On this night, atop a solitary cliff in the mountains of Marshgaze Ridge, stood three figures. They gazed out at the hazy jungle and marshes below, bathed in the light of the silver moon. One of them spoke. "Uncle Sang, why have we stopped here?"
Just as the words fell, an aged voice from among the three replied, "According to the jade slip map your mother left behind, this mountain is Ling Yue Mountain. It's no more than a thousand li from the Huchen family estate and is the only independent peak for several hundred li. The surroundings are all mudflats, making it impossible for anyone to hide. If someone were to set up an ambush nearby, they would startle the demonic beasts here. This is also what your mother said was the last place from which one could quickly depart before entering the Huchen family lands."
The three on the clifftop were none other than Li Yan and his companions. They had arrived here a quarter of an hour ago. Upon arrival, Zhuo Lingfeng had immediately released his Divine Sense to observe the area. He had only just now retracted it, a hint of suspicion on his face.
Hearing Zhuo Lingfeng's words, Huchen Wuding's face immediately tensed. He was no fool; on the contrary, he was extremely intelligent. "Uncle Sang, did you find someone following us?"
This time, Zhuo Lingfeng didn't speak. Instead, he looked at Li Yan, who had remained silent. Since arriving, Li Yan had been gazing with great interest at the churning black marsh below the mountain. Seeing the two of them look his way, he pondered for a moment. "Someone started watching us from several thousand li away, right after we left the teleportation formation. However, they seemed to have no ill intent. Otherwise, they would have followed us and made a move when we flew into this sparsely populated area. Instead, they only trailed us from a great distance for a while before leaving."
Li Yan knew what Zhuo Lingfeng was implying. He had likely deduced from some of Li Yan's earlier expressions that he had discovered something, so he wanted to confirm Li Yan's cultivation realm through these traces. Seeing this, Li Yan smiled inwardly and answered earnestly.
However, after Li Yan spoke, Zhuo Lingfeng was rolling his eyes in his mind. 'This person is truly cunning. He talks about just after leaving the teleportation formation. At that time, anyone who was paying careful attention would have noticed someone watching.' But what Li Yan said was indeed the truth. It was just that Li Yan hadn't mentioned that on their way here, two more groups of people had tailed them for some time.
"Oh, Brother Li is absolutely right. I noticed it at the time as well; there was such a group. But now that we are not far from the Huchen family estate, why not just fly over in one go?" Huchen Wuding looked at Li Yan and blinked helplessly. After spending these few days together, he had become quite familiar with Li Yan. Li Yan was easygoing, but he always thought carefully before speaking. Getting information out of him was extremely difficult.
By now, he was addressing Li Yan as Brother Li. To avoid arousing suspicion, Li Yan had already told him not to call him "Benefactor" anymore.
"After that, two more groups tailed us on the road. We landed here just now to see if that last group intended to surround us or if they had reinforcements in ambush nearby. It seems now that they don't. That group has retreated, and I haven't found anything unusual within a several-hundred-li radius," Zhuo Lingfeng said, glancing at Li Yan. Seeing that the other was once again carefully observing the churning black marsh, he had no choice but to speak himself.
Before Huchen Wuding could ask further, he thought for a moment and continued, "This is likely related to the Huchen family's old ancestor. Although I don't know why he went into seclusion, he issued an order as soon as he came out. But even if he was breaking through to a new realm this time, regardless of his success, with his original early-stage Nascent Soul cultivation, the range of his Divine Sense is at least five thousand li. So even if that last group wanted to hunt you down, they probably wouldn't dare to make a move. I stopped here because your mother's jade slip indicated that this place is the closest, most well-connected location for escaping the Huchen family. On one hand, it's a backup plan for later, to survey the terrain first. On the other, it's to confirm whether those people following us would actually attack. If they don't attack here, they'll have even less of a chance later."
Zhuo Lingfeng spoke slowly. But in that short time, both Huchen Wuding and Li Yan could hear it. He had mentioned Huchen Wuding's mother twice, and when he said those words, his voice was always a little different. As for whether Zhuo Lingfeng really wanted to confirm the identity of the pursuers or was using the opportunity to see the place mentioned in Huchen Wuding's mother's jade slip, to remember the person through the object, only he himself knew.
What the two of them didn't know was that this Ling Yue Mountain had been a place Huchen Wuding's mother often visited. Once, after suffering a great grievance in the family with no one to confide in, she had flown away from the Huchen family estate alone at night, just wanting to be quiet for a while. Aimlessly, she had flown here. She saw that this place had only a single peak standing alone within a several-hundred-li radius, looking so lonely and desolate under the moonlit night, just like her mood at that moment. When she stood on this solitary, steep mountaintop, she found that the entire surroundings were in view. If there was any anomaly, she could quickly discover it. It was exactly the place she was looking for.
So, from then on, whenever Huchen Wuding's mother was melancholic, she would always come here late at night. She would sit on the mountaintop, letting the mountain wind mess up her black hair, staring blankly at the full moon of the Desolate Moon Continent, as if recalling the past, the time in her sect, and the figure of the young man who had made her heart beat faster...
She had never told anyone about these things. Until the moment she passed away, when she was truly nestled in the young man's arms, she had gently, as if talking to herself, spoken of the past, of Ling Yue Mountain, of the figure she saw in the full moon on the mountaintop...
After Zhuo Lingfeng finished speaking to Huchen Wuding, he also glanced at the full moon in the sky and thought, 'Meng Jun, is this the place you used to come to? It's just that when I came, you were already gone.' He lowered his gaze and looked around, as if he could see a lonely and helpless woman sitting on the mountaintop, her jade hand supporting her chin, her eyes filled with a poignant beauty.
