When Chu Tian arrived at the entrance of the great hall, he happened to overhear the old fellows gossiping.
So he didn't enter directly.
Only when it came to the Elder Council's turn did Chu Tian finally lose his patience with these self-important elders.
In his eyes, the so-called Elder Council was a retirement home.
A collection of useless old men who had nothing better to do, a product of their idle hands.
Chu Tian entered the hall, clutching the conch shell in his hand.
His words immediately caused the group of old fellows' beards to bristle with anger.
"You, you... you are not a member of our Luo family, how dare you be so arrogant!"
Tianzu, pointing at Chu Tian, was furious.
"Did I say anything wrong? You yourself said I'm not one of your Luo family. You'd best go back to your retirement home and save some face."
Chu Tian walked in step by step, the conch shell dragging on the ground, making a grating sound.
"You... you..."
"Too arrogant..."
"Guards, throw him out!"
"Yes, throw him out!"
These Luo family elders, each with their beards and eyes wide, completely ignored Chu Tian's words.
*Clang...*
Chu Tian released the conch shell, and it fell to the ground.
Luo Lingfeng frowned when he saw what Chu Tian was holding, and then suddenly remembered what it was.
But he didn't say anything.
The elders present were not the main decision-makers of the family in their youth.
Naturally, they had never ventured deep into the forbidden grounds. The reason they were elders was simply because King Yama had spared their lives, allowing them to live longer.
Their seniority was terrifyingly high; this Tianzu was said to be an uncle to Luo Yi Yi's grandfather.
He wondered why, with such mediocre cultivation, he had lived so long.
"Cough, cough, I have a headache. Yu'er, Chengcheng, help me to the back to rest for a while. Let's take a ten-minute break!"
Luo Luo, sitting in the center, suddenly clutched her head as the conch shell hit the ground, feigning discomfort.
Her voice was not loud, but everyone in the hall heard it.
Zhang Chengcheng and Chen Yu'er, who were beside her, exchanged glances, trying to suppress their smiles.
Luo Lingfeng, who was sitting below, half-reclining in his chair, drinking tea directly from a purple clay teapot.
Once again...
*Pfft...*
He spat out a mouthful of tea.
The old fellows below were bewildered; family meetings had never had mid-session breaks.
However, since the clan leader said she was unwell, they could do nothing.
"Uh, that Yi Yi, headaches can be serious! Ninth Grandfather will go help you with your qi and treat you!"
After speaking, he followed Luo Luo and the other two women towards the back hall.
As the four figures disappeared, everyone present, except for Granny Ma, was unfamiliar with Chu Tian.
Granny Ma closed her eyes, as if she hadn't heard anything, but the slight twitching of her facial muscles indicated that her inner state was far from tranquil.
Seeing this, Chu Tian smiled. Luo Luo was truly considerate.
If she were here, he would have felt awkward handling the matters that followed.
"Cough cough... who was it that said they would throw me out just now? Was it you, old man?"
Chu Tian's gaze fell upon an old man. To outsiders, he looked to be smiling, but the old man suddenly felt his hair stand on end.
"And you, you said I was arrogant?"
Chu Tian's gaze shifted to another old man.
The other old man felt the same, but he was much tougher than the first.
He stuck out his neck and said, "It was me! You... you dare to be arrogant, or else..."
"Oh? Or else what?" Chu Tian's eyes moved, and his playful smile vanished.
"Or else... or else, the Luo family head cannot get married without our consent!"
That old fellow, perhaps his mind had gone awry, jumped to this point.
"Uh..." Chu Tian was also taken aback.
"Get married?"
He was a little confused.
"Yes, get married... We all know about your relationship with the family head. If you want to marry into the Luo family, you need the consent of our Elder Council."
In the brief moment Chu Tian was stunned, the spiritual pressure that had been bearing down on him vanished.
This old fellow immediately felt a sense of relief and his spirits revived.
"Damn it!"
Chu Tian was so amused he laughed.
The atmosphere in the hall eased.
The sect leaders and family heads from various factions allied with the Luo family couldn't help but smile, their gazes towards Chu Tian changing.
"Damn it, this rotten rule, I'll break it today. From now on, the Elder Council will be renamed the Retirement Home.
And... I'm marrying a wife, not joining through marriage..."
After Chu Tian finished laughing, his demeanor became serious.
He narrowed his eyes as he looked at the dozen or so old men before him.
"You... what do you want to do?"
