Unparalleled Double Harmony

Chapter 599 Transcendence (Part 2)

Behind the hidden door is a stone-paved corridor.

The passageway, which slopes gently downwards and extends into the ground, gives one an increasingly uneasy feeling as one walks through it.

Although Murong Shu is the current head of the family, he truly did not know that such a space was hidden beneath the ancestral home of the Murong family until today.

Of course, Ah-Xiao knew... he had known for a long time.

This is also the benefit of "reading more books". Many secrets left by their ancestors can actually be found in certain corners of the library. You unworthy descendants did not discover them yourselves, so you can't blame your ancestors.

Previously, Ah-Xiao had difficulty moving around, so even if he discovered some secrets and resources that others didn't know about, he couldn't use them; he could only keep those secrets in his heart as a kind of bargaining chip that he might be able to use in the future.

But things are different now. Having regained his mobility, he no longer has to worry about "having at least one person with him no matter what he does or who he meets."

Like the legendary thief Diao Yang, a "hidden pawn" in the game, he can now arrange, contact, and mobilize resources all by himself without notifying anyone...

Only he himself knows how many such resources he has at his disposal.

Just like this underground chamber, he had been secretly using it for a month or so before bringing Murong Shu in.

If he treats his most trusted father this way, it's even harder for others to fathom what he's been doing behind closed doors...

Hululu--

With a whirring sound, a heavy stone door slowly slid open, revealing a well-lit secret room in front of the father and son.

"Father, we've arrived." Murong Xiao continued to lead the way.

But Murong Shu stood frozen at the doorway of the room.

Because at this moment, he smelled the "exotic fragrance" he had once smelled in the Heavenly Silkworm Cave, and this fragrance was even fresher and stronger than before.

However, after a brief moment of surprise, Murong Shu followed her son inside.

Then he immediately saw in this secret room... a pool that was several meters long and wide, bottomless, and filled with an unknown turbid liquid, and a row of giant cocoons that were clearly made of people and were tied to the wall.

"Xiao'er... what are these?"

Murong Shu has killed people before, including innocent ones. After all, in the martial world, many killings are not necessarily right, but they are unavoidable.

However, the idea of ​​using people for live experiments was still too novel for him.

"Father, don't worry," Murong Xiao replied casually. "Those in these cocoons... all deserve to die." He pointed to one of the cocoons and said, "Take this man for example. If he had only stolen, robbed, or swindled, he might not have deserved to die, but he specifically targets the elderly. Isn't that worse than a pig or a dog?" He then pointed to another cocoon beside him. "And this one. He saw that a family in the same village had just lost their husband, leaving behind an orphan and a widow with no one to care for them. So he broke into their house at night, raped the widow, and even killed the child next to her while committing the assault... The next day, the widow hanged herself. It's as if he wiped out her entire family... For such a beast, even beheading him would be too lenient."

As Murong Shu listened to her son's description, her slightly fluctuating emotions quickly subsided.

Although he didn't say it, his expression basically confirmed the legitimacy of Ah-Xiao's actions, and he even seemed to want to applaud it.

“Oh…so, you brought them here…” Murong Shu then indicated to Ah Xiao that they didn’t need to talk about these people anymore, and instead they should talk about practicing martial arts.

“Not bad.” Ah Xiao nodded. “I used the silkworm corpses you brought back with the manual as a guide, combined with my understanding of Gu techniques and the Heavenly Silkworm Skill, to concoct that pool of ‘silkworm water,’ and then fed it to these people, turning them into human cocoons.” He paused. “The method of using these human cocoons is very simple. I only need to input a small amount of power into their bodies, not enough to make the person inside the cocoon break free, and wait a few days. Then I use the method of absorbing internal energy from the original Heavenly Silkworm Skill to retrieve it. This way, I can obtain the purer Heavenly Silkworm internal energy that originally required cocooning to cultivate. Of course… using only one cocoon to repeatedly transmit the energy, and waiting several days each time, is too slow. So I used seven human cocoons at the same time. In this way, with just one round of absorption, I broke through to the sixth level of the Heavenly Silkworm Skill, which originally required cocooning to reach.”

After listening to Ah Xiao's explanation, Murong Shu's expression changed several times before she finally spoke, "Then are these people who have transformed into cocoons still conscious? Do they... still have feelings?"

But Ah-Xiao looked at his father with a strange expression when he heard this: "Father, does this matter?" He continued in a matter-of-fact tone, "On the contrary, it would be better if they were to suffer a fate worse than death?"

Upon hearing this, Murong Shu was stunned for a moment. This was the first time he had suddenly felt that he might not understand the son in front of him.

A chilling sense of unfamiliarity, along with uncertainty about what Ah Xiao would do and what he could do, instilled a sense of fear in Murong Shu.

"Uh..." However, Murong Shu quickly suppressed his emotions and asked with concern, "Xiao'er, won't your body suffer from practicing like this?"

