Li Kun listened, and after watching Xu Mu for a while, he looked back at the little girl in a red jacket who was leaning against the window of the study.
"Teacher!"
A radiant smile bloomed on her innocent face as she waved at Li Kun.
Li Kun frowned, carefully sensing the girl's condition. In the next moment, his white beard trembled violently, and his face turned pale.
The little girl in red had a heart condition. He had been teaching her for months and had not noticed it at all, yet Xu Mu had spotted it immediately.
This was perhaps due to his years of hiding his cultivation and refraining from using his special abilities.
"I am not a competent teacher."
Li Kun was silent for a moment, then looked at Xu Mu and said calmly,
"You say you can cure her, but can I not?"
Xu Mu nodded and smiled,
"Yes."
"Her meridians are congenitally disordered, entwined around her chest bone, causing her heart to grow in a displaced position. Blood toxins have permeated her limbs and bones. From birth, this has been a gradual process, and now her body is 'normally' in a state of severe illness.
To treat her, a special medicine must be prepared to cleanse all the blood toxins in her body, and then gently help her unblock her meridians and reset the bones.
What I've described is not particularly difficult, but ordinary apothecaries might take a long time. I do not."
Li Kun's brow furrowed. "Why should I believe you?"
Xu Mu's expression was calm. He took out a token from the Medicine King Valley at his lower back. It was an elder's token given to him by Gongsun Jingming. He said earnestly, "With this, you must believe me."
Li Kun's eyes widened slightly upon seeing the token. He frowned for a long time, then turned his back and said faintly,
"Go and refine the medicine."
"If you truly have a way to cure her, then we can discuss other matters."
...
...
"There, you must eat it all."
In the corridor of the study, Xu Mu, with a radiant smile, offered a bowl of medicinal gruel.
The gruel was dark and viscous.
The little girl in the small red jacket blinked her big bright eyes, her small face contorting into a grimace. "Uncle, can I not eat it?"
Xu Mu's face darkened. "No."
The little girl in red looked up at Li Kun, her eyes glistening, and said, "—Teacher!"
Li Kun shot Xu Mu an unfriendly glance, then coughed and said,
"Little Ruan, be good."
"You've always wanted to cultivate, haven't you? This uncle isn't lying to you. After you eat this bowl of medicine, you'll be able to cultivate."
Ruan Yu's eyes lit up, and she clapped her hands.
"Really?!"
"Then I'll eat it!"
Saying that, Ruan Yu snatched the stone bowl from Xu Mu's hand, opened her mouth, and in a few gulps, finished the medicinal gruel.
After drinking it, Ruan Yu wiped her mouth and, turning her head, asked with surprise, "Teacher, Teacher, when will I be able to cultivate!"
Xu Mu smiled slightly and answered first, "Little girl, your illness is not difficult to treat, but since it involves your heart, it won't get better overnight.
You must take this medicine I've prepared for you every day. When Elder Li Kun feels that you are healed, you will be able to cultivate."
Ruan Yu's small face turned into a bitter melon. She elongated her voice and complained,
"—How long will I have to drink this for."
Xu Mu smiled. "About half a year."
"But you don't need to worry. Elder Li Kun will be boiling the medicine for you every day from now on. It will be much tastier than today's."
Ruan Yu pouted, her expression a little wronged. "Oh."
Li Kun remained silent. During the conversation, he used his divine sense to scan Ruan Yu's condition and found that it had indeed improved considerably, with much of the blood toxin dispelled. His expression then eased somewhat.
"Little Ruan, take your classmates back to recite your books. Don't make a noise."
Li Kun said, glancing at Xu Mu, and turned to walk into the corridor deeper into the study.
"Come with me."
Xu Mu's face lit up. He followed with the Wine Immortal, and soon, the three of them arrived at a very hidden cave.
The cave was pitch black. Li Kun lit a torch and led Xu Mu and the Wine Immortal deeper inside. After winding for a hundred paces, dozens of torches lit up around them, illuminating the surrounding rock walls.
Carved on the rock walls were many figures.
Those people were all dead.
