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Chapter 1196: One Thousand One Hundred Ninety-Three: "Young Master Lu."

[April 3, 29:00]

The night is dark and the moon is high in the sky.

There are long rows of citron trees, gurgling streams, and the night wind blows through the lush green, stirring up the sounds of pine and bamboo.

The gatekeeper of the ancient martial arts family yawned while holding a lantern.

"I'm done with my duty, and I'm going to go back to sleep..." The gatekeeper looked at the empty door, feeling sleepy. He had never seen anyone provoke the ancient martial arts family, unless they were really brave.

Suddenly.

A thin and slender white shadow appeared outside the door, holding a long sword at an angle, like a ghost.

The night wind blew through the pine and bamboo trees, rustling them. The mottled shadows of the trees were reflected on his white hair and settled in his slightly dark eyes.

The rich and powerful stood before us, and the ancient buildings were stacked up in layers, with the sound of gurgling streams. The tallest building was filled with overlapping figures and brightly lit.

...Many years ago, it was also a night like this. The young man escaped from the dead, and his life fell into the abyss since then. The happiness in the past was like a dream that did not belong to him.

He remembered that Su Mingan said "let's go together", so he had sent Su Mingan a team invitation. As long as Su Mingan accepted, he could be teleported over.

“You are…” The gatekeeper looked pale when he saw Lu Shu’s face.

“Are they all inside?” Lu Shu looked towards the brightly lit buildings.

He once asked this group of people to tell the truth about the extermination of the Lu family after the end of the tenth world. If they dared to conceal it or put forward a scapegoat to fool him...

The long-buried haze gradually emerged in his eyes, and the familiar paranoia returned again. His expression at this moment was just like the expression of the Fourth World when it learned of Su Mingan's death, with a gloom and hatred that was almost like mud.

He had walked with Su Mingan and the others in the sunshine for too long, but he had never forgotten his past. The darkness was simply buried deep in his heart and never disappeared.

“Lead the way.” Lu Shu thrust his sword forward.

……

When Lu Shu's team invitation came, Su Ming'an was checking Lu Shu's [Memory Fragments] and had not seen the team invitation yet.

The moment the memory fragments were touched, Su Mingan saw a lush forest. The morning mist was floating in the fragmented sunlight, filled with a moist natural scent after the rain.

This is Mount Taihua.

"--Who are you?"

A slightly hoarse boy's voice came from behind.

Su Mingan didn't expect that he would be discovered as soon as he landed. He turned around and saw a black-haired boy about twelve or thirteen years old standing against a tree trunk, with long slanted eyebrows, bright pupils, narrow cheeks, and a thin look.

The red butterfly rested on the boy's fingertips, like a drop of cinnabar dotted in black and white. The boy stared at Su Mingan, as silent as an ink painting.

His eyebrows were not gloomy, and his black and white pupils seemed to have been washed by clear water, like a flowing spring.

——The young man is as gentle as jade, as if he walked out of an ancient painting.

This was the first time Su Mingan saw Lu Shu's childhood. Although he had expected that there would be a huge difference between him and now, he didn't expect it to be this big.

But in fact, he could still see the future Lu Shu through the boy of today. It was enough to predict... how tragic the growth process was, which reshaped the child who should have grown up happily.

"I am..." Su Mingan hesitated.

Before he could say anything, the boy cupped his hands.

"No need to explain your identity. Grandpa taught me how to recognize people. You look like a good person." The young man said softly, "You are a stranger. This place is not open to tourists. You must have come here to ask for help from the ancient martial arts family. My home is not far away. Do you want to come and rest? I can make you a pot of Biluochun, which I just learned."

Then, the boy smiled. It was a smile that was neither awkward nor forced, without a trace of gloom, but bright and sunny.

The sunlight fell through the bamboo leaves and flowed into the green eyes that looked like clear tea. The boy seemed like an ancient prince of the Dragon Kingdom living in modern times, with a mist that was incompatible with the secular world.

Su Mingan could only nod.

They walked down the mountain step by step, stepping on the rustling leaves.

