Chapter 1252 — The Astonished Yang Huaijun

"The Yu family? Yu Feng?" Yang Huaijun started. He too was a son of a great clan; though the Yang family was barely known by name, it was a genuine old-guard house. Such families generally kept an ancestral elder in seclusion to hold the fort, made no bid for a seat among the Four Great Families, and were content with a place among the Five Lesser Families. Nobody offended such a house, but neither did it suffer much in the way of ostracism.

So Yang Huaijun had certainly heard of Yu Feng. What puzzled him was why the Yu family would form a marriage alliance with the Song family. The Song family had no obvious edge to speak of — beyond their dual-cultivation technique, there was nothing else worthy of mention...

"I am now a master at the late-stage peak of the Yellow Realm..." Qiu Lingshan kept nothing back from Yang Huaijun. "That is exactly why the Yu family wants to take me as a bride. They think that at my tender age I am already at the late-stage peak of the Yellow Realm, and that my prospects are simply limitless — especially once I cultivate in dual practice with someone of the Yu family, we will both benefit..."

"You... at the late-stage peak of the Yellow Realm?!" Yang Huaijun's eyes went wide, as though he had seen a ghost in broad daylight. He stared at Qiu Lingshan, unable to believe a word she had said. A long moment passed before he managed, stunned: "Xiao Song, if I remember correctly, when I left Songshan City a while back you were only at the early-stage peak of the Yellow Realm. How could you have jumped all the way to the late-stage peak of the Profound Realm in one move?"

"Well... Big Brother Yang, if I tell you, can you keep it for me?" Qiu Lingshan had not meant to say anything, but she hesitated a moment and reasoned that since Yang Huaijun was Wei Zhao's comrade-in-arms and the two were close, there was no harm in telling him — provided he kept it absolutely secret.

Qiu Lingshan knew perfectly well how much the matter mattered. If word ever got out that Wei Zhao could raise another person's strength in short order, and everyone came flocking to him, or set about making trouble for him, that was the last thing she wished to see.

That was precisely why Qiu Lingshan was being so cautious and careful.

"Of course I can! Though if it has to stay secret, there is no need to tell me at all — I understand." Yang Huaijun did not press her; after all, everyone was entitled to a privacy of their own.

"Big Brother Yang, what exactly is your relationship with Wei Zhao?" Qiu Lingshan asked.

"Oh?" Yang Huaijun blinked. He had not expected her to sidestep his question and turn it back on Wei Zhao instead... Could her sudden leap in strength have something to do with Wei Zhao? All at once he recalled a phone call Wei Zhao had made not long ago, saying that he had found a way to repair the meridians in his own body and resume his training in the internal arts. Could there be some connection?

At that thought Yang Huaijun saw no reason to hold back. "Wei Zhao was my captain, back in the day. In truth, you have probably guessed it already — he is a man I admire very greatly, and he has helped me enormously. I was injured, as you know, but the fact that I look so hale of late is Wei Zhao's doing as well."

"Ah!" Qiu Lingshan was caught off guard for a moment. She had never imagined that Wei Zhao had actually been Yang Huaijun's captain! No wonder he was so remarkable — and when he helped her crack her cases, he had made it look like child's play. Big Brother Yang, whom she revered so much, was already formidable; and if Wei Zhao could be Big Brother Yang's captain, he must be more formidable still.

So if that was the case, her earlier conviction that Wei Zhao was even more capable than Big Brother Yang was no great scandal — it was simply the truth, and Big Brother Yang himself had admitted as much. At that thought, the guilt gnawing at Qiu Lingshan's heart eased a good deal.

"My advancement... was Wei Zhao's doing as well," Qiu Lingshan sighed softly. "Shocking, isn't it? I was shocked too..."

"You two dual-cultivated?" Yang Huaijun knit his brows slightly and asked.

"No." Qiu Lingshan shook her head. "It is rather embarrassing to say, but I tried to seduce him — and failed."

Before a brotherly figure like him, Qiu Lingshan saw no need to hide it. If it made her look ridiculous, so be it.

Yang Huaijun, however, paid no mind to her word "seduce" — his attention had fastened on the first half of her answer. "If you didn't dual-cultivate, then your strength — you mean he raised it directly, with nothing in between?"

"Exactly. In a single day — less than a day, really — I advanced." Qiu Lingshan smiled ruefully. "I really don't know whether he has even more formidable tricks up his sleeve... And Big Brother Yang, to be frank with you, in those cases I cracked after your pointers, it was always Wei Zhao I went to — and he settled every last one of them."

"Solving cases — that I know about. Eagle... that is, Wei Zhao, when he was on our squad, had an uncanny nose about him; he could sense things no ordinary person could." Yang Huaijun paused. "But this business of advancing strength, I know little about. Still, Lingshan, you are never to speak of this to anyone else again — it must be kept strictly secret, you understand? The matter is far too weighty."

"I know. Besides you, Big Brother Yang, only my younger sister knows of it." Qiu Lingshan's face was grave as she spoke; she understood the gravity of the thing, even if Wei Zhao himself seemed not to care in the least — the man had gone and raised his own dog to the late-stage peak of the Yellow Realm, turning the poor mutt into a top dog.

"Good — let us leave it there." Yang Huaijun had no intention of pressing for details. On that score he would question Wei Zhao himself, and he trusted that Wei Zhao would hold nothing back from him. Making Qiu Lingshan spill everything was, in the end, not quite proper — who knew what Wei Zhao might come to think of her if she did.

So Yang Huaijun steered the conversation straight elsewhere. "Xiao Song, tell me — what brings you to me this time? What trouble have you run into now?"

"Mm — a string of disappearances." Qiu Lingshan took out the case files and handed them over. "Take a look, Big Brother Yang. On the face of these files, the missing persons have nothing whatsoever to do with one another — yet the circumstances of their vanishing are all very much the same..."

"Mm, let me have a look first." Yang Huaijun nodded, accepted the files, then sat down on the edge of the bed nearby and began leafing through them.

Qiu Lingshan said nothing; she simply stood to one side, waiting in silence.

"Why don't you sit? Since when are you so polite when you come to see me?" Yang Huaijun gestured toward the sofa with an amused smile. There were no few files, but every disappearance much resembled the next; after reading through a handful he merely skimmed the rest, then snapped the folder shut. "What do you make of it? Let's hear your thoughts first."

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