Jiapingguan Chronicle

Chapter 2647 Still Vigorous in Old Age 31.0
"Someone we don't know?" Shen Cha immediately grasped the key point. "But we've investigated him, and he hasn't been in contact with any strange people. His whole experience is fairly complete."

"Complete?" Chu Han raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"

"Should I confirm?" Shen Cha hesitated, glancing at Shen Haolin, then at Song Yaojia, Xia Chen, and Xue Ruitian, before finally fixing her gaze on Chu Han. "What does Grand Uncle mean?"

"You forgot that he left Xijing City more than a hundred years ago. After he left with his master, he disappeared for many years. When he reappeared, he was still young. Isn't that enough? Not only you investigated him, but almost everyone who had contact with him and knew him well investigated him. Other periods are fine, but the period when he disappeared is a blank. Who he met and what he experienced during that time is still unknown to anyone, isn't it?"

“Yes, you’re right.” Shen Cha nodded. “I forgot about that. Those decades were indeed a blank. When he reappeared, it was almost the time when the Great Xia Dynasty was established and the founders of the Qinglian Sect withdrew, allowing him to reap the benefits for free.”

“Indeed.” Chu Han sighed and said, “Actually, it’s not just him, but also my brother, Elder Tantai, His Highness the Eagle King, and I. We all have the same situation. We’ve lived for so long and still maintain this appearance. We don’t know why, but we really want to know. So…” He looked at the children who were staring at him expectantly and said, “While investigating and tracking the Green Lotus Sect and that brat, we’ve also been investigating the origin of that medicine.”

"What was found?"

“No.” Chu Han shook his head slightly. “We didn’t find anything. It seems that the other party randomly selects one or more people to test the medicine every now and then, and their ages are all quite different.” He stood up, wiped the writing off the board, and said, “Prince Mudfish is a young man, probably around twenty-five or twenty-six years old. My brother and I are around thirty-one or thirty-two, and His Highness Eagle King and Senior Tantai are a bit older. As for whether there are any other similar people, we don’t know, but judging from the situation of these few people, it’s hard to say that we aren’t being used as test subjects by this mysterious person hiding behind the scenes.”

“But,” Shen Cha thought for a moment and said, “I asked Elder Tantai and I know about the situation of your two great-uncles. You both obtained this by chance, and it saved your lives.”

“That’s right.” Chu Han nodded and said, “But why did this drug appear in front of us? Who exactly made this drug? And are they still alive? These are all questions.” He looked at Shen Haolin and Shen Cha, “Once we deal with that kid, we’ll probably have to continue investigating this matter.”

Shen Haolin and Shen Cha exchanged a glance and nodded slightly to Chu Han.

“We also asked Senior Tantai and my uncle, but they knew nothing about it,” Shen Cha sighed and said. “They also talked to the master before, but the master wasn’t very clear either.”

"Huilan?" Seeing Shen Cha nod, Chu Han smiled. "We talked about it too, but to no avail. Huilan and her junior brother also felt the appearance of that medicine was very strange, it's a pity."

“We can’t find anything.” Seeing Chu Han’s helpless expression, Shen Cha thought for a moment, “Since Master Falian was the second one, we can catch him and ask him. Maybe he knows something.”

“That’s one way too.” Chu Han nodded and sat back down. “However, I have a feeling that he probably doesn’t know either.” “Senior Tantai was the first among this group to take this medicine, and even he doesn’t know what’s going on. It’s even harder for the others.” Xue Ruitian waved his hand. “Let’s put all that aside for now. What we want to know more about right now is what exactly happened between our great-uncle and Master Falian.”

"Hey, didn't I just say that the downfall of the Jing Prince's Mansion is actually related to the powerful families of Jiangnan? The Green Lotus Sect of the Mudfish Prince is not yet at its peak, so it only has a few dozen people at most. There's very little they can do. They just follow the families' lead, find some people to cause us trouble, create a stir in the streets, and make the Jing Prince's Mansion's reputation deteriorate even faster."

"Spreading rumors?"

“That’s right!” Chu Han smiled. “They think the Jingwang Mansion is no longer powerful, so they’ve become quite arrogant and unruly. They didn’t expect that our forces have all moved into the shadows, making it relatively easy to investigate them. When I was investigating, I saw him. At that time, he didn’t have much power and no confidants around him. He was just a kid. To be honest, seeing how young he was, I didn’t pay much attention to him.”

"Do you regret it now?"

"That's right." Chu Han sighed. "If I had known he had problems and could cause such a big mess, I would have struck first. Unfortunately, there's no going back now. What's done is done, and all we can do is try our best to clean up the mess."

Have you ever had a face-to-face confrontation?

“No.” Chu Han shook his head gently. “Actually, I learned about his identity quite by chance. It all happened after the Jing Prince’s Mansion had completely collapsed.” He spread his hands and smiled at everyone. “My brother and I had already become what we are now by then, eternally youthful. It’s really quite nice. That time, I was ordered to investigate Gu Mo, the Jiangnan Inspector. I returned to Suzhou with my men, and the day after we got back, we saw the Wang family meeting that young man at a restaurant. My men went over and listened in. They found that the Wang family called him the Little Prince and mentioned some people from the previous dynasty. That’s when we confirmed the young man’s identity, and we also confirmed that he was like us, eternally youthful.”

"Looking at it this way, it's clear that all the prominent families in Jiangnan knew of his existence and provided him with assistance to varying degrees."

“That’s right.” Chu Han nodded. “Moreover, almost every case I’ve investigated that involves Jiangnan is related to them.” He looked at Shen Cha and Shen Haolin. “Even if it’s not in Jiangnan, if the investigation goes all the way to the border, their shadows will still be there.”

“But…” Shen Cha recalled the files she had read about the Jiangnan aristocratic families and the Qinglian Sect, “It doesn’t seem reasonable to say that they have always supported the Qinglian Sect and Master Falian. In the early stages, some cases were indeed handled by those aristocratic families in Jiangnan, but it didn’t last long, and the cases they were involved in were not many or serious. It was just as my uncle said, that they helped out casually.”

"Yes, in the years after I came back, the aristocratic families, especially the major families led by the Wang and Xie families, didn't get close to him anymore, and they didn't get involved in many cases. It seemed like they weren't paying much attention to him anymore. Later, he started doing business, and it seems like there was some contact again."