"Of course not." Ah Xiao replied quickly without thinking. "Father, the reason I invited you here today is to tell you that I have found this 'method of practicing martial arts without paying the price'. Moreover, with this method, you can also practice this divine skill directly without having to abandon your own martial arts."

"This..." Murong Shu hesitated visibly at this point, "How about... Father Rong thinks about it again?"

Murong Xiao, who had been all smiles, froze for a moment upon hearing this reply.

"Heh, that's natural." But the next second, Ah Xiao smiled again, "Father, you can go back and think about it slowly, there's no rush."

At this point, it was clear that the two were no longer thinking about the same thing. After a few more awkward words, Murong Shu, who had long wanted to leave, found an excuse to have Ah Xiao accompany him out of the secret room.

It seems that this matter is over.

However, that night...

Murong Shu, alone again, arrived at the secret entrance to the secret chamber on the ground floor.

After returning home during the day, he was preoccupied and unable to concentrate on anything else all day.

He thought about it again and again, considering many things, but in the end he still felt that he could not accept Ah-Xiao's actions.

This has nothing to do with what those "human cocoons" did in the past. Even if Ah Xiao were to slowly torture and kill the hosts of those human cocoons by cutting them into a thousand pieces and peeling off their skin and bones, Murong Shu would not blink an eye, much less object.

However, Ah Xiao's nonchalant use of this training method was problematic, at least in Murong Shu's view.

Rather than the moral question of whether those scumbags should be killed, what Murong Shu cared more about was Ah Xiao's own values.

When a person's methods are too extreme, it can sometimes be more terrifying than the extremeness of their goals.

Just like someone who has no idea what cruelty is, he might bring unpredictable consequences to himself and those around him for some purpose that he thinks is very normal or even good.

Thinking of this, Murong Shu was truly afraid. He was afraid that A Xiao would become that kind of person. He was afraid that his most valued son would stumble down a path of no return just as he was beginning to open up a bright future.

He thought about it for a whole day, repeatedly and calmly considering it, and finally decided that he might as well not practice the Heavenly Silkworm Technique.

Now that Ah Xiao has discovered the truth about his body (which Murong Xiao told his father, and only his father), he can become a peerless master one day even if he doesn't practice the Heavenly Silkworm Technique.

He didn't need to obsessively dwell on this point or resort to any means to overcome this difficulty; nor did his Murong family face any crisis that required such an extreme solution.

Therefore, Murong Shu couldn't wait until the next day and returned here alone. He planned to "act first and report later" by destroying the things in the secret room first and then having a proper talk with A Xiao.

He believed that, given their father-son relationship, he could persuade his son before Ah-hsiao "went too far."

If he couldn't persuade him, then he really had to consider... whether the next head of the family should be handed over to a relatively incompetent son, but one who wouldn't bring the entire family to ruin because of his "excessive creativity".

Hululu--

The stone gate opened once again.

Murong Shu returned to the secret room she had visited during the day and was still shocked by what she saw.

He stopped at the doorway, took a moment to catch his breath, and then continued forward.

A few seconds later, he walked to one of the "human cocoons". Before "taking action", he first used his hand to push aside some of the silk high up to reveal the face of the person inside, wanting to confirm the situation again.

Unexpectedly, as soon as the person inside the cocoon saw the light, their eyes twitched violently for a moment, and then turned to Murong Shu outside the cocoon.

"Kill...kill...me..." That was the sound that came out of the man's throat.

The sound was so desperate and painful that even a seasoned veteran like Murong Shu felt a chill run down his spine and his stomach churn.

Just then, another voice suddenly sounded behind him.

"Father... what are you doing?"

Murong Shu was genuinely startled when he heard the voice, because his mind was in such a state tonight that his attention was completely focused on what was in front of him, and he didn't even realize that he was being followed.

But when the word "father" came from behind him, he instantly recognized the person's identity.

After all... he only has one daughter.

"Ah? Yue'er... how could you..." Murong Shu suddenly turned around and saw Murong Yue standing at the door of the secret room with a look of astonishment on her face.

This is quite a coincidence.

As we mentioned earlier, of all Murong Shu's children, it's this third daughter who doesn't get along with him. If it were Murong Ji or Murong Dian who saw their father wandering outside alone in the middle of the night, they would probably have gone up to greet him immediately and asked if he wanted to go out for a late-night snack or if he wanted to come along...

Only Murong Yue saw her father in the distance, but remained silent.

She wouldn't have said anything if he hadn't, but after glancing at him a few times, she felt that Old Deng was acting suspiciously. Did he have someone else outside?
Don't blame her for thinking that way, because Murong Shu was indeed a playboy when he was young, and San Yatou has always been indignant on behalf of her mother in this regard.

So Murong Yue secretly followed him, wanting to see if her father was planning to add another "fourth wife" or something.

Hey, that's how it ended up here.

What Murong Yue didn't know was that she wasn't the only one following someone tonight.

As the saying goes, "The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind."

Actually, there was someone secretly following behind Murong Yue at this moment, and that person was none other than... Murong Xiao.