The Crippled Son-in-law? Try Immortal Emperor

001

The ice-cold winter rain of the Lin clan estate poured down without mercy as Lin Feng knelt in the freezing mud. He held up a tattered piece of parchment with violently trembling hands, watching helplessly as the rainwater smeared the ink of the clinic's admission note.

"Please, Muyao," Lin Feng choked out, his voice raw, cracking, and barely audible over the storm. "The Central Healing Pavilion requires twenty spiritual stones for immediate admission. I am not asking for a handout, I only need enough to save our daughter's life."

Above him stood his wife, Lin Muyao, draped in expensive, snow-white fox furs that didn't catch a single drop of the surrounding filth. She looked down at him from the top of the grand stairs, her exceptionally beautiful facial features completely rigid, her eyes filled with nothing but absolute disgust and cold indifference.

"Your daughter?" she asked, her voice sounding as biting and sharp as the winter wind whistling through the courtyard. "A useless, crippled waste dares to talk about family responsibilities to me? She is not my daughter, and I will never pay a single spiritual stone to keep her breathing."

"Nina is burning up with an unnatural fever!" Lin Feng cried out, the sheer despair tearing through his chest like a blade. "She may not survive the night if she doesn't get medicine! Please, Muyao, look into your heart and think of her just this once!"

"Was I the one who killed her birth mother six years ago?" Muyao sneered back, taking a deliberate step away from him. "Her broken life and her pathetic sickness have absolutely nothing to do with me, so stop using her name to beg at my feet."

Three years ago, Lin Feng had remarried into this wealthy family after losing his entire birth clan to a mysterious, bloody massacre three years prior. He had completely swallowed his pride and signed the degrading marriage contract solely to secure the promised financial and medical support needed to care for his young child.

But the marriage had been a calculated trap from the start; the moment the ancestral vows were sealed, the Lin family stripped away his remaining dignity. They treated him like a common animal, denying him the funds they had explicitly promised while forcing him into complete, humiliating isolation.

Two years ago, he had even thrown his own body in front of a lethal poison dart to protect Lin Muyao from a rogue cultivator's ambush. The clan had deliberately left the dark toxin to rot inside his spine, permanently shattering his spiritual meridians and leaving him a completely powerless cripple.

Now, looking up at the cruel woman he had literally bled to protect, Lin Feng realized with absolute clarity that she truly did not care if his daughter lived or died. The realization settled into his bones, colder than the freezing rain soaking through his tattered clothing.

"The clan's treasury is meant for rising cultivators, not for feeding useless parasites," a mocking, arrogant voice suddenly boomed from the open pavilion doors. Lin Muyao's younger brother, Lin Tian, stepped forward onto the platform with a wide, vicious smile playing on his lips.

Before Lin Feng could even react, Lin Tian lunged forward and delivered a brutal kick squarely into his unprotected chest. The heavy, leather-bound boot slammed into Lin Feng's ribs with an audible crack, sending him rolling backward down the stairs into the filthy puddle below.

Lin Feng coughed violently, a mixture of cold rainwater and thick, dark crimson blood erupting from his mouth as he struggled to breathe. His fists instantly clenched in the mud, his knuckles turning pure white as a primitive, boiling fury surged through his broken, poisoned veins.

If his spiritual meridians weren't shattered by that wretched toxin, he could have torn this arrogant young master to pieces in a matter of seconds. He would have given Lin Tian a lethal lesson he would never forget, but the heartbreaking image of his dying daughter flashed in his mind.

Ego and personal pride meant absolutely nothing to him if it cost him the life of the only person he had left in this cruel world. Swallowing his intense rage along with his own blood, Lin Feng crawled back through the mud, dragging his useless, heavy legs toward the steps.

He pressed his forehead hard against the freezing stone step, the impact making a dull, desperate thud that echoed through the pouring rain. "I beg you, Lin Tian!" Lin Feng yelled, his entire body shaking. "If the hospital is out of the question, just let a low-tier herbs-man look at her!"

"Just for tonight! Just for a few minutes to stop the coughing!" he pleaded frantically, banging his head against the stone once more. "I will sign a permanent, lifelong slavery contract for the clan's dangerous spirit mines! I will do anything you want, just save her!"

