Chapter 79

Chapter 79

My gaze followed those seven bloody holes downward, finally coming to rest below the tip of the sword. Only then did I realize that the longsword wasn’t thrust into the silt; it was embedded within a bronze tripod.

Since the tripod was buried underwater, I could only see its upper rim.

Just as I wanted to sink a little further to get a clearer look at the vessel, a woman’s face suddenly appeared within the bronze tripod, giving me a start.

Her face was deathly pale, and she looked incredibly weak.

I stared intently at her face. So similar… she looked so similar!

The woman’s features were sixty to seventy percent identical to Liu Junyan’s.

Who was she?!

“Child, do not be afraid,” the woman suddenly spoke. “The fact that you could come here means you share a very close relationship with Ah Yan. Child, will you do me a favor?”

I was completely dazed, my mind a chaotic mess, and I didn’t know how to answer.

The woman didn’t need me to respond, however. She said urgently, “There’s no time left. Child, remember this well: Wangting Mountain, Furong Cave. Dig seven meters deep where you see water. Bring back what you find and give it to Ah Yan.”

As the woman’s voice grew fainter, the scene before my eyes began to fade. The entire space was twisting, collapsing…

Huff!

I jolted awake from the dream, sitting up abruptly and gasping for air.

My entire respiratory tract burned with a stinging pain.

Even though it was just a dream, the sensation of suffocation had been real.

I panted for a long while until my breathing finally steadied, then I reached out to turn on the lamp.

As I moved, I felt something wet in my palm.

The moment the light flickered on, I saw a ripple of water flash and vanish from the middle finger of my left hand.

What… what was going on?

Was that not a dream just now?

At the very least, had my soul really been drawn to that body of water?

Then… who was that woman?

She looked so much like Liu Junyan, and she called him ‘Ah Yan.’ Could she be…

I didn’t dare think further; the more I thought about it, the more outrageous it seemed.

Yet, the more I tried to ignore it, the more I couldn’t shake the thoughts from my head.

I remembered the woman’s final instructions with startling clarity.

“Wangting Mountain, Furong Cave…”

Wait!

Wangting Mountain?!

Didn’t Second Master Liu also come from Wangting Mountain?

What did that woman want me to retrieve for her from there?

Whatever it was, it must be very important to Liu Junyan, right?

All traces of sleepiness were gone. I leaned against the headboard, trying my best to straighten out the various clues.

Suppose… let’s make a bold assumption: the woman in the bronze tripod underwater is Liu Junyan’s mother.

Li Qingying once told me that Liu Junyan’s mother was originally the most favored little princess of the Linghai Dragon Palace. She later disappeared for many years, and when she returned, she brought Liu Junyan back with her.

Furthermore, Liu Junyan and Second Master Liu have countless inextricable connections in private.

Looking at it this way, could it be that during the years Liu Junyan’s mother was missing, she was actually at Wangting Mountain?

Now that she wanted me to go to Wangting Mountain to find something for her, could it be something she left behind back then?

The more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed.

Wangting Mountain… it looks like I must personally make a trip there.

I immediately took out my phone and started searching online.

There were a few snippets of information about Wangting Mountain on the internet, but it was difficult to piece together an exact address.

I scrolled through many entries and finally managed to pin down the location of Wangting Mountain to-Huicheng!

Was Wangting Mountain actually in Huicheng?

I immediately wanted to call Tang Tang to ask if she knew anything about Wangting Mountain.
But then I remembered she was out on an excavation with her professor. If she were back, she would have contacted me immediately.

With that thought, I put my phone down, turned off the light, and lay back down.

A faint light was already peeking through the window; dawn was nearly here.

I had barely slept all night, but my mind was racing at a mile a minute, refusing to stop.

If the woman inside that bronze cauldron beneath the water really was Liu Junyan’s mother, why was she there?

And why was Liu Junyan’s Lifebound Artifact plunged into that cauldron?

That area was a Forbidden Zone of the Linghai Dragon Clan!

Was there some hidden connection between all of this and the fact that Liu Junyan had been trapped in the Wufu Town Pawnshop?

Unfortunately, even Li Qingying knew very little about what had happened back then.

Perhaps I could try to ask him once Liu Junyan finished his secluded cultivation?

***

The next morning, I actually received a call from Tang Tang.

Her voice sounded exhausted.

She told me she had returned to her home in Huicheng and had a week-long break. She asked me to bring the Stamp over to see her.

Thinking about how Tang Ao had helped me last time, I prepared some gifts and set off for Huicheng after breakfast.

This time, I had Li Qingying stay behind to watch the Pawnshop.

These were turbulent times, and with Liu Junyan in seclusion, someone needed to be at the shop.

When I stepped out of the station, Tang Tang was already waiting at the exit. We chatted and laughed as we got into her car and drove straight toward the Tang Family Old Mansion.

“Do you usually live at the old mansion?” I asked.

“Yes,” Tang Tang replied. “I like staying with my aunt. It’s peaceful. My dad is way too annoying.”

“Oh,” I murmured. “But I brought a gift for your father.”

Tang Tang gripped the steering wheel, sounding indifferent. “It’s fine. I’ll just have the butler send it over to his place. Junior Sister, you don’t need to be so polite.”

We exchanged more pleasantries, and Tang Tang shared some interesting stories from the recent excavation. It wasn’t until the car turned onto the winding mountain road that I tentatively asked, “Senior Sister, I heard there’s a Wangting Mountain here in Huicheng, right?”

“Wangting Mountain?” Tang Tang said. “I think I’ve heard of it. There’s an old pavilion there from years ago, backed by a mountain. They originally wanted to turn it into a tourist attraction, but for some reason, the project was shelved. By now, that whole area should be completely overgrown.”

No wonder I couldn’t find any useful information online.

“Do you know why the tourism project was abandoned?” I asked.

Tang Tang shook her head. “I’m not sure. But we can ask the butler when we get back. He’s a local from the older generation and very well-informed. He should know something.”

I nodded. Since Wangting Mountain was within the Huicheng area, it wouldn’t be hard to investigate with the Tang Family’s connections.

As Tang Tang spoke, her eyes kept darting toward my left hand.

I was puzzled. “Senior Sister, what are you looking at?”

By then, the car had reached the gates of the old mansion. She simply pulled over, reached out, and grabbed my left hand, feeling around my middle finger.

As soon as she touched it, she let out a sharp cry of pain. A bead of blood immediately welled up on the finger she had used to touch me.

The wound looked as if something had bitten her.

“Junior Sister!” Tang Tang cried out. “What is that thing tattooed on your middle finger? Why does it bite?”

A tattoo?

What tattoo?

I lifted my left hand and looked at my middle finger.

Only then did I realize that at the base of my left middle finger, a ring of marks resembling water ripples had appeared at some unknown point.

It really did look like a tattoo…