292: Chapter 292 The Yu Clan

"I've only heard my elders mention that our Yu family ancestors used a secret art to help the Great Gan take over Yu Prefecture."

Yu Yingying was still shaken, but her mind was relatively clear.

"But this secret art has always been a clan secret, only accessible to a few men of the direct lineage. I didn't dare ask much."

Lin Xiao had already guessed that he wouldn't get much out of her. After all, Yu Yingying had been scared witless earlier, clearly having no psychological preparation at all.

Once the toxic gas in the courtyard had dissipated, Lin Xiao and the others approached the withered body of Yu Songxi.

He picked up the beast-head bell.

[Soul Bell: An item from the Southern Border, used to manipulate Drug-Men. (Special Item)]

Lin Xiao curled his lip. He had thought it was some kind of treasure, but it turned out to be trash that even the system mall wouldn't accept.

After casually tossing it into his storage space, Lin Xiao activated 'Dragon Seeking and Point Locating'.

Soon, several distinct auras of treasure emerged from a mountainous area to the north.

"What is on that mountain?" Lin Xiao asked.

Yu Yingying looked over, and after confirming, she replied, "That is our Yu family's ancestral cemetery. We go there every year to pay respects to our ancestors."

"A cemetery?"

Lin Xiao thought of Yu Guyao, who was indeed the Yu family ancestor. Could it be...

"Let's go, let's head over and take a look."

The women were all quite frightened by now, so naturally, they followed whatever Lin Xiao said.

The group picked out several fast horses from the Yu family's backyard and headed straight for the shaded mountainside.

With two successive heads of the Earl Yushan's Mansion dead, and a large number of Yu Prefecture's powerful elite also deceased, a massive uproar was immediately triggered in the city.

inspector general Prefect Fan Hai brought a group of officials and soldiers to the mansion. Upon seeing the scene, he was left dumbfounded.

"The sky over Yu Prefecture... is truly about to change..."

Meanwhile...

Several miles outside the city, at a deserted, ruined temple.

A disheveled, slovenly Taoist sat slumped beneath a Buddha statue, panting heavily from exhaustion.

"Immeasurable Heavenly Worthy... you scared this Taoist master to death!"

"How could the Southern Border's Drug-Man Art, which has been lost for hundreds of years, appear in this ghostly place? What exactly was the origin of the Earl Yushan's ancestors?"

"But then again, what exactly is the cultivation level of that man named Lin? Even these legendary Drug-Men couldn't kill him?"

"Luckily, this Taoist master ran fast, otherwise something terrible would have happened..."

The Taoist scratched his head frantically. "What a disaster... He's so powerful. If he really takes that Thunder Seal, what should I do?"

"No... I need to think of another way. It's too dangerous for me to track that Lin guy alone..."

After resting for less than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, the slovenly Taoist still didn't feel safe enough.

He hurriedly executed his movement technique and ran far away again, fearing that Lin Xiao might track him down.

However, at this time, Lin Xiao and the others had already arrived at the Yu family's ancestral tomb.

The tomb was built inside a mountain. On both sides of the entrance stood statues of the Four Heavenly Kings and the Eighteen Arhats.

"Strange. For an ancestral tomb, they usually use stone lions or stone horses. For more noble ones, they use Qilin or Tianlu."

Leng Bingyan said doubtfully, "Why are these all Buddhist statues that are only used in temples?"

"Presumably, they are meant to suppress some kind of evil entity," Lin Xiao said.

"Suppress? Suppressing their own ancestors?" Mu Wanying blurted out.

"We'll know in a moment."

Lin Xiao stepped up to the massive stone doors. They weren't tightly closed, and there were fresh marks on the ground indicating they had just been opened.

Lin Xiao directly used his internal energy to force open one of the doors and stepped inside.

The women hesitated for a moment before gathering their courage to follow him in.

Once inside, they discovered a vast space illuminated by many ever-burning lamps.

A crowd of men, women, young and old, were currently hiding behind stone coffins, shivering and not daring to breathe loudly.

When they saw Lin Xiao enter, a voice wailed in grief!

"Aiya!! My old brother... I advised you long ago not to go... Why didn't you listen..."

An old man with graying temples and a lame leg was sprawled on the ground, wailing and pounding the floor.

"Second Uncle?"

Yu Yingying cried out in surprise when she saw the old man. Her expression became very complicated when she saw the clansmen behind him.

"Father? Mother... Brother... You are all here?"

The group of Yu family members looked at the girl, but most had unfriendly expressions and cold gazes.

Even Yu Yingying's parents and elder brother didn't dare to respond.

Yu Yingying's face darkened. She understood that by choosing to save Xie Juner, she had stood on the opposite side of her family.

"You must be the Second Master of the Yu family, Yu Songjian."

Lin Xiao directly checked the old man's information.

Yu Songjian rubbed his teary eyes. "You... you know me?"

"Looking at you, you should also know about the Drug-Man Art, right?"

Yu Songjian's face became even more terrified. "You are so young, yet you actually know this is the Drug-Man Art?"

"Cut the nonsense. Tell me, how did your ancestors learn it? How many more Drug-Men do you have?"

"If you dare to hide anything, you will all die!"

Lin Xiao's eyes flashed with a cold light, showing no mercy, because this matter had to be taken seriously.

They had encountered him today, but if it had been any ordinary Martial Arts Grandmaster, they wouldn't even know how they died!

Such a terrifying evil art must not be allowed to run rampant in his territory.

Once the pressure of a Great Grandmaster was released, Yu Songjian and the others were all frightened into silence, their breathing becoming cautious.

"General Lin, I only know that the Yu family ancestor learned the Drug-Man Art somewhere in the Southern Border during the Great Zheng Dynasty."

"When the Great Gan was founded, the ancestor Yu Guyao relied on the Drug-Man Art to achieve great military merits and was enfeoffed as Earl Yushan."

"But after that, the Great Gan imperial family demanded that we no longer refine Drug-Men, so... the number of Drug-Men never increased."

"Drug-Men require a large amount of precious medicinal herbs and living human blood for constant maintenance. After three hundred years, only three usable ones remained."

"But since you have come here, I fear my elder brother and those three Drug-Men are... all gone."

Yu Songjian's face was full of bitterness as he cupped his hands and said:

"What this old man says is the absolute truth. If the General doesn't believe me, you can go to the inner tomb chamber. The Drug-Men refined by the ancestor have already decayed beyond repair..."

Lin Xiao's eyes flickered. "You're saying... after Yu Guyao, no one else knew how to refine Drug-Men?"

Yu Songjian nodded. "The Founding Emperor gave an order, and we didn't dare disobey. Moreover, the refining of Drug-Men is extremely complex and not easy to pass down."

"Heh..."

Lin Xiao sneered. "Then I must ask you, since Yu Guyao is dead, who refined him into a Drug-Man?"

"You... how do you..."

Yu Songjian's pupils shook violently. He completely hadn't expected that Lin Xiao already knew the identities of those three Drug-Men!?

Seeing that the matter was exposed, a look of ferocity appeared on Yu Songjian's sorrowful face.

He pulled out a knife and stabbed it directly toward a young grandson beside him.

"Grandfather, don't!!"

The boy wailed in terror, but Yu Songjian didn't care at all.

"Child, if you must blame someone, blame yourself for being born into the Yu family!!..."