“Your seventeenth brother?”
Hearing Lingjun’s words, Zhang Yuanqing’s immediate reaction was: “Just how many siblings do you have, and where do you rank among them?”
The title “Seventeenth Brother” sounded straight out of a Qing Dynasty palace drama. Lingjun’s siblings seemed… a bit numerous.
Lingjun pondered for a moment before replying, “Probably a dozen or so before the founding of the nation. After the founding, around fifty or sixty. I can’t remember the exact number, but I rank forty-third in the family.”
Zhang Yuanqing froze. As a successor of socialism and an upstanding youth of the new era raised on nine years of compulsory education, his brain was utterly incapable of processing such scandalous information.
After a few seconds of silence, he muttered, “He really is a stallion…”
He had always heard Lingjun tossing around the phrase “stallion father,” assuming it was just sarcasm and insults, never imagining it was a statement of pure fact.
“A stallion is an emotionless seed-sowing machine. When he chooses women, he cares only about genetics and aptitude, completely devoid of any affection. If that’s not a stallion, what is? When my mother married into the Taiyi Sect, she was only twenty-two, while he was already over a hundred. If the law applied to demigods, he’d have faced the firing squad more than a hundred times over, because the wives he took could fill the entirety of Fujia Bay.” Lingjun’s voice brimmed with disdain for his father.
“Sounds like something I’d envy,” Zhang Yuanqing remarked. “So didn’t your dad have to build an entire complex to house his harem?”
“Not really. Although he’s had a lot of women, most of them remarried.”
“What?” Zhang Yuanqing didn’t follow.
Lingjun curled his lip. “He’s a stallion, after all. A stallion’s job is to sow seed and expand the clan. As for the women, once they give birth to the children, he doesn’t care whether they stay or leave. Even if those women hook up with Old Qin the security guard, he wouldn’t give a damn. Regardless, he never touches most of the women again once they’ve borne his offspring.
“Still, I think that’s his only redeeming quality. At least he didn’t restrict their freedom, so they could still live their own lives.”
“I have to say, my worldview just took a massive hit… What about your mother?”
“My mother returned to the Spirit Realm the year after I was born. She entered a scenario and never came back,” Lingjun sighed.
*Why does everyone around me have dead parents, and those whose parents are alive wish they were dead?* Zhang Yuanqing’s mind was flooded with things to complain about.
On second thought, if Lingjun had both parents alive and well, Guan Ya wouldn’t have described his childhood as tragic.
Then again, the Grand Elder of Baihui was clearly not a Wood Monster with the reproduction attribute; otherwise, Lingjun’s female cousins could fill this entire grand villa.
Lingjun shrugged, feigning indifference. “Let’s not talk about my mother. I have basically no memory of her.
“Back to that stallion. He was among the first batch of Spirit Realm walkers, a figure from the Republican era who has lived for over a century to this day. He figured out the rules governing character card distribution long ago.
“The higher a person’s level, the higher the chance their offspring will obtain a character card.
“Before the nation was founded, his level wasn’t yet so unattainable. After the founding, once he advanced to demigod, he began breeding children maniacally. If you took the time to investigate, you’d find that every single Old Ancestor of the Spirit Realm clans has fathered more than twenty children.”
*So your promiscuity is a family tradition…* Zhang Yuanqing said in astonishment, “Even so, your maternal grandfather still married his daughter to the Taiyi Sect Master?”
“Do you think Guan Ya wanted to marry into the Miller family?” Lingjun sneered. “Love is something only the petty bourgeoisie indulge in. The poor can’t afford it, and the rich and powerful look down on it. If you advance to demigod in the future, the Five Elements Alliance will have plenty of high-born young ladies for you to pick from, and Guan Ya won’t be able to stop you even if she wants to.”
*True. Once I reach the demigod stage, even if Guan Ya chops it clean off in one slice, with my regenerative abilities, I can just regrow a new root…* Zhang Yuanqing envisioned the regenerative powers of a demigod for a moment before steering the topic back on track:
“Let’s drop that for now. What’s the story with your seventeenth brother?”