"This is Xiaohong, my first insect." The young man touched the butterfly with his fingers. "My family is a new family. Because we mastered the skills of raising insects, we became a family among the ancient martial arts. Most of the ancient martial arts families are families that have been passed down from generation to generation. They master some of the ancient inheritances of the Dragon Kingdom that have been almost lost since the Tang Dynasty, such as divination, water floating, and qigong. My family specializes in insect control."

"I've never heard of this." Su Ming'an brushed away the branches and leaves above his head. He had always thought that there were no such things in the modern world, and everything was very scientific.

"Just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You regard everything outside of science as feudal superstition, but that's not the case." The young man shook his head: "In the five thousand years of history of this great country, there are so many technologies and histories that you can't touch. These secret inheritances only happen within the family. You outsiders can only see what's under the camera, so naturally you won't know."

"Information cocoon." Su Mingan understood.

"Huh? What cocoon? I have a cocoon at home." The boy's eyes showed a bit of astonishment. It was obvious that he had never heard of the Internet buzzwords. He really seemed to have walked out of an ancient painting, isolated from the world.

If it weren't for the world game, Su Mingan, who lived in the modern city, and this elegant young man raised by an ancient martial arts family would never have met each other in their lives. Their worlds were completely two parallel lines. Su Mingan would not leave the prosperous city, and Lu Shu would not leave the mountains.

But... they met.

The disaster of exterminating his entire family and the torture of illness made Lu Shu decide not to let go of Su Ming'an from the first moment he saw her. Otherwise, he would never be able to avenge his hatred until his death.

It took countless coincidences and accidents to make two people who had no connection at all become close friends.

"Wait, that's not right." The young man suddenly realized, "You haven't even heard of these things, so why are you in Taihua Mountain?"

Su Mingan was speechless. This reaction speed... was consistent. It was definitely him.

"I'm not a bad person, right?" Su Mingan said.

The boy looked at him seriously for a moment and nodded slowly.

"Then let's go." Su Ming'an asked indirectly, "Is your family a new family?"

"Yes." The boy looked like he had never had much contact with outsiders, and he spilled the beans: "We just recently learned about the ancient martial arts family, a big organization. Grandpa thought about it for a long time and decided to take us to join, to seek shelter, and also to get some better insect secrets."

"Seeking asylum? Do you have any enemies?" Su Mingan said.

The young man really didn't treat him as an outsider and continued to pour out the beans: "Grandpa did have some enemies when he was young. That era was very chaotic, but Grandpa was not wrong."

"So that's how it is. Thank you for your answer, Master Lu." Su Ming'an said.

The young man's calm expression suddenly changed, and he couldn't hold it in any longer: "Don't call me that... Our family hasn't reached that status yet, and I can't be called a young master..."

"Mr. Lu?" Su Ming'an said.

The young man walked in front, paused, and did not look back. Su Mingan was thinking whether he should tell Lu Shu about the extermination of the family. If he told him, would anything change?
The bamboo forest swayed as a group of two, one big and one small, walked down the mountain, their figures gradually sinking into the sunset.

……

【00:42 am】

The door of the hall was wide open, and a man with a knife walked in from the cold wind.

Inside the ancient martial arts hall, lights flickered, illuminating six rows of middle-aged and young people. They were dressed in simple costumes, sitting here as if they had walked out of distant history.

The columns in the lobby stand tall, with dragons and snakes coiling around and phoenixes spreading their wings, engraved with the history of the family from ancient times to the present. Heroes and heroes, countless legends, are all recorded in the carvings through the ages, filling the history books with the vicissitudes of time.

However, this place was like a nightmare to Lu Shu. Many years ago, he was expelled from the ancient martial arts family and left here alone.

"I'm back." Lu Shu faced everyone's gaze and said calmly, "Give me your answers."

Sitting at the top was a woman with two black ponytails.

"I will give you a frank answer, Lu Shu." Mizushima Kawase said. She is now the most powerful person in the ancient martial arts family: "Chi Liu."

A middle-aged man with white hair walked out and handed a scroll to Lu Shu: "Master Lu, this is the truth."

“Don’t call me Young Master Lu. Don’t use your way of addressing me.” Lu Shu’s eyes were filled with gloom.

You could hear a pin drop in the hall; people were very quiet.

In fact, they had been a little afraid of Lu Shu for a long time.

