One person: Starting with the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, his grandmaster uncle emerges from seclusion.

"Grandpa Xuanmu?"

……

Chapter 419 Top Secret Past Events

Yuan Yi was somewhat surprised.

This Mr. Xuanmu is 96 years old this year.

He was once the personal attendant of Genji's great-grandfather.

He holds a special position in the family, but rarely appears in public, spending most of his time in this quiet retreat, eating vegetarian food and chanting Buddhist scriptures.

"Is the young master troubled by some old, untraceable matter?"

Genki waved, signaling Genji to come inside.

Without hesitation, Yuan Yi took off his shoes and walked into Jing Si Ju, sitting down opposite the old man.

"Grandpa Xuanmu, did you hear that?"

“The people in the inner hall are talking loudly. Although I’m half-buried, my ears aren’t too deaf.”

Genki looked at Genji with his single eye and stretched out his withered, brittle hand:

"Show that photo to the old man."

Yuan Yi quickly took out the photo from his pocket and handed it over.

Genki took the photo and, using the light coming in from outside, brought it close to his eyes.

I only glanced at it.

The string of Buddhist prayer beads in Xuanmu's hand, which had been spinning for decades, suddenly stopped with a snap.

His cloudy right eye suddenly shrank at that moment.

His wrinkled old face visibly tightened, and his breathing became rapid.

"This...this thing..."

Genki's fingers gripped the edge of the photo tightly, his voice trembling:

"There are even images of it still existing..."

Seeing the old man's reaction as if he had seen a ghost, Yuan Yi's heart skipped a beat!

There is a play!

"Grandpa Xuanmu, do you recognize this formation? Do you know about the [Divine Fence Project]?!"

Yuan Yi lowered his voice and asked urgently, "Why do the elders in the family all say there is no such record?"

"Of course they don't know."

Xuanmu closed his eyes, exhaled a long breath, his tone filled with deep fear and a sense of unspoken unease.

"Because back then, the organization that spearheaded this plan was not our orthodox Yin-Yang Bureau at all."

"They're a bunch of complete lunatics!"

Xuanmu placed the photo face down on the small wooden table, as if looking at it for even a second would be too jarring.

That was in 1943 (Showa 19).

Xuanmu's voice lowered as he began to recount that history that had been completely erased:

"At that time, the situation on the front line was critical, and some extreme fanatics in the military were desperate. They secretly gathered several heretical people who had been expelled from the Yin-Yang Bureau in their early years for researching forbidden arts."

"They secretly established an underground base in China without anyone's knowledge."

"This is what is known as the 'God's Gable Project'."

Yuan Yi held his breath as he listened: "What are they planning to do?"

"Creating gods".

Xuanmu uttered these two words, a mocking sneer curling at the corner of his mouth.

"They attempted to use the most insidious blood sacrifice formation to artificially create a perfect vessel."

They wanted to forcibly infuse the divine will of the Takamagahara legends into the bodies of mortals in order to reverse the course of the war.

Genki pointed to the faceless photo on the table:

"Presumably, this little girl was one of the experimental subjects at the time."

boom!

Yuan Yi felt a buzzing in his head.

The girl with braided pigtails in the photo was actually a living vessel used to hold so-called gods!

"And then what happened? Did the plan succeed?" Yuan Yi asked impatiently.

"Success? That's a joke."

Xuanmu shook his head, a deep fear flashing in his single eye.

"Those lunatics have no idea what they've awakened."

"One night, a terrifying riot suddenly broke out in one of their secret hideouts in Tokyo."

"According to the surviving guards on the outskirts, the roar of a monster came from inside, and the whole valley was shaking."

"The thing inside... has gone out of control."

Xuanmu clasped his hands together and flicked his prayer beads.

"The military leadership is in complete panic. They are trying to cover up this scandal and prevent the greater terror from escaping."

"They didn't send anyone in to rescue them, and they didn't even have time to take the research data with them."

"The highest level of lockdown order was issued directly."

"Tons of explosives were used to completely destroy the entrance to the entire valley."

"They literally...buried the entire base, along with all the people and data inside, alive underground!"

"Since then, all those involved have been secretly executed, and all related records have been strictly ordered to be destroyed. No one has known about this matter since."

Quiet.

Inside the Quiet Retreat, only the occasional sound of the wind rustling through the leaves could be heard from outside.

Yuan Yi felt a chill run down his spine.

Blast the mountain and bury the people alive?

With such a tragic ending, it's no wonder that not a trace of it can be found in the family register.

"Grandpa Xuanmu..."

Yuan Yi swallowed hard, his gaze fixed firmly on the old man:

"Do you remember the exact location of that base?"

Genki sighed as he looked at Genji's unwavering gaze.

"No one has ever known about that mysterious base in China. Back then, the military and the Yin-Yang Bureau went to great lengths to find it, but they couldn't find it."

"But perhaps we can find what we're looking for in that secret hideout that was buried back then."

With trembling hands, he pulled a pen from the pen holder beside him and scrawled a series of coordinates on the back of the photograph.

"Go ahead. Tell your friends in China."

Genki pushed the photo back to Genji:

"If they can uncover the sins we committed back then, it will be considered a way to settle the karmic debt."

……

Abe's villa.

The afternoon sun was just right.

The light made the exquisitely maintained koi pond in the courtyard shimmer and sparkle.

"Clap."

Zhang Chulan reacted quickly and grabbed Feng Baobao by the back of her collar.

They forcefully pulled her halfway down the water's surface back up.

"My dear sister! Don't try to save her!"

Zhang Chulan pointed to the plump red and white koi swimming happily in the pond and earnestly tried to dissuade them:

"This isn't the carp you get at the market! One of these costs as much as two of our kidneys!"

Feng Baobao was still holding a twig in her hand.

Hearing this, he could only click his tongue in regret.

"Oh."

She obediently retreated to the corridor and plopped down on the wooden floor.

Wang Ye, who was dozing off against a pillar, watched this scene with half-closed eyes and couldn't help but laugh.

"Old Zhang, look at your life of worrying. You already have to guard against outsiders, and now you have to guard against your own people causing trouble."

Wang Ye yawned and rubbed his sore neck.

Zhuge Qing sat on the other side, his folding fan twirling lightly between his fingertips.

He looked in the direction leading to the courtyard gate and put away his joking thoughts:

"Judging by the time, it's been almost half a day since the Yuan brothers arrived. Does it really take this long to check a file?"

Zhang Chulan leaned against a pillar and sighed.

"The longer it takes, the more difficult it is. Could it be that even their old man doesn't know?"

As they were talking, the courtyard gate was pushed open.