Li Kun reached out and wiped away some of the dust, his eyes slightly moist. He sighed and said,
"The people carved here are all my sworn brothers. They all died because of Nangong Yu."
Xu Mu and the Wine Immortal looked at the stone carvings on the rock wall. Although the calligraphy was slightly rough, each figure could be seen as a person of extraordinary talent, with their life stories inscribed below.
Each of them was a great cultivator at the fifth stage of the Domain Lord realm.
The Wine Immortal looked at the stone carvings with a solemn expression and asked,
"Sui Yiyuan, is he that senior from the Hundred Clans Land who was responsible for guarding the forbidden area and awakened the lightning bloodline through acquired cultivation?"
Li Kun sighed and replied, "It is he."
The Wine Immortal's brow twitched. "This man was already a formidable great cultivator in the martial world when I first began cultivating. After reaching the Domain Lord realm, I had hoped to have an opportunity to discuss the Dao of lightning and fire with him, but I could never find any trace of him. I never expected him to be dead."
"Someone like him, if he were alive today, would surely be a towering figure, a Human King. Even at that time, few could rival him. He stood at the pinnacle of the cultivation world."
Xu Mu asked curiously, "So, how did these seniors die?"
Li Kun sighed and said,
"My brothers all died because of Nangong Yu, or rather, because of that interception battle."
"Back then, Nangong Yu abandoned Bai Yun and married Princess Xi Lengxue of the Great Zhou imperial family. Bai Yun, unable to bear her longing, repeatedly sought out Nangong Yu for an explanation, but he never gave her a reason."
"Bai Yun couldn't accept it and started asking me. But how could I possibly know?"
Li Kun shook his head with a complicated expression.
"This girl Bai Yun, I watched her grow up little by little, so I can be considered her half-master."
"For this matter, I also sought out Nangong Yu several times, but when facing me, he wouldn't say much, always emphasizing that he had to marry Xi Lengxue."
"Helpless, I took Bai Yun away from the Nangong family in anger. Because of my guilt towards Bai Yun, I decided to take her to a faraway place to teach her cultivation well, and return to the Bai clan when the time was right."
"But I never expected that this girl Bai Yun, on the night of Nangong Yu and Xi Lengxue's wedding, would break into their bridal chamber and attempt to assassinate them!"
The Wine Immortal's expression changed. "What!"
Li Kun's tone was complex.
"That night, Bai Yun used the techniques I taught her to seriously injure Xi Lengxue, but she failed to harm Nangong Yu."
"Nangong Yu let Bai Yun escape and even specially informed me with a magical artifact, telling me that if I wanted to save Bai Yun, I should bring all the strong individuals I could gather to Tian Gu Mountain to meet her. Meanwhile, the people of the Great Zhou imperial family also learned of Xi Lengxue's assassination and began pursuing Bai Yun."
Xu Mu frowned and asked, "And then?"
Li Kun sighed, his body trembling with anger.
"Upon receiving the news, I immediately mobilized all my connections and gathered seven great cultivators, including myself, to intercept Bai Yun. But to our surprise, the people of the Great Zhou imperial family had already set up a deadly trap at Tian Gu Mountain!"
"We seven walked right into their encirclement, unaware. After a bloody battle, only I managed to break through with Bai Yun. But my brothers all died at the hands of those masked figures from the Great Zhou imperial family!"
The Wine Immortal frowned and asked, "Did Nangong Yu betray you?"
Li Kun gritted his teeth and said,
"If he had betrayed me, I would have descended into demonic cultivation and annihilated the Nangong clan."
Xu Mu frowned and asked, "Then who exactly was the informant?"
Li Kun gritted his teeth.
"It was Xi Lengxue!"
"In reality, she was not injured by Bai Yun and fainted. The one who actually fainted and almost died was Nangong Yu."
"And to eliminate any future trouble, she deliberately mimicked Nangong Yu's tone to deceive me, leading me to bring people to Tian Gu Mountain so they could annihilate us all at once."
"Later, Bai Yun and I successfully escaped. I intended to cultivate in seclusion and return to seek revenge. But within a few years, the Xi family of the Great Zhou Dynasty was purged due to changes in the imperial throne. Nangong Yu, in an attempt to save Xi Lengxue, was caught up in it, was subsequently pursued, and died in the forbidden area."
