I established the Eternal Immortal Clan by taming beasts.

The whole family bustled into the reception room of the complex.

Lin Xuandong walked at the front, his pace a bit faster than usual. He would glance back at Lin Xinyou from time to time, his gaze always fixed on that face weathered by the sea breeze and sun, as if to confirm that this was not a dream.

Twenty years is far too long, so long that the boy's departing figure has become blurred, so long that every time a few scattered messages are received from the South China Sea, one has to repeatedly confirm whether the person on the ship is indeed one's son.

Now, the person was standing just three steps away, alive and well, covered in the salty smell of the sea breeze and sunburnt marks, and he felt somewhat at a loss.

Lin Xuanqi immediately instructed the kitchen to prepare a welcome feast, his voice unusually lighthearted: "Bring out those jars of spirit wine that I personally brewed from the storeroom, and also prepare two extra portions of the Crimson Flame Roasted Beef Tenderloin that Xinyou loved to eat when she was a child."

The kitchen manager responded repeatedly and hurried towards the dining room.

Wang Lingsu held Shen Qinghuai's hand, pouring her tea while asking about her journey. Her tone was full of the warmth and concern unique to an elder: "Was the journey smooth? Are the two children settling in well? Ruolan looks just like Xinyou when she was little, especially her eyes..."

Shen Qinghuai answered each question in a gentle and composed voice, occasionally glancing down at Ruofan, who was already asleep in his arms.

Lin Che sat in the main seat, his gaze slowly moving over the familiar faces.

Xuanqi, Xuanfeng, Xuanjing, Xuanqing, and several others from the Xin generation were all present, except for Xuanjing.

After the development zone was largely completed, Lin Xuanjing began his seclusion in the cultivation tower in order to break through to the Nascent Soul stage as soon as possible. He had not shown his face for several years.

Of course, there was also an outsider on the field—Qin Yulin.

Having received Lin Che's instructions, she was dragged here by Lin Xuanqing. She was somewhat unwilling when she entered, muttering, "I just broke through and haven't stabilized yet."

But upon seeing the table full of spiritual food and the several jars of spiritual wine, his eyebrows rose, and he sat down next to Lin Xuanqing without any hesitation.

He casually picked up a piece of seared beef tenderloin and stuffed it into his mouth, his cheeks bulging as he mumbled, "You guys are thoughtful enough to remember me." His eyes shone brightly in the lamplight, carrying a kind of satisfaction that only comes from being bribed with food.

Looking at her, Lin Che smiled and said, "Congratulations, Master Qin, on breaking through to the Nascent Soul stage. From now on, the Lin family's formations will likely have to rely on you a lot."

Qin Yulin paused in his chewing, swallowed the meat in his mouth, and pointed in Lin Che's direction with his chopsticks, his tone filled with the wariness accumulated from years of being "exploited".

"Lin Che, I'm warning you, I agreed to be a guest retainer of the Lin family, not to sell myself into slavery. If you keep dumping a ton of work on me like before, especially having Qingqing exploit me..." She glanced at Lin Xuanqing, her eyes filled with a hint of resentment, as if to say, "I've wasted my time teaching this disciple." "I'm really going to raise my price!"

Lin Xuanqing held a teacup, his face mostly obscured by a veil, making his expression unreadable. However, a hint of a smile flickered in his eyes as he calmly replied, "Master, raising prices requires ability. Are you sure I don't know any of those new formations you've learned?"

Qin Yulin choked for a moment, glared at Lin Xuanqing, and ultimately chose not to argue with his disciple, continuing to focus on the spiritual food on his plate.

…………

After a few rounds of drinks, the atmosphere in the reception room gradually shifted from the lively reunion to a deeper warmth.

The flame of the wall lamp flickered quietly within its shade, illuminating and then dimming the faces of those seated around the long table.

Lin Che put down his wine glass, his gaze passing over the steaming spiritual dishes and wines on the table, and finally landing on Lin Xinyou.

"Xinyou, where have you been in the past twenty years?" Lin Che's voice was not loud, but it gradually quieted down the laughter in the hall.

All eyes turned to Lin Xinyou, filled with curiosity and anticipation.

Lin Xinyou put down her wine glass and slowly ran her fingertips along the rim, as if sorting through memories spanning twenty years.

