When Xue Huai and Yun Cuo rushed over, they realized that the matter was far from being as simple as they had originally thought.
Murong Jinchuan stayed indoors for several days. During these days, he had been concentrating on thinking at home, holding the brush and paper even when he was walking, sitting, or lying down.
Xue Huai’s grandmother said, “The old man didn’t even eat. He kept talking about the enemies we had when we were young. He wrote down the names of the enemies he thought of. I asked him what he was doing, but he didn’t tell me. He just kept writing. A few days ago, he went out and said he was going to buy some goods, so I believed him. It turned out that the old man went to seek revenge without telling us. Before he left, he didn’t even say a word. He just changed his clothes and put on the brocade bag I sewed for him the year I married him. He said it looked good—what was good about it? The pattern was that old already, and he just planned to never come back…”
Xue Huai held his thin grandmother in his arms and comforted her for a long time. Grandma Xue shed tears for a while, wiped her tears, and pushed him away, trying to drive him away: “Your grandpa left a message for you, Xiao Huai, don’t delay, grandma is here to watch over you, you should go home and see as soon as possible.”
Then she looked at Yun Cuo and rebuked him in an unprecedentedly harsh tone: “Yun Cuo, you go too. You accompany Xiao Huai to Dongzhou.”
Xue Huai knew Murong Jinchuan’s situation as soon as he saw it. Perhaps Murong Jinchuan had taken the content of their conversation a few days ago to heart. In order to eliminate his enemies one by one, this old man, who had been in seclusion for a hundred years, came back to the world and put an end to his past one by one.
That is also to help them clean up any enemies they might have provoked here.
Xue Huai’s eyes felt a little hot, but he didn’t dare let his grandmother see it. He also knew that the situation was critical, so he called Yun Cuo and set off for Dongzhou immediately.
If Murong Jinchuan was sure that there was no hidden enemy of Xue Huai in the manor, then the remaining ones would most likely be Yun Cuo or the trouble caused by Xue Zong.
Just like last time, the two of them rode on the green bird at night and arrived in Dongzhou late at night.
There were scattered stars hanging in the cold sky, and fine snow was drifting. The snow melted as people spoke and became wet along with the fog.
The mansion was silent and a little chilly—Xue Huai stood at the door of his home and looked up at the sign on the gate: a powerful and elegant character “Xue”, which was written by his mother in the year he was born.
That year, Xue Zong opened the Shenhua Terrace, and the business was booming, and he was finally able to give his wife and child a stable and warm home. They searched around and selected five or six suitable places to live, and finally handed the decision to Xue Huai, who had just turned one month old.
They wrote down the locations of these places on pieces of paper and then folded them into a ball, letting Xue Huai choose one. Xue Huai, who was still a baby, grabbed this place with his chubby little hands, and it became their residence for the next ten years.
At this moment, memories came to his mind. Strangely, Xue Huai seemed to see a scene that he could not have known: a desolate and deserted courtyard with no one in it, just like the lonely and helpless grave of his last life.
People rebelling and friends deserting1People rebelling and friends deserting (idiom); fig. to find oneself utterly isolated. and his family was seriously ill, half of his obsession still remained in the world, so the flower in front of his grave was half-red and half-white.
But the next moment, his vague illusion disappeared. Yun Cuo came from behind him, reached out and held his hand, then held him tightly in his arms.
As if Yun Cuo could sense his emotions, he reached out and touched his head, whispering, “Xue Huai ge, let’s go.”
There was no one left in the entire Xue family.
The maids and guards left, leaving dust and thick snow piled up in front of the courtyard with no one to clean it up.
Xue Huai took a step forward and broke a dead branch. The crisp crackling sound became the loudest sound in the entire courtyard, as if it could alarm ghosts.
The light in the room suddenly came on.
Xue Huai perked up and looked over there. When he looked up, he saw an old man hunched over with a lantern in his hand. He pushed open the door and walked out. He asked, “Who’s outside?”
The moment he saw Xue Huai, he was stunned, followed by a somewhat surprised and complicated expression: “Young Master, you are back!”
Yun Cuo couldn’t help but frown and ask, “What’s going on here? Where’s Uncle Xue?”
He looked around the lonely courtyard and silently held Xue Huai tighter in his arms.
The old man sighed and said, “This is a long story, Young Master, please sit down and talk.”
As soon as he said this, Xue Huai understood that Xue Zong was probably not in the mansion or even in Dongzhou.
He asked directly, “Where did my father go?”
The old man sighed heavily and pointed at his leg. “Seven days ago, Master went out to buy some goods. He was robbed by robbers on the way. One of his legs was broken. The opponent was using cursed weapons that could not be easily healed.”
