Chapter 197: Visitor (Part 3) [Volume 3 – The Place Where My Heart Feels At Peace] 

Song Zining recovered his calm attitude in the blink of an eye and seemed to have no hesitation when he said, “A vampire progeny cannot disobey its progenitor’s will. This isn’t a comparison of power but a natural law. If you were truly given the embrace…”—his calm tone bordered on cruelty—“then the Qianye I know would no longer exist.” 

Qianye revealed a smile, one that was as clear and limpid as crystal. “That’s why I believe you.” Even Song Zining, with his swift reaction, was momentarily startled before he understood the meaning behind these words. This was Qianye’s reply to his question.

After some thought, Qianye continued, “I’m somewhat proficient with hunting and assassinations. You can come to me if you have things you need handled.”

Song Zining was partially surprised. “I thought you didn’t like filthy and shady businesses.”

Qianye shook his head and replied, “There’s no room to discuss whether I like it or not. Red Scorpion also had its fair share of such things back then. For accomplishing missions, I presume.” Qianye wasn’t really good with words. He paused here to think before saying, “While handling matters, one shouldn’t lose his conscience to the point of forgetting his original goal. The methods used actually aren’t  that important.”

Song Zining suddenly raised his voice. “I like these words! We should really let that fool Wei Potian hear them! The only thing he knows is to charge in head-first with the Thousand Mountains. How is that different from a wild boar?!”

The previous solemn and somewhat strained atmosphere was immediately swept away. Qianye couldn’t help but want to rub his temples as he followed Song Zining’s gaze towards the door.

A sudden sneering voice came from the courtyard. “So what if I’m a wild boar? It’s still better than being a perverted skirt-chaser! You can’t even break through my Thousand Mountains with that empty rank seven strength of yours. Weren’t you chased around everywhere like a stray dog?”

Song Zining’s expression sunk as he walked towards Wei Potian with a glare. “What did you come here for in the dead of the night? Shouldn’t you be hiding in a hole cultivating your turtle shell?”

Wei Potian let out a cold snort. “When I come over is none of your business! I’m here precisely because I’m worried that a certain spineless pervert is roaming about in the dead of the night, engaging in shameful and shady business. Although Little Ye isn’t afraid, you might bother him and worsen his mood.”

Song Zining’s glare was a sharp as a blade. “Admiring beauty akin to blossoms is an inherent quality of men. A wild boar like you naturally wouldn’t understand. I do wonder who spineless one really is? Who was the one beaten until he collapsed onto all fours like a dying pig gasping for air?”

Wei Potian laughed loudly. “How is that being beaten? It was obviously me tiring myself out. You sure like to blow your own trumpet! I’ll naturally pay you back for everything many times over in the future.”

Song Zining said softly, “Perhaps it’s not a bad idea to beat you up. No need to wait until the future.”

Wei Potian squinted. “I feel the same way! Let me tell you, true men are fearless in the face of battle. The stronger the enemy, the bolder one should be. Your daddy here won’t shrink back even if I can’t win. As for you, you don’t even dare to admit your pervertedness. What admiring flowers? Ptui!”

Qianye could no longer stay silent. “You two, stop shouting about killing and fighting whenever you meet! Shouldn’t we at least get proper business done first?”

Wei Potian grinned. “There’s no proper business. I only came over to visit you.”

Song Zining stood up. “The same goes for me. Well, it’s time to leave now that there’s nothing to do.”

The two walked closer to each other once they reached the courtyard.

“I think there’s a small and seemingly deserted alleyway nearby.”

“I also happen to have the same intention!”

The two mumbling men thus left alongside each other.

Qianye shook his head helplessly as he watched their receding figures. The room suddenly became much quieter after all the liveliness was gone. Qianye was momentarily having a hard time deciding what to do when his gaze fell upon the box and jade booklets on the table.

He reached for the box and unexpectedly felt his hands sink—it was even heavier than an alloy of the same size. He was astonished. After some detailed observation, he found that it was made of an unknown type of wood. Although the patterns on its surface were natural and showed no signs of being carved by hand, they constituted a certain array which isolated the interior from all external origin powers. This prevented people from probing into the item within. It was highly probable that the box itself was an antique dating back to before the War of Daybreak.

