The first thing Zhang Fan did after returning to the Qiu family was to take a shower and change his clothes. He couldn't very well go to see Mr. Qiu with such bad luck after just crawling out of the cemetery and coffin.

After changing my clothes, I came out and saw that Xiaoqing and Xiaohong had already prepared the meal on the table.

"The old lady said that you should have your meal first, and she will wait for you at the academy, so there is no need to rush."

After Xiaoqing and Xiaohong finished speaking, they stepped aside and faced the wall.

Zhang Fan was really hungry because he hadn't had a proper meal in the past few days while searching for the Tang Emperor's tomb.

After finishing his meal, Zhang Fan went to Mr. Qiu's academy alone.

The Qiu family is a renowned family of scholars. Mr. Qiu Qingquan is a master calligrapher, and many dignitaries from Ryan have tried to pay a fortune for a piece of his calligraphy or painting, but to no avail.

Approaching "Yuelu Academy," if Zhang Fan hadn't known beforehand that this was Mr. Qiu's residence, he would have thought he had entered a library.

Under the porch of "Yuelu Academy", Qiu Wanlan had also changed into a sky-blue men's robe. She was leaning against the doorpost, waving a jade fan. After seeing Zhang Fan, she put away the jade fan and pointed to the stairs inside the academy.

"The old gentleman is waiting for you in his study on the second floor."

"Aren't you going up?" Zhang Fan couldn't help but ask as he passed Qiu Wanlan.

"The old man told me to stay here and keep watch." Qiu Wanlan glared at Zhang Fan, clearly displeased. "No one is allowed to go in except you."

Zhang Fan then noticed that there was not a single person in the huge "Yuelu Academy," not even the maids and servants who usually attended to the old master's daily life.

Thump, thump, thump.

Zhang Fan climbed the wooden stairs to the second floor.

Stepping out of the stairwell, you enter a living room. In the living room, there is a mahogany desk with Xuan paper spread on it, where Mr. Qiu Qingquan is concentrating on painting.

The walls around the living room are covered with calligraphy and paintings, some of which are still fresh and clearly new works.

It is said that painting also requires inspiration, so Zhang Fan did not want to disturb the old gentleman. Therefore, he stood on one side of the stairwell and waited, while admiring the calligraphy and paintings on the wall.

When Zhang Fan was in school, he went to see a Chinese painting exhibition. The calligraphy on the wall there gave people a feeling of being bold and powerful, and it was completely unlike what a woman would do. No wonder people called Qiu Qingquan "Mr."

"Xiao Fan, come sit here." Mr. Qiu Qingquan put down his pen and waved to Zhang Fan with a smile.

Upon hearing this, Zhang Fan walked to the desk, where a painting titled "A Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix" was displayed. In the center, a phoenix perched on a parasol tree, surrounded by colorful birds with different expressions, all facing the phoenix with their heads turned towards it, making them lifelike.

"It's beautifully drawn," Zhang Fan couldn't help but exclaim.

"Hehe, just doing some casual drawing to pass the time." Mr. Qiu Qingquan smiled and invited Zhang Fan to sit down at the tea table next to him. The ink on the calligraphy and paintings on the table was still wet, and they remained spread out like that.

Mr. Qiu Qingquan took the teapot off the small stove and skillfully prepared the water, warmed the pot, placed the tea leaves, poured the tea, and served the tea...

Zhang Fan felt that the scene before him was extremely familiar. After a moment of recollection, he remembered that he had once drunk tea in the pavilion of Marquis Charles’s mansion, except that the tea was brewed by Qiu Wanyan, the eldest daughter of the Qiu family.

"Don't be too reserved, just make yourself at home." Mr. Qiu Qingquan smiled and handed a cup of tea to Zhang Fan. "I've heard Wan Yan mention you many times. My eldest daughter is a bit of a troublemaker, but she always has a good eye for people."

"You flatter me, sir." Zhang Fan accepted the white porcelain teacup with both hands. "I only met Madam Qiu once."

"Wan Yan said you are the one we've been waiting for." Old Mr. Qiu Qingquan smiled as he looked at Zhang Fan.

"You were waiting for me?" Zhang Fan was stunned.

