A master of both medicine and martial arts, he recruits a beautiful CEO to cultivate immortality tog

"Um."

"My mother is also of the Jian family bloodline." Ye Beiyuan looked at him. "When she married my father, the Ye family wasn't as big as it is now. Later, she disappeared, and the Ye family said she 'died of illness,' so that's how it became on the family tree."

Do you believe it?

"I don't believe it." Ye Beiyuan closed the family genealogy book. "I checked. The year she disappeared, the Ye family happened to receive a large order. The goods on the shipping manifest were signed by Fang Boheng."

Ye Heng's eyes flickered.

Where is the shipping document?

"Underground," Ye Beiyuan said. "There's an old passageway beneath the Ye family's old house, which is an extension of the Jian family's side gate. I accidentally wandered into it once when I was a kid, and my dad beat me up. After that, it was sealed off."

"Can it still be opened now?"

"Yes." Ye Beiyuan took a small jade pendant off her neck. "My blood can be opened."

Ye Heng looked at the jade pendant and suddenly remembered his master's words.

Those with the sword family bloodline can open a side door.

"Walk."

The entrance to the underground passage is in a woodshed behind the ancestral hall.

Ye Beiyuan pressed the jade pendant onto an inconspicuous blue brick on the wall, and a very faint blue light seeped out from the cracks in the brick. The wall slid open to both sides, revealing a stone staircase extending downwards.

The stone steps are very narrow, allowing only one person to pass at a time.

Ye Heng walked ahead, his divine sense probing along the wall. The walls of the passage were covered with dense sword patterns, similar in style to those of the Kunlun Ruins Sword Clan, but older, as if carved by the same craftsman in his later years.

After walking about a hundred steps, we reached the bottom of the stone steps.

A bronze door blocked the way.

There was no lock on the door, only a groove shaped like a sword.

Ye Beiyuan pressed her hand on it, and the groove lit up. The door slid open, and a gust of cold air rushed out, carrying the smell of rust and dust.

Behind the door was a long corridor.

Rows of metal cabinets hung on the walls on both sides of the corridor. The cabinets were labeled, some saying "Sealed Entity", some saying "Sample", and some just having a number. Ye Heng pulled open a cabinet, and it was empty, with only a thin layer of dust inside.

"They've all moved away," Ye Beiyuan said.

"Not necessarily." Ye Heng squatted down, looking at the marks on the ground. "Look at these wheel marks, they're very new. Someone was here recently."

He followed the wheel tracks forward.

At the end of the corridor was a control room. The consoles were covered in dust, but one screen was still lit, displaying a transport route. The starting point was Northern Yan, and the destination was Jinling.

Ye Heng reached out and swiped across the screen.

A row of records pops up below the route.

"Ye Chongshan," he read the first line.

Ye Beiyuan walked over, looked at the screen, and her expression changed.

"Guardian: Ye Chongshan." She read the following words, "Transportation object: Cradle carrier. Destination: Southwest Third Research Institute."

Ye Heng stared at the line of text, his finger hovering over the screen.

guardian.

Not a "victim," not a "test subject," but a "guardian."

"Your father..." Ye Beiyuan looked at him, her voice a little dry, "He knows."

Ye Heng didn't speak.

He remembered the glass chamber Han Yue had mentioned. He remembered Ye Chongshan covered in tubes. He remembered the words, "Tell my son not to trust anyone."

How could someone locked in a glass capsule sign "guardian" on a transport document?

"It might be a fake," he said.

"It could be true." Ye Beiyuan didn't agree with him.

Ye Heng glanced at her.

"You're quite direct."

"Senior, my mother's name has been erased for twenty years, and my father kept it from me for twenty years." Ye Beiyuan's voice was calm. "I don't believe in the idea that it might be a forgery. I want to see the evidence."

"Then find evidence."

Ye Heng turned around and continued walking deeper into the control room.

There is another door behind the control room.

The door wasn't closed completely, leaving a crack. A sliver of dark purple light shone through the crack.

Ye Heng stopped in his tracks.

He raised his hand, signaling Ye Beiyuan not to move.