Qianye extracted the palm-sized jade booklet from within. The jade was slightly yellowed and exuded an aura of primitive simplicity. He injected a small amount of origin power to gradually reveal four ancient characters on the jade tablet: “Song Clan Ancient Scroll” 

The name was truly, uh, special. Qianye suddenly discovered a small word in a corner below the words “Song Clan Ancient Scroll” that said “Part One”. Overcome by an abrupt and surreal sensation, he flipped open the other two tablets. They were, as expected, parts two and three. 

These three tablets were the Song Clan Ancient Scroll parts one, two, and three.

It had to be said that Qianye’s understanding of secret arts was impacted quite a bit. The aristocratic secret arts he’d seen before—ranging from the Thousand Mountains, the Moonwater Flowing Cloud Art to the Silver Sword Finger and the Sky Shattering Bright Fist—all had metaphorical names that left deep impressions and displayed their essence.

Qianye reorganized his thoughts and flipped open the second page of the first booklet where numerous words appeared in response to his origin power. It was indeed a cultivation method, but it was recorded in ancient human language—every word was incomparably abstruse and complicated.  

Learning ancient language was a compulsory and basic knowledge for the scions of aristocratic families. It’s said that many imperial edicts were still being issued in this language in order to express veneration. Qianye, on the other hand, was still at a stage where he could barely recognize some of the words individually and was completely unable to make heads or tails of them when they were strung together. 

Qianye smiled ruefully. Flipping casually through a few pages, he unexpectedly discovered a cultivation technique completely different from the ones he normally saw—it was evidently speaking of how to absorb darkness origin power! He couldn’t have misinterpreted this no matter how lousy his ancient language skills were. The words undoubtedly referred to a darkness origin power cultivation method. 

This issue was more than just shocking. Since the humans awoke to origin power, they’d caused the daybreak attribute of this world to shine ever so brilliantly. Thousands of years of history proved that humans were inherently daybreak lifeforms. Although some had fallen to the Evernight Continent for various reasons, none of them were known to reach the apex. This went to show that darkness origin power wasn’t suited for the human race at all.

In truth, some unpublicized studies from the empire proved that those who were able to easily switch to darkness origin power cultivation usually possessed dark race blood. Pure-blooded humans would require a complete transformation like the vampire race’s embrace in order for the darkness origin power to completely swallow their natural daybreak origin power. 

Having read up to this point, Qianye finally understood why no one from the Song clan had cultivated these three ancient scrolls since their founding, or even studied them.

Qianye hadn’t yet put down the ancient scroll when he saw Song Zining and Wei Potian return one after another. The two of them had been fine when they left but returned looking utterly miserable.

Song Zining had it somewhat better—only some creases could be seen on the hem of his clothes. He would be no different from his normal, peaceful self if not for the large bruise around his right eye.

Wei Potian was in a fairly miserable state. One of his eyes was so swollen that only a single line remained, and a corner of his lips was torn. His tattered clothes were no different from a beggar’s with several sole marks on them, while the exposed parts of his skin were all bruised.

Qianye suddenly felt blue veins pop up on the corner of his forehead as his head began to throb. “You two… could it be that you guys went to fight?”

Wei Potian laughed loudly. “No, why would we fight? We were just exchanging pointers, yes, only pointers! That alleyway wasn’t half bad. We fought for so long yet no one came. I’ve finally loosened my tendons and bones. How satisfying!”

Song Zining was still mild and tranquil. “It’s indeed satisfying, but my legs are tired from all the stomping.”

Wei Potian said with a laugh, “It’s no big deal for a man to suffer some setbacks. Contrariwise, it seems a certain pervert isn’t so invincible after all! That smash was quite the satisfying blow. So what if this daddy gets stomped on a few times in exchange? It’s doesn’t hurt much anyway!”

“Enough, enough, you two are really…” Qianye sighed as he brought out a first-aid bag from the cabinet and opened it on the table. An aristocratic family’s heir and a successor candidate of one of the four great clans actually went to brawl in an alleyway like local ruffians and came back bruised and battered. This was the second time Qianye’s understanding of things was challenged this evening, right after the Song Clan Ancient Scroll.

