Chapter 373

Chapter 373: Elder Senior Uncle

After hearing Immortal Yuan Ling’s intelligence, Yu Sheng didn’t speak right away. He fell into a brief silence, recalling and thinking.

He hadn’t interacted with Yun Qing Zi for long, but in that short time he hadn’t seen anything “refined and easygoing.” At the same time, the man didn’t feel completely deranged, either.

Had his temperament changed entirely?

Had something split in him?

Was it qi deviation?

An ancient powerhouse who’d lived from the previous era to today—an old monster who could come and go at the edge of the star system—what could he have endured to reappear after a thousand years with such obvious instability?

Immortal Yuan Ling said Yun Qing Zi vanished after a fierce battle with a powerful enemy. Then what kind of thing would fight him at the border of a star system?

Yu Sheng was frowning when his thoughts were cut off by someone bursting into the grand hall.

Xuan Che’s little junior brother, Xuan Yun, ran in like a whirlwind, shouting as he came, “Master! Master! Martial Uncle—Martial Uncle—they’re back!”

Yu Sheng froze, then realized—

Xuan Che’s elder senior uncle was back. The legendary figure with a life story straight out of a pulp romance: the one who’d gone down the mountain to party, gotten snatched by an immortal maiden, and been forced into the role of “bandit husband” for years—only to escape recently through sheer luck.

Yu Sheng vaguely remembered that meeting this strange legend had been one of the reasons he came to Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain in the first place. He hadn’t expected that before he even met the man, he’d already run into situations that were even stranger.

Fate was ridiculous.

He’d barely finished sighing inwardly when two streaks of rosy light swept in through the mountains and auspicious clouds outside the hall. They landed and resolved into two figures in the blink of an eye.

One looked middle-aged, tall and thin, with a long, gaunt face. He held a dust whisk and wore a pale purple dao robe. Every movement carried a touch of immortal grace. Yu Sheng remembered seeing him in a border comms news segment. If he wasn’t mistaken, this was the presiding elder of Beast Taming Peak—Immortal Yuan He.

The other was something else entirely.

He also looked middle-aged, tall and broad, with sharp brows and bright eyes, carrying himself with commanding presence. He wore a moon-white robe; his hair and brows were both white. His face was a little pale, but his bearing was extraordinary. One glance was enough to know that if you put this man in a TV drama, people would ship him for twenty pages minimum—men, women, young, old, everybody.

He was exactly the “beautiful, strong, tragic handsome dad” type. In simple terms: his career got ruined, his love life never worked out, and all that remained was heartbreak. In the finale, he’d lie on the ground with a face so handsome it broke the world while the camera circled him dramatically.

The true sect leader of Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain, the presiding elder of Divine Armaments Peak—

Immortal Yuan Hao.

Yu Sheng blanked for a beat. Immortal Yuan Ling stepped forward, but before he could speak, Immortal Yuan Hao took half a step back and cupped his hands.

“On the way here,” he said calmly, “Third Junior Brother and I already exchanged blows.”

Immortal Yuan Ling stumbled slightly. He raised his head and shot Immortal Yuan He a clearly displeased look.

Immortal Yuan He flicked his dust whisk. “I couldn’t help it.”

“Senior Brother was at fault, but how could a junior truly strike?” Immortal Yuan Ling said sternly, though it wasn’t even clear who he was scolding. Then he coughed twice, stepped aside, and added, “We have distinguished guests today, so we won’t discuss troublesome matters. This is Yu Sheng from the Borderland—Mr. Yu, whom I mentioned in my messages. This is Miss Irene, a doll from Alice’s Little House.”

Yu Sheng quickly carried Irene forward and greeted them properly.

Immortal Yuan Ling continued, “This is my junior brother, Immortal Yuan He, elder of Beast Taming Peak of Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain… and this is my senior brother, Yuan Hao—also the true, real sect leader of Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain…”

The way Immortal Yuan Ling said “sect leader” made it sound like he was grinding his back teeth until they bled.

“I’ve heard of you.” Immortal Yuan Hao’s tone was calm and ordinary despite his dignified air. He sized Yu Sheng up a few times, then smiled. “The matter of the angel fall shook all realms. I thought at the time that if I ever had the chance, I would like to meet this expert…”

Before he could finish, Immortal Yuan Ling frowned. “Back then, you could still receive news from outside?”

Immortal Yuan Hao’s expression turned subtle. He smiled awkwardly. “She… usually still lets me read the news and such.”

Yu Sheng nearly lost his composure.

