Exhaling a breath, Zhang Wuzong said, "Fourth Elder, Third Elder, now is not the time to discuss this. Let’s head further in first. An ant from a subordinate faction entered ahead of us."
"What?"
Without another word, the three of them advanced rapidly.
Soon, the passage came to a dead end blocked by solid rock.
"This looks like a mechanism."
The Fourth Elder spotted the mechanism. Upon pressing it, the rock shifted, revealing a gap just wide enough for one person to pass through.
"Let’s go."
The three didn’t pause. They entered the cavern and noticed the thatched cottage ahead.
The thatched cottage was far too quiet, eerily so. While the two Elders hesitated, Zhang Wuzong furrowed his brows and barged right in.
The two Elders exchanged a glance before following him inside.
Upon entering, they suddenly felt a chill in the air. This icy aura was emanating directly from Zhang Wuzong.
The two followed his gaze and were instantly stunned.
"First Elder!"
Before them lay the corpse of the First Elder. His eyes were wide open, staring blankly in a grisly display of unresigned death. Beside him was another headless corpse. For a moment, the two Elders couldn’t recognize who this second body belonged to.
Beside them, Zhang Wuzong slowly shook his head and sighed. "My foolish little brother. Even in death, you never managed to surpass me."
Hearing his words, the two Elders were left dumbfounded.
"That’s Wuying!"
"Yes, this is exactly what Wuying was wearing today."
"Damn it, who killed the First Elder and Wuying? Who even has the strength to kill the First Elder?!"
"The First Elder was likely killed by Wuying," Zhang Wuzong stated flatly.
What! The two Elders were completely stupefied.
"Wuying killed the First Elder? That’s impossible. The First Elder treated Wuying better than anyone else. Besides, how could Wuying possibly have the strength to kill him?"
"Celestial Ascension Lotus," Zhang Wuzong explained.
"Celestial Ascension Lotus! The First Elder’s condition does indeed look like the aftermath of using the Celestial Ascension Lotus. He took the middle path, which means that path must have been incredibly dangerous to force him into using it."
"Town Mayor, are you saying Wuying took advantage of the First Elder when he was defenseless and killed him? But why?"
Zhang Wuzong glanced at the empty bookshelves, his gaze turning gloomy. "If I’m not mistaken, it was for the fortuitous encounters here."
"For the fortuitous encounters! But that doesn’t add up. Town Mayor, didn’t you say an ant had snuck in? If the First Elder’s Spiritual Power was truly drained, that ant might have taken a desperate risk for the treasures and killed both Wuying and the First Elder."
However, Zhang Wuzong shook his head. "Look at the First Elder’s eyes. The fact that he died with his eyes wide open proves he suffered a massive shock right before death. Such a reaction could only mean he was betrayed by someone he never expected. My foolish brother must have been completely frantic at the time. That explains why there are so many stab wounds on the First Elder’s chest."
As Zhang Wuzong spoke, his left hand suddenly radiated with the light of Spiritual Qi. A massive palm made of Spiritual Qi slammed down onto Zhang Wuying’s corpse.
BOOM.
A muffled explosion echoed out.
Zhang Wuying’s body was pulverized into dust and shattered bone.
"Town Mayor, what are you..."
The two Elders watched, utterly horrified.
It wasn’t that they had never seen a corpse being desecrated before, but destroying the corpse of one’s own flesh-and-blood brother was a first. Just how ruthless could a person be?!
Zhang Wuzong scoffed coldly. "That idiot. How dare he kill the First Elder? I personally invited the First Elder here to hold down the fort in Wuzong Main Town on my behalf. Wuying could die for all I care—he was just a piece of trash anyway—but the First Elder’s death deals a massive blow to the Zhang Family. Do you understand my mood now?"
At that moment, the two Elders finally understood why Zhang Wuzong was so enraged. He wasn’t furious because his brother had died; he was furious because his brother had killed the First Elder.
"Town Mayor... then who killed Wuying?"
"That ant, naturally. Although he is nothing but a bug in my eyes, he was more than capable of killing this fool. That brat is at the peak of the Frenzy Spirit Realm. Let’s go. There’s a secret tunnel here. Let’s check it out."
Zhang Wuzong pulled open the entrance to the tunnel.
He now realized that everything Ye Xuan had told him was actually true, though it wasn’t the whole truth. That was exactly why the brat had bolted the instant he saw a chance.
What angered Zhang Wuzong the most was that the brat had deliberately led him into this ruin. Coming here was the only way he could create a chance to escape. Zhang Wuzong had been played from the very beginning.
He prided himself on his intelligence, yet he had been completely outsmarted. He swore that the brat had to die.
Following the tunnel, he soon arrived at a glowing doorway. If what the brat had said was true, this was a miniature Teleportation Array that would drop anyone who entered it right to the bottom of a lake.
However, there was still a chance that this Teleportation Array led to another location containing fortuitous encounters. With that in mind, Zhang Wuzong stepped through.
With a flash of light, he found himself at the bottom of a lake. He quickly swam to the shore. Sure enough, he had returned to the outside.
"We’re out."
"Town Mayor, should we hunt the brat down? Describe his appearance to us," the voices of the two Elders rang out.
Zhang Wuzong shook his head. "The Secret Realm is vast; finding one person won’t be easy. But we don’t need to rush. The exit to the Secret Realm hasn’t opened yet, so he can’t leave anyway."
"Right, he can’t leave! I was being too hasty. Oh, by the way, Town Mayor, I almost forgot—the Eighth Elder and Ninth Elder are still inside the ruins. They took the left path. I wonder if they’ve come out yet."
"The Eighth and Ninth Elders are inside too? In that case, I’ll make another trip in. I might as well see what exactly is at the end of the other two paths."
Zhang Wuzong descended back into the water. He already knew how to open the entrance.
Over half an hour later, Zhang Wuzong, the Eighth Elder, and the Ninth Elder emerged on the shore one after another.
He had explored both the left and middle paths. As it turned out, all three routes converged at the thatched cottage in the center.
This proved that the thatched cottage was the place where the legacy was passed down—yet the legacy had been completely swept away by that brat.
If his memory served him right, the brat had been wearing a ring. At first, he hadn’t paid it much mind.
Could it be... that was a Storage Ring?!
The spatial capacity of a Storage Ring was ten, even a hundred times larger than that of a Qiankun Bag. That brat definitely had to die!
With this thought in mind, Zhang Wuzong retrieved a pen and paper from his Qiankun Bag and sketched out Ye Xuan’s portrait. Cultivators possessed a natural aptitude for drawing; the resulting portrait was practically a carbon copy of Ye Xuan himself.
"Elders, this is what the brat looks like."
"It’s him!"
"You’ve seen him?"
"We crossed paths once. By some stroke of luck, he managed to kill a Rank Four Beast that you had severely wounded."
"Severely wounded by me? After entering the Secret Realm, I only wanted to familiarize myself with the environment and see if there were any undiscovered ruins. I never once attacked a Rank Four Beast. As you well know, the Beast Pill of a Rank Four Beast is completely useless to me. Furthermore, if I had attacked, how could a Rank Four Beast merely be ’severely wounded’?"
"What! You didn’t attack it? That’s impossible... Don’t tell me that brat was the one who injured the Rank Four Beast?"
"He can kill a Rank Four Beast? His talent isn’t much inferior to my own. This boy must be killed."