“Yes, we have been waiting for your arrival since the Tang Dynasty.” Qiu Qingquan glanced at the night outside the window. “And after tonight, I am certain that you are the one we have been waiting for.”

Zhang Fan didn't understand and looked puzzled.

"Hehehe." Qiu Qingquan laughed out loud. "Wanlan has already told me that you have met with the Tang King and gained his approval."

“I asked Wanlan to follow you. After all, that is the royal mausoleum. As descendants, the Qiu family will not allow anyone to approach that place casually.”

"Really?" Zhang Fan was somewhat surprised. "If that's the case, why didn't the Qiu family assign a tomb guardian to the Tang Emperor's Mausoleum? Instead, they let it become a place where anyone can come and go as they please, a place where tomb raiders run rampant..."

"Is that so?" Old Mr. Qiu Qingquan still had a smile on his face. "No? I think there is? Didn't you see it?"

"No way..." Zhang Fan's words trailed off, then he suddenly choked, his eyes widening. "Those Yaksha demons?"

"You are indeed very clever." Qiu Qingquan nodded with a smile. "They are the best guardians of the tomb."

"We can't let them go hungry, so we naturally have to give them some food."

"And greed is the best food. It will make those with evil intentions come to it one after another, becoming delicious food for the demons."

"So the Tang King's Tomb being open to the public without a tomb keeper was actually intentional?" Zhang Fan asked, feeling a chill run down his spine, especially given the stark contrast with the old man's smiling and amiable demeanor.

"To maintain the growth of the old Jiaotu tree, it is necessary to use the blood of living people as nutrients." As Mr. Qiu Qingquan spoke, he fiddled with the tea set in front of him, as if he were talking about something unimportant. "To keep the 'Gu people' alive, the nutrients from the old Jiaotu tree cannot be cut off. This is a win-win situation."

Zhang Fan remained silent, but he felt no sympathy for the tomb raiders who had died tragically.

You're after their money, they're after your life—that's fair.

"Was Gu-man also the work of the Tang Emperor?" Zhang Fan couldn't help but ask.

“No.” Old Mr. Qiu Qingquan shook his head and chuckled twice. “We put it in on our own initiative. King Tang never allowed the use of Gu magic on people during his lifetime.”

"But relying solely on the pens of scholars cannot sustain the long-term prosperity of a nation." Old Master Qiu Qingquan put down his teacup, sighed, and said, "Especially for a female kingdom like Xiliang. Surrounded by wolves eyeing us covetously, if we had no power to protect ourselves, Xiliang would have been torn to pieces long ago."

The Qiu family's reputation as a "scholarly family" is merely an outward impression they deliberately want to project.

"Excuse me for asking, sir, is the self-protection power you mentioned referring to Gu magic?"

"Hehe, now that you've returned from the Tang Emperor's Mausoleum, there's no need to hide many things from you." Old Master Qiu Qingquan put down his teacup and stood up. "Come with me for a moment."

Zhang Fan stood up and followed Mr. Qiu Qingquan to a bookshelf. He thought the old man was going to show him a book, but the old man simply pushed a book off the shelf.

Click, click, click—

The bookshelf splits in the middle, revealing a secret passage behind it.

The old man led the way, and Zhang Fan followed closely behind. After walking through a passageway that was a hundred meters long, the view suddenly opened up before them.

This is a huge underground space, about the same size as the underground dome of the Tang Dynasty King's Tomb. The walls of the space are also covered with hexagons, making the underground space look more like a honeycomb.

Zhang Fan walked into one of the hexagonal containers and found that these hexagonal cylindrical containers were filled with liquid, and strangely shaped insects were floating in the liquid!

“These are all immature experimental products.” Mr. Qiu Qingquan walked to Zhang Fan’s side. “There are 10,000 containers like these here. From the Tang Dynasty to the present, all the hard work of the emperors of the Western Liang Dynasty is here.”

“These are not what normal living things should look like.” Zhang Fan frowned as he looked at the insects floating in the container. These incomplete insects still seemed to be alive, because he saw that some of their exposed organs were strangely moving in the solution.

Even more terrifying, he saw monsters with insect heads and human bodies, half insect and half human, inside those hexagonal transparent containers.

