Unparalleled medical and martial arts skills, saving the CEO's fiancée at the start.

The Laodu Temple is located on a very remote riverbank north of Wuyidu, surrounded by waist-high reeds. When the wind blows, the reed flowers sway like snow.

The temple was small, with gray walls and black tiles, and weeds growing a foot high on the roof ridge.

Only half of the door remained, hanging crookedly on the door frame, as if it could be blown away by the wind at any moment.

There are three stone steps in front of the temple, covered with moss. Below the steps is the yellow and turbid river water, which is slowly lapping against the mudflats.

Ye Chen parked his motorcycle some distance away and walked over with Jiang Ruoxi.

Jiang Ruoxi held the compass wrapped in oiled paper, glancing up at the small temple from time to time.

She said this place looked even more desolate than Meixi Beishan, but for some reason, she wasn't afraid at all.

Once inside the temple, the humidity was even higher.

The statues on the shrine had long since disappeared, leaving only a blackened back wall with a few broken incense sticks and half a red candle scattered in front of it.

Ye Chen cleared out a section of broken bricks under the shrine, and as Shen Shanhe had instructed, placed the compass flat on it, and then placed three white candles directly facing the river.

Jiang Ruoxi shielded him from the wind and lit the torches one by one.

The candlelight was extremely weak, swaying left and right in the river wind, but it refused to go out, as if three tiny eyes were watching the center of the river for them.

The two retreated to the door and waited quietly.

It was already dark, and the fog on the river was spreading from the opposite bank, blurring the sounds of boats and the shadows of reeds.

After waiting for about an incense stick's time, Jiang Ruoxi suddenly grabbed Ye Chen's arm.

She didn't say anything, but simply pointed towards the riverbank.

Ye Chen looked in that direction and indeed saw a very faint figure in the mist, walking very, very slowly along the waterline toward the temple.

The person walked slowly and deliberately, without an umbrella or a light, as if counting the waves as they went by.

Ye Chen placed his hand on the hilt of the sword. Jiang Ruoxi also concealed the dagger in her sleeve.

The man stopped four or five steps from the temple, still with his head down, his face obscured by the river mist.

He said in a hoarse voice, "Did Shen Shanhe send you?"

Ye Chen replied, "Yes."

The man was silent for a moment, then slowly raised his head.

It is five shadows.

But then again, it isn't.

This face was thinner than the one Ye Chen had seen at the old sugar factory and on the island in the river, like an old piece of paper soaked in river water.

The day of the fight was shrouded in mist, and I couldn't see the faces of the five knights clearly at all.

Wu Ying looked at Ye Chen and suddenly chuckled softly, "We've fought before, and he said you would come, but he didn't say you would bring her."

Ye Chen didn't loosen his grip on the sword: "Old Ghost said you owe my father a head, so why are you risking your life for Wen Jiuhong?"

Wu Ying nodded, but did not come in.

He stood in the fog, like a hidden stake half-grown out of the river.

He said, "My life was saved by your father from Elder Jiu. That year in Wuyi Ferry, I was supposed to die in the execution hall of Heishui. It was your father who carried me out of that dark room and took a knife for me. Before he died, he told me that if his descendants came with the Kuzhao Sword, I would repay them with my life. But for the past twenty years, I have been in Heishui."

He paused, staring at Ye Chen: "Ye Chen, what do you want to ask?"

Ye Chen asked, "Where is Elder Jiu? What exactly does Wen Jiuhong want? Did you kill my father back then?"

He asked that last question very softly, yet it was colder than the river wind. The five figures neither dodged nor avoided it.

He slowly reached out and lifted the left side of his shirt.

There was no skin or flesh underneath; it was a whole patch of old wound burned like tree bark.

He said, "Back then, I was on my last breath when your father pushed me into the river. If I wanted to kill him, I wouldn't be alive today. He left you a way out and also left me with my life. If I fought back, I wouldn't be human."

Ye Chen stared at the wound for a long time, and his grip on the sword hilt slowly loosened.

Wu Ying also said that Old Man Jiu was hiding deeper below the old ferry crossing, in a place not called the Upside-Down Gourd, but the Listening-to-Water Cave.

Wei Qing and Qin Wuyi were both raised by Jiu Lao.

Wen Jiuhong was merely a respectable person who handled matters for Elder Jiu outside.

What they were really waiting for wasn't the Heavenly Physician's Creation Technique, but something Ye Changfeng had taken from the ancient cave years ago: half of the "Medicine King's Fate Map".

That diagram can determine the dragon vein, open the gate of life and death, and also allow the doves raised in the black water to return to the water.

Ye Chen and Jiang Ruoxi found it increasingly mysterious, but they both knew that the Five Shadows had no reason to fabricate such things at this time.

Jiang Ruoxi asked, "Where is that picture?"

The five shadows replied, "It's on you."

He pointed to the sheepskin map that Ye Chen had taken from Shen Shanhe.

"Shen Shanhe didn't tell you that this map is only half of a map. The other half is hidden in Old Jiu's copper box that he never opens. Your father split the map in two back then to prevent the black water from re-entering the dragon vein. Now both halves are here. Old Jiu has been waiting for this opportunity for twenty years. If you don't take the map away, he will crawl out of the Listening Water Cave to find you. You are now already in his net."

Upon hearing this, Ye Chen calmed down.

He looked down at the parchment in his arms, then looked up at the shrine without any statues.

The three white candles are still burning.

He suddenly realized that Shen Shanhe had brought him to this dilapidated temple not so that he could meet Wu Ying, but so that Wu Ying could tell him everything that needed to be said.

What his father arranged thirty years ago was not just a sword, a map, or a brother.

It was still a chain, link by link, leading from the dead to the gate of life. Wen Jiuhong was just one link in it.

The Five Shadows are just one part of the whole.

The real mastermind behind the operation was Old Man Jiu, who never dared to step into the sunlight.

"I want to see Elder Jiu," Ye Chen said.

The five shadows remained silent for a long time.

The river wind made the fog even thicker, and the three candles in the temple were already half burned.

Wu Ying finally spoke: "Three days later, there will be a water ceremony in the north of the river. Everyone from the Blackwater Headquarters will be there, and Elder Jiu will also make an appearance. If you want to see him, I can lead the way, but you should think carefully first. That place is surrounded by water on all sides. Once you go in, it will be difficult to get out."

Ye Chen glanced at Jiang Ruoxi.

Jiang Ruoxi was also looking at him.

Neither of them said anything, but they both read the same answer in each other's eyes.

"Lead the way," Jiang Ruoxi said.

Her voice was very soft, yet it shook the fog in the temple.

Wu Ying didn't say anything more, but took out a tiny bamboo whistle from his pocket and placed it on the stone steps.

Then he turned and walked into the fog, disappearing in a few steps.

Ye Chen walked over and picked up the bamboo whistle, which still had a faint smell of blood from Jiang Wu and Wu Ying's palms.

He blew a whistle, the sound extremely sharp, as if tearing away the layer of gray fog on the river surface.

The three white candles burned down to the bottom.

Ye Chen took Jiang Ruoxi's hand, stepped over the moss-covered stone steps, and walked back the way they came.

Night fell, enveloping everything like a silent, vast river.

They walked in the river breeze, and neither of them spoke.

But they both knew that this game, which started in the previous generation, had finally come down to their turn to make a move.