The two muscular shanxiao remained silent.
"My nephew was struck only once, bitten just a single time." Old Ge was no saint either, with more than a few lives on his hands, and he was an expert at examining wounds. "Roughly speaking, the killer had dense rows of teeth in its mouth, not fangs like ours."
When he opened his mouth, four large fangs were revealed.
"Could it have been done by an inmate?"
"Doesn't seem like it. I remember my nephew slipped up once and mentioned he was running an errand beneath Zhimi Peak. That's one of Tianshu Peak's subsidiary mountains—bleak and desolate, without a single building. When I got curious and pressed for details, he shut his mouth and wouldn't say another word."
He Lingchuan pondered. "If the work was that dangerous, have any other people gone missing from the Heavenly Palace over the years?"
Old Ge's eyes went wide. "My friend warned me to stop digging. Secrets of the Heavenly Palace aren't something I can afford to meddle with."
He was a shrewd creature, knowing what to look into and what was better left alone.
He Lingchuan understood; the conversation ended here.
"Oh, right. Didn't you ask about the background of Fang Canran, the chief steward of Dun Garden?" Old Ge was certainly efficient. "I had someone ask around. His family put down roots in Lingxu City seventy years ago. Anything earlier than that is impossible to trace—it was simply too long ago."
"What kind of business did his family run?"
"Oh, a bit of everything. When the Fangs first arrived in Lingxu City, they still had some money and opened two shops: a drapery and a tailoring store. After running them for a dozen years or so, probably because the leadership changed and they couldn't manage, they had no choice but to sell the shops and change trades." Old Ge ticked them off on his fingers, reeling off the history like he knew it by heart. "After that, members of the family worked as bookkeepers, ran a private tutoring school, opened shops again, and went bust again... That continued until Fang Canran's uncle got back into commerce and began to thrive, bringing Fang Canran into the trade. And in the end? In the end, Fang Canran showed far more promise than his uncle, achieving such tremendous success at a young age."
The Jinjiao clan was a renowned and influential family on the Floating Isle. For Fang Canran to manage their estates made him equivalent to a top-tier agent and manager, enjoying both immense prestige and wealth.
He Lingchuan nodded. "Well, that certainly counts as smoke rising from their ancestral graves."
He just wondered whether Fang Canran's ancestors had any connection to Shao Jian.
If the Fang family had intentionally concealed their history from before they moved here seventy years ago, an outsider would never be able to trace it.
It seemed his discreet inquiries into Fang Canran's family history had reached their end.
He took out another silver ingot. "Old Ge, I have another favor to ask."
At the sight of the gleaming silver, Old Ge put on a righteous face. "Just name it!"
First time strangers, second time acquaintances, third time friends.
Chiefly because He Lingchuan spent generously.
The generous patron leaned in and whispered to him. Old Ge listened and grinned. "Isn't that just running an errand to deliver a letter? And here I thought it was something difficult! Leave all that to me from now on."
"Thank you."
Now, his next step was to inquire into the past of the Ke family and the divine relic.
That was ancient history from nearly two hundred years ago. Even in Lingxu City, few would know the details, and they certainly wouldn't tell him.
Fortunately, He Lingchuan had someone he could ask.
After returning to Panshan Residence and finishing a meal, He Lingchuan went to his room, shut the doors and windows tightly, and retrieved an item from his storage ring.
It was the leaf he had obtained from the Dao-Seeking Tree on Mount Xu's Tianji Peak.
When the Dao-Seeking Tree divined fortunes for others, it always yielded a green leaf or a red leaf, or at most one that was half red and half green.
Yet in his case, it had been golden-red.
Red, green, golden-red... Heh, who knew what kind of crossroads he was walking on?
He Lingchuan studied the leaf for a long time without detecting any fluctuation of supernatural power. Aside from being pretty, it was just an ordinary leaf.
Old Ge had mentioned that many tourists who sought divinations took the leaves home as souvenirs, which meant the thing itself likely had no other use.
