Chapter 291

Chapter 291: Take a Sniff, Then Help Me Find Someone
Hundred Flowers Valley and Tai Bai Academy share a border, and the area right in the middle of the two sects is where South Wind City lies.

After Yu Zhao and the other two arrived in South Wind City, they did not stop to rest. They went straight to the old residence of the Tu Clan.

When the Tu Clan heard that disciples from Hundred Flowers Valley had come to visit, they did not dare be careless. They hurriedly welcomed Yu Zhao and the others inside and sent people to invite the Patriarch and the young master, Tu Yun Tian.

Patriarch of the Tu Clan, Tu Hua Zhang, was a man with a gentle, scholarly air. He smiled before he spoke. His warmth was not overly flattering, which made people naturally feel goodwill toward him.

“I do not know why the three young friends have come to my Tu Clan,” he said. “If there is anything my Tu Clan can help with, just say the word. My Tu Clan will not refuse.”

Mo Ci subconsciously glanced at Yu Zhao. Seeing that she did not speak, Mo Ci opened her mouth and said: “Patriarch Tu, to be honest, we actually came to look for our junior sister, Han Xin Lan. I wonder if she is staying at your residence at the moment?”

“You three young friends must be mistaken,” Tu Hua Zhang said in surprise. “Recently, my Tu Clan has not had any female cultivator with the surname Han as a guest.”

“No?” Jing Nan could not help but frown. “Patriarch Tu, could it be that you remembered wrong?”

Tu Hua Zhang laughed softly. “This is the old residence of the Tu Clan. Even if an insect beast came in, it could not escape my eyes, let alone a living person. In my opinion, it is more likely that you three young friends remembered wrong.”

“Back then, Junior Sister Han clearly said South Wind City’s Tu Clan,” Jing Nan said. “Unless South Wind City has a second Tu Clan, I cannot be mistaken.”

“But my Tu Clan has never had any contact with Hundred Flowers Valley,” Tu Hua Zhang said. “Why would a disciple of your sect come to my Tu Clan? That does not make sense.”

“Of course there is a connection. She and your brat Tu Yun Tian…”

Before Mo Ci could finish, a young man with a clean, fresh air walked into the hall with his head held high and his chest puffed out.

His gaze swept over Yu Zhao and the other two. His expression changed, and the corner of his mouth hooked into a mocking smile.

“Where is Han Xin Lan? Why did she not come?” he said. “Does she not dare to see me, or has she already decided to cut ties with me? Just say it. No matter what the answer is, I will accept it.”

The three of them looked at each other.

From what Tu Yun Tian said, it sounded like he had not seen Han Xin Lan at all.

Then where could Han Xin Lan be?

“What is with those faces? Why are you not talking?” Tu Yun Tian asked, displeased.

“Yun Tian, do not be rude!” Tu Hua Zhang scolded sharply. Then he turned to Yu Zhao and the others and said, “You three young friends heard it for yourselves. Yun Tian truly has not met Cultivator Han. There must be some other mistake here.”

“Xin Lan? What about Xin Lan? Did something happen to her? The three of you, say something!”

As soon as Tu Yun Tian heard that his beloved might have met with danger, the posture he was putting on collapsed at once. He no longer looked at others with his chin lifted.

Mo Ci answered honestly: “One month ago, she left Hundred Flowers Valley, saying she was coming to South Wind City to look for you. Since then, we have had no news of her.”

Tu Yun Tian’s face turned deathly pale in an instant.

Usually, when someone went out to train and then lost contact, eight or nine times out of ten it meant they had died and gone to the Yellow Springs.

“She… she came to look for me… Why would she come to look for me…” Tu Yun Tian muttered to himself in a daze. Then he suddenly raised his head and glared fiercely at Mo Ci. “She came to find me. Why did you not stop her? Are you really her senior sisters? You are not worried at all about where she is, and only now you think to come look for her. What were you doing before this?”

Jing Nan’s fiery temper exploded at once.