A look of nostalgia entered Lingjun’s eyes as he fell into memory.
“He was the seventeenth son born to my stallion old man after the founding of the nation. When I was very young, he treated me exceptionally well. Unlike our other brothers and sisters, he was steady, gentle, and fair. The younger siblings all liked him very much.
“He would bring us gifts and warn the older brothers who liked to bully us.
“He was the most talented son born to my father after the founding. At a young age, he was already a Dominator, on equal footing with the elders of the Taiyi Sect.”
Zhang Yuanqing pondered. “How old is he, what was his Spirit Realm ID, and what position does he hold now?”
The Taiyi Sect Master was part of the first generation of Spirit Realm walkers, at least a hundred and thirty years old. Even if he was the seventeenth son born after the founding, his age could easily make him old enough to be his grandfather.
After all, a stallion Sect Master had the full capacity to impregnate multiple concubines at the same time; the age gap between the first son and the seventeenth son might not be that large.
The Xiaoyao Organization had a chuunibyou slogan. Zhang Zizhen and Chu Shang had been young men back then, and for the Twin Dark Shadows to accept such a slogan, they couldn’t have been very old either.
After all, an ideal like saving the world was something adults over thirty would only laugh off, let alone old men weathered by worldly vicissitudes.
“Seventeenth Brother’s Spirit Realm ID was Ling Tuo. If he were still alive, he’d probably be around forty-seven or forty-eight.” Remembering the brother who had died in his prime, Lingjun sighed with emotion.
“If he hadn’t died, he would definitely be in the position of Grand Elder. Oh, and I know what you’re wondering—why the seventeenth son after the founding? Because all the children born before the founding died off. After all, not everyone could become a Spirit Realm walker, and for those who did, the mortality rate was even higher.
“For the Spirit Realm world to maintain its numbers of walkers, children had to be born incessantly. Most of them remained ordinary mortals all their lives, while a small portion became Spirit Realm walkers. But the walker mortality rate was far too high, leaving no choice but to breed madly.”
*Dead?* Zhang Yuanqing ignored the second half of the explanation. His pupils contracted slightly, and his heart pounded wildly as a thought flashed across his mind: *It’s him!*
The shadow Night Walker!
To think he was Lingjun’s brother!
Superb aptitude, young, a peak Dominator, and possessed a sense of justice—he fit the identity of that Night Walker among the Twin Dark Shadows perfectly.
As the offspring of the Taiyi Sect Master, Lingjun’s brother had abundant resources, walkthroughs, props, and sect support. Coupled with his own extraordinary talent, advancing to peak Dominator at a young age was completely plausible.
*Did the Twin Dark Shadows meet with misfortune as well…* Zhang Yuanqing sighed. “Which year did your seventeenth brother die, specifically? What was the cause of death?”
Lingjun stared at him, frowning deeply. “Do you suspect Seventeenth Brother was the Night Walker of the Twin Dark Shadows?”
Zhang Yuanqing nodded.
Lingjun drew a sharp breath. Having previously shown little interest in the matter, he suddenly became alert. Pulling out his phone, he said, “Let me check the Taiyi Sect database…”
He logged into his account quickly and searched for “Ling Tuo.” The search returned no results.
In the Taiyi Sect database, the person named Ling Tuo simply did not exist.
*Hiss!*
*Hiss…*
Both Zhang Yuanqing and Lingjun drew in cold breaths simultaneously. Teacher and student exclaimed in unison:
“Something’s wrong!”
Lingjun frowned in thought, racking his memory before speaking slowly:
“I remember the year Seventeenth Brother died, Forty-Ninth Sister was just born. She’s twenty-three now. Ah, I remember—Seventeenth Brother passed away in 1999.
“Apparently he died inside a scenario. At least, that was the story back then. I was heartbroken for a long time, because Seventeenth Brother had been good to me.”
*Returned to the Spirit Realm as early as 1999? Who would have thought the shadow Night Walker was actually the first to die? Then came the extermination of the Chu family in 2000, and my dad’s return to the Spirit Realm in 2006…* Zhang Yuanqing swiftly organized the timeline.
