"Wh... where did this come from?" Mu Feng’s voice had changed completely.
Old Hu spoke in a secretive tone, "A survey team dug it up in the mountains last month. I paid a heavy price to..."
"Bullshit!" a sharp voice barked from nearby.
Mu Feng turned to see a young woman in Taoist robes marching toward them, looking furious. She was in her early twenties, wore her hair in a high ponytail, and had a wooden peach-sword tucked into her belt; she looked every bit the young Taoist practitioner.
"Old Hu! You’re trafficking cultural relics again!" The girl snatched the seal away. "This is the Celestial Master Seal, an heirloom of the Qingcheng Sect. It was stolen just last week!"
Old Hu’s face turned ghastly green. "Little Master Zhang, you can't just go around saying things like that..."
"Cut the crap!" The girl pulled out her phone. "I’m calling the police right now!"
Mu Feng and Su Yuqing exchanged a glance and quickly stopped her. "Wait... Master Zhang? Could we step aside and talk?"
Ten minutes later, inside an antique town teahouse.
"So, you’re looking for the Guanfu Studio?" Zhang Qingwei—the aforementioned Little Master Zhang—eyed them suspiciously. "That place was abandoned decades ago. Why go there?"
Mu Feng didn't answer directly, pointing instead to the seal on the table. "What exactly is this? And why did it react to my... uh, eyes?"
Zhang Qingwei’s expression shifted. "You can see the markings glowing?" She grabbed Mu Feng’s wrist tightly. "What is your surname?"
"Mu... Mu Feng."
"What is Mu Yuncheng to you?"
Mu Feng was stunned. "You knew my father?"
The teahouse fell silent. Zhang Qingwei took a deep breath and pulled a jade pendant from her robes—it was identical to the one Su Yuqing possessed!
"Twenty years ago, your father entrusted the Celestial Master Seal and this jade pendant to my master for safekeeping," she said, her voice trembling. "He said that if a young man who could see the seal glow ever came looking for it... I was to take him to the basement of the Guanfu Studio."
Su Yuqing stood up abruptly. "Wait! This jade pendant is a token of my Su Family. How could..."
"Because Su Mingyue was my junior master," Zhang Qingwei said with a bitter smile. "Or rather... she was Mu Feng’s mother."
*Clatter.* The teacup in Mu Feng’s hand fell to the floor and shattered.
The air in the teahouse seemed to freeze. Mu Feng stared at the broken shards, his ears ringing. Su Mingyue was his mother? The mother who had vanished when he was five years old?
"Wait, are you saying my mother was... part of the Celestial Master sect?" Mu Feng’s voice trembled. His Mystic Pupil activated involuntarily, and he saw a faint cyan aura shrouding Zhang Qingwei. "Then why did she..."
"That’s a long story." Zhang Qingwei glanced around warily and lowered her voice. "This isn't the place to talk. Follow me."
Su Yuqing grabbed Mu Feng’s sleeve. "Don't just go off with her! This is too suspicious. I grew up in the Su Family, and I’ve never heard of any 'Junior Master Su Mingyue'."
Mu Feng felt his temples throbbing. His Mystic Pupil swept uncontrollably over Su Yuqing; the jade pendant hanging around her neck was emitting the same faint glow as Zhang Qingwei’s. Even stranger, he vaguely saw a golden halo of light hovering over Su Yuqing’s heart.
"Your jade pendants..." Mu Feng pointed to the two pieces of jade. "I can see them glowing."
Zhang Qingwei gasped. "The Mystic Pupil of Clarity? You’ve already reached this level?" She gripped Mu Feng’s wrist again. "Listen, there are at least three organizations currently hunting for the Celestial Master Seal. We have to leave right now."
Before Mu Feng could react, a commotion broke out at the teahouse entrance. Three men in black Tang suits strode inside. The leader was fiddling with a pair of walnuts, his eyes locked firmly on their table.
"Damn it, it’s the people from Shiyi Pavilion." Zhang Qingwei’s face changed instantly. She shoved the Celestial Master Seal into Mu Feng’s pocket. "Split up. Tomorrow night at eight, meet at the west entrance of Liulichang!"
No sooner had she spoken than the leader walked up to them. "Gentlemen, I hear you’ve been asking about the Guanfu Studio?"
Mu Feng felt the Celestial Master Seal in his pocket turn scalding hot. His Mystic Pupil activated automatically, and he saw a black, coin-sized talisman hidden in the leader’s palm, emitting an ominous red glow.
"Sorry, you’ve mistaken us for someone else." Su Yuqing reacted quickly, grabbing Mu Feng and bolting for the side door. In the chaos, Mu Feng looked back and saw Zhang Qingwei slide a yellow talisman from her sleeve; with a light flick, it burst into cyan flames.
Two blocks later, Su Yuqing finally stopped, gasping for air. "What the hell? How did the people from Shiyi Pavilion track us down?"
Mu Feng leaned against a wall, breathing hard. His Mystic Pupil was still scanning his surroundings uncontrollably. In the window of an antique shop across the street, a Song Dynasty celadon vase glowed with a soft blue light, while the bronze Buddha next to it—advertised as "Ming Dynasty"—was shrouded in dull gray mist.
"Are you okay?" Su Yuqing looked at him with concern. "Your eyes... they’re glowing."
Only then did Mu Feng notice the faint golden tint at the edges of his vision. He blinked hard. "I’ve... been having some issues lately."
"Let's get back to my shop first." Su Yuqing hailed a taxi. "It looks like we need to have a serious talk, cousin."
"Cousin?" Mu Feng almost bit his tongue.
"If your mother really is Su Mingyue, then you’re my aunt’s son," Su Yuqing said with a wry smile. "A lot has happened in the Su Family over these years."
Half an hour later, Mu Feng sat in the back room of Bogu Pavilion. Two nearly identical jade pendants lay on the table before him. Su Yuqing retrieved a yellowed genealogy book from a safe and turned to a specific page.
"Look. Su Mingyue. My grandfather’s second daughter. She ran away from home twenty-five years ago and never returned," she said, pointing to the record. "The family says she eloped with a con artist, but..."
Mu Feng’s Mystic Pupil automatically focused on the page, and he was astonished to find another layer of ink hidden beneath the writing. "Wait! There’s something here!"
He reached out instinctively. The moment his fingertip touched the paper, a burst of golden light erupted from the book. Mu Feng’s vision went black, and he caught a series of blurred images: a woman resembling Su Yuqing holding an infant in front of an ancient mansion, a man burying something deep underground, and... a door carved with runes.
"Ah!" Mu Feng recoiled, his Mystic Pupil burning as if it were on fire.
Su Yuqing was so startled she knocked over her teacup. "What is it? What did you see?"
"I don't know... it felt like fragments of memory." Mu Feng rubbed his eyes. "This genealogy book was enchanted. My mother... she didn't elope. She was being hunted."
The words had barely left his lips when a deafening crash erupted from the front shop, followed by the sound of shattering glass. Su Yuqing’s expression turned grim as she shoved the book back into the safe. "Run! The back door!"
Mu Feng followed her toward the rear courtyard, only to find two men in black already blocking the exit. The leader was the same man from the teahouse with the walnuts, though now, the walnuts in his hands had transformed into two swirling spheres of black mist.