Though Cai Zhao was clever, her youth and inexperience in the Martial World meant she wouldn't normally have connected the golden chain before her eyes with the golden ring on the bedchamber wall so quickly.
Yet she had recently seen an identical setup—in a residence within Qingque Town used to confine Qian Xueshen, she had witnessed a delicate iron shackle locked around his ankle, with a slender iron chain trailing into the wall.
It was because of that chain that she had failed to take Qian Xueshen away at the time.
After tossing the white jade box and the items from the shrine onto Mu Qingyan's head, she silently picked up the golden chain and sprinted back to the bedchamber—as a righteous and principled heroine, she refused to wrong someone unjustly. Crouching beside the golden ring on the wall, she fitted the lock at the end of the chain into it. With a soft metallic click, the two pieces matched perfectly.
Cai Zhao was furious—this golden chain and ring were clearly meant to imprison someone!
Just then, Mu Qingyan arrived, witnessing the flawless fit between chain and ring, only to be met with the enraged girl charging at him.
Her left hand spread like an orchid, her right poised like a blade, she sidestepped, trapping several vital points on half of Mu Qingyan's body in her attack. If he dodged this Meridian Blocking Hand, he would collide with her blade-like strike—this was the first stance of Dragon Grasping Hand, "Unique Form Wonderful Shape."
Cai Zhao's skill was formidable, and Dragon Grasping Hand was one of Cai Pingshu's proudest creations. Mu Qingyan dared not underestimate it. In a normal fight, he would have countered with Nine Nether Nine Darkness Soul Severing Hand, striking his opponent's wrist—lightly crippling their hand, or severely allowing Dark True Energy to invade their dantian. But against Cai Zhao, how could he resort to such ruthlessness?
He initially intended to flip backward, then changed his mind, lunging at her like a hammer.
Startled, Cai Zhao reflexively reached for her waist—drawing the Bright Sun Blade for a single slash would bisect the figure hurtling toward her—but she didn’t truly want Mu Qingyan in two pieces.
Mu Qingyan had been waiting for this moment of hesitation.
He closed the distance, grappling with her.
Cai Zhao refused to yield, retaliating instantly.
Yet in such close-quarters combat, neither could properly execute techniques, nor were they willing to clash with Inner Force. The fight grew increasingly undignified—even a street brawl would have been more refined.
One used a sloppy minor grappling technique, the other a haphazard Dragon Grasping Skill—pulling ears, biting chins, elbowing backs, headbutting ribs.
—This was why battles between two masters often devolved into childish wrestling matches.
Finally, Mu Qingyan, leveraging his height, pinned Cai Zhao to the carpet. "Cai Xiaozhao, where's your sense of justice? What does something from a hundred and twenty years ago have to do with me? Why are you targeting me?"
Struggling for breath beneath him, Cai Zhao retorted, "...Aren’t you a Mu? If not you, who should I hold accountable for your ancestors' vile deeds?"
"I’m not from Mu Donglie’s line—my direct ancestor is Mu Dongxu!"
"Can you write two different Mu characters?!"
Half-exasperated, Mu Qingyan pulled her up while restraining her arms from behind to prevent another fight. "You think your ancestor Luo Shiyun was forced and humiliated by Mu Donglie, don’t you? Fine, come with me and see for yourself!"He dragged the girl to an embroidered couch beside the seashell bed and pointed at a pink jade sewing basket. "Look at this yourself—what is it!" Then he pointed at a jade needle case beside the sewing basket. "And look here."
Inside the pink jade basket, fabrics were neatly stacked, with a half-mended man's robe on top. The robe was exquisite and valuable, except for a torn elbow. The needle case contained various sewing threads and silver needles of different lengths and thicknesses.
After a hundred years, the jade items, silver needles, and most of the luxurious fabrics remained intact, but most of the thread spools had turned to dust, preserved only in the state they were left by their original owner. Cai Zhao had once touched one of the thread spools, and it immediately crumbled away.
Mu Qingyan pointed at the thread spools in the jade needle case. "Look at these spools—they vary in size. The largest is fist-sized, while the smallest white spool is almost gone. Clearly, Lady Luo mended more than one garment. But earlier, when we searched the wardrobe, we found only intact clothes—not a single mended piece. What does that mean?"
"It means your Mu family is so wealthy they threw away all the mended clothes!" Cai Zhao retorted.
Mu Qingyan continued, "It means when Mu Donglie left, he took almost none of the palace's pearls, agates, jade, or gold—only the robes his wife had mended, unwilling to leave them behind. It means they were a loving couple, not a case of coercion!"
"With such eloquence, you should write novels!" Cai Zhao struggled fiercely, though her tone had softened somewhat.
Mu Qingyan forcibly tilted the girl's chin to examine the half-mended robe in the sewing basket. "Look at the stitching on this robe—you're a woman. Tell me, under what circumstances would such stitching appear?!"
Cai Zhao couldn't help snapping, "You know perfectly well I can't sew! Back at the snowy mountain inn, it was you who mended the tear in my hem. Are you asking this now just to humiliate me?!"
