In a high-level martial arts game, a wife is given to you at the start.

Lin Qiye understood: "You want me to gather herbs to lure out the Blood Ravens."

"If you go alone, you might gather the herbs, but you won't be able to escape," Gu Qingshuang said. "But if you gather the herbs and the Blood Ravens chase after you, I can follow the trail and find their lair in this area."

"Okay." Lin Qiye stood up. "I'll go gather herbs."

"Aren't you afraid this is a trap?" Gu Qing Shuang raised an eyebrow.

"You've been chasing Blood Ravens for three years, and you're the one who most wants them dead," Lin Qiye said. "You wouldn't use me as bait."

Gu Qingshuang looked at him and suddenly smiled: "You always hit the nail on the head."

"That's how people who live long lives are." Lin Qiye turned and walked out. "See you at Falling Star Hills in three days."

Located three hundred miles east of the Holy City, Falling Star Hills is a series of undulating low hills crisscrossed by underground rivers, making for a complex terrain. Lin Qiye arrived a day early and scouted the area along the underground rivers. In a shady spot by a river bend, he found the Night-Blooming Jasmine—a grayish-green plant about half a person's height with a fist-sized flower bud hanging at its top, not yet in bloom.

The flowers bloom tonight.

He found a secluded crevice with a wide view, sat down, and began to wait.

It got dark.

As the moon rose, the sound of the underground river became exceptionally clear in the night. Lin Qiye closed his eyes, his breath coming in extremely low hues, almost blending into the surrounding rocks.

Just after midnight, the flower bud at the top of the night-blooming cereus slowly opened.

A refreshing fragrance permeated the night, invigorating the senses. The moment the flower buds unfurled, the entire plant shimmered with a faint silver light, as if moonlight had settled on the petals.

At the very moment the flowers bloomed, a faint rustling sound came from the bushes on the opposite bank of the underground river.

Lin Qiye did not move.

Under the moonlight, five dark figures emerged from the bushes and crept towards the night-blooming cereus. They were dressed in dark short clothes, their faces covered with black cloths, and their movements were practiced, clearly indicating that they were experienced in this line of work.

The leader lowered his voice: "Hurry up, pick it and leave. That woman from the Gu family is keeping a close eye on us—"

Before he finished speaking, a dark golden light burst forth from the crevice in the rock.

Lin Qiye didn't use the bone spear; this time, he used a folded hardwood branch, infused with dark golden Origin Qi, and hurled it within three zhang (approximately 10 meters) with such speed that its trajectory was almost invisible. The branch pierced the leader's right shoulder, pinning him to the tree trunk behind him.

"Ah—!" the man screamed.

Before the other four could react, Lin Qiye had already rushed in front of them. He didn't kill them—fists, elbows, and knees, in no time at all, the four men fell to the ground, some with broken arms, some with broken legs, groaning in pain.

Lin Qiye stood between them, bent down to pick up the wooden branch that had pierced the leader's shoulder, and squatted down in front of him: "Blood Raven's?"

The man was in so much pain that his face was covered in sweat, but he gritted his teeth and didn't utter a sound.

Lin Qiye twisted the wooden branch around in his wound.

"Ah—!! I'll talk! I'll talk!" the man roared, "We're from Blood Raven! Young Master sent us! He said that if the Gu family sends anyone to collect herbs, we should intercept them and force them to hand over the Zhenyuan Seal!"

"Young Master?"

"Our leader! The one in charge of Blood Raven in Ironwall City! His name is—" The man stopped mid-sentence, his eyes widened, black blood spilled from the corner of his mouth, his body twitched a few times, and then he stopped moving.

Poison was hidden in his teeth.

Lin Qiye frowned slightly and reached out to check his breath—he was already dead. He then checked the other four, and they were all the same; they had all committed suicide by biting down on the poison sacs between their teeth.

People from Blood Raven are stubborn and have a tough life.

He stood up, looked at the five corpses on the ground, and remained silent for a moment. Then he walked to the night-blooming cereus, carefully picked the blooming flower by the roots, wrapped it in an oilcloth, and put it in his pocket.

Three days later, at the agreed-upon location in Falling Star Hill.

When Gu Qingshuang arrived with two trusted confidants, Lin Qiye was leaning against a rock, holding an oilcloth bundle in his arms.

"We've collected the herbs," he said. "And we've caught the person."

He handed over the oilcloth package and then briefly recounted what had happened that night—including the "young master" Blood Raven and the "Zhenyuan Seal" that the man mentioned.

When Gu Qingshuang heard the words "Zhenyuan Seal", her expression changed drastically.

"The Zhenyuan Seal is an ancestral artifact of the Gu family," she said in a deep voice. "One was stolen by Blood Raven a few years ago. My aunt worried about it for years—that thing is more than just an artifact; it is also..."

She paused, then didn't continue.

"Or what?" Lin Qiye asked.

"Come back to Ironwall City with me and meet my aunt," Gu Qingshuang said. "There are some things I can't explain to you; she has to tell you herself."

……

It was already late at night when they returned to Ironwall City.

Gu Qingshuang didn't take Lin Qiye back to his guest room. Instead, she led him directly through the three courtyards to a quiet, elegant hall in the backyard. A lamp was lit inside, and a figure sat under it, a book open in front of him, a pen in his hand, annotating something.

That's a woman.

She looked to be in her early thirties, wearing a moon-white long dress, her black hair loosely tied up, adorned only with a plain silver hairpin. Her eyebrows and eyes were gentle, her features exquisite, and at first glance she looked like a noblewoman raised in seclusion—but Lin Qiye noticed the hand she used to hold the brush; her fingers were long and strong, and there was a thin callus on the base of her thumb.

Those were calluses from years of wielding weapons.

"Auntie," Gu Qingshuang stopped at the door, "I've brought him."

The woman raised her head.

Her gaze fell on Lin Qiye, calm and gentle, yet it made him feel as if she were weighing him down from head to toe. She put down her pen, stood up, and nodded slightly to him: "On the Bone Ridge, was it you who saved Qing Shuang?"

The voice was not loud, but clear, carrying a calm and unhurried quality.

"Yes."

"I am Gu Ruolan, the head of the Gu family," she said. "Qing Shuang's aunt. Her parents died early, and I raised her. You saved her, so you are a benefactor of the Gu family."

She walked to the side, poured him a cup of tea, and pushed it towards him: "Sit down."

Lin Qiye sat down, picked up the tea, and took a sip. The tea was of excellent quality, with a sweet and mellow taste and a long aftertaste.

"There's something I don't understand," Gu Ruolan said. "You saved her, asked for no thanks, asked for no official title, and went back to Ironwall City with her. What exactly are you after?"

"I want to get to the bottom of things," Lin Qiye said. "The thing underground at Dry Bone Ridge, the seal that Blood Raven pried open, and the Gu family's ancestral Zhenyuan Seal—I want to find out the truth about all of these things."

Gu Ruolan looked at him and remained silent for a moment.

Then she got up, walked to a black wooden box in the corner of the main room, opened it, and took out a dark crystal the size of a baby's fist.

The crystal was dark all over, with fine lines covering its surface, as if life was slowly flowing inside.