Outsiders didn't know what the three words "Fenglong'ao" pointed to, but Wen Jifei, Wu Xu, Rusty Sister, and He Tangtang did.
When it came out of Yuan Youque's mouth, he said this had been the very place where the Bones of Eternal Life were originally discovered.
The Little Prince's expression remained dazed yet full of anticipation. Following Yuan Youque's account, he was working hard in his mind to memorize the location, intending to secretly make a trip there in the future after stealing the Bones of Eternal Life from Han Qingyu's hands.
At the same time, Rusty Sister, whose iron hand was being held by Yuan Xiaoxin, was just returning. Right at the doorway, she froze in her tracks... before smoothly turning and crouching down to cover it up, gently picking the little girl up into her arms.
He Tangtang lowered his head and grabbed a handful of peanuts.
Wu Xu was expressionless.
Beneath the tabletop, Wen Jifei silently stretched his arm over to show Han Qingyu—his entire arm covered in goosebumps.
No matter how Zhe Qiuhong had analyzed and deduced before; no matter how much evidence pointed to Qingzi being an anomaly, abnormal; and no matter how they usually joked and teased, calling him Han the Green Snake or Han the Green Bug...
At this moment, when the matter was truly confirmed and established within a chain of factual logic, the shock it brought was still intense—"Qingzi truly inherited the legacy belonging to that anomalous creature the Bone of Eternal Life came from."
"That's why he can devour the Bones of Eternal Life, while others can only borrow their power."
*Am I really a fucking monster?... No, no, it doesn't count,* Han Qingyu comforted himself. In truth, even he was somewhat at a loss right now, though he didn't let it show.
*So, the hidden clans took away the bones, but they didn't take away the legacy itself. The object of the legacy once caused an anomalous disturbance, drawing General Jiang over, but it was never found.*
*Later, it ended up with me.*
*Exactly how I got it, I don't know, but it's certain that I did—and most likely back when I was a child.*
*Then, when I first came into contact with source energy... on the night I ran into Captain Lao slaying the Great Spike and swallowed the metal block, a landslide struck Fenglong'ao... Something must have happened that night, too!*
*The inheritance was finally completed?!*
Han Qingyu thought to himself.
Meanwhile, Wen Jifei had also shaken off his initial shock, his thoughts beginning to wander:
*In that case, Qingzi's attitude toward women all this time—being a dead iron straight man who's never had feelings for anyone—could that also be related to this?*
According to Plague-Chicken Fei's knowledge, at most Qingzi merely felt that people needed to get married due to conventional societal views. But as for truly having his heart stirred by a girl... he never had.
*Is it because they're not the same species?!*
*Holy shit, is there any hope left for him?!*
"..."
Yuan Youque hesitated for a moment. "Major Qing?"
"...Ah." Han Qingyu returned to his senses.
The others did as well.
"What's this? Did what I said sound too unbelievable?" Yuan Youque asked with a smile, doing his best to appear genial.
"No, I was just committing the place you mentioned to memory, Elder Yuan," Han Qingyu replied with a smile.
"Ah, if you can find it, you should indeed go take a look. A pity I don't know very much either." Having said this, Yuan Youque stood up, took one final look at the four Bones of Eternal Life on the table, and resolutely turned around.
He took his granddaughter from Rusty Sister's arms to hold her, thanked them, and then said his goodbyes: "Now that I have Major Qing's promise, this old man can put his mind at ease. If so, I will take Xin'er back for today."
Around the table, Han Qingyu and the others stood up one after another.
"But Grandpa, I still want to play here," Yuan Xiaoxin said softly. She didn't have many companions normally and held great fondness for people like Major Qing and Wu Xu. She had wanted to come visit and play for a long time, but unfortunately her grandfather had never allowed it.
Today, with great difficulty, Grandpa had finally brought her of his own accord, yet after staying for only a little while, they were already leaving... The little girl was reluctant to part.
"You little scamp, haha!" Seeing that his granddaughter still liked this group so much after meeting them, Yuan Youque was thoroughly relieved at heart. His eyes grew slightly red, filled with genuine joy.
Reaching out to rub his granddaughter's head, he said, "In the future, Xin'er can come over by yourself more often. As long as Major Qing, Lieutenant Wu, and the others aren't busy, you can visit frequently."
"That's right, that's right," several people in the room chimed in, smiling at the little girl.
"Xin'er is always welcome to visit. Also, Elder Yuan, you can find some time in the near future to visit Doctor Zhe's hospital," Han Qingyu said, gesturing toward Zhe Qiuhong.
"Very well, thank you, Major Qing, and thank you, Doctor Zhe." Yuan Youque readily agreed. He would go to the hospital; if this body of his could hold out a little longer, it would naturally be for the best. But he knew his issues were not just old injuries, but mainly the toll of the years.
"In that case, I wish Major Qing a triumphant victory in the New Year's battle. This old man will head back and await the good news."
Yuan Youque left with his granddaughter.
After seeing them to the door and returning inside, Zhe Qiuhong went back to her room first.
Then Han Qingyu took the Bones of Eternal Life and returned to his room as well.
Rusty Sister, Wu Xu, Wen Jifei, and He Tangtang followed him in to study the bones.
The Little Prince thought about it and didn't follow; instead, he volunteered to wash the dishes.
*They're definitely hiding the Bones of Eternal Life—at least a dozen or so pieces by now, including two horn bones... Should I wait until he wins the six pieces from Shu You before making my move, or strike first if an opportunity arises?*
*The horn bones are already complete! As for the skeleton, since it was incomplete from the beginning, it might never be fully assembled anyway...*
The Little Prince thought to himself.