There's someone behind the door.

"Come out," he said.

A sliver of light flickered through the crack in the door.

Then, the door was pushed open from the inside.

Ye Chengli stood behind the door, wearing a dark gray Zhongshan suit and holding a teacup. He didn't seem surprised at all, and even smiled.

"Ye Heng," he said, "I've been waiting for you for a long time."

Ye Heng looked at him.

Ye Chengli was in his fifties, tall and thin, with his hair neatly combed and a gentle, teacher-like demeanor on his face. Yet, from his sleeve, a faint wisp of dark purple true energy was creeping up his wrist.

"Third Elder," Ye Heng said, "should I call you Third Elder, or something else?"

"Just call me Third Elder." Ye Chengli took a sip of tea. "You're not ready to accept any other title."

Where is Ye Mingyuan?

"Rest upstairs." Ye Chengli placed his teacup on the control panel. "He's not in good health, so I told him not to worry too much. There are so many things going on in the Ye family; someone has to take care of them."

"So much so that they've erased all the names from the family tree?"

Ye Chengli's smile faded slightly.

"You mean Bei Yuan's mother?" He glanced at Ye Bei Yuan. "That was twenty years ago. What she did, and why the Ye family removed her from the family register, is clearly written in the family genealogy."

"The family genealogy only has four words written on it," Ye Beiyuan said, "'Expelled from the Ye family'."

"That's enough." Ye Chengli's voice was calm. "The Ye family doesn't support traitors."

Ye Beiyuan placed her hand on the hilt of the knife.

Ye Heng reached out to stop her.

"Third Elder," he said, looking at Ye Chengli's cuff, "the dark purple true energy in your hand is very similar to that of the people of Huan She."

Ye Chengli looked down at his wrist.

The wisp of purple energy had already crept up to the back of his hand, like a tiny snake wriggling beneath his skin. He didn't try to hide it; instead, he rolled up his sleeves.

"You've seen it before?"

"I've seen it," Ye Heng said. "Zhou Henian has it, and Qin Wuyai has it too. They're both related to the cradle."

"Then you should know that this isn't something shameful," Ye Chengli said, looking at him. "It's power."

"Power gained at the cost of other people's lives?"

"Whose life is it, it doesn't matter?" Ye Chengli smiled. "Ye Heng, your father asked me the same question back then. Later, he figured it out and signed the papers."

Ye Heng's eyes turned cold.

"You know my father."

"I know him," Ye Chengli said. "Not only do I know him, we're quite close. I was the one who saw him off when he walked out of this door years ago."

He pointed to the end of the corridor.

There was a narrow side door with the pattern of a broken sword carved on it.

"Your father also came from here," Ye Chengli said, looking at Ye Heng. "When he left, he turned back and looked at me, saying something."

"What did you say?"

He said, "Watch over Heng'er for me."

Ye Heng stood there, his fingers unconsciously tightening.

"You agreed?"

"I agreed," Ye Chengli said. "That's why you can still stand here and talk to me."

"What about the extermination of the Ye family?" Ye Heng took a step forward. "Was that something you agreed to too?"

Ye Chengli did not answer immediately.

He picked up his teacup, took a sip, and then slowly said, "The extermination of the Ye family was ordered by your father. I was merely carrying out the orders."

Ye Heng's pupils contracted slightly.

Say it again.

"Your father signed this document." Ye Chengli looked at him and said, word by word, "Ye Chongshan, head of the Ye family, voluntarily included the entire Ye family in the first batch of experimental candidates for 'Cradle'. Date of signing: September 17, twenty years ago."

He took a neatly folded piece of paper from his pocket and placed it on the control panel.

"You may not believe me," he said, "but you should at least believe your father's handwriting."

Ye Heng looked down at the paper.

The paper was old, with yellowed edges, and contained only a few lines of text. At the very bottom was a signature.

Ye Chongshan.

The brushstrokes were very sharp, and the strokes ended with a small hook, exactly the same as the calligraphy copybook of Ye Chongshan that Su Changhong had collected in Ye Heng's memory.