for entertainment or other things weren't possible. If Long Tian even did that, then the sun must've risen from the west side.

Grand Elder: "That's not possible."

The grand elder and the patriarch headed towards the guards who guarded the gates. They would know if Long Tian had left the manor or not.