Records showed that after the battle over the Compass of Light in 1998, the Xiaoyao Organization vanished without a trace. And the Palace Master had mentioned that in his later years, his father lived in constant terror of an enemy tracking him down, which was why he hadn’t dared keep the Palace Master by his side and gave her away instead.
Someone capable of inspiring such dread in his father was, in all likelihood, a demigod. But who could it be?
*Ling Tuo was the first to die; he was the source of it all…* With a shift in thought, Zhang Yuanqing took the initiative to speak:
“I recall that President saying that the four members of the Xiaoyao Organization snatched the core fragment of the Compass of Light back then. Over the following years, the Twin Blazing Suns died one after another. Now we know your brother was the first to die, and the other shadow has probably met with misfortune as well.”
He shared this intelligence voluntarily, adopting the posture of an inquisitive bystander analyzing past events.
Lingjun wasn’t a Scout anyway, so he couldn’t see through it.
“You mean Seventeenth Brother met with calamity because of the Compass of Light’s core fragment?” Lingjun’s expression grew grim. “It makes sense, yet it’s also unlikely. If I were Seventeenth Brother and knew someone was coveting the compass fragment, I’d have hidden inside the Taiyi Sect and never come out.
“My stallion old man is the strongest Night Walker, and the sect elders are a force that cannot be overlooked. Even a demigod couldn’t kill him right under the Taiyi Sect’s nose.”
At this point, Lingjun shrugged. “Unless the stallion old man did it himself. Otherwise…”
His expression froze instantly.
Zhang Yuanqing’s face went blank as well.
Then, with unspoken coordination, teacher and student turned to look at the spreadsheet on the computer screen, freezing once more.
Lingjun’s eyelid twitched violently. He practically bounced out of his chair.
“Impossible. That’s impossible…”
Zhang Yuanqing said faintly, “Actually, isn’t this the only explanation that makes sense? Otherwise, how do you explain Ling Tuo’s records being wiped? In the Taiyi Sect, the people capable of doing that can be counted on one hand.”
“You—you, don’t you fucking talk nonsense…” Lingjun’s expression was agitated, bordering on ferocious, as he snapped, “If it was for the Compass of Light fragment, all he had to do was ask Seventeenth Brother for it! In the Taiyi Sect, nobody can disobey him—not even the elders!
“Besides, why would he wipe Seventeenth Brother’s records?”
The young master rarely lost his composure like this.
“Why they were wiped isn’t important; the fact that they were wiped is what matters most. If your seventeenth brother’s death had no foul play and was purely an accident, would there be any need to erase his records?” Zhang Yuanqing said slowly.
“As for the Compass of Light fragment… that only proves one thing. The Compass of Light is not as simple as people think. It’s not just an item; it possesses a deeper purpose. And that purpose led Ling Tuo to refuse handing the fragment over to your father.”
“Bullshit! That’s all your speculation!” Lingjun’s face contorted.
*No, it’s not speculation.* The President had said that the Compass of Light fragment was capital in a game of chess; the Palace Master had said that the Xiaoyao Organization uncovered the secret of the Spirit Realm. If the Compass of Light could drive the Four Xiaoyao Disciples to risk their lives fighting for it, it was definitely far more than just a prophetic item.
It had to possess a special purpose.
Ling Tuo had ample reason not to hand over the fragment, though why he refused to give it to his own father remained unclear.
If the enemy of the Four Xiaoyao Disciples was the Taiyi Sect Master, everything fell into place.
The reason the shadow Night Walker died first was explained. The reason Zhang Zizhen feared his enemy so deeply was explained. The reason the Palace Master refused to tell him the truth about back then was explained.
The core compass fragment couldn’t have been in Ling Tuo’s hands; otherwise, the subsequent events wouldn’t have happened. Through Spirit Devouring, the Taiyi Sect Master learned that his son belonged to the Four Xiaoyao Disciples and extracted information about the organization.
