A heretical cultivator in Bureau 749, I'm the fiercest at pulling out tendons and skinning peop

All the demon kings scrambled away and disappeared without a trace.

But there was still one person standing there.

Old Golden-Winged Roc.

The old bird didn't leave. With a sway, he transformed into a middle-aged man and walked step by step toward Ji Zuodao's bubbling alchemy furnace.

Yuan Xiaotong scratched the back of his hairy head, glanced at the old Golden-Winged Roc, then turned to look at Ji Zuodao, and muttered to himself:

"Hey Dao, what's this old guy up to? Why isn't he running around here?"

Ji Zuodao raised his leg and kicked Yuan Xiaotong in the buttocks.

Yuan Xiaotong blinked, not feeling any pain—Dao Ge hadn't exerted any force at all.

Ji Zuodao glared at him with exasperation:

"You little rascal, is your brain rented? Are you in such a hurry or what? What else can you do? Want a son, of course! Didn't you hear the Empress's golden words? She ordered all these little bastards to be taken home and locked up! If you hadn't been so quick, this bird would be cooked to a crisp by now, what good would it do then!"

As he spoke, he turned and roared at the group of monsters who were still busy working on Jin Yu:

"Hurry, hurry! Be quick! Breast meat! Breast meat is the most tender! Tear off as much as possible! It'll get tough and dry when you cook it!"

Jin Yu, who had been pinned to the ground and divided up, was now convulsing in pain, desperately needing to urinate, but unable to—

That despicable monkey Yuan Xiaotong somehow produced a stone and precisely blocked his cloaca.

Jin Yu was filled with hatred, gritting his teeth and plotting: Once I'm out of this predicament, I'll make sure to eat your monkey brains dipped in fermented bean curd every day!

Just as Jin Yu was pondering how to cook monkey brains, he looked up and saw his father, the Golden-Winged Roc, walking steadily towards him step by step.

"father--!!!"

Jin Yu's face was covered in tears and snot. With all her might, she howled, her voice so shrill and mournful, like a chicken whose neck had been stepped on.

"Father! Help me! Help me, Father! It hurts! I want to go home!"

He stared at his father with such pleading eyes that his will to survive was practically bursting out.

The old Golden-Winged Roc walked closer, stopped, and without looking at his son, first looked up at Ji Zuodao.

Ji Zuodao grinned and opened the door first: "Old man, let's get this straight. Once it's cooked, it's our food, and you can't ask for it back. Everyone in the underworld knows this rule."

The old Golden-Winged Roc remained silent, his cold, hard face expressionless.

He silently and slowly drew a knife from the lining of his magnificent feathered robe.

"Whoosh—"

Almost the instant the blade was drawn, Su Xiaoxiao silently stood in front of Ji Zuodao, her beautiful eyes coldly locked onto the old Golden-Winged Roc.

Behind her, the group of second-generation demons who were tearing meat and cooking in the hot pot also stopped their work instantly. Their eyes were sharp and their auras were surging, and they subtly surrounded the old Golden-Winged Roc.

The atmosphere suddenly became tense.

Ji Zuodao suddenly clicked his tongue, reached out, and gently placed his hand on Su Xiaoxiao's rounded shoulder, pulling her a little behind him.

"Don't be nervous."

His tone was quite relaxed, even a little playful. He looked the old Golden-Winged Roc up and down at the knife in his hand, then glanced at the expressionless face, and a smirk appeared on his lips.

"That old man...tsk, he's here to do professional work."

After saying that, he turned around and kicked Yuan Xiaotong, who was still in a daze.

"What are you all standing there for? Move aside, make room for the professionals!"

"Huh? Ah!"

Yuan Xiaotong finally realized what was going on. Although he still didn't quite understand what "professional" meant, he immediately jumped aside when Dao Ge asked him to move aside, and didn't forget to push the stone blocking Jin Yu's cloaca a little further in.

"Father! Father! They're going to kill me! Quickly..."

Jin Yu felt a surge of joy when he saw his father draw his sword.

Dad's about to take him away! Sure enough, a father is still a father!

However, the old Golden-Winged Roc finally turned his attention to his son.

His gaze was deep and heavy, like a frozen pool that had been pressed down for eternity, unable to reflect even the slightest ripple.

"father……"

Jin Yu felt a tremor in his heart under that gaze, and his voice weakened.

The old Golden-Winged Roc gripped his knife and walked step by step to the golden feathers, which were only intact above the chest, before crouching down.

The moonlight fell on his profile, half bright and half dark.

"My son, the roc should not be stuck in the mud, much less be confined in a small cage, with broken wings and claws, barely clinging to life."

"father!"

Jin Yu sensed something was wrong, and her voice suddenly became sharp, filled with a sob and unprecedented fear.

"No! Father! Your son is willing! Your son is willing to struggle in the mud! Your son is willing to be locked up! As long as I live! Father! Let me live! Please, Father!"

The old Golden-Winged Roc stretched out his hand, which was still steady and strong, and gently brushed across the face of the golden-feathered creature, which was covered with blood and tears. The movement could even be described as gentle.

"It looks terrible, son."

He spoke softly, as if sighing.

The moment the words fell—

A flash of light!

Swish! Swish swish swish swish—!

There was no earth-shattering momentum, no fancy moves.

Only the simplest, most efficient, and most ruthless slashes.

