CHAPTER 783: CHAPTER 006 XUANYUAN SOUL OF THE ANCESTRAL MANSION

Zhou Yan moved under the blue sky, shielding all traces of his presence so that no instrument could detect or capture him.

He did not wish to disturb the ordinary lives of people nor inspire in them a belief in strange and supernatural forces.

This world belonged to ordinary people and to them alone.

The ancestors of the Tai Chu era seemed to have exhausted all their strength to preserve such a sanctuary for their descendants. Zhou Yan consciously did the same, as if unwilling to squander the hard work of his predecessors or disturb the Tai Chu Ghosts of times long past.

By Zhou Yan’s side, Liu Haoting could hardly describe what she felt; she believed she was in the presence of a true Divine Being, one with all the capabilities of humans yet transcending their limits, possessing the terrifying power to fly through the skies and move mountains and seas.

God Demons, ghosts, Immortals and Buddhas...

All legends suddenly seemed so real.

Liu Haoting had become numb; she could not figure out who or what Zhou Yan really was—whether he was a UFO, a ghost, a demon, or something else entirely.

But she knew clearly that Zhou Yan was no longer just a person.

Could a normal human fly through the sky, traverse vast distances instantaneously, and cloud-ride at will?

Having watched many mythical and supernatural stories in books and films, Liu Haoting, now experiencing it firsthand, suddenly felt an indescribable sensation.

Even knowing that God Demons existed and that Immortals and Buddhas were real, she would, instinctually, protect this secret, forever refraining from publicizing it and treating it as her most significant secret.

It was as if she was defending something sacred.

...

"Not here..."

"Not here either..."

"Hm? This place... has my mother’s aura... this is—the Siheyuan we lived in when I was a child; the ancestral home of the Lee family."

Zhou Yan’s soul sensing power covered a vast area of the city, carefully scanning his way through.

At last, Zhou Yan found what he had been looking for.

A fragment of the Xuanyuan Sword, originating from his mother’s ancestral home.

There were still traces of his mother’s and brother’s auras within the ancestral home; it appeared that someone had stayed here not long ago.

Suddenly, Zhou Yan, bringing Liu Haoting with him, descended into the courtyard of the ancestral home, which was overgrown with weeds and looked barren and ruinous in the cold winter.

Cobwebs frayed and hung everywhere.

"Heavenly God, sir..." muttered Liu Haoting, wanting to ask something, but she hesitated, feeling uneasy.

"Just call me ’Zhou Yan,’" he replied, "I cultivated and became an ’Immortal God’ later in life. Before that, my foster father was Professor Zhou, and my mother was the ’Master Xi’ whom you mentioned. Now, do you understand who I am?"

Zhou Yan had no intention of hiding this.

He boasted no desire to flaunt his status before ordinary people, nor was there any need to.

He did not enjoy the excessive reverence ordinary people showed him, for even though he bore the Emperor Blood, every human carried the imprint of Emperor Blood within them. The descendants of Yan and Huang were not just a figure of speech but a reality.

Therefore, even ordinary people could be considered as distantly related to him and the Sword Burial Ancestor Star Zhou clan members—albeit far removed, they didn’t need to kneel and kowtow.

"You... you’re that, that silly, that Lee Ran, no, Zhou, Zhou Yan?"

Liu Haoting, usually so articulate, now stuttered.

Zhou Yan nodded.

"I never imagined you, you—"

Suddenly, Liu Haoting didn’t know what else to say; her words hung incomplete.

"You were wondering why we stopped here, weren’t you?" Zhou Yan asked.

"Um, I... I just didn’t know what we were doing here," Liu Haoting said softly.

"This is the ancestral home of my mother, where I lived as a child."

"People say all things must pass, but now, even the ancestral home has decayed, overgrown with weeds."

With a sigh, Zhou Yan raised his hand slightly. A gleaming radiance appeared in his palm, shimmering like the breathtaking light of a meteor.

Liu Haoting glanced at it and felt as though her eyes were nearly pierced blind, so she hurriedly closed them.

But even then, it was as if a blazing sun shone before her.

Moments later, the discomfort disappeared, and when Liu Haoting opened her eyes, the weeds and mud in the courtyard were gone. The ground was clean and smooth, shining black and gleaming with streamlined luster, as though it had been coated with a layer of Mithril and water diamonds, utterly mesmerizing.

Once again, Liu Haoting was stunned by the scene before recovering her senses, finally understanding that those magical transformations she had seen in movies, like turning stone into gold, were real.

Such Divine Skills did exist in this world.

"I have purified this place with an Array, and set up the Deceiving Heaven Array Pattern to hide it. This place will now be undiscovered by others. I’ve made this a place of silence and left a message. If my brother returns, he’ll know I’ve been here," Zhou Yan sighed and said.

Liu Haoting couldn’t comprehend; everything was too fantastical, too shocking.

Zhou Yan didn’t need her to understand; he was speaking for himself.

Zhou Yan carefully searched the ancestral home, which contained something special that shielded it from Soul Power sensing.

Zhou Yan opened the door, and the decaying door creaked with a piercing sound as a chill breeze rushed towards him from inside the house.