In their eyes, this white-haired young man had always been a crazy wolf cub who would not hesitate to bite off a piece of flesh from his enemies in his early years. During the last days of Lu Shu's terminal illness, they were still worried that Lu Shu would carry out a suicide attack and drag a group of people down with him, but fortunately, Lu Shu was so sick that he was almost unable to get up.

Why was it that only a junior like Lu Shu survived back then?
It was impossible for those enemies to not be able to kill a junior. They probably wanted Lu Shu to live alone and endure the torture of genocide forever. If it weren't for the advent of the World Game, Lu Shu's final fate would be to die of illness on the street.

People were waiting for Lu Shu to finish reading, as if they were waiting for an unknown judgment.

……

【00:53 am】

Su Mingan did not succeed in having tea with Xiao Lushu.

They only took a few steps, and Su Mingan felt himself becoming transparent. The next moment, he was no longer in Mount Taihua.

What came into view was a family gathering.

The young man, about sixteen years old, stood silently, with a praying mantis perched on his shoulder. He was wearing a dark Chinese costume and had grown quite tall.

Inside the hall, the people from the ancient martial arts family warmly blessed the young man and respectfully addressed him as "Young Master of the Lu Family."

It was truly a time of great prosperity. The newly-risen family was prominent, and everyone wanted to establish a relationship with them. Countless gifts were sent to the Lu family, and the threshold was almost broken by matchmakers.

Su Mingan didn't know whether he should approach or not. However, the young master of the Lu family, who was surrounded by people, saw him at a glance.

"It's you." Lu Shu called him: "Why did you suddenly disappear before?"

Lu Shu led him out.

On the rooftop, the smell of alcohol dissipated. Looking out, there were endless mountains, and facing us were peach blossoms and spring breeze.

Lu Shu's extraordinary abilities, Noel's information about immortality... It seems that before the world game began, there were many unsolved mysteries in this world.

"Run away." Facing the taller Lu Shu, the first thing Su Ming'an said was to run away.

If you don't run away now, it will be too late.

"Where do you want me to escape to?" Lu Shu said, "I know you are a magical person. You can suddenly appear and disappear. But if someone really wants to harm me, can I escape?"

"There is always a place, there is always a place where the light shines." Su Mingan suddenly thought: "Why don't you go to H City to find me."

Lu Shu looked at him quietly:
"If we leave the protection of the ancient martial arts family, the disaster may come faster. I know that the Lu family is now thriving, and many people want our insect training secrets, as well as grandfather's enemies... It's useless for us to escape anywhere."

"Then go ask for help, go to my house." Su Mingan said immediately.

"Ordinary people can't do anything about it... After all, who doesn't desire extraordinary power? Everyone will assume that they don't care about our affairs." Lu Shu shook his head: "Grandpa also thought of this, so he brought us under the protection of Guwu."

"...But what if the upper echelons of the ancient martial arts family also condone this?" Su Mingan's question was deafening. He had long discovered that the extermination of the Lu family was clearly condoned by the ancient martial arts family.

But Lu Shu's eyes remained silent.

“…There is no way out.”

They are clearly distinguished from ordinary people. The laws that protect ordinary people cannot protect him.

Su Mingan wanted to threaten the ancient martial arts family and asked them not to take action, but as soon as he had this thought, his body began to become transparent.

He immediately took Lu Shu's hand and wrote the address on his palm. He knew he would have to leave again soon, but at least he could leave a way out for Lu Shu.

"When there is nowhere else to go." He gradually disappeared in Lu Shu's sad sight:
"Please come find me here. At least... don't wander."

……

Lu Shu finished reading the scroll and raised his head.

"Shao Tao, Zhu Feng, Mu Xiu, Mu Er, and Mo Yongchun are the main culprits." Mizushima Kawanasora said calmly, "Back then, they joined forces with your grandfather's enemies and decided to set fire to the house and take away the insect control method."

"In addition, E Wenshan, Cen Lun, Duan Yangyu, Gao Hanhai, and Jian Yuyu are all accomplices. They blocked the Lu family's spies and prevented the message for help from being leaked, resulting in you being the only one who survived in the end."

"The names of the other accomplices are also in the scroll. We have detained both the principal offender and the accomplice."

(End of this chapter)