Tianzu's body trembled as he questioned Chu Tian.
"What do I want to do? Just to loosen your old bones!"
*Swish...*
As Chu Tian spoke, his body suddenly vanished.
When he reappeared, he was right in front of the old man who had amused him earlier.
"You..."
As the old man was about to speak, his feet staggered, and he took half a step back.
*Slap...*
A clear, crisp sound echoed throughout the entire hall.
Everyone was stunned. Even Granny Ma opened her eyes, but her eyes held not shock, but pity.
These old fellows truly did not know Chu Tian's temper.
Luo Luo and Luo Lingfeng had already hidden.
They were still unaware of what was happening, truly a bunch of blockheads.
The family heads and sect leaders of the various families had their jaws on the floor.
This brat was truly arrogant; this slap not only struck a person but also shattered the Luo family's reputation into pieces.
Although they did not think highly of these old men who were just idling away, they were, after all, members of the Luo family's Elder Council.
However, Chu Tian was not finished.
His body moved like a phantom, darting between the old fellows.
*Slap, slap, slap, slap, slap...*
"You wanted to throw me out, right..."
"You said my words were slander, right?"
"And you, you said I was arrogant, right?"
"I'll show you what arrogance looks like today!"
"Damn it, you still want me to join through marriage?"
"You want my woman to get married and need your consent?"
"You want to be cowardly turtles and seal off the small world?"
Chu Tian's voice echoed in the hall.
The continuous slapping sounds formed a symphony.
In the blink of an eye, each of the dozen or so old fellows had received at least two symmetrical slaps.
The only one not hit was Tianzu.
Finally, *crack...*
The sound of a teacup shattering was heard.
Chu Tian's figure reappeared, all his phantom afterimages returning to his main body like a slow-motion sequence.
He turned his gaze towards where the sound originated.
It was Sect Leader Li of the Xuan Tian Sect, whom he recognized.
As he was wiping the teacup in his hand, it inexplicably slipped from his grasp and fell to the ground.
Seeing Chu Tian's gaze, and all eyes in the hall shifting towards him.
Sect Leader Li trembled instantly.
"I... I'm sorry!"
He quickly bowed to pick up the pieces. To think that he, a sect leader, would stoop to pick up broken shards from the ground at such a moment.
But it showed the immense shadow Chu Tian had cast upon him.
No one else laughed at him; they thought they would likely do the same if they were in his shoes.
This brat was too formidable, truly audacious.
No matter who you were, he'd slap you first.
Let alone those old fellows who had no cultivation, even if it were them, they probably couldn't escape being slapped.
Because, in that instant, they hadn't even seen how Chu Tian had made his move.
Moreover, he had attacked more than a dozen people simultaneously.
In three seconds, the crisp slaps overlapped like popping beans.
This brat's movement speed was fast, and his striking speed was even faster.
What was even stranger was that the ones who were slapped seemed unharmed, as if they hadn't been hit.
However, just as they thought of this.
"Ouch..."
Suddenly, those who had been dealt with by Chu Tian cried out in pain simultaneously.
The next second, their cheeks instantly began to swell.
In the blink of an eye, they all swelled up like blown-up balloons.
They were shiny and smooth, like scalded pigs' heads, freshly plucked and out of the pot.
It seemed as if they would explode if touched lightly.
"You... you... what do you take our Luo family for, acting like this?"
Tianzu, though not slapped, trembled with rage, pointing at Chu Tian.
It wasn't that he was particularly brave, but he genuinely felt that the Luo family's dignity was utterly ruined.
His words were perfectly timed, as if he were standing on moral high ground.
Those present also nodded slightly.
Chu Tian's assault on the Luo family's elder predecessors, setting aside their elder titles,
They were elders by seniority.
He shouldn't have done that.
"Heh heh..."
*Slap, slap...*
Chu Tian's response was a light chuckle.
Then, Tianzu, who had not been dealt with earlier, was thoroughly disciplined.
It lasted for a full ten seconds.
He received at least a hundred slaps.
Finally, Chu Tian took a step back.
Tianzu was stunned, because this time, Chu Tian used a spinning slap.
The old man was stopped by Chu Tian's final slap and
fell directly to the ground.
"I am merely enforcing family law. You are spewing fear and doubt. At a time of crisis for the world, you wish to abandon your compatriots.
You, as the oldest member of the Luo family, are weak and incompetent, and you even try to suppress the clan leader's decision with the retirement home... uh... Elder Council."
