Unparalleled Double Harmony

Chapter 464 Father and Son Enter the Deserted House

Nanjing has been an important town in the south of the Yangtze River since ancient times. A poem says: Jiangnan is a beautiful land, and Jinling is the imperial city.

By the Yongtai period, "Jinling" was already an ancient name, but some local wealthy families would still mention this word when introducing their door lintels to highlight the long history of their family.

Jinling Sword King Mansion is one of them.

Speaking of the Dugu family, they have been up and down here for many years, including the time with the Wanyuan Sect. They have experienced countless crises of being wiped out, but they have continued to survive.

It must be mentioned here that, although the name of the mansion contains the words "Sword King", and it is indeed a famous martial arts family with superior martial arts skills passed down from generation to generation, the master of the Sword King Mansion may not be qualified to be king in every generation.

After all, martial arts talent is more random than genes. Even if both parents are martial arts geniuses, it is possible that their child cannot even perform a basic set of boxing.

Furthermore, people have many talents, and it is not to say that only martial arts talent is considered talent; for example, the previous lord of the Sword King Mansion, Dugu, who died in the disaster of Wanyuan Sect, if he had become a teacher or a diplomatic envoy... he would surely have achieved considerable success, but he was born into a martial arts family and was very helpless.

Fortunately, his son, the current lord of the mansion, Dugu Sheng, is indeed a good martial artist.

By the time of Dugu Sheng's generation, especially after Xiao Zhun's death, the title of "Sword King" was almost well-deserved.

Anyway, among the swordsmen currently active in the martial arts world, those who can challenge Dugu Sheng in comprehensive strength can be counted on one hand.

In addition, his son Dugu Yong's talent was even higher than his. After the battle at Wujian Villa, he was even catching up with him...

Therefore, there is no need to worry about the strength of the next generation of the Sword King’s Palace.

However, Dugu Sheng still has things to worry about in recent years.

When his son was still young, he was worried: Will this kid rely on his talent and not work hard in learning martial arts?

Now that his son is thirty-five or thirty-six years old, he feels that his son is working too hard. At this age, he is still obsessed with martial arts all day long and never mentions marriage.

In those days, some people could become grandfathers at the age of 36, but Dugu Yong didn't seem to be in a hurry at all.

He ignored everyone who tried to matchmake him for a woman. The last time he came back from Wujian Villa, he even learned a jargon from somewhere, saying something like "Women will only slow down my sword-drawing speed."

It made Dugu Sheng very angry.

Hey~ Unexpectedly, this matter has encountered a turning point recently...

It is said that Dugu Sheng had an old friend with whom he had a pretty good relationship. The two would exchange letters from time to time. The old friend had a daughter at home who had a strong personality and extraordinary martial arts skills. She was twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old and still unmarried.

That person was also worried. A while ago, he happened to see Dugu Sheng complaining about his son in the letter. Then he suddenly had an idea and proposed a plan in his reply - let's set a trap together. We will agree on a date. You lie to your son that you have something to do and bring him to my place. I will choose that day to hold a martial arts competition to win a bride. Then I will arrange various actors to control the scene. With the two of us in charge, we will definitely be able to catch the two younger ones. By then, your son will not even have an excuse to "go back and ask his parents for permission". The problems of our two families will be solved together, and we will be one family in the future.

In theory, if this had happened ten years ago, Dugu Sheng might have hesitated, wondering if the other party was trying to climb up the social ladder? But now, his thoughts were... Is there such a good thing? Okay, okay, as long as she is a good girl, your daughter is a martial artist, so the conditions are even higher. Why didn't you say so earlier, Old Gao?

Then the two old men showed their energy as seniors from famous families instigating conspiracies in the martial arts world, and they planned and perfected the details of the plan in their correspondence.

Just when they were reaching the stage of "choosing which day to take action"... coincidentally, something happened in Lao Gao's hometown.

So where does Lao Gao live? I guess many people have guessed it, it's in Cangzhou City.

The two old men saw that this was God's will. If there was anything that could alarm the Lord of the Sword King's Mansion to go and watch the excitement in person, it would not be credible enough if it was less than the level of "Negotiations between the Murong Family and the Baquan Sect".

This matter seems to be quite serious, but it is not dangerous to others, and it happened in Cangzhou.

Dugu Sheng used this as an excuse to say that he wanted to go to Cangzhou with his son, and Dugu Yong would not be suspicious at all.

And so, this spring, Dugu and his son set out from Jinling and headed north to Cangzhou.

Even though these two men have wealthy families, they don't bring any servants with them when they go out. There is no fixed rule in the martial arts world for this. It's just a matter of habit. Some people have to have servants or disciples following and serving them when they go out, no matter how far or how dangerous the task is. Sometimes one or two are not enough, and they have to bring a group. Others think that if they have to be served when they go out, it's not the feeling of "traveling in the martial arts world", or they think that followers are a burden, so they would rather not bring them.

Let’s talk about Dugu Yong and his son. They left Nanjing city in light clothes, crossed the Yangtze River after one day and one night, and bought horses to continue their journey.

Originally, after crossing the river, they could have bought two high-speed rail tickets, traveled by train, or rode horses slowly along the official road, which would have been fine... But Dugu Sheng had something on his mind this time, and was afraid of delaying his plans, so he was a little anxious, so he asked his son to take a shortcut and ride a fast horse with him.

As a result, at dusk that day, the two were trapped in a place called "Zhimaling".

The name of this place makes sense - some of the roads here seem fine when you first enter, but as you walk on, they become "walkable on foot, but increasingly difficult on horseback".

