Striking Gold

Hearing these words, Yang Shu's body stiffened involuntarily, and his crying abruptly stopped.

He slowly turned to look at Yang Lingqing, his eyes filled with disbelief.

He had been living like this since he was a child, and no one had ever noticed anything wrong. Not even Immortal Master Linghu, nor Elder Yu, had seen through any of it. Why...

"Hmph, wondering why I can see through it?"

Yang Lingqing pierced right through the child's thoughts with a single remark, her gaze turning sharp.

From the very first moment she laid eyes on Yang Shu, she had already sensed something unusual.

It was a strong sense of dissonance, a feeling that he was acting entirely against his true nature.

Others might not see it, but as someone of the same kind, Yang Lingqing could perceive it with absolute clarity.

Yang Shu was just like she had been as a child-precocious. However, due to their different circumstances, he had chosen a different way to cope.

Yang Shu's heart immediately filled with panic. All his disguises and inner thoughts had been seen through by Yang Lingqing at a single glance, filling him with a tension he had never felt before. For a moment, he was at a complete loss, unsure of how to respond.

"Ah! It hurts!"

Yang Lingqing grabbed Yang Shu by the ear and dragged him over to a meditation cushion.

"Will you behave now?"

"I'll behave! I'll behave! Please, Patriarch, let go! My ear is going to fall off!"

Yang Shu quickly begged for mercy, and Yang Lingqing finally released him.

As the two sat facing each other, Yang Shu's gaze kept shifting, not daring to meet Yang Lingqing's eyes.

"I ask, you answer. No tricks."

"I understand..." Yang Shu muttered, hanging his head.

"Why pretend to be a fool?"

"A fool has it easy. A fool is free."

He spoke his thoughts truthfully. "There are so many matters in the family, big and small. Just watching the elders run around for these trivial things gives me a headache. When I think about how I'll have to plunge into all of it in the future, I feel utterly annoyed. So it's better to just be a steady, safe fool."

"Besides, there are so many capable people in the family now. They don't need me. Even if the sky falls, the Immortal Masters will hold it up. It won't be my turn."

After saying this, Yang Shu secretly glanced up to observe Yang Lingqing's expression.

When he saw her dark, gloomy face, he knew he was in trouble.

Hey, hey, hey! I've already told the truth! She's not going to twist my ear again, is she? Yang Shu thought to himself.

Yang Lingqing quietly looked at him without saying anything more. She slowly stood up and retrieved two bound volumes from a cabinet.

Seeing her walking toward him again, Yang Shu instinctively covered his ears.

Instead, Yang Lingqing pinched his nose with two fingers.

"Aiya!"

"Look."

She tossed the two volumes in front of Yang Shu and then ignored him, returning to her meditation cushion to enter a meditative trance.

Yang Shu rubbed his nose, then picked up the two books. Only then did he realize they were the Yang Family's clan history.

It was divided into two parts, with Yang Guanfeng's time taking charge of the family serving as the dividing line.

The first volume recorded the history of the Yang Family's wandering and displacement since their decline.

Later, they settled down in Liuye Town, and their situation improved slightly. However, they still faced suppression and exclusion from all sides. Whenever something happened, they could only force a smile and swallow their grievances in silence.

There was no other choice. With insufficient strength, the only way for the family to survive was to endure, and endure again.

Yang Shu had some understanding of this history, but only from fragments he had overheard in the elders' conversations.

Now, reading it in detail, he could truly feel the bitterness and hardship involved.

He then opened the second volume. The opening line read: "In the summer of that year, Yang Guanfeng, a disciple of the Yang Family, went fishing in the Fish Ridge River and rescued an elderly man who was drowning."

From this point on, the Yang Family's history turned a new page.

The first half of the second volume was written by Elder Yu. It recorded how he had led Yang Guanfeng onto the path of cultivation and assisted him in rectifying the chaos within the family. It detailed how Yang Guanfeng's cultivation gradually advanced, how he began traveling far and wide to seek Fated Chances for the family, facing life-and-death crises time and again, and barely escaping with his life by exhausting every means at his disposal.

After that came the emergence of the Three Spirits of the Yang Family, which finally gave the family a sign of rising momentum.

Seeing this, Yang Shu let out a breath of relief. In his mind, with three Immortal Masters, the Yang Family's days should have been smooth sailing from then on.