“Tu Yun Tian, get this straight,” she snapped. “Junior Sister Han met with trouble on the way to look for you! If you had not run back to South Wind City without a word and without leaving any explanation, how could Junior Sister Han have been so uneasy that she went to South Wind City alone to search for you? Now you are trying to shove the blame on us. That is shameless!”

“I did not know she would come to look for me!” Tu Yun Tian shouted back. “Besides, she lived with you. Are you saying you could not have stopped her even a little? Do not think I do not know what you were all thinking…”

“Jing Nan!”

“Yun Tian!”

Seeing the two of them with reddened eyes, about to start fighting, Mo Ci and Tu Hua Zhang both shouted at the same time. The two finally calmed down a little.

Yu Zhao, who had been silent all this time, looked at Tu Yun Tian and asked: “What was the last thing you said to Han Xin Lan?”

When Tu Yun Tian thought of that day, he turned his head to the side, feeling awkward and embarrassed to answer.

But under everyone’s gaze, he still said in a low voice: “I told her she did not love me, that she should spend the rest of her life with her sisters, and not come to see me again.”

After he finished, he hurriedly added, “I was just angry then. I did not know she would really come to look for me.”

Jing Nan shot him a sideways look. She felt that his looks were average, his personality was average, and he was jealous and petty. She really did not know what Junior Sister Han saw in him.

“During this time, the two of you never contacted each other?” Yu Zhao asked again.

“Never,” Tu Yun Tian said.

Yu Zhao’s expression grew more serious.

If Tu Yun Tian was not lying and they truly had not contacted each other since they parted, then there was only one explanation for Han Xin Lan’s disappearance.

She had met with an accident on her way to South Wind City.

Now her life or death was unknown.

There were two main roads and several small paths between Hundred Flowers Valley and South Wind City. Trying to figure out exactly when and where Han Xin Lan had run into trouble was like looking for a needle in the ocean.

For a while, silence fell over the hall.

No one knew how long it was before Tu Yun Tian said in a harsh voice: “This happened because of me. I will take responsibility for finding Xin Lan’s whereabouts, and I will not stop until I find her. I will go pack my things right now!”

“Yun Tian! Do not be foolish!”

The smile finally faded from Tu Hua Zhang’s face, and his scholarly features turned solemn.

“You do not even know where she went missing,” he said. “If you go out and search blindly like this, you will only be wasting time.”

“Father, then tell me what I should do!”

“Our Tu Clan has several hundred people in all ranks,” Tu Hua Zhang said. “Is that not enough for you to send around?”

Tu Yun Tian’s eyes lit up. “Father, you are willing to lend me people?”

“She is your beloved,” Tu Hua Zhang said. “As your father, how could I not help at all?”

There was one more thing he did not say out loud.

The missing person was a disciple of Hundred Flowers Valley, and it was related to their Tu Clan besides. If the Tu Clan did not step out and show an attitude, they might very well earn the anger of Hundred Flowers Valley.

No matter how he thought about it, this was something he had to help with.

Yu Zhao and the other two also thanked Tu Hua Zhang for his arrangements and said they were willing to fully cooperate with the investigation.

Mobilizing people from the Tu Clan would take some time, so everyone decided to rest for one night and set out the next day, each taking a different route.

The next day, Jing Nan, Mo Ci, and Tu Yun Tian each led a large group and set off along three different paths.

At first, Yu Zhao stayed in the same group as Mo Ci. After they left the city, she temporarily left the main group and went into a deep mountain forest. There, using a method Bai Mei had taught her, she summoned a brown bear about six or seven zhang tall.

News of how Yu Zhao had risked herself to save demonic beast cubs in the Dragon Pool Mountains, and how she was now treated as an honored guest by all kinds of demonic beasts, had already spread throughout the demonic beast circle of the cultivation world.

Because of this, the Brown Bear was very unhappy when it was forcibly summoned. But after it recognized Yu Zhao, it became much more obedient.

Yu Zhao reached into her sleeve, took out a yellowed bamboo slip, and tossed it to the Brown Bear. “Take a sniff,” she said, “then help me find someone.”