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

Ye Heng did not answer.

He planted the Heavenly Mark Blade in the ice, formed hand seals, and the power of Taiyin surged from his dantian, gathering in his palms along his meridians.

The temperature inside the ice cave plummeted.

The runes on the chains lit up, and a dark red light climbed up the chains like snakes coming to life. The moment Ye Heng's palm touched the first chain, the entire ice cave trembled.

Ling Hanyue's body tensed up, and cold sweat beaded on her forehead.

"Continue," she said through gritted teeth.

Ye Heng closed his eyes and probed into the chains with his divine sense.

The formation was more complex than he had imagined.

Nine chains, nine nodes, each node connected to a fragment of lingering regret. The regret is chaotic, like a shattered dream, containing cries, laughter, and the sound of metal scraping together.

Ye Heng probed inward little by little with his divine sense, found the outermost node, wrapped it with the power of Taiyin, and slowly peeled it away.

very slow.

With each inch peeled away, it felt as if his meridians were being scraped with a knife.

When they reached the third node, a round of applause suddenly came from outside the ice cave.

"Wonderful."

Ye Heng opened his eyes.

At the entrance to the ice cave, a man wearing half an iron mask stood there, followed by four men in black. The man wore a long black robe and held a sword in his hand, the blade gleaming with a dark purple light.

"Young Master," the man spoke, his voice low but clear, "you are much more soft-hearted than your father was back then."

Ye Heng looked at him.

"Xuanming?"

The man nodded slightly, as if acknowledging a minor identity.

"Release my master," Ye Heng said.

"Okay," Xuanming said. "Give me the Heavenly Mark Blade."

Do you think I would give it to you?

"No," Xuanming smiled. "That's why I'm here to get it."

He raised his sword, the tip pointing at Ye Heng.

The red lights in the ice cave lit up simultaneously, the nine chains trembled violently, Ling Hanyue groaned, and blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.

"Ye Heng!" Feng Tianyin's voice suddenly became urgent, "Don't worry about us, let's go!"

Ye Heng did not move.

He looked at Xuanming and suddenly remembered his master's words.

The person behind the door will lie to you.

"You call me Young Master," he said. "Then you should know that I hate it when people threaten me with my master."

Xuanming's sword stopped in mid-air.

"so?"

"So—" Ye Heng gripped the Heavenly Mark Blade tightly, "you'll take one of my strikes first."

The sound of swords clashing echoed through the ice cave, causing icicles to fall from the ceiling.

Ye Heng felt a numbness in his hand and staggered back three steps. Xuanming's sword was heavy, much heavier than it looked. The dark purple light on the blade wasn't true energy, but rather some kind of compressed remnant spirit. Each strike carried a shrill whistle that disturbed the mind.

"The power of Taiyin." Xuanming sheathed his sword and looked at Ye Heng. "Your father also practiced this back then. Unfortunately, he stopped after reaching the third level."

"Because he discovered that the higher he trains, the easier it is for you to use him as a key?" Ye Heng flicked his wrist.

"Smart." Xuanming smiled. "If your father had been this smart earlier, so many people in the Ye family wouldn't have died."

Ye Heng's eyes turned cold.

He didn't reply, but shifted his stance, and the blade slashed upwards from below.

Xuanming dodged to the side, the sword blade grazing the blade, sparks flying everywhere.

The two exchanged more than a dozen blows inside the ice cave.

Ye Heng's meridians are injured, so he cannot fight for long.

Xuanming realized that the sword strikes were getting slower and slower, but increasingly cunning, as if deliberately stalling him.

"What are you waiting for?" Ye Heng asked.

"When you can't hold on any longer," Xuanming said, "your injuries will only last for another incense stick's time at most. After that, you won't need me to hit you; you'll have to kneel down on your own."

"Then you might be disappointed."

Ye Heng took a step back and formed a hand seal with his left hand.

The temperature inside the ice cave plummeted, and the dark star patterns on the Heavenly Mark Blade lit up. Instead of using the Sky-Splitting Technique, he channeled the power of Yin into the blade, causing a thin layer of ice to condense on its edge.

"The flow has stopped," he whispered.

The blade flashed, but there was no crack or loud noise.

Only a thin, silvery-blue ray of light stretched forward along the ice surface. Wherever it passed, the dark purple light on the Xuanming Sword seemed to have its soul ripped away, darkening layer by layer.

Xuanming's expression changed slightly.

He stepped back, the tip of his sword touching the ground, and the dark purple light surged up again, but it was much weaker than before.

"The Heavenly Mark Blade Technique." He looked at Ye Heng. "You actually got it."

"You know quite a lot."

"I know more than you think," Xuanming said. "For example, why your father signed that list."

Ye Heng paused for a moment.

In that instant, Xuanming's sword arrived.

Ye Heng sidestepped, the sword grazing his chest, tearing open his coat and drawing a line of blood. He grunted, then swung his sword back, forcing Xuan Ming back.

"Speak," he gasped for breath, "Why did my father sign it?"

Xuanming did not answer immediately.

He stood in the center of the ice cave, the tip of his sword hanging at his side, looking at Ye Heng as if he were looking at a student who had finally asked the right question.

"Because of you," he said.

Ye Heng frowned.

"Twenty years ago, Fang Boheng approached your father and said that Cradle needed a 'heart'," Xuanming said slowly. "Your father refused. Fang Boheng then gave him another choice—either the entire Ye family was on the list, or you were on the list."

The ice cave was quiet for a moment.

"Your father chose the former," Xuanming said. "He thought that as long as he cooperated, Fang Boheng would let you go. But he didn't expect that Fang Boheng had no intention of letting the Ye family go from the very beginning."

Ye Heng tightened his grip on the knife.

"So, he signed the papers, sold off his entire clan, and let me live?"

"It's your turn to live," Xuanming corrected him, "and his turn to live. What kind of good person do you think he is? If he were a good person, he wouldn't have signed the list."

"Shut up."

"What's wrong, can't take it anymore?" Xuanming chuckled. "Young Master, your father couldn't take it either. After he signed the document, he knelt in the ancestral hall all night. The next morning, he stood up and said one thing to me."

"What did you say?"

He said, "From today onwards, there are no good people in the Ye family."

Ye Heng felt as if something was blocking his chest.

He wanted to say "You're lying," and "My father isn't that kind of person," but the words wouldn't come out.

Because he suddenly realized that he had no idea who his father was.

He only knew one name, one calligraphy copybook, and one sentence: "Don't trust anyone."

"Your father regretted it later," Xuanming added. "After he woke up in the cradle, the first thing he did was ask me to send you away. He begged me, saying that as long as I sent you to Ling Hanyue, he would willingly be the heart of the cradle."

Ye Heng's pupils contracted slightly.

"Did you send me to Master?"

"It was me," Xuanming said. "Why do you think Ling Hanyue was in Jinling? She wasn't just passing through; I led her there."

Ye Heng's mind went blank.

He recalled the first time Ling Hanyue appeared at the Su family home.

I remember the tone of her voice when she told Su Changhong, "I'm taking this child with me." I remember how she never talked about her father.

It turns out that he had already been caught in someone else's trap from that moment on.