My brother entrusted his child to me, and I livestreamed raising the baby, making the Empress cry wi

"Chase them! Chase them! To Qingfeng Mountain!!"

Shu Jingwei also recognized the destination the light was pointing to. She almost screamed and lashed the horse's rump with her whip. The warhorse, in pain, neighed and charged forward.

She didn't care what Lin Ye was going to do at Qingfeng Mountain; all she wanted now was to capture that fiend and execute him by a thousand cuts! That way, she could solidify her supreme position!

As Yao Jingyuan rode on his horse, he carefully recalled whether he had handled the situation properly, his eyes filled with a dark and unreadable expression.

His henchmen came over and asked, "Lord Yao, should we still go with them?"

Watching Shu Jingwei lead her army away into the distance, Yao Jingyuan forcibly suppressed the unease in his heart.

Everyone in the Cold Palace who knew about it except him had been executed by Shu Jingwei, so it was impossible for anyone else to know!

He gritted his teeth: "Go!"

He was waiting for Lin Ye and Shu Jingwei to fight so he could reap the benefits.

What if he's not there and those two team up against him? He has to go and keep an eye on things with his own eyes!

……

A golden streak of light pierced the sky, and the earth below rushed past.

Lin Ye's expression was icy, his gaze fixed on the light emanating from the Search Stone, as he sped toward the not-so-tall Qingfeng Mountain in the distance.

Soon, Lin Ye followed the search for Qi Shi to the mountainside of Qingfeng Mountain.

As far as the eye could see, there was no greenery, only jagged, craggy brown rocks, large expanses of bare yellow earth eroded by wind and rain, and...

Scattered among the cracks in the rocks, on the soil, and half-buried under the loose soil, are countless white bones!

Some of the skeletons were still relatively intact, maintaining a curled-up human-shaped posture, with empty eye sockets staring at the gray sky.

More often, there were scattered fragments of bone, pale, grayish-brown, or even covered in dark stains, reflecting a cold, deathly light under the gloomy sky.

Some tattered pieces of coarse cloth, almost the same color as the soil, were either hanging on sharp rock corners or half-buried in the ground, fluttering weakly in the mountain wind, making a faint rustling sound like a sigh.

The air was thick with a pungent smell of dust, a faint stench of blood, and the stench of something rotting, making it hard to breathe.

This is a...

A mass grave!?

Almost instinctively, Lin Ye hugged the small, bundled-up body in his arms even tighter.

It was as if she wanted to use her body heat to separate herself from this hell on earth before her.

Little Douzi seemed to sense the pervasive chill as well.

She closed her eyes tightly, buried her small hands in front of her, and involuntarily burrowed deeper into Lin Ye's warm and firm embrace.

The moment Lin Ye saw the scene before him, his heart sank to the bottom as if gripped by a giant hand.

A surge of anger mixed with deep sorrow rushed to his head, causing his vision to go black for a moment, and his temples to throb.

He held the "Searching for People Stone" in his hand, his knuckles taut and pale from excessive force, the veins on the back of his hand bulging.

His best brother, Ye Fan.

That upright and honest man, whose life was simple and passionate, ultimately fell asleep in this kind of place.

Lying in this cold, dirty, desolate wilderness piled with nameless, withered bones?

Shu Jingwei, Yao Jingyuan... those two scumbags!!

How dare they?!

"Old Ye..." Lin Ye's Adam's apple bobbed violently, and he almost squeezed out the two words through his teeth. His voice was low, hoarse, and trembling.

"Sorry... it's me, I'm late!"

The little one in his arms seemed to sense his emotions. One hand quietly reached out, groped, and tightly grasped the front of his shirt, with complete dependence and silent comfort.

Lin Ye then came to his senses and patted Xiao Douzi's back reassuringly, indicating that he was alright.

He then took a deep breath, forcibly suppressed his thoughts, and continued to activate the [flying sword] beneath his feet.

The flying sword trembled slightly and flew steadily and quickly towards the depths of the mass grave, to that even more desolate area.

Finally, the beam of light from the search stone pointed straight down to a slope below.

The area is littered with jagged rocks and scattered bones, making the stench of decay even stronger.

The beam of light landed precisely beside a huge rock, about half a person's height and covered with deep wind erosion marks.

There, a skeleton lay half-buried in rubble and grayish-yellow loose soil, leaning diagonally against the cold stone wall.

The skeleton was clearly incomplete; a section of the forearm bone was missing, and several clear dents and deep scratches from the sharp teeth of wild animals remained on the pelvis and leg bones.

On the skeleton, one can still vaguely see a few tattered strips of coarse cloth that have almost blended into the soil beneath it, clinging to the grayish-white bones, trembling slightly with the howling mountain wind.

The flying sword slowly descended, and Lin Ye jumped down with Xiao Douzi in his arms, then put the flying sword back into his system inventory.

Then, step by step, slowly and firmly, he walked to the silent boulder, to the skeleton leaning against it, as if it were just sleeping from exhaustion.

Then, he knelt down on one knee.

The cold gravel poked at his knees, causing a slight stinging pain, but he was completely unaware of it.

Lin Ye's gaze was fixed on the skeleton's right hand.

The bones of that right hand were relatively intact, and the five fingers were slightly curled, as if it wanted to grasp something before it died, but then helplessly let go.

At the first joint of the little finger bone, a protruding joint, distinctly different from the other joints, clearly came into Lin Ye's view.

Time seemed to freeze at that moment, only to be shattered by an invisible hammer.

All the sounds seemed to fade away from him in that instant.

The gruesome skeleton before him gradually overlapped with the image in his memory of the boy who always had a smile on his face and whose right little finger was uniquely bent because he saved him when he was a child, and then suddenly tore apart!

Under the locust tree in the orphanage, the muffled groan and the instant pale face of the boy Ye Fan as he lunged forward, the cold sweat pouring from his forehead.

During the days when there was no money for treatment and they could only wait for it to heal on its own, the boy grimaced in pain but still smiled and raised his finger, joking with him.

"It's alright, Lao Lin, look, I'm perfectly fine! It doesn't affect my ability to be your dad at all!"

The once vibrant and warm-hearted person has suddenly transformed into this broken skeleton lying in the cold, dusty rocks.

"Old Ye..." Lin Ye's lips moved almost imperceptibly, emitting a hoarse, broken sound.

His entire body was taut, like a fully drawn bow, every muscle stiffened by extreme pressure.

The rage and grief that had been churning in his chest ever since he arrived at this mass grave suddenly surged forth and struck him hard.

My vision blurred for a moment, either from the rush of blood to my head or from some scalding liquid unexpectedly breaching my defenses.

Lin Ye suddenly closed his eyes.

When she opened her eyes again a moment later, her expression had returned to calm, and she even managed a forced smile.

"Look at Lao Ye, it's Xiao Douzi." Lin Ye's voice was extremely low and hoarse, like a dull knife scraping against rough rock.

"Look how well I've raised them! They'll get even better in the future. Don't worry!"

He paused, a deep-seated hatred and murderous intent surging in his eyes.

"As for those two scumbags..."

"What you've suffered, I'll make them pay back tenfold, a hundredfold!"

"Not one of them can escape!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the mountain wind howled and swept past, lifting a few strands of hair from his forehead and revealing his resolute eyes.

Lin Ye didn't say anything more. He just squatted down with the small bag in his arms and began to carefully and gently clean the fallen leaves and pebbles from the skeleton with his free hand.

……

At this moment, at the foot of Qingfeng Mountain, smoke and dust billowed, and iron hooves thundered!

Shu Jingwei and Yao Jingyuan arrived with their army!