The Crippled Son-in-law? Try Immortal Emperor

002

The lead enforcer strode forward and grabbed Lin Feng by his collar, dragging him away from the straw bedding without a single word of explanation.

"Release me! My daughter is dying!" Lin Feng screamed, his fingers clawing desperately at the dirt floor as the guards pinned his arms behind his back. The enforcers ignored his cries, lifting his crippled body and throwing him face-first into the freezing mud of the outer courtyard.

Lin Tian stood waiting in the torrential rain, triumphantly holding a glowing, pristine orb that pulsed with an intense spiritual energy. "Father! Look what I found hidden right near the cripple's woodshed!" Lin Tian shouted toward the main pavilion, his face twisted in a malicious grin. "The Nine-Heaven Yin Core! The trash actually dared to steal the clan's ultimate heirloom!"

"You worthless thief!" Patriarch Lin bellowed, storming down the pavilion steps as his terrifying cultivation aura flared so violently it shattered the nearby stone lanterns. "That core is our clan’s entire foundation! I allowed you into this family out of pity, and you steal our future?" The old man's eyes burned with an absolute, unbridled rage.

"I didn't take it! I've never even seen that core in my life!" Lin Feng shouted back, struggling wildly against the guards who were pinning him into the freezing slush. His knuckles turned white as he tried to break free, his chest heaving with deep panic. He could see his daughter's life being stripped away if they dragged him away now.

"Save your breath, trash," Lin Tian laughed, leaning down to plant his heavy, wet boot right on Lin Feng's cheek, grinding his face into the gravel. "I personally placed it near your shed while you were busy begging upstairs," the young master whispered so only Lin Feng could hear. "My sister is finally free from a burden like you, and Father will happily approve your death now."

Lin Feng’s eyes turned entirely blood-red as he thrashed against his restraints, a primitive fury exploding within his veins. "You framed me! You're going to kill my daughter!" he shrieked, his voice tearing from the raw emotion. Above them, Lin Muyao stepped out onto the balcony, watching the entire spectacle with a completely indifferent, cold expression.

"Muyao! Tell them!" Lin Feng pleaded, looking up at his wife through the pouring rain. "You know I never went near the secret treasury! You know I've been in that shed all day!" She merely adjusted her white fox furs and looked away into the distance, completely ignoring his desperate cries as if he were already a corpse.

From the shattered doorway of the woodshed, a tiny, shivering figure crawled out into the freezing slush, coughing violently. "Daddy! Don't hurt my Daddy!" Nina cried out, her small hands scraping against the rough gravel as she tried to drag her weak body forward. She coughed up a thick splatter of black fluid, her face entirely pale.

"Grandpa! Please don't kill Daddy!" Nina begged, kneeling and bowing her tiny head toward Patriarch Lin in the freezing rain. "Take me instead! Punch me, kick me, just let my Daddy stay! I'll be good, I won't ask for medicine anymore!" The six-year-old screamed through her tears, her small body shaking from the bitter cold.

Lin Tian scoffed in disgust, delivering a brutal backhand slap that sent the small, sick girl flying across the mud. "Keep your filthy peasant mouth shut, bastard brat!" Lin Tian roared, raising his foot to stomp on her tiny chest.

"No! Touch her again and I'll tear your soul apart!" Lin Feng shrieked, his voice breaking from pure agony.

He fought with a strength that shouldn't belong to a cripple, nearly snapping the wrists of the two enforcers holding him down.

Nina weakly pushed herself up from the puddle, her face bruised and bleeding, yet her eyes remained fixed on her father. "Please... let me go with him," she whispered, crawling back toward the guards. "Don't leave Nina alone here."

"Drag the thief to the Ashen Pits!" Patriarch Lin ordered, completely unmoved by the child's desperate wailing. "Throw him into the execution canyon and let the sulfur dissolve his existence entirely." They dragged Lin Feng away across the sharp stones, his eyes locked onto the small, crying figure of his daughter until she was lost in the rain.