Lin Tian burst into a loud, mocking laugh, stepping down the stairs and grinding the heel of his boot directly onto Lin Feng's bleeding fingers. "Let a medical expert waste valuable spiritual Qi on a peasant bastard?" Lin Tian sneered, leaning down incredibly close to Lin Feng's ear.

"You and your daughter are nothing but useless, poor fools," the young master whispered with venomous, unchecked delight. "We don't consider her family, and we never will. Go back to your broken woodshed right now and wait for her to rot."

Lin Feng gritted his teeth so hard they nearly cracked, the throbbing pain in his crushed hand completely numb compared to the agonizing ache in his heart. Lin Tian leaned even closer, his eyes gleaming with a dark, hidden malice that made Lin Feng's blood run cold.

"Do you honestly think you ever deserved to be my sister's husband?" Lin Tian taunted, laughing quietly under his breath. "She never even let you touch her, did she? The Patriarch forced her to pretend and marry you for a specific reason you'll never comprehend."

"But you know what? I'm going to save my sister from this embarrassment once and for all," the young master hissed, his grip tightening on Lin Feng's wet hair. "I will personally force the Patriarch to order your execution very soon, so look forward to it, trash."

The revelation struck Lin Feng like a physical blow, making the sudden, freezing shift in Lin Muyao's behavior immediately after their wedding completely logical. She had never loved him; she had merely played a part, and her family had used his body as a shield before discarding him entirely.

Lin Muyao didn't utter a single word to contradict her brother's cruel words, simply turning her back to the courtyard and walking into the warm, glowing pavilion. "Get out of our sight before I break your other legs," Lin Tian barked, kicking Lin Feng one last time before following his sister inside.

Lin Feng lay in the mud for a long, agonizing moment, the heavy rain washing the fresh blood from his face as his soul fractured into a thousand pieces. He didn't waste time on a useless scream of rage; he knew he had to get back to the woodshed before it was too late.

Leaning heavily against the freezing stone walls, he dragged his broken, aching body across the massive estate to the damp, isolated shed at the far edge. The wooden door was warped and didn't close properly, letting the freezing winter wind howl through the wide cracks in the boards.

Inside, sitting on a pile of moldy, frozen straw under a single, torn blanket, was his six-year-old daughter, Nina. Her tiny face was deathly pale, her skin translucent, and her lips had turned a terrifying shade of blue as she gasped rapidly for air.

When she heard his heavy, limping footsteps crossing the threshold, she weakly forced her eyes open, tears instantly welling up in them. "Daddy..." she whispered, her voice so thin and fragile it was almost entirely swallowed by the sound of the wind outside.

Lin Feng rushed to her side, his heart bleeding as he pulled her tiny, shivering body tightly into his arms to share his remaining warmth. Nina saw the dark bruises forming on his chest through his torn shirt and noticed the fresh blood dripping from his crushed fingers.

With an immense effort that shook her entire small frame, she reached out a tiny, trembling hand and gently wiped a smear of wet mud from his cheek. "Daddy... please don't beg them anymore," she whispered, her voice cracking as a sharp spasm of pain racked her body.

"I know you're hurting," she choked out, a tiny drop of dark fluid escaping the corner of her trembling mouth. "I don't want Daddy to bow down to those bad people anymore... it's okay if I die, Daddy. Mummy and I will protect you from heaven. "

The absolute, crushing heartbreak of her words completely shattered the final remnants of Lin Feng's sanity. He held her tightly against his chest, weeping silently as his hot tears mixed with the grime on her cold forehead, his mind fracturing from the injustice of it all.

"No, no, Nina, look at me," Lin Feng begged desperately, his entire body shaking as he rocked her back and forth. "Hold on for Daddy, please. I will find a way, I swear to you on my life that I will find a way to save you!"

"Don't close your eyes, sweetheart," he pleaded, his voice breaking into an open, agonizing sob. "Daddy is right here with you. I won't let anything happen to you, just keep breathing, please, just keep breathing."

He frantically tried to wrap the torn blanket tighter around her small, frail shoulders to shield her from the freezing draft cutting through the room.

But before he could even tuck the tattered edges around her frozen feet, a loud, violent crash shattered the silence of the woodshed. The wooden door was kicked entirely off its hinges, flying across the small room and smashing into pieces against the opposite stone wall.

Three heavily armored enforcement disciples of the Lin clan stepped through the shattered opening, their unsheathed swords gleaming coldly in the dark.