CHAPTER 784: CHAPTER 007 BORN WITH THE EMPEROR QI SWORD BODY

The magical appearance of the photograph, and its equally magical disappearance.

Ordinary people wouldn’t notice the process from the emergence to the destruction of an object within such a short span of time.

But Zhou Yan was not an ordinary person; he could observe a moment with an eternal gaze, clearly seeing the essence of all things in the world.

"Is this a signal deliberately left for me, or an unintentional trace?" Zhou Yan pondered, but could not come up with an answer.

In the photograph, the mark on the foreheads of his birth parents, like that of slaves, was glaringly obvious under the Observing Qi Skill and the Eye of Destruction.

Even after the photograph was destroyed, this scene was eternally preserved in his memory, unable to be erased.

However, when Zhou Yan recalled the photograph, he found, unexpectedly, that the images of his father, mother, and brother were very clear and easy to remember. In contrast, his own image was not so distinct.

The photograph appeared in his mind, yet his own existence was missing, as if he had never been there.

It was like an illusion of crossed space-time, but this illusion was deeply unsettling.

Through the memories of this photograph, he realized that it was a brand new clue. Someone had left this photograph here long ago, seemingly pointing to a new and mysterious direction.

Until now, when he returned and saw the photograph, triggering the hidden mechanism, the Array Patterns on the photograph activated their self-destruct program. The photograph was annihilated.

All traces were thus erased.

"Who, who exactly? Why do the foreheads of my parents in this life bear the mark of enslavement? And why does my brother’s forehead have a bloody mark? What do they stand for? Why can’t I see my own past on the photograph, or even my forehead? I clearly exist in the photograph, and yet why is it as though I do not exist, even the Eye of Destruction cannot see through?"

A series of doubts filled Zhou Yan with even greater uncertainty about this world.

Returning from the Ancient Ice Glacier, he had not encountered his brother who should have returned earlier. Instead, he learned of his relatives’ deaths, a cruel irony that shook him to the core and left him unable to find peace.

"Zhou Yan, don’t be sad. We mortals inevitably face many helplessnesses in life; it’s unavoidable. You were once dazed and foolish, and they worried over you constantly. But now, you have recovered and even become an Immortal among men. They would surely be elated and proud. That would be their greatest comfort," Liu Haoting consoled Zhou Yan.

Regardless of Zhou Yan’s identity, his current demeanor was that of a person, an ordinary person, someone who had lost his parents and was engulfed in sorrow.

"I know, but I just want to reminisce about them here for a bit. When you interacted with my mother, did you notice anything strange?"

Zhou Yan nodded slightly and exhaled a breath of turbid air.

In this world, the Rune energy from Tai Chu transformed into oxygen that could not be refined, sustaining the vitality of humans. At the same time, it contained solid Runes, which also couldn’t be refined.

Even for Zhou Yan, this felt somewhat strenuous, so from time to time, he would exhale some turbid air.

"As for strangeness... there is actually one thing that was very peculiar. Professor Zhou was a professor of archaeology, right? One time, an ancient relic appeared at ’Kunlun Immortal Pool,’ where people saw the Anomaly of ’Dragon Qi Ascending.’ Experts explained it was due to the convection of airflow."

"Inside that relic, it was said to contain many ancient artifacts, but those who went in for investigation found nothing."

"After leaving that place, many died; their bodies turned black as if poisoned."

"The experts said it was due to radioactive substances, so the site was sealed off."

"Professor Zhou and Master Xi had their accidents after that..."

"Kunlun? It’s Kunlun again."

With this information, Zhou Yan felt a stir in his heart.

’Dragon Qi Ascending’, manifesting as dragon-shaped forms in the Void, that was the Dragon Control Technique, the Xingyi Dragon Form of the Sword Dao of Emperor Qi Dragon Transformation. It was akin to the Emperor Qi Dragon Transformation Technique in the Emperor Blood.

Such a scene indicated that someone with Emperor Blood had been there.

Then, was someone else currently possessing Emperor Blood during this time? Could that person be his brother Lee Ran?

Or could there be other Earth people with such Emperor Blood in them?

Zhou Yan felt that this ordinary world was gradually surpassing his imagination.

Cultivators walked through the world of ordinary people, erasing all clues and traces of their existence, leaving no mark behind, like passersby indifferent to the life and death of mortals.

It was as if all those who practiced Cultivation were covertly following the same mysterious rules.

Even Zhou Yan himself felt an instinctive urge to act accordingly.

And yet, he could find no reason for it, as his will would not care about causing a sensation in front of ordinary people.

"That place, it’s said to be quite sinister and dangerous, you..."

Liu Haoting initially intended to persuade Zhou Yan not to go, but then she suddenly recalled that Zhou Yan had flown through the sky and performed astonishing feats, not as an ordinary person, but as someone who claimed to be a ’Heavenly God’.