Mu Qingyan choked, nearly speechless. "Who expects you to sew? I'm asking you to look! Can't you even tell good stitching from bad? Be honest—how does the mending I did for you by lamplight compare to what you'd get from a tailor's shop?"
Cai Zhao's gaze wavered.
She was indeed hopeless with needlework, but Mu Qingyan had never sewn before either. Even at Huanglao Peak's Unsullied Study, where Mu Zhengming lived simply, he doted on his son and made up for his hardships by ensuring he lacked nothing in daily comforts.
After the age of five, Mu Qingyan had never worn clothes that needed mending. The snowy mountain inn was likely his first time holding a needle—though his dexterity far surpassed Cai Zhao's, and he picked it up quickly.
In truth, his sewing skills couldn't compare to those of professional tailors who made their living from it.
So Cai Zhao blurted out the client's perspective: "Well, naturally—"
Seeing the dangerous glint in Mu Qingyan's eyes, she quickly amended, "Naturally, your stitching was better. You worked so hard under the lamplight to mend it for me. I remember you even pricked your finger back then."
Mu Qingyan's brows relaxed, a faint smile playing on his lips. "Good. You remember."
He pointed again at the robe in the basket. "This stitching is dense, fine, even, and smooth—far more laborious than ordinary mending. If Lady Luo had been forced to stay here, would she have had such tenderness and patience to mend Mu Donglie's clothes?""Take the potted plants by the windowsill, for example. According to the notes in the study, they were all tended by Madam Luo herself—watering, pruning, fertilizing daily... Does such leisurely refinement belong to a woman consumed by resentment and bitterness?"
Cai Zhao glared. "Are you done talking? If you are, let me go now!"
"Not yet, one more thing." Mu Qingyan held the girl tightly in his arms. "No matter how you spin it, those events are a century old. The Big Dipper Six Sects and our sect have been at odds for two hundred years. If you're going to hold the grievances between both sides against me, then I... we... what are we to do!" His face was full of urgency as he uttered those last five words.
Cai Zhao quieted down and whispered, "I know. I won't hold it against you anymore." Unlike her hot-tempered peers, she was usually cheerful and gentle.
"I don’t know why I suddenly lost my temper," she said wearily.
Mu Qingyan gradually loosened his grip. "If you’re angry, just let it out. I can take it." He gently stroked her arm. "I used too much force earlier. Did I hurt you?"
Cai Zhao didn’t want to dwell on it. "It’s fine. Let’s set this aside for now. I wonder what’s happening outside. We should hurry and leave."
Mu Qingyan patted her head and led her out.
As they passed the study again, they deliberately stopped by the shrine.
Mu Qingyan placed the jade marriage contract back beneath the ancestral jade statue, while Cai Zhao straightened the incense table and offerings. Finally, they both bowed three times to the statue, though their minds were blank, unsure what to pray for.
Exiting through the palace’s main gate, Mu Qingyan turned to look back. High on the eaves hung a gold-filigreed jade plaque inscribed with the ancient characters "Dong Yun."
Mu Qingyan felt a lump in his throat. So much grandeur and drama, yet all that remained for posterity were these two words.
Beyond the jade steps outside the palace gate, a small arched bridge led to a jade screen wall. Carved upon it was a grand mural of phoenixes in harmony, with another Bagua map at its center—the last such map they would see in this underground palace.
Cai Zhao sighed. "I always felt this palace was meant to hide something. But it turns out it wasn’t hiding objects—it was hiding a person. Whether to imprison Madam Luo or protect her, Mu Donglie built this vast underground palace to prevent anyone from breaking in. That’s why he never intended for anyone to leave alive."
Mu Qingyan sighed deeply. "Yet Madam Luo worried her family from Fallen Blossom Valley might search for her and stumble in, so she left escape clues everywhere. Still, without Mu Donglie’s tacit approval, she couldn’t have inscribed so many Bagua maps. I truly don’t understand—if they loved each other, why go to such extremes as building an underground palace for their marriage?"
Cai Zhao murmured softly, "Perhaps falling in love is easy, but committing to a lifetime is hard."
Mu Qingyan turned to look at her, his eyes shadowed with unspoken depth.
Following the last Bagua map, they found a hidden passage behind a rockery in the palace courtyard. Unlike the iron-cast tunnels before, this one resembled the path leading to "Fleeting Beauty," with walls and ceiling paved in bluestone.
As they walked, the terrain gradually rose, clearly ascending toward the surface. Strangely, the knowledge that they were about to leave the underground palace didn’t bring them joy. Instead, their hearts felt heavy, and they spoke little.No matter how long the road, it must come to an end.
Mu Qingyan pushed open a stone door carved with a landscape motif, expecting to be greeted by daylight. Instead, darkness enveloped them, accompanied by a foul, rotting stench that assaulted their senses.
Cai Zhao froze. "Why are we still in the underground palace?"
Mu Qingyan surveyed their surroundings and suddenly understood. "No, we’ve already left the underground palace. This is the intermediate layer." He released his grip, and the stone door immediately swung shut behind them.
Only then did they realize that the outer side of the stone door was backed by a three-foot-thick iron wall. Once closed, the seams sealed tightly, making it impossible for anyone who came later to discern which section of the wall concealed the door.
