The uproar in the martial arts arena gradually subsided as Zhao Batian and his son were dragged away. Standing at the edge of the ring, Ye Fan felt the evening breeze stir the hem of his moon-white robe, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the Jiuxiao Huanpei at his waist.
The bronze pendant felt burning hot against his skin, and the cyan patterns pulsing within it seemed like living, writhing spirit serpents, transmitting an obscure warning along his meridians—the venomous aura buried beneath the Zhao Estate was far denser than he had anticipated.
"Young Master." Ye Zhong's voice came from behind. The old butler was holding his Dark Iron Saber, the scabbard still stained with sparks from when it had clashed head-on with Zhao Wuji's heavy sword. "The family head asks you to return to the main courtyard for dinner, and says he wants to stew ginseng soup for you personally."
Ye Fan took the saber, his fingertips brushing against a freshly chipped notch on the scabbard. This was the mark left when he had used the first form of the Thunder Eruption Art to forcefully block Zhao Wuji's heavy sword.
In his past life, as an Inquiry Realm grandmaster, when had he ever had to fight with mortal iron weapons? Yet in this lifetime, in the small pond of Qinglan City, he had to drive his roots down far deeper and steadier than before.
"Uncle Zhong, you go on ahead." He looked toward the southeast of the city, where the eaves of the Zhao Estate cast fierce, ferocious shadows in the dusk. "I'm going to take a look at the forbidden grounds."
Ye Zhong's hand suddenly tightened, bulging veins standing out beneath his dark butler's uniform. "Young Master! The rules of the forbidden grounds are..."
"Last month, the family head gave me the Master's Token." Ye Fan pulled open the lapels of his tunic, revealing the bronze token hanging close to his chest. The moonlight danced across the engraved "Ye" character on its surface. "Besides, I have a feeling that the pendant is calling to me."
Ye Zhong opened his mouth, but ultimately didn't try to persuade him further. He knew this child's temper far too well—ever since waking to the memories of his past life at the age of six, every decision he made carried a resolute decisiveness far beyond his years. The old butler fished a greasepaper parcel from his inner pocket and shoved it into his hands. "Eat a piece of osmanthus cake to line your stomach; the forbidden grounds are bitterly cold."
Ye Fan accepted it and took a bite. The sweet, sticky osmanthus honey melted on the tip of his tongue, bearing a striking resemblance to the taste of his late mother's homemade treats. His Adam's apple bobbed as he tucked the remaining half-cake back into his robe and turned to walk along the mountain path leading to the forbidden grounds behind the Ye Family ancestral hall.
The path was covered in centuries-old pine needles, crunching softly beneath his feet. When he reached the seventh bend, a bluestone monolith bearing the carved inscription "Trespassers Die" stood abruptly in the middle of the trail. From behind the stone emerged a tower-like figure—Aman.
The forbidden grounds guard was wrapped year-round in rough animal skins, the demon-suppressing tattoos on his chest glistening with sweat. The bronze staff in his hand slanted toward the ground, kicking up a gust of wind.
"Young Master." Aman spoke in a deep, rumbling voice, his tone like two millstones grinding against each other. "The family head said the forbidden grounds only open on the first of every month."
Ye Fan stopped in his tracks, the moonlight falling squarely on the Jiuxiao Huanpei at his waist. The pendant suddenly gave a soft chime, its cyan patterns flowing like running water to wash over Aman's demon-suppressing tattoos. The guard's pupils constricted—that was a resonance that could only be triggered by the core artifact of the forbidden grounds.
"I have the Master's Token," Ye Fan said, producing the token. "Bestowed personally by the family head last month; you were there at the time."
Aman's bronze staff lowered a fraction. He remembered that day: the bronze altar at the core of the forbidden grounds had suddenly burst with boundless cyan light, and the twelve-year-old young master had stood within it as the ancestral Jiuxiao Huanpei flew automatically into his palm. The stone beasts guarding the entire Ye Family ancestral hall had roared in low tones, startling even the Third Elder out of seclusion.
"But you are only at the Qi Condensation Mid-Stage." Aman's rough thumb grazed a dent on the shaft of his staff, a scar left from when he had fought fiercely against a Void Breaking Realm expert in his youth. "The third tier of the forbidden grounds has a Thunder-Fire Array, and for someone in the Qi Condensation Realm to go in..."