Throughout all this, Irene kept turning her head to stare, comparing Yuan Hao and Yuan He to Yuan Ling, frowning now and then like she was conducting serious research. Finally, she couldn’t hold it in anymore. She pointed straight at Immortal Yuan Ling.

“Why are you so old?”

Immortal Yuan Ling: “…Huh?”

“Your two brothers look so young,” Irene said bluntly. “Especially your senior brother. Why is your image an old man?”

“Ahem. For cultivators, appearances aren’t always reliable,” Immortal Yuan Ling coughed twice, looking awkward. “I don’t care much about such things. And I usually act in the sect leader’s place, keeping a bunch of unruly disciples in line, so…”

“Oh.” Irene nodded seriously. “I get it. Like how programmers lose more hair the more senior they are, right?”

Yu Sheng covered his face. “That’s a stereotype.”

Irene put her hands on her hips. “Stereotypes have reasons!”

“…Miss Irene isn’t entirely wrong,” Immortal Yuan Ling said with a gentle smile. “And I’ve looked like this for many years. I’m used to it. Even if others reacted however they wanted, I might not adapt to a new appearance myself.”

“Oh.” Irene’s eyes darted again. She pointed at Immortal Yuan Hao. “Then he must have a lot of passion tribulations…”

Yu Sheng couldn’t take it anymore. He clamped a hand over Irene’s whole face and rushed to explain, “Don’t mind her. She just says whatever she thinks. Don’t bite. Let go. Let go!”

Immortal Yuan Hao didn’t get annoyed. If anything, he laughed at himself. “Ah. Embarrassing, embarrassing.”

After a brief exchange and the awkwardness settled, Immortal Yuan Ling coughed lightly and turned to his senior brother.

“Senior Brother has suffered these years, and you’ve traveled hard. Today you should rest first. Tomorrow we—”

But Immortal Yuan Hao waved a hand. “No rush. I’ve rested more than enough these years. Now I want to move around. Besides, I heard… unusual things have happened in Grand Void Spiritual Axis lately?”

Immortal Yuan Ling’s brows lifted. His tone gained a helpless edge. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to sit still, especially after hearing what’s been happening. Yes—some things have happened. It began with a strange Otherworld discovered on Nethermoon…”

He explained everything to his senior brother, emphasizing the mysterious Emperor Lord’s legacy and the traces within the Otherworld that seemed to point back toward the old world. When he finished, he paused and added, “Right now, we suspect that Otherworld is far larger than we imagined. There are entrances on Nethermoon and Grand Void Spiritual Axis, and there may even be rifts leading into it elsewhere in the Featherwing region.”

Immortal Yuan Hao listened intently, then looked up at Yu Sheng.

“You encountered a group of unknown black-robed cultivators,” he said, “all wearing strange masks, claiming they were searching for the Emperor Lord’s legacy?”

“Yes,” Yu Sheng said. “And they wanted to kill us the moment we met. I don’t think they were lying in wait specifically for us. They probably ran into us while searching for clues in the Otherworld and attacked suddenly to keep the news from leaking. They lost.”

Immortal Yuan Hao frowned, thinking, then raised his hand. An item appeared out of nowhere, as if he’d plucked it from thin air.

He held it out to Yu Sheng.

“Was it a mask like this?”

Yu Sheng: “…?!”

He stared at the mask. Dark and dull, pitted with strange patterns like dried bark or wrinkled stone—it was exactly the same as what those black-robed cultivators had worn.

Even Immortal Yuan Ling froze. “Senior Brother, where did you get that?!”

“More than ten years ago, at an abandoned outpost near the border,” Immortal Yuan Hao said casually. “My flying ship malfunctioned at the time—”

Irene’s eyes went wide. “Has your flying ship ever worked properly?!”

“Stop interrupting,” Yu Sheng said instantly, poking Irene (even though he wanted to ask the same thing). He looked back at Immortal Yuan Hao. “Go on.”

“Ahem.” Immortal Yuan Hao continued calmly. “The ship malfunctioned, so I had to dock in an asteroid belt. While at a loss, I found an abandoned outpost built on an asteroid, and I planned to use the remaining materials there to repair my ship’s spirit disk.

“At first everything went smoothly. Though the outpost had been abandoned for years, its structure was still intact, and many things inside were usable. But as I went deeper, the situation grew strange.

“In the depths, I found rooms that should not have existed at all. Some repeated endlessly—you’d pass one, then another, then another. Some extended beyond the outpost’s physical range. Some were empty yet brightly lit, always accompanied by strange sounds and shadows…

“And in one of those strange rooms, I found a mask like this… and a black-clothed man who died inside.”