CHAPTER 629: CHAPTER 115_4

Li Zhiyuan turned around and walked toward the hillside, with the fool following him.

Because Mr. Xue had recently visited the grave, the weeds here had been cleared away.

The ancestral tomb, high above to down below, the higher the generation, the higher their position, much like the arrangement of an altar.

Usually, descendants only need to worship at the very bottom.

Li Zhiyuan crossed other gravestones and kept walking uphill to the tombstone at the very top.

The tombstone was old, with clear historical marks, but the characters on the tombstone are probably retouched with paint by later generations every few decades.

The three surnamed disciples came here with their master, and later stayed to suppress demons under assumed names.

So the ancestral tombs started with them.

Brother Liangliang’s ancestor was named... Xue Erwu.

Recalling what Yu Xuzi had said, he specifically chose three of the most unintelligent disciples with mediocre aptitudes to bring along.

Indeed, the name gives off an impression of not being very smart.

Li Zhiyuan lit the incense, stuck it in the ground, and when lighting the yellow paper, the fool excitedly clapped his hands, eager to try, so Li Zhiyuan simply handed it to him to burn on the grave.

Then, Li Zhiyuan stepped back two steps and stood beside the tombstone of Xue Erwu.

He formally performed the Liu Family’s sect ritual.

He is currently practicing River Crossing, and his karma is complex; paying direct respect might be manageable for the deceased lying inside, but the living relatives who remained might not be able to withstand it.

After the ritual.

"Crack!"

The tombstone split down the middle.

Li Zhiyuan was somewhat surprised: Am I that impactful now?

However, soon Li Zhiyuan realized that the problem wasn’t just the tombstone. The soil behind the tombstone had collapsed, forming a depression.

Walking to the edge of the hollow, inside was a completely faded coffin, the coffin lid split from the middle and slid to both sides.

Inside the coffin lay the remains of an old man.

Apart from some dehydration, the corpse’s facial features were largely well-preserved.

This was not surprising; a fundamental requirement of Feng Shui in selecting burial sites is that the body buried here must not be damp or disturbed, to be preserved the best.

They are of the Xuanmen, skilled in Arrays, and the site is an auspicious one; it would be strange if even a corpse could not be well-preserved.

The old man’s hands were folded on his abdomen, with a thin book placed on his chest.

Other than that, there were no burial goods in the coffin, making it look very clean and simple.

Li Zhiyuan jumped down into the pit, approached the side of the coffin, and reached out to take the book.

There was nothing embarrassing about this; this was the Xue family ancestor’s spirit manifesting, offering it for him to see.

Li Zhiyuan was curious what content in the book made Xue Erwu willing to crack open his coffin to show him.

The book was thin, with a cover, but the actual content was just a few pages.

It was not a secret manual, not a Cultivation Technique, not an Array Diagram, but more like a memoir.

Taking only this to the grave indicated that the experience recorded in the article was the most glorious and precious in his life.

After finishing the book, Li Zhiyuan’s lips curved into a smile, finding it very interesting.

Yu Xuzi said, the Dragon King of the Liu Family had come, and indeed, she had.

When she arrived, Yu Xuzi’s three disciples were kneeling outside the Array, facing the altar and the stele, mourning their master and weeping bitterly.

Dragon King is not a god; she is not omnipotent.

When Li Zhiyuan first encountered this Array, he felt that the only flaw in this Array was that it only "stifled without grinding." If it weren’t for the discovery that Yu Xuzi had a profound mastery in Array, he wouldn’t have realized there was a fundamental issue with this Array.

Just like the Dragon King of the Liu Family, he also couldn’t spot the issue. After all, with three such foolish apprentices, it was perfectly reasonable for the master to set up such a clumsy Array.

Moreover, this Dragon King of the Liu Family didn’t seem proficient in Arrays.

Nevertheless, she came, and then was touched by Yu Xuzi’s "fearless dedication and sacrifice," and even considered taking the three as registered disciples.

This was precisely what all three masters had been dreaming of!

But the three, citing that they already had mentors and that their master had just sacrificed himself to defend the Righteous path, refused this great opportunity.

It must be said, these three apprentices truly were straightforward and sincere.

From this, one could also see that Yu Xuzi’s method of choosing disciples was problematic. If he had chosen a few clever and vibrant ones, they might have stayed loyal for two or three years, and then feel enough of emotional attachment, grow weary or vexed, and then leave.

But he specifically chose the three dullest and most genuine, who truly obeyed their master’s words and dutifully did as told—not only did they guard it for a lifetime themselves, but also made arrangements for their descendants to continue protecting the greatest revered master.

Although the discipleship was rejected, the Dragon King of the Liu Family didn’t get angry; instead, she took them on as part of her Sect, which in effect made them equivalent to servants.

During the heyday of the Dragon King family, many would voluntarily bring themselves or their family Sects to serve the liege for the sake of secrets, Cultivation Techniques, and personal favors.

Here, it was a flexible accommodation that avoided rigid formalities.

Such followers could be tasked with jobs and could be taught things, but when they were outside, they could not claim to be people from the Liu family nor reveal anything they learned from the Liu family.

The Dragon King of the Liu Family imparted to them the "Liu’s Qi Observation Technique" and even handed over several sets of the Liu family’s secret Array Diagrams to them.

From this, it was evident that the Dragon King of the Liu family indeed was not proficient in Arrays, otherwise, she wouldn’t have only distributed "textbooks."

It can only be said that what grows in the south of Huai is an orange; grown in the north, it becomes a bitter orange.

These three disciples were foolish as logs under Yu Xuzi, but relying on the Liu family’s mind-methods and secret manuals, even by just shutting themselves away and studying, they achieved significant effects.

No wonder Yu Xuzi, being sealed inside for so many years, had never surpassed his own disciples—their caliber had already become incomparable.

Moreover, forty years after their teacher’s death, the three disciples suddenly spread the news, possibly having realized their master had changed, and gradually discerned his true intentions.

But they chose not to cooperate, instead continuing to arrange for their master to be permanently suppressed.

First, because in their hearts, the "master" had long been the figure on the stone stele;

Second, perhaps a changed master was even more to their liking, as it enabled them to more firmly identify with being disciples of the Liu family in their hearts.

Look, one would even carry that experience, or maybe call it identity, into their coffin—this inner inclination couldn’t be more obvious.

Li Zhiyuan shook the booklet in his hand and smiled at the body lying in the coffin:

"All right, all right, I get it. You and I are both people from the Liu family."

"Hum!"

From the three mountaintop ancestral graves, wisps of blue smoke rose.

This time it wasn’t the colored clouds, as they were too quick and didn’t have time to make a show.

The blue smoke rose slowly, clearly without any wind, yet as it ascended into the sky, it naturally formed convoluted twists and turns.

And furthermore, the twisting and turning directions all pointed towards where Li Zhiyuan was standing now.

In the fathomless depths,

an ancient voice as if present yet absent whispered in his ear:

"Liu’s follower Xue (Zeng, Zheng),

greets the Dragon King!"