"I know." Ye Fan took half a step forward, standing no more than three feet from Aman. The youth's gaze was like a sword quenched in a freezing pool. "Zhao Batian is raising Blood Soul Insects beneath the Zhao Estate, and they will form in three days when the moon is full. I need the power of the Jiuxiao Huanpei to keep the Ye Family safe."
Aman's breathing suddenly grew heavy. Having guarded the forbidden grounds for the Ye Family for thirty years, he had seen far too many clansmen perish from greed, yet he had never seen any junior whose calculations of an opponent's conspiracy could reach such a depth. The bronze staff slammed into the ground with a heavy *clang*, shaking down a shower of pine needles. "Go on in. But if you hear the bronze gong sound three times, pull back immediately."
Ye Fan nodded in thanks, turned, and passed through the monolith. The mountain wind suddenly shifted direction, carrying the sound of rushing pine waves into his ears. He could clearly perceive that the tiny realm within his Inner World was expanding slightly as he ventured deeper into the forbidden grounds—this was the instinctual resonance of the Unity of Heaven and Man talent toward a "Domain of the Heavenly Dao."
The first tier of the forbidden grounds was a misty forest. When the morning mists had yet to clear, illusions would condense within the fog to befuddle one's mind. But at this moment, with the moon high in the center of the sky, the mist had condensed into tiny ice crystals that felt like a sky full of stars within Ye Fan's perception. He walked along the direction of the flowing ice crystals, evading every single poisoned spike buried beneath the tree roots.
The second tier was the Stone Man Array. Twelve statues, each twelve feet tall, wielded giant axes, the night-pearls in their eye sockets glowing with a ghostly blue light. The moment Ye Fan stepped inside, the leading stone statue let out a muffled roar, and its giant axe cleaved downward with a shrieking wind. He tapped his toes on the ground and leaped backward, catching a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of bronze gears at the stone man's ankles—these were clockwork mechanisms, not spirit puppets.
"Unity of Heaven and Man, deduce." The instant he closed his eyes, a structural diagram of the Stone Man Array surfaced within his Inner World. The meshing rhythm of the gears, the sweeping trajectories of the giant axes, the stress points of the bluestone bricks on the ground—every detail connected into lines in his mind. When he opened his eyes again, the stone man had just completed its second strike, and he had already slipped around behind the rearmost stone statue, pressing his fingertips into the bronze mortise and tenon joint between the gear gaps.
*Click.* All twelve stone statues froze simultaneously, and the night-pearls in their eye sockets went dark one after another.
The stone door at the entrance of the third tier was carved with nine phoenixes, the eyes of each phoenix formed from a piece of cyan jade. The moment Ye Fan raised his hand, a burning sensation flared within his Inner World—this was a danger warning.
He stepped back half a step, tracing invisible lines in the air with his fingertips, sketching out the formation diagram based on his perception through the Unity of Heaven and Man. Sure enough, dark red patterns surfaced on the ground before the stone door; it was a Fire-Poison Array capable of melting gold and searing iron.
"Guide Qi into the body, condense liquid into a shield." He circulated the Ye Family's ancestral *Qinglan Arts*, transforming the mass of Qi within his Dantian from mist into dew, which condensed into a water shield before him. The Fire-Poison Array activated in response, crimson flames surging up from the ground and scorching the water shield until it hissed and sputtered.
Yet Ye Fan had long since calculated the location of the Array Core. At the moment when the tongues of flame were at their fiercest, he shifted his stride forward, pressing his fingertips in quick succession onto the right eyes of the nine phoenixes.
*Hum—* The stone door rumbled open, and a wave of freezing air mixed with the scent of pine resin rushed over him.
The core of the forbidden grounds was a natural limestone cavern, stalactites hanging from the ceiling, every single one carved with ancient runes. In the center of the cavern sat a bronze altar, and resting upon it was the true body of the Jiuxiao Huanpei—the one Ye Fan had worn at his waist earlier was merely a replica.
The genuine Jiuxiao Huanpei was the size of an adult's palm, and within the cyan light flowing across its surface, illusory projections of mountains and rivers could be faintly seen.
The moment Ye Fan took a step forward, the sound of garments ripping through the air suddenly came from deep within the cavern. He spun around, drawing his saber. The Dark Iron Saber collided with a fine steel sword, splashing sparks against the stalactites and illuminating the figures of five or six men in black. The leader wore a ghost mask, and hanging from his waist was a black tiger-patterned jade pendant of the Zhao Estate—they were death-sworn assassins of Zhao Wuji.