Hand in hand, the two circled the area and discovered that this was originally an enormous, square iron chamber. However, later occupants had haphazardly constructed several stone rooms within it, much like the mechanical stone chamber where Nie Zhe had been.
Mu Qingyan carefully explained the intricacies to Cai Zhao—back then, Mu Donglie had built an underground palace beneath the Paradise Palace. To avoid easy detection, the underground palace was situated far from the Paradise Palace, and this square iron chamber served as the intermediate passage between them.
Those permitted by Mu Donglie would descend from the Paradise Palace into this iron chamber and naturally know how to proceed through the stone door to the underground palace. Otherwise, even if one blasted the entire iron chamber apart, they would never find the hidden passage. Nie Zhe, however, clearly hadn’t grasped this secret, mistaking it for merely a concealed underground space and using it to hide his dark deeds.
Cai Zhao casually pushed open the door to one of the stone rooms—inside, a mountain of desiccated corpses greeted her.
Judging by their clothing, some were villagers from the foot of the mountain, while others were ordinary sect members. The corpses were shriveled as if drained of all moisture, mere skeletons draped with human skin. Their skull-like faces bore only eerie, vacant expressions of horror.
"Are these… Corpse Puppet Slaves?" Cai Zhao nearly vomited from disgust and quickly backed away.
"...Not entirely," Mu Qingyan said steadily, staring at the scene. "It seems Nie Zhe has been practicing the Leech Grand Art."
Cai Zhao was horrified. "The Leech Grand Art? Wasn’t that forbidden? No, no—this evil technique can’t even be practiced! Everyone who tried it ended up exploding their own dantian!"
According to ancient lore, the Leech Grand Art was an exceptionally sinister and vicious technique, said to drain the true energy from others’ dantians—even sucking their flesh and blood dry until they withered away.
At first, progress was naturally swift. But the martial arts practiced by people across the world varied greatly—some aligned with yin-cold schools, others with yang-heat paths. Even within the Big Dipper Six Sects, which shared a common origin, the inner force techniques of each branch had diverged over two centuries.
Even if a senior wished to pass their cultivation to a junior, they had to belong to the same lineage and practice the same system. For example, Cang Qiongzi of the Grand Beginning Temple could transmit his power to Qiu Yuanfeng because they were both master and disciple of the same sect.
Martial artists could study techniques from different schools because they refined and assimilated the varying attributes during cultivation. But directly absorbing another’s inner force from their dantian was like devouring raw flesh—it would soon backlash against the practitioner.
Mu Qingyan remarked, "Nie Zhe forced these people to cultivate inner force techniques identical to his own before draining them. Hmph, what a waste—resorting to such vile methods."
The skills hastily cultivated by villagers and low-ranking sect members were obviously shallow. But Nie Zhe sought to compensate with sheer numbers, hence the need to victimize as many as possible.
"Does this even work?" Cai Zhao couldn’t fathom it.Mu Qingyan sneered, "If it were effective, why has only that waste Nie Zhe been using this method all these years?! Nie Hengcheng spends every day scrambling for power and profit, teaching his nephew nothing, leaving Nie Zhe utterly clueless."
Cai Zhao shook her head. "Although there are treacherous and duplicitous scum among our Big Dipper Six Sects, at least none would openly refine Corpse Puppet Slaves in such a brazen manner, defying all morality."
The two proceeded to search the remaining stone chambers—one a blood-soaked torture room, another filled with severed limbs, and a third glowing eerily green with alchemical concoctions.
Cai Zhao retched at the sight. Finally, the fourth chamber's door opened, revealing no dismembered corpses—only a human figure bound to the wall by iron chains.
Mu Qingyan pushed Cai Zhao behind him and approached cautiously.
The man had graying hair and a gaunt frame, his body entwined with iron chains, several vital acupoints pierced by Soul Confusion Needles. Were it not for his faint breathing, they might have mistaken him for a corpse.
"Who's there?" The man suddenly raised his head at the sound, his voice hoarse but his eyes sharp and alert.
His gaze swept over Mu and Cai before fixing on Mu Qingyan, his expression flickering with shock and doubt. "Y-young Master? How did you get here?" The dim light fell on the youth's face—a strikingly handsome visage resembling an old acquaintance. Yet his cold, wary demeanor bore no resemblance to Mu Zhengming's gentle ease.
The old man immediately sensed the discrepancy. "No... you're not the Young Master. Who... who are you...?"
Mu Qingyan scoffed. "So you're one of Nie Hengcheng's dogs. How did Nie Zhe imprison you here?"
During Nie Hengcheng's reign, his ambiguous stance on Mu Zhengming's succession had split the sect. Loyalists like Elder Chou Baigang still addressed Mu Zhengming as "Young Lord," while Nie's faction vaguely called him "Young Master"—Mu Qingyan instantly understood.
The old man's head jerked up. "You're Mu Qingyan? Sun Ruoshui's son? You've grown so much?!"
Then Mu Qingyan noticed the sixth finger on the man's left hand. A realization struck him. "You're Elder Yuheng—Yan Xu?"
OpenNovel