The old man's cloudy eyes sensed that gentle Yang Energy, saw the radiance on Wen Yan, and also noticed the Calamity Protector Water Official Talisman on the back of Wen Yan's hand. He looked at Wen Yan, surprised, a wide grin spreading across his face as he nodded repeatedly.

"Wait here."

The old man, leaning on his cane and refusing any help, shuffled back into the house by himself, returning with something wrapped in a red cloth.

He shoved the red bundle into Wen Yan's hands, forbidding Wen Yan from looking at it right now, and not letting Wen Yan refuse it either.

When their conversation was mostly over and Wen Yan and Zhang Laoxi were about to leave, they stood by the car and glanced back toward the village.

"Did you sense it?"

"That old man's time is almost up."

"No, it's already up. He's being held together by an obsession, hanging on by a thread, that's the only reason he hasn't closed his eyes yet.

Don't listen to what he says about grandsons and great-grandsons not wanting to take over his affairs. It's made him a bit annoyed.

He's afraid of bringing trouble to his descendants, and clings to that belief utterly. Over the decades, it's long since solidified into obsession.

Now, that obsession is gone."

Zhang Laoxi was slightly startled; he could clearly understand the meaning behind those words.

That old man was actually no longer here.

"No way, I couldn't sense it at all, and he didn't show any signs of stiffening."

"That old man won't become a stiff. He simply reached the end of his lifespan and didn't go any further. He's forcing out the very last breath. Didn't you notice, when he spoke, it was like he had phlegm in his throat? That breath has been stuck there, never released. With sheer obsession he's been stuck at that last step. Technically, he's still alive, but his body has already hit its limit and just can't hold on."

"Should we...?"

"Let's go. There's nothing for us here anymore. We came by, and once we did, the old man left. You think his family will welcome us?"

"That's true." Zhang Laoxi nodded, all too familiar with situations like this. "But still, when did you learn all that?"

"I didn't know beforehand, but ever since that last trip to the Nether Soul Realm, just now when the old man grabbed my hand, I could sense it. So, I only gave him a boost of Yang Energy, didn't hurt him, let him see my Heaven Bestowed Talisman, and he just believed what I told him."

Wen Yan glanced at the red cloth bundle in his hand but didn't open it.

Once he drove home, Wen Yan placed the red bundle on the table and opened it.

Inside was an exquisitely made rosewood box, which had turned a bit black with age.

Opening it up, there were several yellowing ancient books inside, along with a yellowed notebook, which had a list of dates and notes of when the area had been cleaned.

Looking through it, last year the old man had cleaned up personally, but this year, there was no entry.

Most likely, his health had simply failed him this year.

As for those few ancient books, Wen Yan glanced at them and, seeing the faded, blurry characters on them, immediately felt a headache.

No notes, no punctuation, written in vertical columns, and all in ancient script.

Ever since reading a few original Taoist texts and ending up horribly dizzy, he now felt lightheaded just looking at these things.

"You take a look. I don't know why, but whenever I see that many pronouns I get a headache. For every page, I have to check reference materials for half a day before I can half understand it."

Wen Yan took out those ancient books and let Zhang Laoxi look at them first.

When he got to the last one, as he touched a corner inside the box, a familiar feeling surfaced.

He scrutinized the box, rapping it lightly. No matter how he looked at it, the box didn't seem to have a hidden compartment.

He turned it over and examined it for quite a while, even pulling out a ruler to measure it, but there really was no compartment.

But when he tapped a certain spot on the bottom, the sound was distinctly different from the rest.

Finally, steeling his resolve, Wen Yan pried open the bottom along the seams.

Once it was open, he immediately saw that two thick wooden panels forming the base had each been carved with a semi-circle, and the two semi-circles together formed a space just about the size of a pinky fingernail.

A gold grain the size of a pinky nail had been hidden there.

Seeing that gold grain, Wen Yan finally understood what that familiar feeling was—the one he could sense even through the wood.

He reached out, picked up the gold grain, and tried to apply Scorching Sun Blessing.

Sure enough, the Scorching Sun couldn't be applied to it at all.

This was, as far as Wen Yan had found, the only thing completely immune to the Scorching Sun Blessing.

Back when he used "Body Incineration" to burn the Water God, the divine crystal that formed afterwards—

Even then, the gold grain refined from burning that Old Turtle was only about as large as a millet grain.

But this one here was as big as a pinky nail, oval-shaped, and measuring it, it was already a full centimeter long.

Wen Yan took out the previous gold grain and compared them. Just judging by volume, there must be at least a seven- or eight-hundredfold difference.

Wen Yan couldn't help but suck in a breath. To condense a gold grain this big—

Even if he killed every Wild Sacrifice Water God in the whole West River Water System and refined them into gold grains, it probably still wouldn't be enough.

Damn, did that old man even know what this thing was?

He took pictures of the wooden box and sent them to Feng Yao, asking Feng Yao to find a specialist to identify what period the box was from.

Less than half an hour later, Feng Yao replied.

Got an expert to take a quick look. The patterns on the box and the design of the copper latch suggest it's about five hundred years old, in the style of Old Zhu's family from that era.

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