"Little bastard, die!" The ghost-masked man lunged forward with his sword again, his sword-force a full three parts faster than that of an ordinary Qi Condensation Realm expert. Ye Fan's pupils constricted slightly; this was the sign of having taken a Burst-Qi Pill. Refusing to take the blow head-on, he tapped his toes lightly on the ground, using his Inner World's perception to anticipate the opponent's trajectory, and struck the man's wrist with the back of his blade.
*Crack.* The sound of wrist bones shattering and the backlash of the Burst-Qi Pill sounded almost simultaneously. Screaming, the ghost-masked man staggered backward as the ghost mask on his face fell off, revealing half a rotting face—the lingering trace of long-term insect-raising.
"Fall back!" Ye Fan shouted in a low voice, his Inner World suddenly expanding by three inches. He could clearly "see" every wisp of air currents within the cavern: behind the third stalactite on the left lay a poisoned short blade; beneath the pool of water to the front right was hidden a tripwire; even the hands of the three companions behind the ghost-masked man were trembling slightly from tension as they gripped their sabers.
The ensuing battle was practically a one-sided suppression. The Dark Iron Saber traced three arcs, knocking away the sabers of the three assassins, followed by strikes to their knees, shoulder wells, and Quchi points—Ye Fan used no fatal moves, yet it was more than enough to rob them of their mobility. The ghost-masked man tried to flee, but a kick to his lower back sent him crashing heavily into the bronze altar.
"Speak, who sent you?" Ye Fan's saber tip pressed against the ghost-masked man's throat.
"Young... Young Master Zhao said, as long as the Jiuxiao Huanpei is destroyed... the Ye Family's fortune can be severed..." Coughing up blood, before the ghost-masked man could finish his sentence, black blood suddenly seeped from his facial orifices. Ye Fan's pupils constricted as he reached out to check the man's breath—he was already gone. This was an assassin who had swallowed a poison pouch, rendering even his final words a misleading trick.
He turned his gaze back to the Jiuxiao Huanpei resting upon the bronze altar, only to find that the pendant's cyan light had grown even more intense, and within the illusory mountain projections on its surface, a blurred human figure had actually materialized.
"Who is it?" Ye Fan's saber hummed as it slid three inches out of its scabbard, the dark iron blade reflecting the silhouette behind him—the Iron-masked Man was standing unannounced at the entrance of the cavern, his black cloak billowing in the cavern wind to reveal half a bronze token suspended at his waist.
His iron mask gleamed with a cold light, revealing only a pair of eyes that resembled cold stars in a deep pool, devoid of any emotion. Ye Fan could sense that the other party's aura was unfathomable. Though the man clearly stood three paces away, it felt as if they were separated by a thousand layers of mountains.
The tiny realm within Ye Fan's Inner World trembled violently—this was an instinctive reaction when encountering a powerhouse far exceeding one's own realm. In his past life as an Inquiry Realm grandmaster, he had never experienced such a sense of powerlessness—yet in this lifetime, he was only sixteen years old, at the Qi Condensation Mid-Stage.
"Little friend," the Iron-masked Man's voice sounded like grinding metal, "this Jiuxiao Huanpei is not something you can lay your hands on."
Ye Fan's fingers slowly tightened around the hilt of his saber. He could hear the sound of his own heartbeat, exceptionally clear within the cavern. The Jiuxiao Huanpei on the bronze altar suddenly gave a soft chime, its cyan light winding like a living creature around his wrist, as if responding to his resolve.
The Iron-masked Man's gaze swept over that trace of cyan light, and a low chuckle escaped from beneath his mask, sounding part surprise, part approval. "Very well." He took a single step forward, and the stalactites in the cavern began to shake violently. "Then let me see just how much qualification you possess..."
Ye Fan took a deep breath, and the tiny realm of his Inner World expanded once more. He could feel every drop of blood in his body boiling. The Dark Iron Saber grew piping hot in his hand, and along the notch on the blade, a faint cyan light began to flow—the Jiuxiao Huanpei was helping him repair his weapon.
The Iron-masked Man took another step forward.
Ye Fan's saber finally cleared its scabbard completely.