But then he read about the Wang Family's night raid, the outbreak of the Beast Tide, the desperate flight from the mine, the danger in the ancient tomb, the struggles at the Dharma Assembly, the chaos of the Yin ghosts, the great momentum of the Wangchao, the disaster of the Li Family...

These specific events involving the cultivator world were things he was only learning about today.

This part of the clan history had been written by Yang Lingqing herself. She had only omitted the existence of Chen Yang; the rest of the content was slightly modified but largely unchanged.

It also included her annotations on the planning before each event and the strategic reviews afterward.

After Yang Shu finished reading it carefully, he finally understood how ridiculous his earlier words had been.

Easy, free, steady, safe...

The reason the younger generation of the Yang Family could enjoy all of this was simply because others were silently bearing the heavy burden for them.

"Finished reading?"

Yang Lingqing exited her meditative state and asked.

Yang Shu nodded silently. He solemnly picked up the two volumes of clan history with both hands and returned them to Yang Lingqing.

Then he stepped back and once again performed a deep, respectful bow to Yang Lingqing.

This time, his posture was perfectly standard, without a single flaw.

"Being able to figure it out on your own is a good thing."

Yang Lingqing glanced at him and continued, "Having those thoughts isn't entirely your fault. I had them too, once."

"The Patriarch also felt this way?"

Curiosity arose in Yang Shu's heart. Among the members of the Yang Family, Immortal Master Lingqing was an existence who absolutely could not be spoken of lightly.

Once she gave an order, it had to be carried out perfectly, with no room for error.

After the Old Ancestor went on his long journey, it was under her leadership that the Yang Family had achieved its current thriving state.

And yet, such a widely revered figure had once shared the exact same troubles as him.

"After my mother died, my father was busy with family matters from dawn to dusk. I stayed alone in my room, suffocating in depression all day long."

Yang Lingqing recalled as she spoke, "At that time, I was just like you. I thought it would be good to be a fool-not having to care about anything, not having to think about anything."

"I had plenty of reason to do so. My mother had passed away, and I was deeply traumatized, my mind in chaos. Even if I acted like a fool, no one would blame me."

"And I did act that way for a while."

"But Yang Shu, the Yang Family's situation back then was not what it is now. It was much harder."

"At night, I saw with my own eyes my father exhausting himself for the family until he coughed up blood. I saw my uncle running about all day until his legs became diseased. When it was severe, he couldn't even stand. He needed help just to relieve himself."

"I saw the elders' hardships. I understood the family's difficulties. So I couldn't just sit by and do nothing."

Yang Lingqing narrated calmly. Yang Shu listened intently, completely unaware of the two tear streaks trailing down his cheeks.

He had always prided himself on his natural intelligence, looking down on his peers.

Even when facing the elders, he always felt that family matters were trivial annoyances beneath his involvement.

Only today did he realize how foolish he had been.

"Yang Shu has been dull-witted. Only after seeing the clan history today did I realize how ridiculous and naive my previous thoughts were, and how foolish and arrogant my actions have been. I am deeply ashamed. I beg the Patriarch to punish me," Yang Shu said.

"You certainly deserve punishment!"

Yang Lingqing said sternly, "Your talent for cultivation is one in ten thousand-extremely rare! Yet you wanted to fool everyone by pretending to be a simpleton! And you are a descendant of the Yang Family's main branch! How could I not be furious?!"

Hearing this, Yang Shu quickly bowed his head deeply, not daring to utter a single word.

"Go back to Sanglu Valley. You will cultivate under Elder Yu. Aside from your cultivation, you must also write a report on the affairs of the branch family and send it to me every month. Do you understand?" Yang Lingqing said coldly.

"I understand! Please rest assured, Patriarch. Yang Shu will definitely complete this task!"

When Yang Linghu came to pick up Yang Shu, he was greatly surprised.

The child's speech and demeanor had completely changed. There was no longer any trace of his previous simple-minded, foolish appearance.

In him, Yang Linghu felt a familiar aura.

He had felt this aura from the Old Ancestor, and from Lingqing. And now, he could already see the first signs of it in Yang Shu.

Then he caught a look from Yang Lingqing and immediately understood in his heart. He needed to go back and share this great news with Elder Yu.

Six years. The Yang Family's main branch had finally produced another true talent!

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