Chapter 3350 — The Goddess Nuwa's Art of Mending Heaven

"Oh—leave the map of the Palan clan, and then get lost. Not a single thing here may be taken." Wei Zhao waved his hand.

"We won't take anything—only our lives!" Gu's son answered at once. "I have the Palan clan's coordinates right here. Just input them into the navigator and you're set."

Seeing that Old Master Gu was already dead, these men had no spine left for resistance; they fled helter-skelter in utter panic, and the vast, once-thriving estate emptied out in an instant.

After watching them go, Wei Zhao turned to Yu Dake. "You don't blame me for letting them off on my own authority? Most of them are small fry—killing them would have been pointless."

"Not at all. They had little to do with what happened back then. These people were merely hangers-on who fawned on whoever held power—and with Old Master Gu dead, that counts as venting some of the rage over our ancestral home being seized." Yu Dake shook his head. "Besides, I owe you thanks for today, Mr. Lin. If you hadn't stepped in, I'd be the one lying on the ground now. Still, it seems the rumors are true—Mr. Lin can kill a peak late Heaven-rank expert in a single blow!"

"Heh." Wei Zhao smiled and said nothing more, only: "Find what you need, and we'll head for the Palan clan. If we run into those two, we might well settle the score along the way. If we go too late and they've already left, we'll have no lead again."

"Ah!" Yu Dake was startled and overjoyed. Wei Zhao's words proved he meant to take the matter in hand—and if Wei Zhao was involved, resolving it ought not to be difficult. After all, the moment Wei Zhao made his move, a late Heaven-rank expert had perished. What power was that? So Yu Dake hastened to thank him: "Thank you for seeing this through, Mr. Lin!"

Seeing her brother like this, Yu Xiaoke frowned but said nothing. What was Wei Zhao's purpose in courting her family's favor so eagerly? Unease stirred in her heart—though in truth she was overthinking it. Wei Zhao had helped many people; sometimes he acted with no purpose at all.

But Yu Xiaoke, wedded to her first impression, took it for flattery. Even so, she felt helpless: Wei Zhao's strength only grew more formidable, and her family's vengeance could still only be achieved through his help.

Yet once the great vengeance was fulfilled, how was she to choose then? Yu Xiaoke's head ached more and more.

Yu Dake led the way. As for the antiques and calligraphy in the old castle, he did not spare them a second glance. In the eyes of the mortal world such things were priceless treasures, but to cultivators they were dispensable—what mattered was cultivation resources and one's own strength.

Under Yu Dake's guidance, the three of them came to the castle's cellar. Descending, they found it crammed with junk—all sorts of useless odds and ends.

This place had once been the Yu family's storehouse; after the Gu family took over, they had used it as a storehouse too, never developing it. Seeing this, Yu Dake breathed a sigh of relief.

Yu Dake went to a corner of the storehouse. On the wall hung a tattered mural. At the sight of it his expression turned grave; he stepped forward and carefully lifted it down.

Behind the mural was a mechanism like a combination lock, with a code field made up of a set of strange characters. Each character could be pressed—evidently they had to be pressed in the right order to unlock it.

This was an inconspicuous corner, and inside a storehouse besides. The Gu family had clearly never bothered to study it; they likely could not even be bothered to touch these ragged murals.

Yu Dake carefully pressed a sequence of characters. The code was long, and how he had memorized it was anyone's guess—after all, he had been only a few years old when the disaster struck. Perhaps he had come by some journal or record.

"Rumble…"

Once the code was entered correctly, the mechanism began to work. The flat floor suddenly started to sink—so it was a lift, like the stone coffin they had encountered in the ancient tomb.

As the floor descended, the three of them sank to the level below the cellar. So beneath the cellar lay another hidden space!

"It seems the Gu family never found this place." Yu Dake gazed at the things before him with some delight.

The lower level was a large storage room, arranged like a supermarket with row upon row of shelves—on them, presumably, some of the Yu family's cultivation resources and books.

Moving with practiced ease, Yu Dake went to the innermost bookshelf and drew out a thin little booklet. A smile touched the corner of his mouth. "Xiaoke, we've done it—it's here!"

"Oh?" Yu Xiaoke was delighted too. After all, she had long hoped to raise her strength; hers was low, and she had repeatedly come close to death. If not for the man's help, she likely would not be standing here alive. "The Goddess Nuwa's Art of Mending Heaven?"

Yu Xiaoke was taken aback by the name of the technique. It was certainly impressive enough—it sounded utterly domineering. Was it boasting, or was it truly so?

"Yes, this is our Yu family's inherited secret art. But only women can cultivate it—I cannot," Yu Dake said.

"Then I can cultivate it?" Yu Xiaoke opened the manual with some anticipation. But she had been an external-school cultivator before, never having come into contact with the internal school, nor had any family or sect ever instructed her in internal-school techniques. Now, looking at the manual, she hardly knew where to begin. "But I don't understand the internal school at all."

"That's actually not difficult." With that, Yu Dake explained to Yu Xiaoke the cultivation methods of an internal-school expert.

"So troublesome…" Yu Xiaoke's head swam at the sound of it. Almost no sleep every night? Sitting in meditation the whole time? Wouldn't that be exhausting? If only Wei Zhao could just raise her strength for her.

Yu Xiaoke did know a thing or two about Wei Zhao—after all, the example of the old orphanage director was right there before her, and it made her heart stir. But how was she to go about asking Wei Zhao? (To be continued)