The old Golden-Winged Roc moved so fast that only a blurry afterimage remained. The knife in his hand precisely sliced ​​across the neck, chest, and abdomen where the golden feathers had not yet been torn...

There were no screams.

Perhaps it was too fast, or perhaps Jin Yu simply didn't have time to make a sound.

The only sounds were the dull thud of a sharp blade cutting through flesh and severing bones, and the hissing of blood splattering.

Just a few breaths.

The glint of the blade faded.

All that remained were a pile of uniformly sized, separated meat from bone, and even somewhat neatly arranged pieces of meat.

The scene was deathly silent.

Only the night wind rustled through the wild grass, making a soft whisper.

After doing all this, the old Golden-Winged Roc slowly turned around and faced Ji Zuodao again.

His face remained expressionless as he looked at Ji Zuodao and slowly spoke, his voice somewhat hoarse:

"Do as you please. The rules of monsters are that the winner takes all and the strong prey on the weak. You have won this time, so he is your prey. As his father, all I can do is let him die sooner to avoid suffering, so that I won't have to worry too much before I die."

After a moment of silence, the old Golden-Winged Roc spoke again:

"Actually, I don't think my son did anything wrong."

"He ended up like this not because he did evil, but because he chose the wrong prey."

Upon hearing this, Ji Zuodao immediately burst out laughing.

"Your son ended up like this because after all these years, he still doesn't understand whose rules to follow in the Han Dynasty, in this region."

"Want to play your old monster ancestors' tricks? Fine, go back to your deep mountains and forests, sit on your tree branches, do whatever you want, nobody cares."

"But you, you're so greedy for the glitz and glamour of the world, the skyscrapers, the fine wines and delicacies, the conveniences and advancements, that you can't bear to leave; yet you turn around and try to use your mountain folk's 'might makes right' rule to bully this person and scheme against that person..."

"What's wrong?"

"You think you get all the good things? Does everyone in the world revolve around you?"

He scoffed, his tone full of undisguised sarcasm:

As the old saying goes, without rules, nothing can be accomplished.

"On Han territory, one must abide by Han rules!"

"These rules are for humans, but also for those monsters who want to settle down here, breathe, and make a living!"

"Feeling stifled? Feeling uncomfortable? Feeling that your wild spirit, capable of soaring through the skies, is being restrained?"

"Easy!"

Ji Zuodao spread his hands, pointing to the dark, continuous mountain shadows in the distance:

"The mountain is there, so go wherever you want, fly wherever you want, fight with whoever you want, nobody's stopping you."

"It's a new era, you old codger. You can't adapt to the new thinking, still clinging to that outdated, stale notion of demon race glory..."

Ji Zuodao grinned, revealing a smile that could only be described as wicked.

"Then they deserve it, to be crushed by the wheels of time, crushed to the bone."

The old Golden-Winged Roc fell silent.

He stood there, his figure appearing somewhat hunched in the moonlight. Several seconds passed before he slowly exhaled a breath of stale air.

He didn't look at Ji Zuodao again, nor at his son's remains on the ground.

He turned around, his figure flickered, and he transformed back into that magnificent and majestic golden roc, yet inexplicably exuding a sense of melancholy.

With a flap of its wings, it soared into the sky.

Its direction, however, was to fly straight up to a higher place, to the cloud where Zhang Yucheng and the others were.

Ji Zuodao crossed his arms, looked up at the golden light disappearing into the clouds, and pursed his lips.

It's just a restricted area, right? Stop running around outside, it's not like you'll lose a piece of your flesh.

"It's better to live a miserable life than to die a good death," don't you understand this old saying? Why do you have to risk your own life? What's the point?

Forget it.

He'd been hanging out with these monsters for so many years, he was used to it.

The more ancient a monster's bloodline, the more eccentric and stubborn it becomes in certain aspects, like a donkey that won't turn back even after hitting a wall.

Just like the group of vixens around him.

Ji Zuo was very shrewd, and these foxes admired him; their watery fox eyes couldn't hide anything.

But he couldn't figure it out.

Ji Zuodao is no good.

He's knocked the little fox's head over the shoulder, cheated her out of her feelings, and swindled her out of her money. He's definitely the worst of the worst, the most despicable of all scoundrels.

What do these vixens see in this thing?

I thought and thought, my head was throbbing, but I still couldn't come up with anything.

Finally, Ji Zuodao shrugged and said, "Fine, I don't want to think about it anymore."

The brain circuits of monsters, especially those with ancient bloodlines, are completely different from those of normal people.

If they're happy with it, then they're happy with it.

As for Jin Yu, the unlucky son of the old Golden-Winged Roc, why didn't he inherit his father's "useless arrogance"?

Hey, isn't that simple?

It's only natural for a group to produce a few cowardly, spineless, and useless people.

The stubbornness and pride passed down from our ancestors isn't something that's wholesaled; it can't be shared by everyone, can it?

There always have to be a few who slip through the net and drag down the average level of the whole clan.

Otherwise, where would the beauty of the demon race's uniqueness be displayed?

Then, as if suddenly remembering something, he raised his voice and, in a volume loud enough for those on the clouds to hear, lazily shouted:

"Hey! Uncle Zhang—!"

"Be careful not to break it too much!"

"I only have one bird and one wolf here, which isn't enough to feed me!"

"At least leave them a whole corpse—we can make a big stew later!"

The night wind carried his voice far away.

Above the clouds, a sigh, whether of helplessness or amusement, seemed to faintly drift through the air.