He looked at the chaotic and confusing Tianji Compass in front of him, frowning, and after a long time, he sighed slowly:

"I can only protect you to this point..."

"Whether the opportunity for this trip is big or small, whether the luck is good or bad, it all depends on you..."

…

On the mountain road at the border of Qianxue Prefecture, Mo Hua sat in a carriage and walked towards the remote Gushan City.

About half a day later, Mo Hua arrived at Gushan City.

The dilapidated city was built close to the mountain. The rocks are dark and the trees are desolate. From a distance, there is nothing unusual, but the ink painting always feels like there is something weird hidden in the mountain.

After entering Gushan City, Mo Hua first went to find Shen Xiuyan.

In a hidden teahouse private room, Shen Xiuyan handed a storage bag to Mo Hua.

"Everything the young master wants is in the bag. But time is urgent and my authority is limited. I only found some marginal things, and some of them are fragmentary, which may not be useful."

Shen Xiuyan whispered to Mo Hua.

Mo Hua took the storage bag, glanced at it, and said, "Thank you very much."

"It would be great if I can help you, sir," Shen Xiu said, then with a hint of apology on his face, "I can't wait long."

He is the elder of the Shen family, and Mo Hua is the genius of the Taixu clan.

Although the relationship between the Shen family and the Taixu Sect is not as tense as fire and water, it can still easily arouse suspicion if someone is interested.

In particular, in a sense, Shen Xiuyan was indeed "selling out" the Shen family.

Once discovered, there is no way to explain it.

Mo Hua also understood this, he cupped his hands and said: "Elder Xiu, please help yourself, I won't give it away."

Shen Xiuyan breathed a sigh of relief, stood up, bowed, and left.

In the teahouse, only Mo Hua was left.

Mo Hua thought for a while, but did not leave. Instead, he directly opened the storage bag and drank tea while reading the file Shen Xiuyan handed him.

The teahouse is quiet and undisturbed.

Mo Hua's spiritual consciousness was strong and he was very focused on reading. In just half an hour, he roughly browsed through all these files and then fell into deep thought.

The file records the beginning and end of the Shen family's mining of the Gushan mineral deposits, which lasted for hundreds of years and involved all aspects, including the transfer of monks, project arrangements, spiritual weapon structures, spiritual contract regulations, mineral flows, spiritual stone prices, and copper mines. Stock estimates, surname genealogy of casual cultivators...etc.

It even included several conflicts between the Shen family and the casual cultivators.

These dossier documents cover a wide range, but are relatively fragmented. They are fragments of some mining events in different time periods spanning hundreds of years.

Through these, Mo Hua had a preliminary and concrete impression of the mine.

But the deeper truth still cannot be discovered, and the whole picture cannot be glimpsed.

The only thing that Mo Hua cared about was the "orphans" of Gushan City.

Mo Hua looked through the files and found that during a certain period of time, the number of orphans in Gushan City increased sharply, but there was no record of what happened before and after.

I don’t know if it was the situation of casual cultivators, but no one cared about it, so no one recorded it specifically.

There is still a file record, but it was sealed by the Shen family.

Or... was it directly destroyed?

Mo Hua frowned slightly, feeling more and more confused.

"What exactly did the Shen family do in Gushan?"

"Could the Shen family's affairs be related to the evil fetus?"

"The Cunning Rabbit has three burrows, one mountain, one river, and one person... Is there really an evil fetus hidden in the lonely mountain?"

"If it is hidden, then where will this evil fetus be hidden?"

For the rest of the time, Mo Hua carefully read through these files, trying to find some clues.

But I turned around and found nothing.

Mo Hua then decided to go to the mountain top of Shen's house to have a look in person.

He did not call Master Gu, but planned to go alone.

He knows the art of invisibility, so it is more convenient for him to investigate invisibly. Moreover, he doesn't really want to implicate Master Gu.

He has the Taixu Sect as his backer, and here in Gushan City, he has nothing to worry about and can come and go freely.