Meanwhile, in Han Qingyu's room.
Right in front of Wen Jifei and the other three, Han Qingyu directly made the three Bones of Eternal Life—excluding the horn bone—disappear into thin air... He would have to consume them sooner or later anyway, and consuming them early would give him a better chance in the battle against Shu You.
After entering the super stage, devouring bones had become quite effortless for him; only the horn bones remained impossible to break down.
Thus, in reality, only those two horn bones remained on his person.
Because they had already accepted the reality earlier, the other four handled it reasonably well, standing dumbfounded for only a few seconds.
"Deducing by this logic, if we can one day retrieve the complete skeleton and let Qingzi devour it all, his combat power should reach the peak of a stage..."
Wen Jifei shot Han Qingyu a look and said, "Then... you won't actually turn into a snake, will you?"
"...Get lost!"
Han Qingyu cursed at him. He could feel what kind of remodeling the devouring of the Bones of Eternal Life worked on his body; in terms of appearance, he certainly wouldn't turn into a monster. He had merely received a legacy, not the bloodline of an anomalous creature.
As for obtaining the legacy itself, it generally did not require a specific person. There might be some unknown criteria, but it certainly wasn't uniquely targeted. That is, it wasn't true that only one specific person could inherit it.
Otherwise, how could there be so many coincidental encounters? Although anomalies—or rather, "Yanxiu"—were certainly few, he was not the only one, nor were he and Wu Xu the only two.
Han Qingyu briefly shared his thoughts, then asked, "Doesn't this indicate that legacies that haven't been inherited yet might very well still exist in this world?"
"..." He Tangtang sprang to his feet all of a sudden and asked excitedly, "Where?!"
"How would I know?!" Han Qingyu replied with a wry smile. "I'm only speculating. But Wu Xu, do you have any relevant memories from your childhood?"
Han Qingyu and the others all knew Wu Xu's past: starting from childhood, he had repeatedly survived on the brink of death, which suggested there was a high probability he had also received a legacy when he was young.
Wu Xu shook his head.
"Then if we get the chance in the future, we'll visit the places where you stayed as a child, including the Yu clan and wherever you were before that, to take a look around."
They certainly had to go back to Fenglong'ao to search as well, though in all likelihood nothing remained there anymore, Han Qingyu added.
"Mm." Wu Xu nodded.
In truth, he was not particularly keen on returning to those places, but it didn't matter. The matter seemed quite important, so if Qingzi and the others said they would go, then they would go.
"Actually, my biggest question right now is... why have we only ever seen the Bones of Eternal Life?!" Wen Jifei said.
"Where are the other bones or carapaces? Where are our Xu'er's lizard bones?! Since you two aren't the only Yanxiu, it makes no sense that all the other bones are gone, or that none of them have been discovered yet, right?" he asked in rapid succession.
The rest exchanged glances. The situation was indeed utterly unreasonable and inexplicable, yet none of them could provide an answer.
"Could they be in museums? Those fossils—saber-toothed tigers, prehistoric giant lizards, dinosaur bones, or something... Tyrannosaurus rex, *rawr*!" He Tangtang let his imagination run wild.
"No. If these anomalous creatures truly once lived on our planet, the era of their existence should be much earlier than the dinosaurs, and they'd be far more powerful," Rusty Sister said.
"Then underground?!" He Tangtang continued deducing.
"Even underground, shouldn't some have been found?" Wen Jifei pondered for a moment, then suddenly slapped his knee. "Could it be like this: let's assume they were originally underground, but someone dug them all up a very long time ago?"
"Who? Ne?!" He Tangtang guessed.
In any case, whenever something unreasonable, bizarre, or wicked happened in this world, their habit was always to pin the suspicion on Ne.
"No. Humanity's contact with source energy only began in the early years of the twentieth century, and Ne hadn't even been born yet," Rusty Sister cut in.
Her point was that if that person had been collecting skeletal remains during an era when humanity had already made widespread contact with source energy and produced a certain number of top experts, those experts would never have allowed all the remains to be taken by him.
"So, if it really is as Plague Chicken said and such a person exists, the period during which he collected the bones should have been primarily before the twentieth century, plus at most the first decade or so of the twentieth century..."
Rusty Sister continued:
"Coincidentally, in those final few years, Huaxia began making contact with source energy."
"Because the Bones of Eternal Life were taken by the people of the hidden clans, who immediately went into seclusion and hid deep in the mountains... the bones didn't all fall into that person's hands."
Since it was just speculation anyway, Rusty Sister spoke casually.
"Still not right," Han Qingyu said, shaking his head. "If it's as you say, wouldn't that person have mastered source energy and known everything before all of humanity even came into contact with it?!"
Because following Plague Chicken's conjecture, combined with Rusty Sister's supplementary deduction, a story would take shape like this:
There was someone—most likely not a good person, and perhaps not even human.
Very, very long ago, he had already come into contact with source energy and known everything.
He could even sense the presence of skeletal remains within a certain range, and had been continuously gathering remains across this planet. Whether buried underground, displayed in museums, or among the rare few that accidentally surfaced and were obtained by people, they all ultimately fell into his hands.
This was a prolonged process, and in the final phase of his collection, humanity came into contact with source energy... and by coincidence, a few fish slipped through the net.
As for those very few fish that slipped through the net, for now it appeared there were only the Bones of Eternal Life. Of course, it was also possible there were more.
Chapter 521