241: Chapter 241 Mu Family, Mu Mingfeng

Meanwhile, inside the main hall of the Yuelan Dojo, the lecture had been going on for a full hour.

Great Master Changming had just finished explaining a key point regarding the refinement of Alchemical Fire and raised his teacup to moisten his throat, causing a low murmur of discussion to ripple through the hall.

Many Alchemists took advantage of this interval to bow their heads and record notes on Jade Slips, or to quietly exchange their insights with fellow practitioners nearby.

Zhou Tianchen also used this interval to regulate his breath for a moment, the qiankun furnace slowly rotating in his palm, with the golden Alchemical Fire condensed into a fist-sized ball, quietly hovering above the furnace opening.

His gaze swept across the back rows of the hall inadvertently, then suddenly paused in a corner.

A young man in grey attire sat there; he had delicate features and a slender build, his Aura perfectly restrained, making him almost impossible to detect without careful perception.

But Zhou Tianchen remembered that face; it was the face of a Kunlun Disciple—Yun Tianxiang.

He had met this person several times in the Kunlun Small World, and although they had never been close, he knew him to be a rather low-key but talented Disciple within the Sect.

Yun Tianxiang seemed to sense his gaze and lifted his head slightly, their eyes meeting for an instant in mid-air.

Yun Tianxiang shook his head almost imperceptibly and lowered his head again, continuing to pretend he was listening intently to the lecture.

Zhou Tianchen withdrew his gaze without making a scene; he knew that Yun Tianxiang must have his own reasons for appearing here, and since the other party did not wish to reveal his identity, he would not be meddlesome enough to point it out.

Meanwhile, in the front section of the hall, a figure dressed in dark gold brocade robes was particularly eye-catching.

Zheng Lingfeng had changed into even more luxurious robes today, with a gold-inlaid, jade-encrusted belt tied around his waist, and in his hand, he held a newly acquired jade-boned folding fan painted with a magnificent landscape.

He sat on a prayer mat with his legs crossed, and although his gaze was fixed on the two figures debating in the hall, the arrogance ingrained in his bones had not diminished in the slightest.

Beside him sat a youth slightly younger than himself.

The youth looked to be about eighteen or nineteen years old, dressed in moon-white brocade robes embroidered with pale gold flowing cloud patterns, with a bright green jade pendant hanging at his waist; the jade was warm and translucent, clearly not an ordinary item.

His features bore a thirty-percent resemblance to Zheng Lingfeng's, but were more delicate, and between his brows, there was an air of noble refinement typical of a scion from a great Family.

However, his eyes were not as overtly arrogant as Zheng Lingfeng's; instead, they were more reserved and deep, with occasional flashes of shrewdness that belied his age.

This person was Mu Mingfeng, the direct grandson of the Fifth Elder of the Mu Family, one of the Three Great Families of Central State.

The Mu Family had a villa near Huaiyang City, and Mu Mingfeng had come under the orders of his Family Elders to manage affairs at the villa; while passing through Huaiyang City, he had stopped by the Zheng Family to rest.

Zheng Lingfeng naturally would not let this opportunity slip by, so he used the excuse of "Great Master Changming's lecture" to drag him along to listen, taking the chance to build a closer relationship.

"Brother Mingfeng, what do you think?" Zheng Lingfeng lowered his voice, covering his mouth with his folding fan as he asked.

Mu Mingfeng's gaze fell upon the figure in green in the hall, lingering for a moment before he nodded slightly: "This Zhou Tianchen truly has some ability; no wonder he was able to obtain the xuanhuang key at the Cloud Sea Grand Ceremony."

"However, I heard he is a Disciple of the Lord of Kunlun, and Kunlun..." He paused, leaving the sentence unfinished, with only a meaningful smile appearing on his face.

Zheng Lingfeng understood perfectly and smiled along, not continuing the topic.

His gaze moved away from Zhou Tianchen and inadvertently swept across the back rows of the hall, suddenly pausing.