Was it precisely because their enemy was so overwhelmingly powerful and terrifying that the Xiaoyao Organization vanished without a trace back then, never daring to roam the martial world again?
*So the enemy is the Taiyi Sect Master…* An inner tempest raged silently within Zhang Yuanqing.
Taking a deep breath, he suppressed his emotions and said, “Whether it’s speculation or not, we’ll know once we investigate. Oh, never mind—I was just curious. Since this involves the Taiyi Sect Master, let’s leave it at that.”
He said this deliberately to remove himself from the spotlight. Now that this piece of history had been brought to light, Lingjun would investigate even if Zhang Yuanqing didn’t.
Behind Lingjun stood the Grand Elder and Fu Qingyang. The former represented Baihui, while Fu Qingyang represented the Grand Marshal.
That was far safer than Yuanshi Tianzun crossing the river by feeling the stones alone.
Lingjun sat blankly in his chair, his face and gaze vacant, like a stone statue.
*Fifteen minutes passed long ago. Mentor, aren’t you going to find a girl for your date? Well, you’re probably not in the mood anymore…* Like a scoundrel pulling up his pants without a second thought, Zhang Yuanqing said:
“I’m heading back for dinner.”
With a snap of his fingers, he dissolved into starlight and vanished.
***
Eight in the evening, Guan Ya’s room.
Sitting by the desk, Zhang Yuanqing drafted a message to Yin Ji:
“The Nihility Sect responded. Tomorrow evening, meet in Jinshan City. They specified that only you and I can go; no elders allowed. In addition, we must bring a Saint-grade Knight prop.”
The message sent successfully.
According to Fu Qingyang, the capture operation conducted by Elder Hongying and Elder Gao Feng had hit a dead end; they couldn’t find Sect Master Chunyang at all.
That madman seemed to have gone into hiding to quietly build up his strength.
This was very bad. Sect Master Chunyang had entered his sea of consciousness and knew about the existence of the Lunar Shard. Once he recovered his strength, he would definitely hunt him down.
Thus, his thoughts aligned with the old crone’s—until Sect Master Chunyang was dead, this humble self could neither eat nor sleep in peace.
Yin Ji quickly replied: “Understood. I will ask my master.”
A few seconds later, another message followed: “Thank you!”
Clearly, this news was of utmost importance to them.
Zhang Yuanqing stared blankly at the wall for a few seconds before sending a message to the Palace Master of Halting Slaughter:
“Is it the strongest one in the world today?”
He believed the Palace Master would understand.
After sending the text, he waited and waited, but no reply came.
*No reply equals tacit admission?* Zhang Yuanqing put down his phone with a soft sigh. Heading toward the bathroom, he called out:
“Guan Ya, help me grab a bath towel and a change of clothes from my room, please.”
“Okay.” Seated on the chaise lounge by the window, Guan Ya set aside the book in her hands, got up, and left the room.
Inside the bathroom, the air was fragrant with shampoo and body wash. In the bamboo hamper lay a disheveled pile of women’s lace underwear and a long dress.
Guan Ya had just taken a shower.
Zhang Yuanqing stripped off his clothes and tossed them into the hamper. Watching his clothes cover Guan Ya’s dress, he chuckled to himself.
Back when he lived with his family, his germaphobe maternal grandmother had been particular about separating laundry. She had bought a bamboo basket for everyone in the house, insisting each person’s laundry go into their own basket without mixing.
In Zhang Yuanqing’s eyes, mixing was a symbol of intimacy.
*The taste of being in love is truly great.*
The impending evening pleasure counterbalanced his foul mood from earlier.
Under normal circumstances, learning that his enemy was the Taiyi Sect Master would have ensured he didn’t get a wink of sleep tonight.
Zhang Yuanqing stepped buck-naked into the shower cubicle. The bathtub was right next door; Guan Ya’s room was spacious, and the shower and toilet were kept separate.
***
A hotel.
*Knock, knock!*
Yin Ji raised her hand and tapped on the door of her teacher, Elder Hongying.
The door opened silently, and the female ghost behind it bowed respectfully to Yin Ji.