But Master Gu is different. He has a low status in the Gu family, and he also has to take care of the livelihood of the apprentices in the weapon smelting shop. If he can run away, the monk can't run away from the temple. If he really goes against the Shen family, he will definitely be sought for revenge. Then there will be trouble. That's big.

The ink painting has also been estimated.

Although Gushan City is a third-grade place, it is a very poor third-grade territory.

The golden elixirs that come and go are generally in the early stages.

His movement skills now incorporate the Stealth Technique, Water Step and Water Shadow Phantasm. When facing a monk in the early stage of the Golden Core, even if he cannot defeat him, he can still run away.

Mo Hua thought it over, tidied up a bit, and then disappeared into the lonely mountain alone.

…

At the same time that Mo Hua entered Gushan, the Shen family and Shen Xiuyan of Gushan City had already boarded the carriage and were preparing to return to Xiaolingmen.

If he handed over the Shen family files, even some less important files, to Mo Hua, it would be regarded as "leaking secrets".

Although it is not a big mistake, it is better to do less than to do more.

After the matter is done, get out as soon as possible to avoid getting involved.

And, to be honest, when he saw Mo Hua now and thought about his origin, he couldn't help but feel a little frightened. He really didn't want to deal with Mo Hua.

Shen Xiuyan drove the car and prepared to return to the clan.

But the carriage had just taken a few steps when it met a person head-on.

This man has an ordinary appearance but extraordinary momentum. He is dressed as an elder of the Shen family. He is none other than the powerful elder of the Shen family, Shen Shouxing.

"Xiuyan?" Shen Shouxing said.

Shen Xiuyan had to come out to say hello, "Brother Shouxing."

"Returning to the clan so early?" Shen Shouxing asked.

"There is something wrong with the sect."

Shen Shouxing nodded, and then said, "I have something I want to ask you. Please come with me."

Shen Xiuyan felt a little uneasy, but Shen Shouxing had a higher level of cultivation and more power than him, so he did not dare to refuse.

Although the two have some personal relationships, they are from aristocratic families, and friendship cannot outweigh the interests.

"Okay." Shen Xiu said.

The two went to the living room, and someone served tea.

Shen Shouxing stepped back and saw no one around. He was silent for a moment and then said to Shen Xiuyan: "A few years ago, you asked for a hexagram for me..."

"Gua?"

Shen Xiuyan was startled, then slowly breathed a sigh of relief.

He thought it was about Mo Hua, but it turned out to be a false alarm...

"That hexagram says," Shen Shouxing frowned, "I will only have one son in this life?"

Shen Xiuyan didn't know why Shen Shouxing mentioned this matter. After thinking about it for a moment, he suddenly understood.

He has lost his "number" and wants to open a new one.

Shen Xiuyan nodded, "Not bad."

"This hexagram cannot be changed?"

Shen Xiuyan pondered for a moment and said: "This hexagram was asked by me from Xuanji Valley. The elders of Xuanji Valley said that the cause and effect are fixed. This is your fate. Whatever you do and the consequences you get, you can't change it. ”

Speaking of this hexagram, there is something strange about it.

Originally, he wanted to ask Old Man Wen to tell this divination.

Old Man Wen came from the Xuanji Valley. He had a treasure on his body, called Sancai Yishu Copper Coin. Not only could he predict events like a god, but he could also predict good and bad luck.

Back then, he followed Old Man Wen and Master Yun to Tongxian City, Nanyue City, and Lizhou City.

Along the way, thanks to his divination skills.

But after experiencing that incident and coming back, Old Man Wen was frightened. He said that he was afraid of being involved in strange cause and effect, so he taught himself the art of divination.

Within fifty years, I will try my best to save my life regardless of heaven's secrets or cause and effect.

He had no choice but to ask Old Man Wen for a recommendation and asked another elder of Xuanji Valley to calculate this hexagram for Shen Shouxing.

At that time, after the Xuanji Valley elder finished calculating Shen Shouxing's hexagram, his face turned pale and he said many unpleasant things.

Shen Xiuyan couldn't tell Shen Shouxing the truth, so he could only use some "cause and effect" type of rhetoric to tell Shen Shouxing.
To be continued...