Chapter 148

Silence followed his words.

It was like a stone smashing into a lake. After a loud bang, it quickly sank to the bottom.

Ripples spread outward, then returned to stillness.

Yet in that instant, the wind rose again.

A wind that had blown in from centuries ago once more fanned a fire that had never gone out in all those hundreds of years.

At the calm and unruffled bottom of the lake, molten rock surged and blazing light flowed, bringing the entire lake to a full boil.

Inside the palace, everyone turned toward Li Zhuiyuan and the statue behind him and bowed together.

The four old Heavenly Gate families each had their own form of etiquette, yet at this moment they were astonishingly uniform.

The old lady of the Liu family had once told Li Zhuiyuan: times are different now, so we do not bother with those old formalities anymore.

But the rite was still the same rite. It was just that in this age, how many people were left who still truly recognized it?

Inside the palace, the ancestors of the four old Heavenly Gate families almost simultaneously finished returning the courtesy, then all bowed again as one.

Li Zhuiyuan subconsciously turned to look behind him at the statue of Qin Kan.

They were still bowing to you.

Crack...

The statue split apart. From the forehead, from the arms, from the chest, cracks spread like a spiderweb.

It shattered so suddenly, without the slightest warning.

In just a few blinks, the old statue, shabby yet still carrying an easy dignity and authority, fell into pieces all over the floor.

Li Zhuiyuan stared blankly at the ground. It was as though the statue was telling him in this way:

No. The one they are really bowing to is you.

At the same time, as if answering that unspoken sentence,

everyone in the palace, still holding their bowing posture, shouted in unison:

“We obey the Dragon King’s command!”

Then everyone in the palace flicked their sleeves, and a short section of bamboo pole slipped into each person’s hand. With a smooth motion, the poles extended outward.

They were Corpse Retrievers. The bamboo pole was both proof of their identity and the lifelong companion closest to them.

Many of the bamboo poles in their hands were covered in dense cracks that had been repaired again and again.

Each person tucked the bamboo pole under one arm.

They were heavy. Vast spell power pressed down on them, compressing and restraining their range of movement.

So they began to move using the corpse-driving method they were best at, only this time the corpse they were driving was themselves.

Though no one carried the poles at either end, the poles stood perfectly steady, and they walked out one after another like that.

The four people at the very front wore four different sets of clothing, representing the four old Heavenly Gate families.

Standing side by side, the four of them each pushed both hands forward. Their four bamboo poles drove into one another and joined together, forming one thick pair.

Li Zhuiyuan was not blind yet, but his vision had long since become a field of deep red. Still, his ears could clearly make out their movements.

Four people, two in front and two behind, stopped in front of him,

then crouched down,

and tilted the poles to the side.

“Please, Dragon King of the Qin family, ascend the sedan.”

Hundreds of years ago, they had treated Qin Kan with this same courtesy.

They did not think carrying someone in a sedan was some unequal display between superior and subordinate. They simply understood that as a Dragon King who had already successfully walked the river, he had no need to force himself into this affair.

But the Dragon King had come, and he was willing to lead them into battle to protect their homeland from evil and corruption.

When a man comes in righteousness, I receive him with courtesy.

Li Zhuiyuan reached out, feeling around until he grasped the bamboo pole. Then he sat on it.

The four stood up, lifting the boy’s body into the air.

The procession began to move.

Outside, everyone closed their eyes and lowered their heads.

Such a massive procession filled with spell power brought with it an equally terrifying pressure.

One person was an exception, and that was Jie Shunan.

The Unseeables had all been invited out by Li Zhuiyuan.

He knew that his plan had utterly collapsed.

But at this moment, instead of his earlier fury and hysteria, he only kept muttering in stunned disbelief:

“Why does the only living heir of the Dragon King Qin family bear the surname Li?”

In fact, earlier, when Li Zhuiyuan had sworn his warning to White Crane Child at the edge of the giant pit, he had already shouted out his own name.

Lihua had heard it. Jie Shunan, with his exceptionally sharp hearing, could not possibly have missed it.

He had wondered about it too—why the boy claimed to be the inheritor of two Dragon King lineages, yet seemed to place most of his attention on the Qin family.

But the Qin family’s current inheritor and the Qin family’s only current inheritor were two completely different concepts.

For the Dragon King’s clan to have inheritors with other surnames was nothing strange.

For example, the husband and wife Xiong Shan and Lihua dreamed of sending their son into the Dragon King’s clan as a child entrusted to their care. That followed the route of opportunity and personal ties, and there was no need to change the child’s surname.

Or a naturally gifted person might come to join them, or be taken in and raised. In those cases as well, there was no need to change surnames.

Every great clan had no shortage of outsiders among them.

But if the Qin family’s only heir of the current generation was not surnamed Qin, then there was only one possibility.

That the Qin family’s bloodline had grown so thin it had reached a truly terrifying point.

And yet the Qin family was a great clan, so...

Had nearly all the Qin family really died out?

