Early next morning, just as sunlight started filtering into the house, Gu Nan, who had been meditating for the entire night, got up slowly. Before he could do anything, there was a knock on the door.
"Who?" Gu Nan didn't make a sound, and the power of shadows gradually expanded.
However, the door was already pushed open before his shadows could reach it. The newcomer was naturally not Zhou Jingwen—she didn't have the guts—it was a woman Gu Nan had never seen before.
She appeared to be roughly seventeen or eighteen years old and was dressed in plain casual clothes, with her hair carelessly falling onto her shoulders. There seemed to be some knots in her hair. It seemed that the girl wasn't interested in taking care of it.
Her appearance was also normal. If he had to say something that was special about this person, it was probably her pair of fiery red eyebrows.
This strangeness became very conspicuous on an otherwise ordinary face.
Gu Nan also didn't know why he studied this woman's appearance so carefully. It was as if she was born with a kind of ability—as long as she stood there, she would be branded into the souls of all living beings who gazed upon her.
"Who are you?" Gu Nan asked in a heavy voice. This strange phenomenon gave Gu Nan a bad feeling.
"Red, my name is Red," nothing about the young girl's voice or intonation sounded unusual, but her sentence structure was a bit strange, as if she hadn't spoken for a long time.
Gu Nan sized her up, then asked, "What do you want?"
"I heard you're looking for 'Ying Ge.' Help me do something, and I can tell you where 'Ying Ge' is."
Red's voice was still very calm, and there was no difference in tone or timbre from the previous one; it was just like a synthetic one.
"Alright," Gu Nan immediately agreed with almost no hesitation. He didn't even ask what she wanted him to do.
This came from the players' habit to always accept missions first. Whether it could be completed or not was another matter—if it couldn't be completed, then it could just sit in the mission panel forever.
Red seemed to be an eccentric person as well. She wasn't concerned about Gu Nan's credibility and immediately said, "Ying Ge is in the deepest part of the Duanmu family's ancestral tomb. It's a curved blade."
"Again with the Duanmu family's ancestral tomb?" Gu Nan nodded.
Although he already knew about this clue before, Red's words cemented the connection between the ancestral tomb and Ying Ge, so her words still had great effect.
"When Ying Ge's owner wakes up, protect her. That's what I want you to do."
"If I have to protect her for a long time, then your information is not worth this price," Gu Nan frowned and said. He was telling the truth.
He didn't want to casually violate the agreement. Gu Nan was a very trustworthy person when completing missions.
Reputation was the foundation of one's fame. Carelessly consuming one's own reputation will lower the player's fame within the entire NPC faction, which would result in being unable to receive many specific missions in the future.
Red was a very interesting person. She thought for a moment and answered, "Ying Ge's owner has the ability to enter the Starry Road. You can also enter together with her as your reward."
"Deal!" Gu Nan's eyes suddenly lit up.
...
In the evening, Zhou Jingwen excitedly ran into the single-story house, holding a thin piece of paper in her hand, which looked like it had been torn off from somewhere.
"Senior, I found a clue on Ying Ge!" She started shouting as soon as she entered.
Zhou Jingwen was a very clever girl. She knew that her words didn't have much credibility, and Senior might not necessarily believe her either, so she simply tore off the relevant page in secret and brought it with her.
She handed the piece of paper to Gu Nan. The information on it was quite detailed.
"Ying Ge" was a curved blade that became famous in ancient times, but its history from back then had been lost. The last time it appeared in public was over 600 years ago.
At that time, a Prodigious cultivator obtained it and achieved eleven consecutive kills against experts of the same level, winning the championship of the global martial arts tournament that year. That anecdote was passed on with approbation for a while.
The paper didn't mention any keywords Gu Nan expected, such as "demonic weapon" or "cursed reputation." Ying Ge seemed to simply be a very normal and powerful weapon.
"Such a normal weapon doesn't look like a mission item…" Gu Nan rubbed his chin, getting the feeling that this pattern wasn't quite right.
However, since this was what the information said, Gu Nan could only respect the facts.
"Can you find out where it was last seen?" Gu Nan placed the piece of paper down and asked casually.
"Not yet…" Zhou Jingwen seemed a little embarrassed, but this wasn't beyond Gu Nan's expectations either—she was a powerless ordinary person with neither status nor authority. The fact that she could find information on Ying Ge in just one day was already pretty good.
Besides, Gu Nan just received information on Ying Ge's whereabouts, so he didn't mind Zhou Jingwen's inability to find Ying Ge's location.
"Then you don't need to look for that. Do you know of the Duanmu family?" Gu Nan changed the subject.
Zhou Jingwen shook her head again, which made Gu Nan frown a little. He originally thought that the Duanmu family should be quite famous… 'Could it be that Zhou Jingwen's standing is too low to know about the Duanmu family?'
As if aware of Gu Nan's thoughts, Zhou Jingwen quickly said, "Senior, I'll definitely ask around properly when I get back!"
Gu Nan nodded and absentmindedly condensed a small black dagger, handing it to Zhou Jingwen. "Keep this dagger close to you, and you will gain unparalleled talent."
Zhou Jingwen practically jumped up with excitement. She bowed repeatedly. "Yes! Thank you, thank you, Senior…"
Zhou Jingwen couldn't wait to go back to test the dagger's effects after receiving it, and Gu Nan also didn't intend to keep her for long. It's just that there was a somewhat strange smile on his face as he watched her leave.
"Ying Ge's owner? If I kill her before it awakens and give Ying Ge to a new master—I wonder if that will work…"
Gu Nan quite liked testing the rules' limits and loopholes, but he didn't intend to take risks himself, so Zhou Jingwen became the best substitute.
If possible, Gu Nan didn't mind giving Ying Ge a new and more obedient master—obedient to Gu Nan, that is.
With such plans in mind, Gu Nan once again entered meditation, mobilizing the law of shadows in an attempt to resist the curse and see if he could speed up his recovery.
Shinto cultivators were tough opponents, and the power of faith could also weaken the effectiveness of law nullification, so Gu Nan didn't intend to look for the Duanmu family's trouble while he had such serious injuries.
After all, he was probably going there to dig up their ancestors' graves.
...
While Gu Nan was quietly secluding himself on Floral Jasper Star, a quarrel also broke out inside Starry Ocean Pavilion.
"Gu Nan is already heavily injured. What are you guys still hesitating about!?"
"He killed someone from our Starry Ocean Pavilion. Don't tell me you'll allow him to leisurely walk around the Central Region, free and unfettered?"
The gold-robed woman and her companion were arguing with a group of people, but it was clear that no one else agreed with them.
"That's a dangerous person who still managed to kill Lan Po even when seriously injured!" An old man spoke up gravely. "Until we confirm that he has lost his fighting strength, the Pavilion won't send too many people after him."
"That's right." A person next to him knocked on the table and continued, "Jin Yi, I understand your feelings very well, but we can't risk the lives of our Pavilion members."
The gold-robed woman named Jin Yi exchanged a glance with her purple-robed companion, her expression livid.