"For the past twenty years, I have actually been doing the same thing: walking south along the coastline, recording everything along the way, including the islands, reefs, shipping lanes, monsoons, and tides scattered on the sea."

As he spoke, he took something out of his pocket. When he opened his palm, the spiritual light of the storage ring flashed, and a scroll of deep blue color appeared in his hand.

The scroll was long and thin, with dark marks left by seawater at the edges, like an old canvas that had been repeatedly folded and unfolded, the paper having developed a supple texture as if it had been repeatedly blown by the sea breeze.

Untie the rope on the scroll and slowly unroll it on the table.

The lamps in the hall simultaneously brightened, as if drawn by the radiance on the scroll's surface, projecting more light onto the unfolding nautical chart.

This enormous nautical chart has a deep blue hue that has been repeatedly dyed, as if the color of the sea has been fixed on the paper, and under the light, it presents different shades.

The nearshore area is light blue, the midsea area is turquoise, and the open ocean is dark blue; each layer has a corresponding label and annotation.

The coastline is depicted in great detail, with each island, reef, and channel marked in small print. The handwriting is neat and the strokes are clear, showing that it was carefully checked before being written.

"This is what I've accomplished over the past twenty years."

Lin Xuanqi leaned forward slightly, his gaze falling on the southern end of the sea chart.

There is a route marked with a dotted line, which starts from the coast southeast of Chuyang City, first extends south along the near-shore line for about two thousand miles, then turns southeast into the sea, travels for a distance through a large blank area, and finally stops near a light-colored sea surrounded by tiny islands.

The islands were marked with tiny dots, like debris scattered randomly on the sea, but each one was marked with the name of the supply and the available resources.

"It took me the first ten years to truly navigate this path." Lin Xinyou's voice was as calm as ever. Her finger moved slowly across the paper, following the direction of the dotted line, and her fingertip paused briefly at the locations marked with reefs.

"For the first three years, I couldn't even get more than 300 miles from the coast. The undercurrents and reefs in that area were more complex than any map could show. I lost two spirit boats before I figured out the patterns of the monsoon."

He paused for a moment, as if reminiscing about those days, and then continued, "Later on the road, I met a group of cultivators who lived on an island. They lived on an archipelago in the southern part of the near sea and made a living by catching spirit fish and collecting seafood for generations. Their familiarity with that sea area far exceeded that of any explorer. I stayed in their fishing village for two years before I figured out the distribution patterns of those undercurrents and reefs."

He smiled, a smile that held both gratitude and感慨 (a complex emotion encompassing both feeling and reflection).

"That's when I met Qinghuai. She was the daughter of the village chief of that fishing village. She grew up in that sea area and could row a small boat out to sea on her own when she was six years old. She was much better than me, a self-taught fisherman."

Shen Qinghuai paused slightly in the teacup, but said nothing. He simply lowered his eyes, a faint smile playing on his lips, illuminated by the lamplight.

"At first, we were the only ones who could explore the near-shore route little by little. Later, Qinghuai set off with two of his clansmen who were familiar with the sea conditions. It took us three years to fully explore that near-shore route."

His finger continued to move south, tracing the densely packed islands along the edge of that light-colored sea.

"During that period, our biggest discovery was not the route itself, but the spiritual plants that grew on these islands. There were several kinds that I had never seen on the Southern Continent before. One of them, the Silver Leaf Red Fruit, could be ground into powder and taken, which could extend a person's breath-holding time underwater by almost double."

He looked up at Lin Xuanjing and said, "I brought back all the samples of those spiritual plants. They can be handed over to the Spirit Herb Garden for research later."

Lin Xuanjing nodded slightly.

"Later, we encountered another group of people." His voice deepened slightly, and his finger paused at the edge of the light-colored sea surrounded by tiny islands.

"Those people were wearing uniform dark blue robes with a silver wavy pattern embroidered on the collar. The spirit boats they were on were of a much higher rank than ours, and the hulls were engraved with array patterns I had never seen before."

The arrangement of those array patterns was unlike any I had ever seen in the Southern Region; it was far more ancient, and the direction of the lines presented a rhythm completely different from that of contemporary styles.