And that was indeed the truth. Before Li Zhuiyuan entered the family, the only people in the Qin family who properly wore red ceremonial robes during rites were Uncle Qin and Ah Li.

Uncle Qin had been born into the household. In the old days, that meant the child of servants born in the master’s home. Though he had been granted the surname Qin, he was not of Qin blood.

Even so, the old lady had personally raised and cultivated Uncle Qin. That was treatment even direct-line children in the past might not have received, so while the two seemed master and servant, they were in truth like mother and son.

Besides, Uncle Qin had failed his river walk. He belonged to the previous generation.

As for Ah Li, though she carried Qin family blood, because of her illness she had not entered the family. Those filthy things had already begun to harass her before she entered. If she truly entered, they would only become even more frenzied.

Therefore, once Li Zhuiyuan entered the family, he became the Qin family’s only inheritor of the current generation. The same was true in the Liu family.

As Li Zhuiyuan was carried past Jie Shunan, Jie Shunan breathed rapidly and called out in a low voice:

“The Qin family... the Qin family... the Qin family really... really died... are they really all gone?”

Li Zhuiyuan still ignored him.

But at a time like this, no response was itself a kind of confirmation.

Joy appeared on Jie Shunan’s face, and he suddenly laughed out loud.

“Heh heh... hahahahaha!”

Only this time, there was none of the previous savagery in his laughter.

All kinds of scenes from the past surfaced in his mind:

As a child, he had sat at his grandmother’s knee, listening to her tell the story of how their ancestor and the Dragon King of the Qin family had suppressed the General together, and what kind of family the Qin family truly was—how generation after generation of Dragon Kings had roamed the world to defend the righteous path.

Night after night in those years, he had held the Qin family Dragon King’s memorial tablet and cried as he pleaded and made offerings.

So it was not that the Qin family had refused to come on purpose. It was that the Qin family had all died out already... haha, wonderful.

The towering image he had admired and revered since childhood had not collapsed after all, and that filled Jie Shunan with joy.

At the same time, it also filled him with confusion.

“The Qin family... the Qin family... why exactly... why did they die?”

Li Zhuiyuan had already gone far away, and the procession of the Unseeables had already left this place.

“Tell me... tell me... why did the Qin family die... why did they die?”

Tan Wenbin reached out, grabbed Jie Shunan by the hair, yanked his head back, then lowered his own head and asked in return, facing him:

“What do you think they died for?”

Jie Shunan’s body began to tremble. Once the image of the Qin family had been restored in his heart, the reason was actually easy enough to guess.

For a great clan with such deep foundations, if they wanted to avoid disaster and calamity, they had countless ways to do it. Even if they simply withdrew from the world for a hundred years, a hundred years later they would still not be a force to be underestimated.

So the reason for this state of affairs could only have been something the Qin family chose for themselves.

The comparison was far too obvious, and it fell squarely between the Qin family and the Xie family.

The Qin family’s inheritor was still protecting the common people and defending the righteous path, while he himself...

“How did it come to this? Why did it turn out like this?”

Jie Shunan began muttering to himself nonstop.

Tan Wenbin sighed. If it had been anyone else, he would have thought this fellow was only putting on a show because he feared failure and death. But this man was an outright lunatic to begin with, so perhaps these really were his true feelings.

“You all go after Brother Yuanhou. Remember not to get too close, and watch your line of sight. I am going to handle something first. I am worried it will be too late otherwise.

“Oh, right. Bring this guy along too and let him keep watching.”

After giving his teammates a few simple instructions, Tan Wenbin ran off in another direction.

After leaving the palace, he came to a hollow in the northwest corner. The place was fairly large, but also very hard to notice.

At that moment, the great eunuch was standing there.

“Little Bin, it is not easy for you. Things have come this far, and you still remembered me.”

“Godfather, what kind of thing is that to say?”

“There are things I cannot understand and things I cannot make sense of, but I can see clearly enough that your business has succeeded.

“After succeeding, you did not treat me like some rag to be tossed aside after being used. You still remembered your promise and came running here.

“Only now do I truly dare accept your calling me godfather.

“Who would have thought? In life I had a whole crowd of godsons, yet the one who truly remembered old ties was the godson I only took in so many years after death.”

“It is in that direction, right, Godfather?”

“That is right. Dig downward and you will find it.”

“All right, just watch.”

Tan Wenbin pulled out the Yellow River Spade from his bag, unfolded it, and started digging. Before long, he unearthed a coffin.

“Godfather, I am just going to force it open, all right?”

“I am standing right in front of you. Are you still afraid of disturbing me?”

“Heh heh.”

Tan Wenbin pried the coffin open, and inside lay a set of remains.

They had all been ordered to die as burial sacrifices, so naturally no one would have gone to any special lengths to preserve their bodies. The fact that he had a coffin here at all was already treatment beyond the ordinary.

Who knew how many maids and eunuchs were buried underground nearby. Quite a few white bones had hands and feet sticking out of the earth. Even when walking over here earlier, he had had to watch his step so as not to tread on them.