Passing through the foyer and outer parlor, Yin Ji entered the master bedroom to see Elder Hongying clad in a silk nightgown, standing by the floor-to-ceiling window, gazing out at the bustling city nightscape.
“What is it?”
Elder Hongying did not turn around. She was already past fifty, yet her figure remained plump and curvaceous; judged purely from behind, she could still captivate any man.
An age of fifty was considered youthful among Dominator-stage Spirit Realm walkers.
“Teacher, Yuanshi Tianzun sent me a message saying he helped contact people from the Nihility Sect,” Yin Ji said.
Upon hearing this, Elder Hongying’s solemn face lit up with pleasant surprise and relief.
“This Yuanshi Tianzun is unexpectedly reliable. Tell me the details.”
Yin Ji relayed the contents of the text message to her master.
“They only allow you and Yuanshi Tianzun to go?” Elder Hongying knitted her brows. After a moment of thought, she said:
“We can give it a try. Aside from the Knight profession prop, I will grant you two more items: one is the Blazing Sun Mirror I often use, and the other is a Saint-grade tortoise shell.
“The latter can divine good and bad fortune. Use it in conjunction with your astromancy, and exercise the utmost caution.”
As she spoke, she raised her hand gently. Two props manifested out of thin air and drifted toward Yin Ji.
Yin Ji received them respectfully. “Thank you, Teacher.”
Elder Hongying turned around, gazing at her tall, slender disciple veiled in black gauze, and smiled lightly.
“Do you stay in touch with Yuanshi Tianzun often?”
“Occasionally,” Yin Ji replied.
The smile on Elder Hongying’s lips deepened. “Aside from your fellow Taiyi Sect members, you hardly interact with outsiders. Do you have feelings for him?”
Yin Ji’s brow furrowed faintly. “If Teacher dislikes it, I will cease contact with him.”
“No, this is very good.” Elder Hongying walked over, stroked Yin Ji’s fine hair, and sighed. “Teacher still feels guilty over what happened back then, but two years have passed. You should forget that person and seek your own life. Yuanshi Tianzun is an excellent choice: an official background, extraordinary talent, and boundless prospects ahead. He is worthy of you.”
Yin Ji stepped back two paces in silence, bowed, and said, “Teacher, I will go back to rest now.”
Elder Hongying shook her head helplessly.
***
“Sister Guan Ya, winner, winner…”
In the darkness, Zhang Yuanqing’s pleading voice rang out once more.
The air conditioner blew cool air, bringing waves of chilliness. Scattered by the bedside were nightgowns, underwear, and balled-up tissues.
The bed was an absolute mess. Guan Ya wrapped her voluptuous, sultry body tightly in the quilt, bundled up completely so only her head stuck out. She kept the back of her head turned toward her boyfriend, feigning ignorance.
“Winner, winner! Winner, winner!”
Zhang Yuanqing hinted tirelessly.
Guan Ya gritted her teeth. “Have I spoiled you too much?”
From last night into daytime, and from daytime into tonight, Yuanshi’s demands could be described as staggering.
Even though Guan Ya was a Saint, she found it a bit much to endure, yet she had indulged him time and again.
She was a full six years older than Yuanshi, a classic older-woman-younger-man relationship, so she pampered him in every way. Who could have foreseen that this rascal would push his luck further and further?
Zhang Yuanqing pleaded a few more times. Seeing that she remained unmoved, he realized it wasn't happening and reluctantly gave up, saying:
“Alright then, good sister, I still want to…”
Before his voice could fade, he suddenly felt a wave of killing intent sweep over him. Two fingers pressed against his forehead, followed by Guan Ya’s huffy voice:
“Who drives a brand-new car from morning till night without maintenance? Go to sleep!”
Zhang Yuanqing shuddered in fright, quickly shrinking back as he chuckled dryly, “Fair point, fair point.”
Once Guan Ya withdrew her sword fingers, he scuttled back over, wrapped his arms around her smooth, soft, and fragrant body, and sank into a deep slumber.
Chapter 459