“Indeed, these are all creatures modified by Gu magic.” Old Master Qiu Qingquan nodded. “Or let me put it another way, and you might understand it more easily.”

"These are all organisms that have undergone DNA genetic modification."

Zhang Fan turned to look at Mr. Qiu Qingquan. To be honest, he wasn't too surprised when the old man said the term "DN gene surgery".

Ever since he discovered the existence of the "Yaksha Demon" creature, he had vaguely sensed a connection between "Gu Technique" and "DN Gene Surgery".

"Insects have strong vitality, and their life cycle is very short, making them very suitable as materials for Gu techniques," Mr. Qiu Qingquan continued.

"We use Gu techniques to disassemble and recombine the genes of different insects, and what you see in front of you is the result."

"But why are you creating so many Yaksha demons?" Zhang Fan still didn't understand. "This far exceeds the needs of tomb guardians..."

“That’s far from enough,” Mr. Qiu Qingquan shook his head. “It’s not enough to form a Zerg army.”

"An army of Zerg?" Zhang Fan's eyes widened. "What do you want to do?"

"Xiliang has been locked away for a thousand years. They thought that by locking down our technology, we would be unable to break through the limitations of our planet and enter the universe." The smile on Old Master Qiu Qingquan's face disappeared, and his eyes, which were usually narrowed to slits, suddenly opened, gleaming with a sharp light. "The Qiu family will show them the anger that Xiliang has been holding back for a thousand years!"

A thousand years ago… Zhang Fan’s doubts grew stronger. Wasn’t a thousand years ago the era of the Tang Emperor? What exactly happened back then?

"The arrival of the Tang King gave the Western Liang Women's Kingdom hope for continued existence, which is what you call 'DN gene surgery'."

"The Queen of Xiliang at that time entrusted the heavy responsibility of the country to the King of Tang, hoping that the King of Tang would be compassionate and save the people of Xiliang from suffering."

"Is it that serious?" Zhang Fan was taken aback. "The Western Liang Women's Kingdom is entirely composed of women. Outside of Western Liang, women are generally gentle and weak. They shouldn't be so hated by outsiders that they would want to destroy the kingdom, right?"

"Then you're wrong. A nation entirely composed of women is more likely to be targeted precisely because it's weak. They feel that even if they do something outrageous, they won't fear our retaliation," said Old Master Qiu Qingquan with an icy gaze. "Do you know how malicious the thoughts of those who covet the Western Liang Women's Kingdom can be? The idea of ​​turning the Western Liang Women's Kingdom into a giant brothel is the least of their worries!"

Zhang Fan was somewhat lost in thought.

It's hard to imagine what the Western Liang Women's Kingdom felt when they first came into contact with extraterrestrial civilizations.

In a patriarchal society surrounded by other patriarchal societies, the sudden appearance of a female-dominated planet is like a beautiful female passenger squeezing into a crowded male-dominated tram.

"So Ryan invaded Xiliang back then?" Zhang Fan asked.

"Although the army was indeed the Ryan National Army..." Old Mr. Qiu Qingquan shook his head and said, "At that time, Ryan was just a puppet of the Charlie family. The real enemy of Xiliang was the Charlie family."

"It was true in the past, it is true now, and it will be true in the future!"

"The Charlie family has declined somewhat in recent years, and the current Marquis Charlie is, in my opinion, a good-for-nothing! His abilities are not even a hair's breadth above those of his thieving ancestor!"

“But…” Zhang Fan was completely bewildered. “That’s not right! Didn’t Madam Qiu marry into the Marquis’s mansion…”

At this point, Zhang Fan suddenly choked up, and then his eyes widened even more.

He finally realized how terrifying women can be!

"The Qiu family also has the blood of the Tang King flowing in their veins. The Tang King's hatred is the Qiu family's hatred, and the Tang King's resentment is the national hatred of Xiliang!" Old Master Qiu Qingquan patted Zhang Fan's shoulder with a smile, "Go find Wan Yan, she will help you."

"Xiliang will also be your support!"

"But Wan Yan is a bit of a troublemaker, so please keep an eye on her and make sure she doesn't do anything too outrageous."

"When Wan Yan goes crazy, she's capable of anything."