After hearing the entire story, Xu Mu and the Wine Immortal were deeply shocked.
However, after the shock subsided, Xu Mu sensed something was amiss.
"As a direct descendant of the imperial family and married into the Nangong clan, even with a change in the imperial throne, why would the Xi family be so utterly defeated?"
"And since the Xi family was destroyed, why was the Nangong clan completely unaffected? Was it simply because they were far away?"
Li Kun shook his head. "I don't know that either. However, the destruction of the Xi family is indeed suspicious. They were clearly a very powerful family."
"After marrying into the Nangong clan, the family's strength not only did not increase but declined. The strong cultivators within the clan even went into seclusion, and I don't know why."
"As for the Nangong family, although they lost Nangong Yu, they did nothing to the Great Zhou imperial family. They remained as quiet as if nothing had happened."
Li Kun paused, his gaze turning cold as he sighed. "Perhaps it's because Nangong Yu and Xi Lengxue left behind descendants, and that descendant's talent was comparable to Nangong Yu's."
"Nangong Yu's son was named Nangong Jing. He later became the patriarch of the Nangong clan. And his children were the later renowned Nangong Saint Son and Nangong Huaitian."
"Although many top great cultivators perished in the great battle back then, these matters were very secretive. Outsiders only knew that people died, but they didn't know how they died."
Xu Mu listened silently, exchanged a look with the Wine Immortal, and then fell into a long silence.
Neither of them had expected that a seemingly simple past would involve such a massive event, with countless Domain Lord experts perishing and families being destroyed.
And within it, there were many unresolved mysteries. For example, why did the Xi family's strength decline instead of increase after marrying into the Nangong clan, leading to their eventual extermination?
Also, Nangong Yu, after listening for so long, Xu Mu still couldn't understand why he suddenly abandoned Xi Lengxue, nor why the Nangong clan didn't avenge him later, or even utter a single word about it.
"The strength of a clan, though not comparable to an imperial dynasty, should not be so easily manipulated," Xu Mu shook his head, frowning. "There must be a secret we don't know."
Li Kun shook his head with a dejected expression.
"But that's all I know."
"Actually, I often regret it. If I had been more firm and forceful back then, I might have been able to force the truth out of Nangong Yu."
"But now, besides the Grand Elder of the Nangong clan, everyone else in the Nangong family who participated in that year's events has died. It's impossible to investigate the truth."
"They're all dead..." Xu Mu frowned. After pondering for a moment, he suddenly asked, "What about the Bai family?"
"That year's events, after all, involved the Bai family. They couldn't possibly not know any inside information, could they?"
Li Kun was startled. "I really haven't investigated that."
"But even if some knew, they've probably died by now. After all, it's been decades. Those who are still alive are already in high positions."
Xu Mu's expression became serious. "As long as someone is alive, there is still hope."
"Elder Li, even if not for the Nangong family, I believe you must want to know the truth of that year."
"Even if she is no longer the same person she was back then, you still understand Bai Yun. So, can you think of a way to help us infiltrate the Bai family?"
Li Kun chuckled bitterly and shook his head. "Let's not even mention that I haven't contacted the Bai family for decades. If it were usual times, I might have some methods. But the Bai family is currently at war with the Nangong clan. They will definitely investigate outsiders thoroughly."
"Rashly inserting two people might lead to discovery."
"This..."
Xu Mu was also at a loss for a good solution and could only continue to frown.
Just then, a young woman's voice, very familiar, suddenly came from outside the cave.
"Elder Li Kun, are you inside?"
Upon hearing this, Li Kun immediately extinguished the torch and replied indifferently,
"Who are you?"
Outside the cave, the woman he had met at the Gold and Silver Merchant House smiled and called out,
"I am a descendant of the Bai family. Patriarch Bai Yun asked me to deliver a message to you."
Li Kun frowned and asked, "What message?"
The woman cleared her throat and said,
"The blood feud of the past will be repaid today."
"I request that you and I destroy Nangong together!"
...