"Let's go. It's only three hours until dawn," Zhuo Lingfeng took a deep breath. With a flick of his large sleeve, a ferocious Black-Armor Demondog appeared in mid-air. It stood on the air with its four feet, and facing the bright moon, it let out a long howl to the sky.
In the early morning, when the thin mist had just risen, on the small mountaintop where Yu Jiangshi had landed yesterday, a streak of black light, carrying a fierce and baleful aura, flew directly towards this place. After circling once, the black light landed on the mountaintop. The light dissipated, revealing a huge Black-Armor Demondog. The three people standing on it also took a light step out the moment the demondog landed, landing gracefully on the mountaintop.
One of them, a hunchbacked old man, flicked his sleeve, and the overwhelmingly fierce Black-Armor Demondog vanished from the spot. These three were none other than Li Yan and his companions. The moment they landed, their appearances had changed back to their original forms. The Huchen Wuding of this moment was a rather handsome young man. Unlike his pale complexion and sickly appearance at the Xuanqing Temple, his lips were red and his teeth were white, his presence dashing and bright.
Looking at the scene before him, Huchen Wuding's expression was a little dazed. He was only eight when he had left this entrance back then. At that time, his mother had taken him away in a hurry, a look of anxiety on her face. He remembered that there was also a frail scholar named Huchen Wubing who had escorted them.
Seeing Huchen Wuding's dazed expression, neither Zhuo Lingfeng nor Li Yan disturbed him. This entrance was, of course, also recorded in his mother's jade slip. Otherwise, with the memory of an eight-year-old Huchen Wuding who had left in a hurry, finding this place in the continuous mountain range would have been like looking for a needle in a haystack.
After a long while, Huchen Wuding, with a wooden expression, took out a small black cauldron from his storage bag. This cauldron, however, was different from the one Yu Jiangshi had. It had three fine golden lines on its body. Then, Huchen Wuding held the small cauldron and shook it at a cluster of shrubs in the same way. Ripples of light flickered on the mountaintop, and a white gate of light appeared there.
"Uncle Sang, Brother Li, let's go!" Huchen Wuding turned his face. At this moment, his face was smiling, but there was a kind of grimness in the smile. After speaking, he stepped into the gate of light. Zhuo Lingfeng naturally followed closely behind, and with a casual move, he placed a spiritual power protective shield on Huchen Wuding. Li Yan smiled and also stepped in.
At the entrance to the valley, ripples of light suddenly appeared in the air. This made the guards stationed here look up. But there was no look of surprise on their faces. This kind of ripple was not someone trespassing into the Huchen family estate, but a normal phenomenon of opening it with a family token. Moreover, this kind of thing had happened frequently during this period. After the old ancestor had come out of seclusion, he had issued an order, causing many Huchen family disciples who were outside to return one after another.
"Hehe, someone's rushing back so early in the morning. But this is considered late. The competition is tomorrow. To come back now to prepare seems a bit rushed. I wonder which branch's disciple it is. So what if they're back? They're just here to be a foil for others."
There were five people guarding here. They belonged to the Huchen family's inner hall disciples, and all five had cultivation levels of the eighth layer of Qi Condensation or above. The one who spoke was a thin young man, about twenty-three or twenty-four years old, with a somewhat sallow complexion, as if he were malnourished.
"Huchen Liang, you're getting more and more arrogant. It's as if your First Branch's lineage is already the successor," a stout man next to him said.
The thin young man called Huchen Liang rolled his eyes and glanced lazily at the stout man. "Huchen Tuhu, although your name is domineering, you don't even have the qualification to participate. Although your Second Branch's Miss Huchen Huiqing is gifted..."
Just as these two guards were looking at each other with displeasure, and the other four were watching the show, the light at the valley entrance flickered more and more rapidly. Then, three figures stepped out of the gate of light one after another, at the same time interrupting the argument between the two below, and drawing the gazes of all five of them.
But after the five of them saw the appearances of the three, they were stunned. Then they immediately surrounded them, and an unfriendly expression appeared on each of their faces. Because these three people who had appeared, they didn't recognize any of them. They had never seen them in the family.
"You three, who are you? Why have you come to our Huchen family?" After the five of them surrounded them, they surrounded the three of them who had just stepped into the valley. The one who spoke first was the guard named Huchen Liang. And the moment he spoke, Huchen Tuhu and another young guard couldn't help but sneer. Huchen Tuhu said in a low voice, "Acting as if he's the captain of this team."
As for the remaining two guards, one glared at Huchen Tuhu, while the other, a young man of about twenty-seven or twenty-eight, gave Huchen Tuhu a gentle smile and said nothing.
These five guards had, of course, long since seen that the hunchbacked old man standing behind the purple-robed youth was a Foundation Establishment expert. But they still showed no fear. This was the Huchen family estate. Even a first-rate great sect would not dare to barge in like this. Moreover, the family's old ancestor was now in seclusion in the back mountain.
Huchen Wuding looked at the few people in front of him. He seemed to see a trace of familiarity in their brows, but he didn't speak. He just raised his right hand, and in his right hand, a small black cauldron was held in his palm, flashing with a faint black light.
"A family token? Who are you? Why haven't I seen... no, that's not right!" It was still Huchen Liang who asked with an unfriendly expression. But before he could finish, he let out a cry of surprise.
At this time, it wasn't just him. The other four guards were also staring intently at the small cauldron in Huchen Wuding's hand. On it were three fine golden lines.