Hearing Huchen Wuding's words, Zhuo Lingfeng's stone-like figure remained motionless, but his long robe suddenly stirred in the windless air. He then looked up at Huchen Wuding.
Seeing this, Huchen Wuding knew the anger Uncle Sang had suppressed for so long. In his heart, he had long regarded Uncle Sang as his closest relative, and that other person as a mere passerby in his life. He had returned here not to seek refuge with the family, but to show his mother that he had grown up. He could rely on his own strength to get what was rightfully his. Then, after getting satisfying revenge on all those who had once bullied him and his mother, he could give it all up and travel the world with Uncle Sang.
"The room behind me is my mother's. Uncle Sang, you can stay in this room for this period of time. I will take care of the rest," Huchen Wuding said, suddenly changing the subject as Zhuo Lingfeng stared at him.
Li Yan could hear a sense of revenge in Huchen Wuding's words. For Huchen Wuding to have come to the family after experiencing life and death, he was not here to die. He would not confront everything head-on. It seemed he had been planning for many years.
With Huchen Wuding's words, Zhuo Lingfeng's gaze towards him trembled. He could no longer hear any other words. He took a deep breath, first nodded to Li Yan, and then walked towards the room behind Huchen Wuding. But as a Foundation Establishment cultivator, even Huchen Wuding could feel that Uncle Sang's footsteps had lost their usual steadiness.
Only after Zhuo Lingfeng had disappeared into the room did Huchen Wuding turn his face to look at Li Yan again. "Brother Li, this place is simple. You can rest in another room for a few days." As he spoke, he pointed a finger at the leftmost room in the courtyard.
Then he continued, "If Brother Li feels uncomfortable, I will go find the Family Head later. I imagine that although I have been away from the family for more than ten years, it should still be possible to arrange for someone to stay in the guest building." As he spoke, a trace of apology appeared on his face.
Li Yan had long since taken a clear look at the four rooms in the courtyard. Apart from one being a kitchen, the peeling paint on the doors and the mottled window lattices of the remaining three showed that the furnishings inside would not be very exquisite. He waved his hand. "No trouble. This place is fine. I imagine the competition for the successor will not last too long. However, the rest is up to you. I hope you don't waste the purpose for which you came here after experiencing life and death." As he spoke, Li Yan gave Huchen Wuding a meaningful look and then walked towards the room.
Hearing this, Huchen Wuding's gaze also became serious. Then he slowly walked to the stone stool in the courtyard and sat down. Looking at the rising sun through the space above the courtyard, a look of determination appeared on his face.
Just as Huchen Qiukong had said, not long after, a young servant came to the courtyard with a large food box. After knocking on the courtyard gate and putting down the food box, he saw Huchen Wuding clearly. The young servant then turned and left with a look of surprise and doubt. In his memory, not only this courtyard, but this entire area was only cleaned once every ten days to half a month. No one should have lived here for many years.
After Huchen Wuding opened the food box, he took out the layers one by one. There were as many as ten dishes, and each one was fragrant and exquisitely prepared. At the same time, there were also four pots of wine. The preparations were very adequate. After these were placed on the stone table, the plates of delicious dishes looked appetizing. It was no wonder Huchen Qiukong had said that even cultivators would have a desire for food. Moreover, during this period of time, he had been living in fear every day. Now that he had returned here, with the old ancestor out of seclusion, he was temporarily safe.
A moment later, he went to call Zhuo Lingfeng out to eat something, as a way to relieve the tension of the past few days. But no matter how much he persuaded him, Zhuo Lingfeng would not come out. Instead, he sat in front of his mother's former dressing table, staring blankly at his own reflection in the mirror. Huchen Wuding was now an adult and naturally understood Uncle Sang's mood. He could only close the door and return to the courtyard alone.
Afterwards, he came to Li Yan's door and knocked on the door knocker. Seeing Huchen Wuding's lonely figure standing in the courtyard, Li Yan thought for a moment and then readily agreed to come to the courtyard. Huchen Wuding gave Li Yan a forced smile, then first opened all four pots of wine and placed them on the stone table. Then, he patted the storage bag on his waist, and the Jade Purification Vase appeared in his hand again. He slapped the bottom of the vase, and a cloud of smoke dispersed from the mouth of the vase. This smoke was silver in color. After the smoke had circled the stone table once, it was sucked back into the Jade Purification Vase.
Li Yan had been sitting there quietly watching all of this. Only after it was all done did he suddenly speak. "Your magical treasure is quite marvelous. It can actually hold many immortal arts with different functions."
After putting the Jade Purification Vase back into his storage bag, Huchen Wuding first shook his head at Li Yan, then a complicated expression appeared on his face. "Originally, with my cultivation, I naturally couldn't possess a magical treasure. Even a spirit treasure would be a rare item for me. But Uncle Sang saw that I had some talent in cultivating the Ghostly Poison Scroll. He spent almost all of his savings from several decades to refine this elementary magical treasure for me. Originally, he should have had a chance to break through to the Golden Core, but in order to refine this magical treasure, his cultivation has been stagnant for seven years."
Li Yan was moved when he heard this. He had never thought that a cultivator would use up all of his cultivation resources for someone else, while his own cultivation had not progressed at all for several years.
"There are four independent spaces inside this treasure. Although it is an elementary magical treasure, these four spaces can store four different kinds of medicinal pills. It can also use the formation inside to enhance their power by thirty percent before launching them. The four kinds of pills, depending on their combination, can be used for both offense and defense. Even some mid-grade magical treasures may not necessarily be stronger than it," Huchen Wuding said, after just a moment's thought, he actually revealed the function of this magical treasure. Li Yan had actually just been praising it and had no intention of prying into the secrets of other people's magical treasures.
