Chapter Ninety-Five: Caught Red-Handed

Inside the old ancestral estate of the Xuanyuan Clan, after Tang Wei and the others had departed, the clan head slowly came to accept the truth. He could not keep sinking into grief forever. The Xuanyuan Clan was, by all appearances, utterly finished. If they hoped to survive in this line of work in the future, it would have to be because he laid careful plans now. So he steeled himself and began arranging the aftermath.

After a short while, under the clan head’s directions, the disciples were no longer wandering about in confusion. Each took up his post and set about the tasks at hand. With a leader in place, everything was different. Soon the bodies of the elders had been carried into the main hall. The chairs that had once stood there were already gone, leaving only that neat row of corpses arranged in the center. Beneath them, several junior members had been ordered to kneel and keep vigil in mourning, while the people outside also busied themselves with the necessary funeral arrangements.

As night deepened, the moon and stars seemed unwilling to witness the misery of the mortal world. They had hidden themselves within the clouds from the very start, refusing to show their faces. The darkness was so dense one could not see a hand before one’s eyes. The night hung over the world like a thick black curtain, bringing an inexplicable sense of suffocation.

The valley where the Xuanyuan elders had lived before was even quieter, so silent it was almost frightening. Though the owners were gone, the valley itself was one of the clan’s secret places. Countless manuals, treasures, and other valuables were stored there, so it naturally had to be guarded. Yet since all its masters were gone and the area was a forbidden ground, no one of low standing was allowed near it. The guards could only be posted at the entrance to the valley, while outside there was still constant comings and goings. Set against that movement, the stillness within seemed all the more pronounced.

On that heavy night, those hiding in the shadows finally made their move.

Two dark figures dropped soundlessly from a tree outside and landed in the corridor of the rear valley. Their speed was like the wind; in the blink of an eye, they were gone. The dozen guards stationed at the valley entrance never noticed a thing. They had only felt a breeze pass by and thought nothing of it.

Once inside, the black-clad intruders moved as though they were in their own home. They did not bother to scout the way, but headed straight through the intersecting courtyards to the Xuanyuan Clan’s library pavilion. The library was one of the clan’s most important places. Even the clan head would ordinarily need an elder at his side to enter it. One could imagine how much time and effort the two had spent to know this place so thoroughly.

After entering the study, they shut the door and began rummaging through the shelves in haste. Finding nothing they wanted, they quickly tidied the mess a little so as not to draw attention, then gathered together and spoke in low voices.

“We’ve checked everywhere here and still haven’t found it. Forefather, where do you think they would have hidden the item?”

“See whether there are any mechanisms in this room. There may be a hidden compartment. Search again.”

The two resumed their frantic search, but in the end, they still came up empty-handed.

“How strange. Isn’t this supposed to be the place the Xuanyuan forefather guarded most closely? If they didn’t hide it here, where else could it be?”

“Think harder. Is there anywhere else here that seems suspicious? That old fox has always been shrewd. He may have left one place in plain sight and another hidden away. There must be some mechanism we have not discovered. Did your informant ever mention anything unusual?”

The voice of the man in black clearly belonged to the old man from the hut in the valley.

“What unusual thing? What unusual thing? Let me think, let me think.”

The younger man in black tapped his own head and muttered under his breath. Suddenly, his eyes flashed.

“Forefather, I’ve got it. I’ve thought of a place. Do you remember I once told you about a secret cave in the back mountain of the Xuanyuan estate?”

“And what does the place you thought of have to do with that? If I remember correctly, when you had that girl sent in there, we checked it all over. It was only an ordinary survival cave, wasn’t it? Could there be something I still do not know?” the old man rebuked softly. Could it be that the man he had chosen was already growing too ambitious, concealing things from him?

“No, no, that’s not it. Forefather, I reported to you before that the cave has another passage. After going in for several dozen paces, it comes to a dead end. But the more I think about it, the less it makes sense. Since they built it as a refuge, there should definitely be another exit. I just thought about it, and that exit must lead to this valley.”

“That is not impossible. But didn’t you inspect it yourself? You said there were no traces of any disturbance there. That was why we concluded it had merely been made to deceive the eye.”

“Still, I feel there is something off about it, Forefather. Why don’t I go back and search again? Maybe I really can find a mechanism.”

“Then let us split up. Be careful not to alert them. We only have this one chance. If they activate the mountain-protecting formation and we are shut out, all our planning will have come to nothing. And if we miss this opportunity, who knows when we will get another?”

“I understand, Forefather. Rest assured. We have spent so much effort this time, and it is a pity we did not uproot the Xuanyuan Clan completely.”