“The Master said not to tell anyone and to block the news and recover from the injury first, fearing that someone might have set their sights on Shenhua Terrace. We initially thought that the Master just wanted to rest, but he even closed Shenhua Terrace and used four Qilin beasts to suppress it. He also cancelled all the orders that had not been completed before.” The old man’s voice was filled with deep fatigue, as if he still found it difficult to accept this matter. “Then it was at home. The Master said that since you and Madam were gone already, there was no point in keeping so many people at home, so he should just dismiss them all, including me.”
They were all standing outside the courtyard at the moment.
Xue Huai lowered his eyes and looked at the stone table in front of him. Looking at the needles stretched out by the tiny snowflakes, he found it difficult to speak. “He meant that my mother and I…”
“Except you and Madam Murong, who else can the Master mention?” The old man looked at Xue Huai like an elder at this time, with deep sadness in his eyes—it was sadness, not disappointment, and perhaps mixed with a hint of confusion.
Because he had also stood by Xue Huai’s side and did not understand what Xue Zong did—this head of the Xue family acted in a mysterious and unpredictable way and was finally seen by someone close to him one day.
“He wanted to send me away too, but I came from the Xue family’s great grandfather’s generation. If I left the Xue family, where else could I go, ah? But the master didn’t even say a word. After I was driven away, I ran back secretly, but the Master had already left, and even the Shenhua Terrace was locked up. I asked people to search the entire Dongzhou, but there was no trace of him.”
Xue Huai found it a little bit unbelievable: “Such a big matter, why didn’t you tell me?”
The old man whispered, “Because the Master sent you a letter, but you didn’t reply at the time, so the Master waited for a few days and then said to us, ‘Our Xiao Huai has grown up and knows how to distinguish right from wrong. I am an incompetent father, so it is normal for him not to come back.’ From then on, no one was allowed to mention this matter. Before he left, he left a message that didn’t say anything and just told us not to look for you or him.”
At that moment, the cold air entered his body and froze his internal organs.
Xue Huai spoke with some difficulty: “I replied to his letter…”
Has he replied?
He did, he didn’t see the letter until a month later. If it was Yun Cuo’s fault—it’s because he did not tell him in time, but that was also only a month ago, and Xue Zong had not left yet at that time.
He himself dragged it out for another month because he didn’t know how to start, so he simply didn’t start writing. In fact, he was still thinking in his heart that he hoped that this old man in his family would feel a little regret for what he had done.
He really replied to the letter, which he sent four days ago and is now lying in the old man’s hands.
What’s the point of replying so late?
The old man said tremblingly, “This letter, Young Master, you sent it. Because it was for the master, I didn’t read it and kept it carefully.”
Xue Huai tried to make his voice sound calm: “Please tell me again, my father’s leg was injured. When and where did it happen?”
At this moment, a voice emerged in his heart, praying like he was hoping it wasn’t true, but he vaguely knew he couldn’t escape.
The time and place in the previous life: April 13, Qingyan Valley in Dongzhou, on a narrow path, Xue Zong was tricked by his rivals, and since then his illness has recurred and he has never fully recovered.
Leg injury, unable to move.
This is something that really happened to Xue Zong in his previous life. At that time, Xue Huai was in the army and could not take care of him.
He had just been reborn, and when he came back to this life, he remembered this incident and believed that it was Mrs. Liu and Xue He who did it, so he had been on guard against them. He even strengthened the precautions around Xue Zong and even controlled his daily diet.
In order to protect his family, he went to Murong Immortal Sect to practice, trying hard to raise his cultivation to above the Yindan level so that he could practice the mind-viewing technique and see the details in his past that he had overlooked.
Where could it be?
The old man trembled and said, “On April 13, the master was passing through Qingyan Valley and was… “
Xue Huai closed his eyes.
He killed Mrs. Liu and Xue He with his own hands, and from then on he believed that there was no longer any threat from Dongzhou anymore, so he never took it seriously.
So now, Murong Jinchuan took the risk alone for their sake, and Xue Zong’s whereabouts were unknown after being injured—he had already realized that someone wanted to harm him, and he told Murong Jinchuan about this a few days ago. It was just one step, it’s just one step.
Just one step away!
He thought everything was fine, but he still had to watch the disaster from his previous life happen again!
Xue Huai’s eyes were bloodshot, and his nails were deeply sunken, almost breaking his own flesh.
That familiar feeling came back: hatred, calmness, and extreme clarity. That was the state he was in when he first came back—not sinking because of love nor confused by the past—but with it came a deep sense of powerlessness.
It was his incompetence, his carelessness, his willfulness and disregard for his family’s feelings, and his arrogance that made him think that he had everything under his control in this new life.
“Xue Huai, Xue Huai, don’t be anxious.”
Yun Cuo noticed that something was wrong with his condition, so he lowered his head and held his face. His tone was surprisingly broad and calm: “Don’t worry. We will go to Shenhua Terrace in a while. Uncle Xue may have left clues there. I will use all the means I can to find out where Uncle Xue is. Before the news comes out, let’s go back to the manor and check on Grandpa’s affairs, alright?”