"When we first met, their attitude was neither friendly nor hostile. They simply used their spirit boat to block us at the outer edge of the sea, preventing us from advancing further. The leader was a Golden Core cultivator who was polite in his speech, but his stance was very clear: the sea ahead was their territory that they had guarded for generations, and outsiders were not allowed to go deep into it."

Lin Xuanfeng, who had been leaning back in his chair and listening quietly, straightened up slightly, his brow furrowing slightly: "Generations of protection? What are they protecting?"

"I asked." Lin Xinyou's gaze met his. "The other party didn't say it directly, but only asked in return, 'Since you come from the Southern Region, you should know this. If you don't know, then you don't need to know.'"

The hall fell silent for a moment.

Lin Che's fingers stopped on the table, and his gaze fell on the area circled by dark blue lines at the southern end of the nautical chart.

"And then?" Lin Xuanfeng's voice came from the side.

"Then they retreated." Lin Xinyou slightly gathered the edge of the scroll on the nautical chart and gently traced the end of the dotted line with her fingertip. "We were stopped on the outskirts of that sea area. The other side did not offer any explanation or take any further action."

I stayed on the outskirts of that sea area for about half a month, during which I tried to approach it three times from different directions, but each time I was stopped by their patrol boats when I got close to the edge of the island group.

Their patrol coverage roughly extends to that island group, with the sea area to the south entirely falling under their jurisdiction.

"They didn't make things difficult for you?" Lin Xuan asked, his tone carrying a hint of subconscious wariness.

"No." Lin Xinyou shook her head. "They just blocked our way and left after repeatedly confirming that we didn't intend to go any further. Their patrol intensity didn't differ significantly between day and night, maintaining a fixed frequency and route. It didn't seem like a temporary increase in alert, indicating that this patrol was a routine, long-term operational mode."

His finger continued moving south, skimming the edge of the sea he had marked as the "dark blue area," and landing on a vast area further south marked in light gray.

"Further south, there's this sea, which we call the 'Twilight Sea'."

"The seawater there is darker than in the north, almost a dark blue, and its salinity is nearly 20% higher than that of the nearshore waters. Many common marine plants cannot grow there at all."

He paused, his finger hovering over a spot marked with a light gray circle on the nautical chart.

"But there is an island there. I saw it once from afar, but I didn't get close. I only observed it for about half an hour from about fifty miles from the coast using my spiritual eye technique."

The island is shaped like a mountain peak with its top flattened, its edges extending towards the sea with steep cliffs, giving it a rounded outline as if it had been repeatedly polished by the waves.

The surface was covered with a layer of light gray vegetation, which shimmered with a pale silver halo under the moonlight, unlike the surrounding sea. Moreover, from the direction of the island, a very faint spiritual energy ripple would spread outwards every ten breaths or so, like a heart submerged underwater beating at a fixed frequency.

The frequency of those spiritual energy fluctuations was extremely stable, unlike anything that formed naturally; it seemed more like the residual energy released outwards by some continuously operating creation.

His voice paused for a moment, as if letting the words linger in the air, before continuing: "What I can be sure of is that there is something operating beneath that island."

The hall was quiet for a moment.

Lin Che silently gazed at the light gray marked area at the southern end of the nautical chart.

"Although they didn't say it explicitly, I suspect it's related to the Myriad Beasts Sect. However, it's not advisable to have too much contact with them for now. We don't know exactly what's there, nor do we know their attitude or stance. The key is to secure our basic resources first."

Lin Xuanqi lifted his gaze from the sea chart and landed on Lin Che's face: "Father, that Twilight Sea and that island are worth exploring further."

"I know." Lin Che's voice was steady. "That sea area, or rather the entire South China Sea, is an unexplored region, hiding countless unclaimed treasures. Now that we have a certain understanding of the South China Sea and have cultivated a batch of marine spirit beasts, we naturally cannot waste them."

As he spoke, Lin Che looked at Lin Xinyou and said, "Our Lin family has now established a port in Qingmen City in order to explore and develop the South China Sea. Your nautical chart is very timely. In the future, our Lin family's ocean exploration will be entrusted to you."

Lin Xinyou stood up, her movements swift and decisive, her back straight: "Thank you for the family's trust. Xinyou will certainly live up to the family's expectations."

"Alright, you and your father will discuss the specifics later. Just let them know if you need anything. From now on, you'll be the admiral of my Lin family's navy!"