In the hall, ancient murals still hung on the walls, tattered and indecipherable.

The ancient murals revealed a yellowed luster, and the home’s rosewood furniture had long been gnawed away by insects, riddled with holes.

The cool and gloomy air pervaded the entire house.

Zhou Yan seemed to see past scenes here, saw his mother smiling as she kneaded the dough, his father sipping a little wine next to her, munching on peanuts, watching the old black-and-white TV.

He and his brother ran around and played carelessly around the table.

Outside the door, it seemed as if the cicadas were still chirping.

It was a happy summer.

All the disasters had started that summer.

After that, this home had become fragmented, never to be a home again.

Standing there, Zhou Yan saw his mother’s aged face, yet smiling at him from the void as he returned.

He saw his father sigh lightly and lament, "My child, you’ve finally returned, finally grown up."

He saw his brother, Lee Ran, with a relieved look in his eyes and an exclamation, signaling "Little brother, you’ve finally recovered."

Zhou Yan didn’t know when, but tears had already smeared his cheeks.

He hadn’t cried in a long time, yet in this ancestral home, his face was filled with tears.

"A decade of life and death, a vast divide, hard to ponder, hard to forget.

Thousands of miles of lonely graves, no place to speak of desolation."

Amidst his tears, Zhou Yan suddenly sensed something, as if the aura of the Xuanyuan Sword briefly burst forth, then vanished just as quickly.

His heart chilled, he immediately snapped out of his distraction, only to find that at some unknown time, an old, yellowed black-and-white photograph had appeared on the small wine table, a family portrait taken one summer.

Now it inexplicably appeared here, as if it had fallen from the void.

The aura of the Xuanyuan Sword erupted for a moment and then disappeared the next.

Had it not been for Zhou Yan’s possession of the Emperor Xuan Yuan’s blood, the Rebellious Soul, and his experience of the ninety-nine Tai Chu Heavenly Tribulations, he would never have sensed this turbulence.

His heart chilled, he gathered the photograph, left Liu Haoting there, and suddenly, with a "boom," he shot up from the ground, soared into the sky, and flew up into the void like a streak of light.

Above the void, a silhouette like a rainbow shot far away, vanished in an instant without a trace.

But within the vacuity, Divine Buddha Light manifested, revealing a haze of nebulous color, gradually dissipating.

"Who? Who exactly is it? Who is waiting for me here? Come out, come out!"

Zhou Yan’s soul roared, his soul voice thundering and shaking the earth, startling many top cultivators from the hidden lands, ancient lands, and hidden Taoist sects of this world.

Such soul-shaking voice was deafening, causing shaking of hearts and unstoppable soul tremors.

Such a mighty invincible Cultivator was roaring in the ordinary world, what on earth was going on?

That day, many Cultivators from hidden sects and lands were terrified and uneasy, fearing that a powerful ancient Great Power had resurrected, ready to bathe the world in blood.

...

Zhou Yan traveled through the skies, walking through the void, following the trace of Xuanyuan Soul Energy, but he caught up to Mars, where the trail finally disappeared completely.

Moving through Mars, Zhou Yan also sensed the aura of this Ancient and Desolate Land, and finally ceased his pursuit, crossed the Star Domain in an instant, and landed back in the residence.

Inside the residence, Liu Haoting was fearfully hiding in the corner, not daring to move.

Without Zhou Yan by her side, all fear overwhelmed her, her whole body soaked as if in cold sweat, her teeth uncontrollably chattering.

The coldness of this ancestral home made one very anxious.

But Zhou Yan descended quickly, and she immediately felt afraid of nothing.

"You... may they rest in peace," they have gone, and if they saw you so sad, they would surely be upset too. Only if you live well, will they... rest in peace with smiles."

Liu Haoting pondered slightly and spoke softly.

Zhou Yan nodded slightly, but his expression was somewhat indifferent, as if he didn’t hear Liu Haoting’s words, searching the rooms of the ancestral home, but he could no longer sense that strong Xuanyuan Sword Qi.

After a long time, he found nothing, and his heart felt empty, as if he had lost something most important.

Liu Haoting stood silently by Zhou Yan’s side, quietly waiting, saying nothing.

She could empathize with that feeling, that helplessness, because her own experiences had not been peaceful.

Only with personal experience of parting in life and death could one truly understand that pain and sorrow.

Zhou Yan stood silently for a long while, then took out that photograph, immediately recognizing himself, his parents, and his brother from that time.

But through the contemporary Observing Qi Skill, he noticed that on the photograph, there was a dark black spot on his parents’ foreheads, like a mark of enslavement, very prominent!

He looked again toward his brother, Lee Ran, whose forehead lacked such a dark spot but bore a bloody imprint of the Xuanyuan Sword.

At the sight of this mark, Zhou Yan suddenly felt a piercing pain in his Eye of Soul Destruction.

His hand, as if electrocuted, suddenly felt an invisible force pressing down on him.

Zhou Yan’s mind moved, and he conjured Vast Qi for protection, but he met with no attack.

However, the now-yellowed photograph in his hand had suddenly crumbled, turning to dust, as if naturally eroded by the forces of time and the world.