Huchen Wuding's directness made Li Yan a little embarrassed. But he also knew that this was Huchen Wuding deliberately showing him goodwill, revealing his own life-saving trump card. At that time, if he really couldn't get the position of successor, it would be really difficult for him to turn on him, given his sincerity.
Huchen Wuding seemed not to have seen the embarrassed look on Li Yan's face. Instead, as he spoke, he directly picked up the wine pot, poured himself a cup of wine, and drank it in one gulp. Then, without paying any attention to Li Yan, he directly picked up his chopsticks and actually took a piece from each dish and put it in his own bowl. He seemed to be savoring it as he slowly put it in his mouth and tasted it all. Then he closed his eyes as if he were savoring the aftertaste. After a long while, he opened his eyes and gave Li Yan a slight smile. "After days of traveling, it's not bad to have these foods." Then, as if he had just remembered, he filled Li Yan's wine cup.
"That silver smoke of yours, did you develop it yourself?" Li Yan also seemed not to mind Huchen Wuding's rude behavior of pouring and drinking by himself just now. He slowly raised his wine cup and carefully looked at the wine in the cup.
"I developed that by combining seventeen techniques from the first four layers of the Ghostly Poison Scroll and forty-six variations of herbs. Its original purpose was to detect whether there were any poisonous substances invading the seven-zhang space around me. It can only serve as an early warning. For a person like me who is on the run, I am always thinking about how to save my own life. But I am not proficient in formations, and my spiritual energy cultivation is shallow. I can only do my best to make myself safer. So I refined this art into the Jade Purification Vase, so that it also has the function of detection and early warning."
Li Yan played with the wine cup, listening to Huchen Wuding as if he were talking about a very small matter, as if he were talking about his daily cultivation. But in his heart, he praised Huchen Wuding's cautious attitude. Even after arriving at the family, Huchen Wuding had not lost his vigilance. When these foods were laid out, the first thing he did was to naturally take out the Jade Purification Vase. This action was as smooth as flowing water, as if it had been integrated into his very bones. But listening to his words, this made Li Yan see a person who was cautious at all times, which eventually formed an instinctive habit. And all of this was for one thing—to live.
After Huchen Wuding finished speaking, Li Yan smiled, raised the wine cup in his hand, and drank it in one gulp. Seeing that Li Yan had only asked a few simple questions before drinking the wine in the cup without any hesitation, Huchen Wuding was stunned at first. But then a warm current surged in his heart. He had had no friends since he was a child. Even someone like Huchen Qiukong only interacted with him because he was ordered to by that person, and he didn't dare to say too much to Huchen Wuding.
It was just that Huchen Wuding had never thought that this seemingly forthright person in front of him was not really without any defense. When it came to the way of poison, Li Yan had his own trump card, which was why he had drunk it in one gulp.
The two of them just drank and chatted like this, eating until noon before returning to their respective rooms.
After returning to his room, Li Yan closed the door, a sharp glint flashing in his eyes. Then he flicked his sleeve, and four small formation flags landed directly in the four corners of the wall. Then he formed a hand seal, and after a slight fluctuation of spiritual energy in the entire room, it returned to normal. Then he sat on the bed with a blank expression.
"So many people have come to investigate so quickly."
When he was in the courtyard earlier, in less than half a day, four groups of people had appeared in his Divine Sense. They were observing near the courtyard and trying to send their Divine Sense in to probe. It was just that the moment their Divine Sense reached the sky above the courtyard, it was directly repelled by Zhuo Lingfeng's Divine Sense.
"The water here is still murky. Among the four groups just now, at least two showed killing intent. This killing intent was hidden very deeply. It was only inadvertently revealed when they detected someone in the courtyard. I imagine they are wary of that Nascent Soul old ancestor and don't dare to make a move directly, but they still want to know the situation in the courtyard, so they couldn't control their killing intent. In this way, at least on the surface, Huchen Wuding is fine. I'll have to be more careful tonight. I wonder how many days the competition for the successor will last." As Li Yan thought about these things, he felt that it might be more difficult to get the "Netherworld Order" this time than he had imagined.
And at the same time, in the pavilion where the First Branch's steward, Yu Jiangshi, had once been, a gloomy-faced young man was talking to the woman in the palace dress. "Mother, that illegitimate son has really returned. Huchen Liang's report was correct. The moment that boy returned, he hid in his old courtyard and hasn't come out. When I went over with Steward Yu, our Divine Senses couldn't penetrate. They didn't set up any formations, but one of them has a very high cultivation. Even Steward Yu's Divine Sense was shaken back the moment he probed, and he was even injured a little. That person's cultivation is extremely domineering."
Hearing this, the woman in the pale green palace dress sneered. "Hehe, even Yu Jiangshi was injured when he probed with his Divine Sense. Huchen Liang said that among the three, only an old man has a Foundation Establishment cultivation. Could it be that he has reached the Great Circle of Foundation Establishment? Could this person be that bitch's junior martial brother? It is said that when that bitch fled the family more than ten years ago, she went to find a junior martial brother from the same sect. If it weren't for this person, we would have found that bitch and her son long ago."
"This person should be called Zhuo Lingfeng. He is ruthless in his actions. It is said that he has even competed with people from the four great sects without being at a disadvantage. It seems he was once recruited by two of the great sects, but at that time, he disappeared with that bitch."
As she said this, there was hatred in the eyes of the beautiful woman in the palace dress. If this hunchbacked old man was really that bitch's junior martial brother, then everything that had happened over the years was the result of this person's actions.