“Be satisfied with what you have. As long as we find what I want, we can keep them pinned down for good. What is there to fear about not having another chance? Hurry and search for the mechanism. Tidy this place first so no one sees a flaw, then go check the mountain wall again. I’ll search the old fox’s room over there and see whether I can find anything.”

After arranging everything, the old man opened the door and left. In a flash, he slipped into the room of the Xuanyuan forefather. His movements were nimble, no less than those of a younger man, showing that he was far from ordinary.

Once inside, the old man looked around. With his cultivation, he did not even need to light a lamp to see the furnishings clearly. He searched the room several times, inside and out, but found nothing suspicious. He even swept the area repeatedly with his spiritual sense, yet still found nothing. So he turned to leave.

But when he reached the doorway, an idea suddenly struck him. Something in this room still felt wrong, so he turned back and examined it carefully once more. When he saw several chairs arranged neatly in the inner room, he smiled. He stepped closer and felt along them. The leg of the second chair seemed a little loose. He became certain, gripped the leg, and twisted hard.

With a crisp click, the stone slab ahead slowly parted to both sides, revealing a cavern entrance.

The old man instantly felt his spirits lift. His face breaking into a broad smile, he said, “I knew it. No wonder that chair looked so out of place. That Xuanyuan old fox does not seem the type with such poor taste. So the secret was hidden here all along.”

He glanced out through the window a few times. In the darkness, the other man in black was still groping around the mountain wall, sneaking about in a rather comical manner. Since he was too far away to call out to, the old man paused, then used his mental force to push toward him, signaling him to come in, regardless of whether he could take the pressure.

After being forced back two steps by the pressure of spiritual force, the man was already quite familiar with that sensation. Whenever he made a mistake in the past, the old man would use that same pressure to make it hard for him to breathe. He understood that the old man would not push him for no reason now. Thinking it over, he quickly grasped the meaning and turned to hurry over.

When the man came inside, the old man was still feeling along the stone slab. Earlier, when he first came in, he had clearly swept the whole room with his spiritual sense and yet somehow failed to notice this cavern. That puzzled him, so he began to study the reason behind it. When he discovered that sweeping his spiritual sense over the slab brought no reaction at all, he became certain that the object itself was the cause. After figuring that out, he paid it no further mind. Though the thing counted as a treasure, it was nothing compared with what he truly wanted.

The two of them followed the wall and descended. A staircase led down layer after layer, all the way to a point more than a dozen meters beneath the ground, then continued forward on level ground for some distance before opening into a large cavern. Night pearls were embedded in the stone, not enough to make it bright, but enough to give the cave some light.

Along both sides of the cavern were various common cultivation tools. With the old man’s status, he would not be tempted by such things. He merely glanced at them and hurried forward. Several doors had been set into the inner wall ahead, each with a nameplate. The old man did not even look at the others. He went straight to the door marked "Important Study."

He pushed gently, and it opened at once.

The old man murmured in surprise, “It’s not locked?”

Thinking of how well hidden the entrance slab had been, he did not grow suspicious. He merely assumed he had been lucky.

Just as before, once they were inside, the two of them began rummaging through the shelves. In the end, the younger man was luckier and found it first. Holding up a thick volume, he cried excitedly, “Forefather, I found it! Their family genealogy is here!”

Even so, he was afraid someone might hear him. Though thrilled, he still kept his voice low, which showed he had not entirely lost his head.

“Really? Really? Let me see, let me see!”

The old man, no longer caring about anything else, rushed over impatiently and snatched the book from the man’s hands to start flipping through it. His hands trembled slightly as he held it, and one could only imagine how stirred he must have been.

“Forefather, you have always been searching for the genealogies of the other three great families, yet you never told me why. Now we have already gathered two of them. Can you tell me what secret lies within the genealogies of the four great families?”

The man had long been curious about this matter, but the old man had never been willing to tell him. He only needed to obey orders and do as told. Seeing the old man in such a good mood now, he wondered whether he might finally get the answer he wanted.

“Is that so? I would very much like to know myself. Just what secret does my family genealogy hold that would make a man like you go to such lengths to wipe out my entire Xuanyuan Clan?”

The voice came from the doorway.

A moment later, several people walked in and lined up across the entrance. Those behind them were carrying night pearls, and in an instant the tiny study was flooded with brilliant light.

The two men looked toward the door in shock. When they saw who had come, the old man staggered back two steps and said in terror, “You... you are not dead!”

“If they were not dead, how else could they have found you, the hand hiding in the dark?”

This time, the people who entered were none other than Tang Wei and Zi Xuan.