The journey to the Ashen Pits was a blur of excruciating physical pain and overwhelming, suffocating despair for Lin Feng. He was brought to the edge of the legendary, terrifying chasm where boiling sulfur currents roared below like a living beast. The wind inside the canyon carried razor-sharp iron storms, a localized hell that had swallowed hundreds of failed cultivators before him.

He stood at the slippery precipice, his body shivering violently from the bitter cold and the sheer weight of the frost-iron chains. The freezing metal bit into his raw wrists, but he could barely feel it over the absolute horror paralyzing his chest. He was completely terrified, his soul fractured by the nightmare of leaving his sick daughter alone with those monsters.

Why did the Patriarch force Muyao to marry me three years ago if they hated me this much? Lin Feng thought, his mind spinning in chaotic, broken loops. Why are they so absolutely bent on separating me from my only remaining family? He was completely powerless against their overwhelming cultivation, a fragile mortal standing before gods who viewed him as trash.

Patriarch Lin stepped up to the edge, looking down at Lin Feng like an annoying, insignificant insect. "An ungrateful thief deserves the deepest, most agonizing burial our clan can offer," the Patriarch stated with absolute finality. "Push him over," Lin Tian commanded, a maniacal, joyous grin spreading across his aristocratic face as the enforcers stepped forward.

The enforcers violently shoved Lin Feng backward, sending him plummeting directly into the dark, jagged depths of the canyon.

"Nina!" Lin Feng screamed into the roaring wind, his voice swallowed by the sheer force of the sulfur gale. As he plummeted, his mind couldn't process a single possible path out of this terrifying nightmare.

He only felt the crushing, unbearable weight of leaving his helpless, abused daughter entirely at the mercy of the Lin clan. His soul screamed out in raw, unadulterated resentment against the unfairness of the heavens and the cruelty of men. The jagged iron storms instantly tore into his flesh, shredding his clothes and slicing deep into his limbs.

The scalding sulfur currents boiled his skin, pushing his consciousness to the absolute brink. Yet, as flesh tore from bone, the agonizing pain suddenly went numb, replaced by a strange, vacuum-like silence. The roaring wind faded entirely, and the jagged iron shards hovering around him slowed to a complete, unnatural standstill in mid-air.

Through the swirling gray ash, a soft, ethereal silver light manifested in front of his failing vision. The light coalesced into the gentle silhouette of a woman clad in a blood-stained ritual robe. Lin Feng’s heart gave a violent thud as he recognized the beautiful, compassionate face of his deceased first wife, Xue'er.

"Xue'er..." Lin Feng sobbed internally, a wave of profound, agonizing emotion crashing through his shattered soul. "Is it really you? I... I missed you so much. The pain has been so unbearable, Xue'er. I'm coming to join you now. I can finally rest with you."

Xue'er floated closer, her phantom hands gently cradling his burning, blistered face with a warmth that completely neutralized the stinging sulfur. Tears of pure spiritual light rolled down her pale cheeks as she looked into his broken eyes with deep sorrow and unyielding love. "No, my love, you cannot rest yet," her voice echoed softly, vibrating with a heavy, heartbreaking weight.

"You cannot come to me while our little Nina is still up there, crying out your name in the dark," she whispered, her expression turning fiercely desperate. "Those cruel monsters have broken you, but the heavens have not forsaken our grief. They have granted you an ultimate power to rewrite this injustice, to protect our daughter, and to destroy those who slaughtered our family."

"Hold on, Lin Feng! Live, seek justice, and exact our revenge!" she cried out as her ethereal form began to fracture into brilliant silver particles. Lin Feng reached out with his shredded fingers, screaming silently as she dissolved into the dark, leaving him with a roaring, calcified willpower. As the last silver spark vanished, an ancient, colossal dark structure vibrated violently at the absolute foundation of his dying consciousness.

[Ding! Deep calcified grief and ancestral mandate detected. Activating the Forbidden Sovereign Trainer System.]

[System Protocol: Forcible Empowerment initialized. Accessing the Hall of the Fallen Transcendents.]