Chapter 47 — A Mysterious Elder

The girl looked down at the disturbed soil at the base of the tree.

“That core is worth a considerable amount, you know,” she said. “Normally people struggle to keep it intact, but you have been very, very fortunate.”

The girl stepped off the rock and stood on the ordinary ground, which made her considerably shorter. “Consider it as a gesture of friendship between our respective interests,” she nodded, and she clicked her fingers.

Lin Che’s voice was freed from its shackles.

“Who—who are you?” he managed to ask, choosing this question instead of the thousand other questions he had for her.

“One of your elders-in-law,” replied Elder Wong, her hands clasped around her sacrum. “And a good friend of someone who may be of use to you. She’s called Old Wen.”

“The bookshop lady?” asked Lin Che, vaguely recalling Shen Yue’s and Hu Baolin’s mention of her.

“Oh, so you know her!” clapped Elder Wong. “Your information really does go far — very Lin Clan of you. You know, I only really came here to see if you really were just like the other members I’ve previously met, and so far you’re practically just like them.”

“You know the other members?”

Elder Wong narrowed her eyes. “I knew them at some point in my life,” she said, before bringing the conversation back to her point. “As did Old Wen — she even has some techniques from your clan which I could help you recover. Well, one technique, at least.”

“What’s the catch?”

“I’m not trying to get any payment out of you. There’s just one small issue with getting back the techniques. From what I know, Old Wen possesses two techniques exclusive to the Lin Clan, but she is under a contract to only ever share one. Once one technique has been sold or provided to someone else, the other will instantly combust and all the knowledge will disappear with it.”

Lin Che looked at her for a long moment and arrived at the conclusion that there was no point in asking any further. The elder seemed to be very well-acquainted with the Lin Clan itself, so, by continuing in any further conversation about the clan with her, he was more likely to slip up and reveal the fact that he honestly knew nothing about it other than the fact that it existed and a couple of other small bits of information.

“I will give Old Wen a visit when I have the time,” he said.

“Good.” Something shifted in her expression, perhaps a half-smile. “I’d suggest visiting soon, however. Old Wen is getting old despite her cultivation, so you should consider this agreement rather urgent. Just let her know Elder Wong sent you there and that the password is Leixin.”

“Understood.”

“The mannequin core,” she added as an afterthought. “Dig it up before you leave and wrap it in something that doesn’t conduct Qi, or it will start forming some sort of construct again. Cloth is fine for a short period of time.”

Lin Che’s phone rang with the default ringtone, which he had never bothered to change because long gone were the days of replacing ringtones with old mp3 files.

He looked at the screen.

It was Xu Fang.

He looked up to say something to the girl, but she was not there.

He turned around, and the branch she had been sitting on was empty, and the rock she stood on had also disappeared. There was no movement in the surrounding trees, nor anything else which suggested she had ever been there in the first place.

His phone rang again.

He answered it.

“When are you arriving?” asked Xu Fang. “Mingzhe’s been warming up since I told him a cultivation master would be arriving to beat him up,” he laughed.

“Soon,” said Lin Che, checking the time. “Around fifteen minutes?”

“You said ‘soon’ half an hour ago.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“Something came up.” He paused. “Don’t let Mingzhe bore you to death or stuff you with protein bars. I’ll be there in fifteen.”

Lin Che ended the call.

Then, he crouched down and took off his jacket. He kicked through the small layer of dirt surrounding the half-buried core, and instead wrapped it in his jacket, tying the sleeves around it.

Lin Che opened his navigation app and started jogging towards Guo Mingzhe’s apartment.

***

Lin Che took the stairs to the door and knocked twice before he realised there was a doorbell to press.

Roughly twenty seconds later, the door opened, revealing Guo Mingzhe already wearing training clothes.