After stabilizing himself, Chu Tian suddenly pointed at the old men who looked like pigs' heads.
Righteously and with powerful conviction, he declared.
*Crack... crack...*
A series of shattering teacup sounds.
Some even dropped the weapons they were fiddling with.
Everyone thought, this brat is not only arrogant, his skills are formidable, but his mouth is also厉害.
He could turn black into white.
"In...nei shen ge?"
This time, not only Tianzu spoke, but many of the pig-headed old men chimed in.
They were almost driven mad, and several had already fainted.
However, no one could understand what they were saying.
Their faces were so swollen that their pronunciation was abnormal.
However, Chu Tian smiled and said.
"Hmph, why should I? Because my surname is Chu, my grandfather is Chu Batian, and the Chu family is the foremost among the Nine Great Families!"
As Chu Tian spoke, his body soared into the air.
He flew directly to the highest seat in the center of the great hall.
The place where Luo Luo sat was merely in the middle, with a large chair placed at the highest position,
not actually sitting on that ink jade stone chair.
As Chu Tian flew and landed,
he directly took his seat upon the majestic and enormous, large enough to be a bed, head seat.
"And I... am the contemporary patriarch of the Chu family, Chu Tian!"
At this moment, Chu Tian finished his final sentence.
Silence...
It lasted for a full minute.
Then came an uproar.
"Nine Great Families?"
"Chu Family?"
"I remember, our sect's records do mention the Nine Great Families."
"Yes, I've also seen our sect's records. I thought it was a typo at the time."
"So..."
"This... isn't it fake?"
"Don't talk nonsense, look at Elder Madam Ma. If it were fake, she would have spoken by now."
This reversal was explosive news for everyone present.
The Luo family elders who had been hit looked incredulous.
Tianzu squinted at Chu Tian.
If it weren't for the fact that his swollen face made it impossible to discern his expression, he would have been utterly shocked.
"Impossible, impossible, the Chu family has already..."
"Shut up..."
At this moment, one of the elders spoke, but Tianzu suddenly interrupted him sternly.
Chu Tian narrowed his eyes, his gaze falling on them.
What the other guy said just now likely alluded to a major secret.
However, a secret of the Chu family,
or rather, why he became an orphan and how many people were involved behind the scenes.
But this was not the time to investigate.
The priority now was to gather all strength to deal with the Divine Sea Palace group.
Chu Tian lacked subordinates and needed people to deal with the riff-raff who had defected to the Divine Sea Palace.
There was also intelligence work, which his brothers certainly couldn't handle comprehensively.
At the same time, at this moment.
Luo Luo also walked out from the back, with Zhang Chengcheng and Chen Yu'er following behind her.
Luo Luo's beautiful eyes glanced at Chu Tian, her eyes filled with admiration.
The other two women felt the same.
What troubled Luo Luo the most was this retirement home; their seniority was too high.
Luo Luo dared not treat them too harshly. Although she looked down on them, she still had to consider their dignity.
This council was originally meant to be a pre-war mobilization meeting.
Unexpectedly, the Elder Council had shown up in full force, directly blocking the meeting to demand that she seal off the small world.
Those below were still discussing, not seeing Luo Luo emerge.
But at this moment...
*Dong...*
The sound of a heavy object striking the ground was heard.
Everyone immediately fell silent.
The sound originated from Granny Ma.
She tapped her dragon-headed staff on the ground.
And slowly stood up.
Many people's eyes lit up.
Thinking she was about to confront Chu Tian.
However, in the next moment...
"Welcome back, Patriarch Chu. This old servant... the Ma family, is in charge of discipline and enforcement among the Nine Great Families.
May I ask, Patriarch Chu, do you require the Ma family to eliminate these individuals who are sowing discord amongst the troops?"
After standing up, Granny Ma, supporting herself with her dragon-headed staff, slowly bowed to Chu Tian.
"What?"
The family heads and sect leaders below once again had their jaws on the floor.
"This brat is truly the head of the Nine Great Families? The other eight families are all subservient to the Chu family?"
Granny Ma's statement of "this old servant..."
Had directly established Chu Tian's... the Chu family's position.
If it were merely a superior-subordinate relationship, why would she refer to herself as an old servant?
As soon as she spoke, those old fellows from the Luo family's Elder Council below shivered.
Granny Ma's words were too harsh.
The accusation of sowing discord amongst the troops was squarely placed upon their heads.