A master of both medicine and martial arts, he picked up a beautiful CEO as his wife.

The last few pages of the journal were written with the name "Zhao". The handwriting on those pages was much neater than the previous ones—as if it was written stroke by stroke so that future readers wouldn't be able to read it.

"I must write these three 'Zhao's' clearly," the master wrote. "Otherwise, later generations won't understand and will mistake good people for enemies. In ancient times, there was a pure Yin lineage surnamed Zhao. This lineage and the peak Yang of my Nirvana Mountain shared the same object and kept the same covenant. This is the main branch. In ancient times, a group of people came from this lineage. They refused to keep the covenant; they wanted to take it."

"They said: Since that thing is the source of death and possesses immense power, why suppress it? Why not use it?"

"This group broke the covenant, fell into depravity, and became a collateral branch."

"For two thousand years, they have only done one thing—to release the 'Abyss' from underground and use it for their own purposes."

"The one sitting over there now calls himself 'Lord of the Abyss.' He is the current leader of this branch."

Ye Feng's eyes narrowed.

"So, boss," Shen Yu gasped, "you and Miss Lin are from the same lineage?"

"They are two ends of the same vein," Ye Feng said. "One end guards, the other seizes. Twenty years ago, only she and her daughter remained on the guarding end. On the seizing end, the line has never been broken for two thousand years."

Lin Yuqing's face turned ashen. Her fingertips landed on those three words—"The Zhao Family Lineage".

"I always thought," her voice was soft, "that my mother was just an ordinary woman who married into the Lin family. The story I heard growing up was that her family had long since disappeared, and she came to Dongyang to seek refuge with relatives. Turns out, 'long since disappeared' meant—"

She couldn't continue. Ye Feng picked up where she left off.

"They were all wiped out."

Lin Yuqing sat down on the old wooden stool next to her. She sat there for a long time before speaking.

When I was little, I asked my dad once why no one was home at my maternal grandmother's house.

"My dad said that your mom's side of the family suffered a disaster."

"I was eight years old at the time, and I thought 'disaster' meant earthquakes or floods."

She covered her face with her hands.

"Ye Feng".

"I am here."

"For the past twenty-six years, I've always considered myself a pretty capable person." Her voice was muffled in her palms. "I took over the company, led the board of directors, and won so many battles. I thought I earned my life myself. But it turns out I didn't."

"My life was bought with my own blood. The year she died, she brought all those who followed this lineage upon herself."

"She risked her life to hide me in the shell of 'the Lin family's daughter,' and kept me hidden for twenty years."

Ye Feng squatted down to be at eye level with her.

"Are you finished speaking?"

Lin Yuqing was taken aback.

"I'm done." She lowered her hand, her eyes red.

"Then I'll tell you," Ye Feng looked at her, "It's true that your mother hid you for twenty years. But when you took over that mess at twenty-three, she was already gone. Those seven people on the board who wanted to devour you, you outlasted them one by one. The accounts on the thirty-ninth floor, you led the guards yourself. Those are yours. Nobody can take them away."

There is a third paragraph in the journal.

"There's a third Zhao."

"Among the four major families of Dongyang, there is the Zhao family."

"This family is a distant branch of that fallen lineage scattered among the people. Their bloodline is so thin that it is almost nonexistent, and they themselves do not even know who they are."

"But bloodlines, being thin, doesn't mean they're nonexistent."

"In this family, every few generations there is always someone who has an almost insane obsession with 'pure yin'—they can't move at the slightest hint of it, and spend their whole lives thinking about getting that 'key', as if that would make up for what's missing in them."

"I've met people like that over the years."

"They are pitiful, but they harm people."

Ye Feng suddenly remembered that night at Baicao Mountain. He remembered Zhao Hui's face contorted in pain after he struck a nerve with Zhao Hui's words; he remembered Zhao Hui's subconscious action of clutching his briefcase to protect his heart.

"Zhao Hui," he said softly.

"What?" Shen Yu was taken aback.

"I took his pulse at Baicao Mountain." Ye Feng closed the notebook. "He had a wisp of pure yin energy, so thin it was almost imperceptible. He wasn't working for his employer. He wanted to snatch this 'key' from his employer and take it for himself."

The room fell silent for a few moments.

"This person is more difficult to deal with than the boss," Lin Yuqing said.

Ye Feng looked at her.

"The boss wants her for a big deal." She spoke slowly, as if analyzing a merger and acquisition at a board meeting. "Big deals involve costs, trade-offs, and negotiation. But Zhao Hui isn't like that. What Zhao Hui wants is something he himself lacks. That kind of person is willing to risk everything."

Ye Feng nodded. In the past six months of dealing with Zhao Hui, what he feared most was never the man's cunning, but rather the way he looked at Lin Yuqing.

"Is there anything else at the end of the notes?" Shen Yu asked.

Ye Feng reopened the booklet and flipped to the last page. On the last page were only three short lines. The ink was new—much newer than the previous ones.

"In the spring of the year Bingwu, the neighbor went up the mountain."

"I handed over the sect to the next generation, and entrusted my life to that one thing."

"I can't die here. If I die, that thing will belong to them."

"I'll take it with me."

"Go as far as you can."

"Feng'er, if you see this page—"

"Don't come looking for me."

"Go to Heqi Cliff."

Ye Feng stared at the last four words for a long time without moving. Shen Yu murmured beside him, "Master is... using himself as bait."

"It's not bait." Ye Feng shook his head.

"What is that?"

"He took the most dangerous thing, tied it to himself, and led the people of the mountain away."

Ye Feng slowly clenched the booklet in his hand.

He knew his employer would definitely pursue him.

"He also knew that as long as he was alive and still running around with that thing, the master wouldn't have time to focus all his efforts on her."

He raised his head: "For the past six months, I've always thought Master had disappeared. Actually, for the past six months, he's been covering for us."

Outside the window, darkness fell. The branches of the old jujube tree rustled against the window paper in the wind. Lin Yuqing walked to Ye Feng's side and placed her hand on the back of his hand, which was clutching the booklet.

"Ye Feng".

"Um."

"Your master did two things in his life."

Which two items?

"One is that he carried me in his arms twenty-six years ago," she said softly. "The other is that he carried you back from the mass grave more than six years ago. No one knew about these two things when he did them. He carried it all by himself for more than twenty years."

She gripped his hand tighter.

"Let's go to Heqi Cliff."

"Let's get that half back."

"Then we went to find him."