In terms of mixing colors: red, green, yellow.
Could he interpret it as his fate swinging wildly between good and ill fortune, impossible to sum up simply, yet ultimately trending toward disaster, so that the Dao-Seeking Tree had just handed him this result?
Symbolically speaking, a yellow leaf also signified withering and decay...
Damn it all, he had no desire to die.
Supposedly, Hong Chenglüe had received a yellow leaf as well—a standard yellow leaf.
Even though it wasn't the same as his, if a suitable opportunity arose, He Lingchuan wanted to ask Hong Chenglüe whether the warning of the yellow leaf proved accurate.
Several ancient sages and paragons of the Dahuan Sect, including Master Dongli's master, Venerable Muling, had reportedly passed away beneath the Dao-Seeking Tree. Were their divinatory abilities even greater than Master Dongli's, who had comprehended the Passing Waters Collection?
The gluttonous divine bone necklace had been heating up constantly. Seeing nothing new to discover from inspecting the leaf, He Lingchuan simply fed it to the necklace.
Watching the golden-red leaf vanish from his fingers with a whoosh, he complained to the divine bone necklace, "You're like a pixiu—all intake and no output! All you do is demand food, and I never see you spit out anything useful!" Well, aside from that budget knockoff of the Dragon-Torture Pillar.
His current situation was precarious and dangerous, and he desperately needed assistance.
Yet this contraption was utterly useless.
Just what could the Dafang Pot, which drove all of Lingxu City mad with desire, actually do?
As wind and rain came with the night, he didn't feel like moving, so he flopped onto the bed to sleep.
He hoped to enter Panlong City to look into the past of the Ke family and the divine relic, seeking some direction for his future course of action.
All around was pitch-black darkness.
Was this the Panlong realm of souls? He Lingchuan's perception felt bizarre; it wasn't as if he was seeing with his eyes, yet he clearly knew what lay all around.
He seemed to be inside an enormous cavern, surrounded by heaps of tumbled rocks. The exit was far away, more than five zhang out.
That meant the light source was also distant.
The cave was heavy with dampness. Occasionally, a water droplet fell from the ceiling, splashing apart against stone with a distinct drip.
Where on earth was this?
He Lingchuan wanted to walk out and look, but his entire body was immobilized.
He didn't know how much time passed before the light at the cave mouth dimmed. Someone actually walked in and looked down at him:
"A tree endowed with spiritual nature. So tenacious, yet trapped here—what a pity."
Only then did He Lingchuan realize that he seemed to be a scrawny, sickly sapling, with a pathetic pair of branches whose leaves grew only to wither and fall.
The person turned and walked out.
A mere few breaths later, a flash like thunder burst overhead, blazing with brilliant radiance.
The mountain peak sheared away; the cavern roof was gone.
Both had been sliced clean off with a single sword strike.
For the first time in hundreds of thousands of years, sunlight shone into this dark cavern.
Bathed in the sunlight, the little tree shivered gently in the breeze for the very first time.
Holding a sword, the figure stood among the rocks and smiled at it. "Grow well. Our sect shares a destiny with you."
From then on, the sun rose and the moon set; uncounted storms, dewfalls, and cycling seasons passed.
He Lingchuan's vision was no longer restricted to the tree's trunk. Instead, like viewing a holographic display, he took in the entire mountain peak at a glance.
Though much was different, the mountain peak looked familiar, especially that summit sheared flat at the top—
Hiss, wasn't that the Tianji Peak of later generations!
Then the perspective he had inhabited earlier must have been the sapling years of the Dao-Seeking Tree. And the person who had cleaved open a path to life for it was probably... Immortal Shou'an?
As the tree grew larger and larger, its spiritual perception spread outward and was no longer confined to itself.
It grew faster than any other tree, pushing out from the cavern to stretch its branches and leaves freely.
Back then, this peak was still called Wendao Peak.