Dugu and his son started out riding horses, then leading horses, and finally they had no choice but to let the horses go and carry their luggage on their own.

Even so, when the sun set, the two still couldn't get out.

There's nothing to say, they can just deal with it overnight in the forest... Anyway, the weather now is not that cold, and they both have great martial arts skills, so they can just find a sheltered or leaning place to sit cross-legged and regulate their breathing, half asleep, and they can get through to dawn. Even if wild beasts attack during this time, they are confident that they can detect and respond in time.

There was no conversation in the first half of the night, until around midnight.

Suddenly, a cold wind blew through the forest, causing Dugu Sheng to shiver and open his eyes instinctively.

Dugu Sheng thought: Now that I’m awake, I might as well get up and take a pee.

This is what happens when a man reaches a certain age. No matter how great a martial arts master he is, he still has to get up at night.

Dugu Sheng naturally would not urinate on the spot where he and his son were resting, so he stood up, stretched his muscles a little, and then walked towards the forest a little further away.

Dugu Yong, of course, heard the noise, and guessed that his father had probably gone to the toilet, so he didn't say anything.

About two minutes later, Dugu Sheng came back after peeing, but his pace and breathing... were faster. This was a bit strange. How could he be more anxious after peeing than before?

Dugu Yong realized at that moment that his father might have discovered something, so he quickly opened his eyes and stood up, meeting Dugu Sheng who was walking back quickly, and asked first, "Dad, what's wrong?"

"Shh..." Dugu Sheng stretched out his hand to signal his son to keep his voice down, then lowered his voice and replied, "Look over there..."

Dugu Yong looked in the direction of his father's finger and spotted a strange light at a glance.

Although the light source was very far away and blocked by layers of trees, it was still possible to see that it was colorful and as brilliant as a rainbow. It was obvious at a glance that it was not the light emitted by ordinary torches or lanterns.

But it’s the middle of the night, deep in the mountains, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone holding a lantern festival here, right?

Whenever something is abnormal, there must be something wrong. This father and son are both veterans in this field. They are skilled and courageous. Seeing such a situation, they cannot just ignore it, because even if they ignore it, there is no guarantee that the source of this anomaly will not find them.

"Go and find out what's going on?" Dugu Yong asked in a low voice after a few seconds.

"I'll go ahead, you watch out for me." Dugu Sheng said nothing more. After replying this, he took the lead to walk to the luggage area and picked up his weapons.

Dugu Yong did the same thing, and then the two of them tiptoed towards the light source, one in front and one behind.

The light was strange. It seemed quite far away just now, but when they really walked towards it, it was surprisingly close. The two of them just passed by a tree that gave off a fresh and fragrant scent. After walking a few more yards, the source of the light became clearly visible to the naked eye.

After walking a few more feet and passing through the grass and forest, they suddenly saw an ancient mountain house in front of them. The seven-colored light came from the walls of the house.

"Something's wrong..." Dugu Yong muttered, "When I was choosing a place to rest earlier, I went up a tree to check the surrounding terrain, but I didn't see this house at that time."

"Could it be that it was already dark and the lights were not on here, so you missed it?" Dugu Sheng put forward a very reasonable hypothesis.

"This..." Dugu Yong thought for a moment, "It's not completely impossible."

But after he replied this, Dugu Sheng did not say anything else, and the two fell into silence for a while.

Afterwards, it was Dugu Yong who spoke first: "Dad, should we go knock on the door?"

"Hmm..." Dugu Sheng groaned for a moment, then said, "Son, maybe it's because I'm old and have more ideas... I think this house is really weird, I'm afraid it's..."

"Dad, what you mean is... you're worried there are ghosts in here?" Dugu Yong continued.

"Yes." Dugu Sheng and his son had nothing to deny, so he continued, "You, the father, also know that you never believe these things..."

"No, no, no." Unexpectedly, Dugu Yong interrupted, "I believe it now."

"Ah?" Dugu Sheng had no idea what to do now.

"Rather than saying I believe it, I'd rather say I'm basically certain it's true." Dugu Yong added without waiting for his father to react.

"No...you...this..." Dugu Sheng was suddenly suspicious and couldn't speak clearly. "When did you confirm this? I haven't heard you tell your father about it."

"I thought you didn't believe this, and I didn't tell you about this because it's not something you usually encounter." Dugu Yong said, "I only learned about it after the battle at Wujian Villa when I heard Brother Huang Donglai from the Huang Sect in Shuzhong tell me about it."

"Is he...reliable?" Dugu Sheng was still skeptical.

"He is the direct disciple of the deputy leader of the Xuanqi Sect in Wawu Mountain... I think what he said is true." Dugu Yong said again.

"Oh..." Dugu Sheng nodded, "He's not going to run away, so... let's run."

After saying this, Old Deng immediately changed direction and prepared to escape from the old house with his son.

However, even if Dugu Sheng made a wise choice that the protagonists in ordinary horror movies would never make, now that they were here, how could it be so easy to leave?
Just as the father and son were about to slip away, the sounds of zither and chirping silk pipes suddenly rang out from inside the old house.

Waves of strange music, like a pair of invisible hands that can capture people's hearts, stretched out from the ancient house and instantly grabbed the father and son.

For a moment, Dugu Sheng and Dugu Yong felt dizzy and their steps were unsteady, as if they were drunk or in a nightmare...

When they came to their senses, the two of them had already staggered to the door of the ancient house.

And only then did they see clearly that the two doors of the house were originally open, and on the two "seven-color" lanterns hanging at the door, there was a word "Peng" written on each.

Then, another gust of cold wind blew from behind them, and with a "whoosh" sound, it "pushed" them both into the door.

(End of this chapter)