Wei Potian waved his large hand and said heroically, “I’ve already taken some medicine. These small injuries will heal in no time!”

Song Zining said ambiguously from the side, “My Song family’s medicine is known as the best among the four great clans. It’s a pity to use it on a wild boar.”

Wei Potian suddenly let out a cold snort and grabbed the medicine box Qianye had offered him. “What’s this? It seems quite familiar.”

It was a three-inch-long crystal box with a beautiful blood-colored flower carved upon it.  It was half-filled with a misty blue substance. This was the drug Zhao Junhong had given Qianye, the only valuable medicine in his possession. 

“The red spider lily, isn’t this Zhao Ruoxi’s item?” Wei Potian scratched his head, obviously unable to put two and two together.

“Zhao? Zhao Ruoxi?” Qianye thought about this name and replied slowly, “This was, indeed, given to me by the second young master of the Zhao clan.” 

The unconcerned Wei Potian stuffed the box back into Qianye’s hands. “Zhao Ruoxi is Zhao Junhong’s sister. This medicine is good stuff, you should keep it.”

A peculiar feeling suddenly emerged within Qianye. He turned around and discovered Song Zining gazing at him thoughtfully.

Without waiting for Qianye to think more on it, Wei Potian opened the document box on the table where the activated words on the jade tablet hadn’t quite faded. “What’s this? Judging from the style, it looks like a Song clan item.”

The odd expression on Song Zining’s face suddenly disappeared, and he said proudly, “It seems you do have good eyesight. This is an ancient scroll from the Song clan’s depository I found for Qianye.” 

The amazement on Wei Potian’s face abruptly turned into disdain. He casually lifted the jade booklet—the words on the cover were beginning to fade but were still legible—he stared blankly for a while, then said, “This thing… is actually called the Song Clan Ancient Scroll? And it’s the first part? Could it be that there’s a part two and three? Haha, haha, Song Seven, Brother Zining, oh please! You should put some thought into it even if you want to play a prank on Qianye. Is there a fake item more obvious than this? Ahahaha!”   

Song Zining replied furiously, “You ignorant fool, open your eyes wide and look carefully at the material of this ancient scroll! I’ll buy it at any price if you can find a similar item!”

Wei Potian flipped the jade tablet over disapprovingly and sneered while pointing at a certain passage inside. “You’re still trying to say it isn’t fake! What the hell is with this passage instructing the reader to cultivate darkness origin energy? Why don’t you try cultivating darkness origin power? I’ll write my name backwards if you don’t burst a few origin power nodes!”

Qianye also had similar misgivings and couldn’t help but turn his gaze towards Song Zining.

Seeing that Qianye also had some doubts, Song Zining glared at Wei Potian and replied grimly, “Qianye, the Song Clan Ancient Scroll can only be cultivated by those awakened to the Venus Dawn. I once asked a great master to perform some calculations and found that you are only fated for these three volumes among the Song clan’s ancient scrolls. That great master's art isn’t, at all, inferior to the Art of Heaven’s Mystery.”

Qianye was amazed—so this was the actual reason? He naturally knew what this so-called Venus Dawn was, and so did Song Zining. Could it be that he believed that Qianye could successfully cultivate the ancient scroll with the fake Venus Dawn? Wasn’t this jest a bit too overboard?

Wei Potian interrupted with a sneer, “Stop trying to deceive people. A master whose art isn’t below the Art of Heaven’s Mystery? Heh heh. If the Art of Heaven’s Mystery were so simple, how could Lin Xitang stand alongside Ba Qian as one of the twin pillars of the empire? According to you, we should probably add that great master of yours in and call them the three heroes.” 

Song Zining became furious. “Wei Potian, you’re disrespecting the great master!”

Wo Potian immediately jumped up. “So what if I’m not respectful? Why should I be afraid of you?”

Qianye turned towards the door after seeing them about to start another awful ruckus, whereupon his expression turned as solemn as water, revealing a frosty killing intent.

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