Disciples of the Dahuan Sect gathered in small groups, frequently chatting, laughing, practicing swordplay, and seeking enlightenment beneath the tree. Numerous immortals set up altars here to preach and teach.
The Dao-Seeking Tree listened in silence.
Many among them possessed the ability to soar on high, riding artifacts and treading the wind.
Suddenly one day, dark clouds smothered the mountains, blanketing not just Mount Shou'an, but the entire domain of the Dahuan Sect.
Something stirred restlessly within the clouds; occasional glimpses of a head or tail revealed monstrous, ferocious fiendgods.
The Dahuan Sect issued the order for all members to strike back. In an instant, countless rainbow beams rose from the ground, piercing straight into the clouds.
It was a magnificent spectacle such as He Lingchuan had never seen.
The very first battle raged for half a month, with over a hundred disciples of the Dahuan Sect dead or wounded.
Yet this was merely the prelude to a bloody war.
Before long, several terrifying bolts of lightning fell from the heavens and struck the Dao-Seeking Tree.
The great tree was blasted into charred wood, and its spiritual awareness was severed instantly.
Thus, He Lingchuan's vision plunged into darkness once more.
By the time his vision returned, a long time seemed to have passed, for the entire Wendao Peak had completely transformed.
Once lush and green, it was now barren and desolate, the earth riddled with countless gullies as though washed over by molten lava. Across the vast mountain range there was scarcely any vegetation; the few surviving trees had withered yellow leaves and drooped dispiritedly, clinging to their last gasps of life.
Immortal Shou'an was nowhere to be seen. Several Dahuan Sect elders stood beneath the Dao-Seeking Tree, debating whether or not to cut it down.
"It has been tainted by so much fiend blood; I fear it will turn into a vicious monstrosity that devours humans."
"When other spiritual trees touched fiend blood, they either withered away or turned monstrous. If Martial Uncle Shou'an knew the Dao-Seeking Tree had become like that, he would surely be heartbroken."
"Isn't it sitting right here unharmed, without having changed? There are exceptions to everything! Have you forgotten? Even while the Dao-Seeking Tree was shattered by lightning, we still carried its leaves with us, thereby warding off Mulian's divine ability, the Eye of Truth! Only then did we successfully infiltrate Mulian's vicinity and defeat it! The tenacity and resilience of the Dao-Seeking Tree far surpasses our own!" One elder firmly held his ground. "After this apocalyptic calamity, precious few spiritual items remain in the world. If the Dao-Seeking Tree can withstand the corruption of fiend blood and survive, it will be a blessing for our Dahuan Sect."
The others asked him, "How so?"
"The spiritual energy of heaven and earth has run dry. Which among us could outlive it?" The elder smiled. "Hundreds or thousands of years from now, it can still shelter our sect—that is far greater than what any of us can do."
And so, the Dao-Seeking Tree was preserved.
As stars shifted and epochs turned, another thousand years slipped by.
The scars of the Heavenly Fiends' rampage had long faded away, and Mount Shou'an was verdant once more.
As predicted, the elders who had debated felling the tree back then had all passed away one by one, while only the Dao-Seeking Tree remained evergreen, flourishing with ever-greater vigor.
The aerial roots hanging from the tree grew thicker and sturdier, completely enveloping the rock cavern where the Dao-Seeking Tree had originated, forming a nested wonder of a cave within a tree and a tree within a cave.
Upholding the sect's ancestral teachings, disciples of the Dahuan Sect treated it with the utmost reverence, and through the generations, several grand masters had passed away here.
At this time, the peak master of Wendao Peak was Venerable Muling.
He had a very pointed skull and patches of white vitiligo across his face, and his eyes were usually squinted into thin slits, making it almost impossible to tell whether he was asleep or awake.
In terms of appearance, he was truly plain and unremarkable, without the slightest demeanor of a transcendent master. Yet everyone in the Dahuan Sect held him in deep respect.
Chapter 582