With that realization, Liu Haoting held back her words of caution, and after a brief hesitation, said, "Then please be very careful."

"I will."

Zhou Yan nodded lightly and then extended his soul power in one fell swoop, transforming it into the boundless strength of the Soul Sea, which enveloped nearly half the population of the small town.

Zhou Yan activated the Killing Spirit Divine Dao not to target these ordinary humans, but rather to derive True Void and observe their thoughts so that they would recall the past concerning the Lee Family and the Zhou Family.

Whatever they were thinking would be fully displayed in Zhou Yan’s heart. Searching through the collective memories of the town, he took advantage of his soul’s powerful sensing power.

Finally, within the memories of an elderly person, Zhou Yan found what he had remembered about Lee Yi’s childhood.

This old man was born with Yin Yang Eyes that allowed him to see people’s souls, but as he grew older, this ability based on the "Eye of Destruction" gradually waned.

However, he remembered because he had seen Lee Ran’s soul fly out of that child’s body.

The memory was so vivid that Zhou Yan felt as if he were back at the scene, witnessing it all over again.

But after Lee Ran was hit by a car, his soul was taken away by a red-clothed woman who arrived unexpectedly and was captured into a mutton-fat jade bottle, as if it had been harvested.

Afterward, that jade bottle poured out a drop of milky white liquid.

The liquid fell and transformed into Lee Ran’s soul, entering Lee Yi’s body.

After that, all the subsequent events unfolded.

This scene was extremely mystical, and it was precisely for this reason that the elderly man remembered it clearly for his entire life, yet he never spoke of it to anyone.

He knew Lin Yuxi and treated her well. He also had a brother-in-arms relationship with the grandfathers of both Lee Ran and Jiang Ningxin.

But this secret, he never mentioned to Lin Yuxi.

In memory, this old man also visited the graves of Lin Yuxi and the other two, but he never spoke, just standing silently each time.

...

After observing their secrets and understanding some of the past memories that were unknown to him, Zhou Yan appropriately adjusted the bodies of those mortals who had helped him, eliminating some minor hidden illnesses.

For the old man, Zhou Yan used soul power to restore some of his vitality, making issues like bone hyperplasia, cervical spine problems, and chronic leg pain disappear, granting him a healthy body. Yet he stripped away certain memories, making him forget the scenes he should not have witnessed.

After completing these tasks, Zhou Yan compiled all the information he had gathered, and after inference and analysis, he arrived at a sequence of astonishing conclusions.

But he did not dwell on these results, because they would inevitably be presented on the path of Ancestor Worship.

"Three years ago, an itinerant doctor appeared here, staring at the ancestral home for a long time. An old woman greeted him, but he suddenly left, quite mysteriously."

"Five years ago, a fortune-teller warned about a disaster striking this place and advised Professor Zhou and Lin Yuxi to leave, but they refused. This fortune-teller, too, was quite strange."

"One year ago, a red-clothed woman arrived here in the early morning hours, frightened some passersby, and then quickly left, driving a modern Lamborghini."

"Ten days ago, an elderly man suddenly appeared at the doorstep, sitting from evening to the next morning. His arrival and disappearance were both very bizarre."

...

The memories and thoughts that Zhou Yan sensed revealed many peculiar things, all indicating the mysterious nature of the ancestral home.

Yet he reined in all these thoughts and quietly left the place with Liu Haoting.

Traversing the Void, in the next moment, Zhou Yan appeared with Liu Haoting at her home.

Her home was on the fifth floor of a very ordinary apartment complex, not a high building, but the walls of the building were already showing mottled cracks.

The building seemed not to have been constructed long ago and was well-decorated, yet it was riddled with damp and deathly energy.

This meant that someone here would soon die.

However, amidst the damp and deathly energy, Zhou Yan saw the breath of a Xuanyuan Sword Fragment, but this time it was not as concentrated as before, just a faint whisper, though thicker than the aura of the Xuanyuan Sword Fragment on Liu Haoting’s body.

"Is that your home?"

"Yes, that’s right."

"That dark and chubby fellow on the balcony, is he your brother?"

"If there’s no one else around, then, yes, he is."

"His talent is really good, suited for cultivation."

Zhou Yan suddenly said.

In Zhou Yan’s eyes, this was not a person but a sword. A piece of the Xuanyuan Sword had actually become a person, someone most suited for the cultivation of Sword Dao, a natural-born Emperor Qi Sword Body!

This person was none other than Liu Haoting’s brother!

So the aura of the Xuanyuan Sword Fragment on her wasn’t from coming into contact with a fragment or having one in the house, but because her brother was a life formed by the transformation of a fragment!

Zhou Yan saw through the True Void, hence his words were somewhat abrupt.

Liu Haoting was taken aback, at first unable to grasp the meaning behind Zhou Yan’s words.