Yun Cuo persuaded Xue Huai in a gentle voice, “Don’t worry, don’t worry. I think there’s something fishy about Grandpa’s incident. Someone told you to return to Dongzhou immediately, but why is it such a coincidence that you got the news after Uncle Xue left? Grandpa is in a coma now. Do you know who sent the message?”
Xue Huai shook his head.
He was very anxious at the time. After hearing that Murong Jinchuan was in trouble, he rushed there immediately without paying attention to who leaked the news to him.
Similarly, Murong Jinchuan was brought here by the immortals outside early in the morning, and he was already unconscious at that time. It is completely uncertain how many people transferred the information and who the source of the information was.
“Young Master, don’t act impulsively.” Even the old man could see that Xue Huai looked upset and said, “If this is a trick to lure the tiger away from the mountain, then you will be in trouble. I think the reason why the Master left was probably because he was also afraid of implicating you—”
“No, it’s not.” Xue Huai’s tone was unusually calm. “I almost died three times. My mother was murdered, my father got screwed over, and my grandfather is now seriously injured. This person does not directly target my father, but me. This person doesn’t just hate me. He wants me to watch the people around me get hurt one by one because of me with my own eyes.”
“I can’t imagine who would hate me this much. I can’t think of it.” Xue Huai’s voice was a little trembling, as if he had temporarily lost his calmness in thinking. He just mechanically repeated, “I can’t think of it.”
“There is only one thing I know. I want him to die. I want him to die.” Xue Huai muttered to himself until Yun Cuo embraced him. Then the corners of his eyes began to turn red, and the last bit of mist covered his eyes.
“I don’t know the person who sent me the message, I don’t remember him, but as long as I see his face again, I will recognize him. I will check every disciple in the manor one by one when I go back and seal off all the records from yesterday.” Xue Huai gently got out of Yun Cuo’s arms. “Yun Cuo, do me a favor. I want to contact the Ghost King from the Netherworld directly to find out what’s going on. Is that fine?”
Yun Cuo nodded. “I will ask someone to do it.”
He didn’t utter a word or make any big movements. He just drew a short symbol with his hand, and a black crow took off into the air and flew away with a flutter.
“Let’s go to Shenhua Terrace now. Maybe my father left some information for us.”
Half an hour later, the crows that had gone to the underworld returned.
The King of the Netherworld is different from the Lord of the Underworld. The Netherworld is a gray area between the ghost world and the Demon Realm, where half-ghost, half-demon creatures have long been inhabited.
When Murong Jinchuan was young, he had a feud with the Ghost King here, and the feud remained unresolved for hundreds of years.
The faithful crow reported: “Young Immortal Lord, I have visited the little ghosts in the surrounding area, and they all said that they saw the duel between Master Murong and the Ghost King. Master Murong cultivated swordsmanship and devoted himself to his research. His skills and magic power are unmatched. The Ghost King spent his days in debauchery and did not make any progress. Therefore, in the duel between the two, the Ghost King did not hurt Master Murong at all and was stabbed clean by a move of the Shengyun Sword Technique.”
In other words, Murong Jinchuan was not injured during the duel but was injured by someone on the way back.
Yun Cuo’s suspicion was correct. This was indeed a strategy to lure the tiger away from the mountain.
What is killing people and destroying their hearts?
After Xue Zong left, he deliberately used others to remind him to return to Dongzhou, where he witnessed his biological father’s unknown whereabouts.
Before he was ten years old, or even earlier, Mrs. Liu was arranged to kill his mother, and from then on, the Xue family was alienated for six or seven years.
He failed to kill him after several attempts, so he just hurt the people around him who are were on guard.
Xue Huai said in a hoarse voice, “Yun Cuo, you should go back to the Demon Realm for these few days.”
Yun Cuo looked at him in a daze.
Xue Huai said, “I don’t want to drive you away, nor do I dislike you and want to separate from you. I’m just afraid that person will do something bad to you.”
Yun Cuo was about to speak but was interrupted by him——
Xue Huai’s eyes were clear: “I know you are free from cause and effect and have reached the fifteenth level of demonic cultivation, but my grandfather has also reached the level of a god. In terms of character, state, and coping ability, he is better than us. If the enemy we are facing is of this level, I don’t want you to take risks with me.”
“Who do you think I am, Xue Huai?” Yun Cuo looked at him quietly. The young man, who was usually at a loss in front of him, suddenly changed his demeanor at this moment, becoming cold, firm, and calm.
He extended his hand to Xue Huai, “I don’t want you to take risks and stand on the ice field alone. Xue Huai, I am your husband, someone you can rely on. Please believe me.”
He lowered his eyes and said in a deep voice, “I have changed my mind. I want to return to the position of the Immortal Lord of the nine continents. Anyone who dares to touch you, I will make him turn into ashes.”
The author has something to say: It should be almost finished, please focus on the recent plot~
