Warning in Blood
Yu Jinli's decisiveness surprised both men.
Gu Yanzhi looked at her, a hint of approval and heartache flashing in his eyes.
Feng Jinxuan frowned, his thin lips pressed into a straight line, clearly disapproving of her "heroic sacrifice".
But in the end, he didn't say anything more.
"Alright." Gu Yanzhi withdrew his gaze, his expression becoming extremely serious. "Koi, concentrate and listen to my instructions. Imagine the luck within you as a warm stream of water, and slowly, through your palm, pour it into the mirror's core. Remember, it must be slow and steady."
Yu Jinli nodded, closed his eyes, and began to follow the "gathering qi and concentrating spirit" method he had taught, mobilizing the faint but pure koi-like luck within his body.
Gu Yanzhi then made a hand seal with both hands and muttered incantations in a deep and rhythmic voice, as if he were chanting an ancient ballad.
As he chanted, the jade needles stuck in the wall began to emit a faint white light.
The white light, like silk threads, quickly connected to form a mysterious runic array that enveloped the entire dark compartment.
And with the infusion of Yu Jinli's luck, the cinnabar runes on the Bagua mirror in his hand began to light up one by one, emitting a soft golden light.
"Now!" Gu Yanzhi shouted in a low voice, "President Feng, use your blood!"
Feng Jinxuan did not hesitate at all.
He took out a fine Swiss Army knife from his pocket and, without hesitation, slashed his fingertip.
Crimson blood beads gushed out instantly.
He precisely dripped that drop of blood onto the "yang eye" of the yin-yang symbol outlined in cinnabar in the center of the Bagua mirror.
"Buzz—"
A strange buzzing sound rang out in the study.
The golden light on the Bagua mirror shone brightly for a moment!
The light, along with the white light emitted from the jade needles on the wall, shone brightly, forming a powerful and pure energy field that crashed fiercely into the blood-red evil restriction on the hidden compartment!
Yu Jinli felt as if she were in the center of a silent energy storm.
Two completely different forces were engaged in the most intense clash before her.
She could feel a cold, malicious force creeping up her arm and into her body, trying to corrupt her pure koi-like luck.
The amulet that Gu Yanzhi gave her was on her chest, radiating a warm aura and stubbornly resisting the erosion of that evil power.
Her face gradually turned pale.
A fine layer of cold sweat also seeped out from his forehead.
"Hang in there!" Gu Yanzhi's voice was like a shot of adrenaline, injecting energy into her consciousness. "It'll be over soon!"
He increased his magical output, and the Bagua mirror in his hand shone even brighter.
Feng Jinxuan stood beside Yu Jinli, his hand always tightly protecting her back, ready to deal with any unexpected situation.
He looked at the girl's body, which was trembling slightly from exhaustion, and her delicate eyebrows furrowed in pain, his eyes filled with unprecedented worry and self-blame.
For the first time, he hated his own powerlessness so much.
On this battlefield he knew nothing about, he could do nothing but provide some "blood packs".
"Snap—"
A crisp sound, like shattering glass, suddenly rang out.
Under the combined attack of the golden and white light, a crack finally appeared on the blood-red light barrier above the hidden compartment.
Immediately afterwards, the cracks spread rapidly like a spider web.
"Bang!"
The light curtain shattered completely, turning into specks of red light that dissipated into the air.
The restriction has been broken!
Yu Jinli's body went limp, and she was about to fall backward.
Feng Jinxuan reacted quickly and pulled her into his arms.
"How is it?" he asked nervously.
"It's...it's alright..." Yu Jinli leaned against him, panting heavily, feeling as if she had run three thousand meters, completely exhausted. "It's just that I'm a little...kidney-deficient."
Gu Yanzhi also put away the magical artifact, his forehead also covered with beads of sweat, clearly indicating that he had expended a lot of energy.
He looked at Yu Jinli, who was being held tightly in Feng Jinxuan's arms, a complex emotion flashing in his eyes, but it quickly returned to its gentle state.
"It's good that you're alright. Quickly check what's inside, we don't have much time left."
Feng Jinxuan then released Yu Jinli, stepped forward, and pulled open the long-sealed secret compartment.
The secret compartment contained neither the ledgers they had imagined, nor confidential documents, nor gold or silver treasures.
There was only a small, seemingly ordinary pearwood box.
Feng Jinxuan took out the box and opened it.
Inside the box lay a stack of yellowed old photos and a trust agreement, equally fragile due to its age.
The three exchanged a glance, and each saw confusion in the other's eyes.
Is this the secret that Feng Jinhong kept so deeply hidden, even going so far as to use a vicious blood curse to protect it?
Feng Jinxuan picked up the stack of photos and examined them carefully, one by one.
The photo showed a beautiful woman they had never seen before, with a gentle smile.
Sometimes she reads in the garden, sometimes she paints in her studio, and sometimes she holds a baby in her arms, her face radiating maternal glow.
Judging from the background of the photo and the woman's clothing, it is at least twenty years old.
"Who is this woman?" Yu Jinli couldn't help but ask.
Feng Jinxuan shook his head, indicating that he did not recognize him.
He picked up the trust agreement again and opened it.
The agreement is complex and involves a huge amount of overseas assets.
In the beneficiary column, a name that neither Yu Jinli nor Feng Jinxuan recognized was signed—Shen Yue.
“Chen Yue…” Feng Jinxuan murmured the name, his brows furrowed, as if he was trying hard to recall something.
Yu Jinli felt that she had heard the name somewhere before.
Just as she was deep in thought, Gu Yanzhi suddenly spoke up.
“If I’m not mistaken,” he said, looking at the agreement with a grave tone, “this Shen Yue should be the woman in the photo. And she should also be… Feng Jinhong’s biological mother.”
What? !
Yu Jinli and Feng Jinxuan both looked at him in shock.
"Didn't Feng Jinhong's mother die in childbirth a long time ago?" Feng Jinxuan's voice carried a hint of uncertainty.
“That’s what they say to outsiders.” Gu Yanzhi sighed. “I once heard my master mention some old stories about the Feng family. It is said that your second uncle, who is Feng Jinhong’s father, did not truly love his first wife when he was young. Instead, he loved a painter named Shen Yue.”
"But later, due to a family marriage arrangement, he was forced to marry a woman he did not love. And this Ms. Shen Yue mysteriously disappeared after that."
A long-buried secret of a wealthy family, enough to overturn the entire Feng family's understanding, was thus revealed.
Yu Jinli felt that her brain was almost unable to process such a huge amount of information.
In other words, Feng Jinhong is very likely an illegitimate child?
So, did he do all this to... avenge his mother?
As she was thinking, Feng Jinxuan had already flipped the stack of photos to the last one.
It was a solo portrait of a woman.
In the photo, Shen Yue still smiles gently, but deep in her eyes lies a trace of unyielding melancholy.
What gave Yu Jinli the most chills was the background of the photo.
It was an ancient ancestral hall filled with a sinister atmosphere. On the plaque of the ancestral hall were two seal script characters that she did not recognize, but which she felt were extremely evil.
Just then, Yu Jinli's gaze inadvertently fell on the back of the photo.
The back of the photo has yellowed due to its age.
But against that yellowish background, there seemed to be some... extremely faint, irregular scratches.
A thought struck her, and she quickly took the photo from Feng Jinxuan's hand, held it up to the light, and examined it carefully.
The scratches were shallow and messy, as if someone had hurriedly scratched them with their fingernails in a state of extreme panic.
She squinted and studied it for a long time.
Finally, amidst the jumbled scratches, a few words were discernible... written in blood, now a dark brown.
—Save me, Shadow Devouring Sect.
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