He frowned, feeling that he had just seen a somewhat familiar face, but when he looked carefully, there were only a few Loose Cultivators sitting there, heads buried in recording their Jade Slips, with nothing out of the ordinary.

He withdrew his gaze, giving it no further thought.

Meanwhile, in the corner against the wall in the very back row of the hall, Yun Tianxiang shrank his figure further into the shadows; beneath his lowered eyelids, his eyes were coldly fixed on Zheng Lingfeng's back.

He had been tracking Zheng Lingfeng for three days; ever since their chance encounter on the main street of Huaiyang City, he had sensed that the Zheng Family had some intricate connection to the destruction of the Yun Family all those years ago.

He had pried some scattered details about the destruction of the Zhao Family from an old tea drinker at Qionghua Tower, and following that lead, he discovered that among the dozen or so factions that had been on good terms with the Yun Family back then, several had suffered varying degrees of attacks around the time of the Yun Family's fall.

Some were taken advantage of by enemies during the chaos, some were jointly suppressed by the merchant alliances, and some simply moved their entire clans out of Huaiyang City, never to be heard from again.

Only the Zheng Family remained unscathed; instead, they rose rapidly in the years following the Yun Family's destruction, swallowing up several of the Yun Family's original Medicinal Pill market shares and leaping to become one of the top three major Families in Huaiyang City.

This was absolutely no coincidence.

Yun Tianxiang had already investigated the Zheng Family's background through the Kunlun intelligence network before coming to Huaiyang City.

The Zheng Family had established their clan through Artifact Refining and was originally only second-rate in the Medicinal Pill business.

Yet, within a few short years after the Yun Family's destruction, the Zheng Family's Medicinal Pill business expanded at an incredible speed, not only establishing a firm foothold in Huaiyang City but also extending its reach to several surrounding cities.

Even more suspicious was that what supported this expansion were the very same batch of Pill Formulas and Alchemists that had been unique to the Yun Family back then.

Those Pill Formulas and Alchemists should have been scattered everywhere after the Yun Family's destruction, but most of them had been gathered up by the Zheng Family through various means.

Furthermore, he had also discovered that around the time of the Yun Family's destruction, the Zheng Family had had close dealings with the Mu Family, one of the Three Great Families of Central State.

In particular, Zheng Lingfeng's older sister had married the grandson of the Mu Family's Fifth Elder as a Dao Companion, and this marriage had been proposed by that very branch of the Mu Family's Fifth Elder shortly after the Yun Family's destruction.

Given the Mu Family's status, for them to take the initiative to marry into a small Zheng Family—no one would believe there wasn't something fishy going on.

He had left the inn this morning, intending to wander around some of the Zheng Family's Medicinal Pill shops in the south of the city to see if he could find any clues about the former members of the Yun Family.

Who would have thought that halfway there, he would see Zheng Lingfeng walking out of the Zheng Family residence with a few attendants, accompanied by a luxuriously dressed youth, the two of them walking towards the Yuelan Dojo while chatting and laughing.

Yun Tianxiang recognized the flowing cloud patterns on that youth's robes—that was the clan emblem of the Mu Family.

He immediately changed direction and followed them from a distance, all the way to the Yuelan Dojo.

At this moment, Zheng Lingfeng was sitting less than twenty zhang ahead of him, and that Mu Family youth was sitting beside Zheng Lingfeng, the two of them occasionally whispering to each other, their demeanor intimate.

Yun Tianxiang shrank his figure further into the shadows of the hall pillar, forcibly suppressing the surging killing intent in his heart.

He knew it was not the time yet; this was Great Master Changming's dojo, and with so many eyes watching, he could not make a move here.

Moreover, what he needed was evidence, direct witnesses, and a complete understanding of the entire web of the Zheng Family's involvement in this matter.

Zheng Lingfeng was merely a spoiled wastrel; even if he knew something, it was only the tip of the iceberg, and the true mastermind was still behind the scenes.