Stop it, Taoist, Your Fight almost Ruins the DAO!

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An inexplicable sudden death.

It left her overwhelmingly sad.

She wanted to ask her father, that man full of scholarly aura, the man who used to lift her high when she was little, the man who had lived with her mother in mutual respect for many years.

She wanted to ask why this had happened.

But what terrified her was the horrifying discovery that her own father had become somewhat unfamiliar.

Although on the surface he seemed no different than usual, she felt an unexplainable disharmony.

It was as if a great demon was performing a delicate imitation beneath his human skin, but a fake was after all a fake. Others might be fooled, but she, his kin, could sense the dissonance.

She had also covertly tested him by asking about some secretive matters from the past, but her father answered everything in full detail without fail.

"Perhaps this is just how father has always been."

"He's merely revealed his true nature."

"Since mother's death, he quickly bought two groups of Mei Ji."

"Although he still cares about me, his gaze always feels strange. That concern, it's not like the fatherly love I knew before; it's more like he's looking at something very important to himself." Ling Yun muttered to herself.

In the deep silence of the night, people tend to become more sensitive and sentimental.

Ling Yun recalled the happy times of the past, when her mother was still with them, and her parents were deeply in love, treating each other with great respect.

Whenever there was a conflict, her mother just had to say 'Old man on Shu Road' and her father would promptly submit.

She also remembered, once when she was little, her father got so outraged he blurted out 'don't throw a crazy fit'…

Memories trickled in her mind, and unbeknownst to herself, tears were streaming down Ling Yun's face.

She longed to return to the past, but she couldn't.

The evening breeze blew gently, filling Ling Yun's clothes and causing the wind chimes hanging in the room to suddenly start jingling.

The swaying wind chimes brought Ling Yun back to reality.

She looked up at the voodoo doll hanging by the wind chimes with colorful threads, wearing a feathered costume – a gift from her mother on her eighteenth birthday. Touching her head, her mother told her that her parents would always love and protect her.

"Mother, father has changed." Ling Yun stood up, holding the tiny voodoo doll as if she were holding her mother, and suddenly burst into loud weeping.

Creak!

All of a sudden, a violent wind blew, and the room's door was flung wide open.

The wind was so strong, it swirled dust and dried leaves from outside all around.

Amidst the commotion, Ling Yun quickly smoothed out the creases on the tips of her stockings and put on her leather boots before walking out the courtyard door.

Strangely enough, as soon as Ling Yun stepped beyond the threshold, the wild wind abruptly stopped.

Huh.

Where are the guards?

Enjoy new stories from empire

Ling Yun, looking at the empty courtyard, suddenly thought.

Because she was overly playful and her spiritual awakening came relatively late, her cultivation was very weak. To protect her from the bizarre curse of the Ling family, her parents had always arranged for people to guard outside her room throughout the night.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

At this moment, the night at Ling's fort was unusually quiet; even the sound of insects couldn't be heard.

Ling Yun walked outside the courtyard, looking down at the houses below Ling's fort, which were hidden in the darkness. The dim moonlight barely outlined their shapes.

They were like beasts crouching in the dark, waiting for passersby to devour.

Suddenly, a wave of fear surged in Ling Yun's heart.

"Is anyone there?"

"Is there anyone?"

Ling Yun returned to her room to grab a lantern and began to shout loudly.

Her voice drifted into the distance under the night sky, but there wasn't the slightest response.

Fear in Ling Yun's heart deepened by the moment.

She held the lantern and shouted even louder, opening room after room, but they were all empty.

Not this one.

Nor this one.

Ling's fort seemed as if everyone had vanished all at once.

Just as Ling Yun was feeling utterly hopeless, the wild wind picked up again, and a gust of dust billowed towards her.

At the forefront of the dust cloud was the voodoo doll from her room.

Seeing the voodoo doll, Ling Yun did not feel fear; instead, she was filled with an inexplicable sense of security.

The voodoo doll paused for a moment at her side, as if urging Ling Yun to follow it.

Following the swirling dust and wind, Ling Yun quickly found herself in front of a solemn mansion.

The ancestral hall.

This was where the ancestral tablets of the Ling family were kept.

The wild wind stopped here.

The voodoo doll fell to the ground, its head pointing towards the door, seemingly telling her to go inside.

"Isn't this where the ancestral hall is? Father said this is a sacred family place, not to be entered unless on our ancestors' anniversaries."

Ling Yun was extremely nervous, but given the circumstances, she couldn't worry about that anymore.

Creak, she carefully pushed open the door, poking her head inside like a timid mouse and calling out, "Is anyone there?"

"Ancestors, please bless me, it's Ling Yun, please don't mind me."

Ling Yun walked in with her leather boots on, only to see that the ancestral hall's door was wide open. The ancestral tablets lay hidden within layers of darkness, except for a spot behind one tablet, from which a hint of golden light emerged.

By the time Ling Yun had fully entered the hall, the gold light had spread throughout the hall, lighting it up exceptionally bright.

Only then did Ling Yun see clearly what the glowing object was – a unique beetle-like insect with the texture of Gold, as if crafted out of gold.

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