The space inside the treehouse was not large, but there were many things inside. At a glance, it appeared incomparably cluttered.
On the floor in the center, a dark yellow, thick blanket was spread out.
Against the wall inside the room was a wood-burning iron stove, and on the stove sat a copper water kettle. Inside the stove were black ashes, and beside it was a small pile of unburned dry firewood.
Even though it was summer, the nights in these mountains were still cold and damp. Although the iron stove was small, once a fire was lit, it could keep the entire treehouse warm.
The treehouse had two windows open. Two or three hemp ropes wound around the outer edge of one window, crossed the treehouse horizontally, and were then secured to the outer edge of the other window.
Hanging on the hemp ropes were a few worn-out clothes patched up with pieces. They were clearly adult clothes, still carrying some moisture and not completely dried.
The afterglow of the setting sun shone through the windows, reflecting into the treehouse.
The light inside the treehouse was dim. A beast skin was wrapped around the handles of an iron axe and a hunting knife by the corner of the wall. There were also dark red bloodstains on the blades.
On another section of the wall, a piece of bamboo paper was pasted, with a dagger stabbed right in the center.
Drawn on the bamboo paper was the face of a teenager; it was shockingly Fang Yuan's face!
All of this indicated that in the recent period, a person had come to this hidden small treehouse and lived in seclusion. This person's target was evidently Fang Yuan, who was drawn on the bamboo paper.
The dagger stabbed into the paper expressed his malicious intent thoroughly!
Such a scene could not help but make the person involved, Fang Yuan, emotionally moved.
"What does this person want to do, and why is he targeting me? No, perhaps not me, but Fang Zheng." Thoughts violently churned in Fang Yuan's mind.
Fang Zheng was an A grade aptitude, the Gu Yue clan's only A grade genius in three years, and the hope of the Gu Yue clan. If he could truly be nurtured, he would be the banner of the next generation's clan.
But nurturing always required a process.
During this process, there were natural disasters, and even more so, human-made disasters.
Setting aside natural disasters for now, the key was human-made disasters. As everyone knew, the Gu Yue village was not the only one on Qingmao Mountain; there were also the Bai village and the Xiong village. These two factions would absolutely not be happy to see the traditional overlord, the Gu Yue clan, smoothly nurture an A grade genius.
Therefore, dispatching assassins to assassinate was a common occurrence.
In this world, geniuses were few, and those who could smoothly grow up were even fewer.
It was not as if Gu Masters with A grade aptitude did not exist. Three years ago, one had appeared in the Gu Yue clan. In earlier eras, they had also emerged repeatedly.
But the three great villages on Qingmao Mountain added together over these years had only nurtured one A grade genius, and that was Bai Ning Bing of the Bai village, who was now already at Rank three cultivation.
This phenomenon alone was enough to explain many things.
"Is this person from the Bai village or the Xiong village? Have they started to obliterate Gu Yue Fang Zheng now?" Fang Yuan frowned, staring at the portrait on the wooden wall.
"But why would this treehouse be marked on Old Man Wang's beast skin map? Could Old Man Wang be a hidden informant privately developed by other factions? No, this person is coming for me!"
A sharp light burst forth fiercely in Fang Yuan's eyes.
At this moment, he recalled many scenes.
The first time, beside the trap, he heard the conversation of those four young hunters—
One hunter said, "Second Brother Wang, if you ask me, you'll be nineteen this new year; at this age, you absolutely should also marry a wife and have kids."
Wang Er instead replied, "Hmph, as a manly man, how can I covet this little bit of beauty! One day, I will walk out of this Qingmao Mountain, roam the outside world, and experience the world; only then will I not be unworthy of this man's body of mine!"
The second time was Wang Er's abnormal calmness after he made a move himself. He drew his bow and nocked an arrow, pointing straight at Fang Yuan. Meanwhile, the other three were already begging for mercy.
The third time was Fang Yuan's questioning.
"I ask you, is there anyone else left in Old Man Wang's family?"
A hunter replied, "Head Hunter Wang originally had a wife, but more than ten years ago, she was killed by wild wolves that invaded the village. Before his wife died, she gave birth to two boys and a girl for Old Man Wang. But the eldest son, Wang Da, died on the mountain while hunting three years ago. The Wang family has no one left."
"I, I remember now! Old Man Wang actually also has a daughter-in-law, who is Wang Da's wife. But after Wang Da went missing, that woman also died for love. That year, the upper echelons of the village even specially sent down a chastity memorial archway. But I heard that in truth, Wang Da's wife wanted to remarry and was forced to death by Old Man Wang. Lord, by killing Old Man Wang, you are uprooting evil, pacifying the good, and bringing fortune to the people ah."
The other person hurriedly echoed, "That's right, that's right. Actually, Lord, we also found this Old Man Wang displeasing to the eyes a long time ago. Hmph, what's so great about him, isn't he just better at hunting than us? Clearly, we are all mortals, but he acted as if he was very special, specially moving out of the village to live here. As the younger generation, sometimes we wanted to consult him for experience, but he directly drove us away, and wouldn't even allow us to appear near the wooden cabin again!"
Old Man Wang's family moved out of the village and lived isolated from the masses…
The eldest son, Wang Da, died on the mountain while hunting three years ago…
Wang Da's wife wanted to remarry and was forced to death by Old Man Wang, earning a chastity memorial archway…
Old Man Wang drove away all the youngsters who came to consult him for hunting experience…
Old Man Wang single-mindedly concealed the beast skin map; on the bamboo papers handed to Fang Yuan, he completely did not draw these three red circles…
Wang Er was young but very calm when facing a Gu Master. At the same time, he did not marry and harbored great ambitions surpassing the mortal level…
An even more crucial point was that the red circle marked on the beast skin map was a hidden habitat. There were clearly signs of human activity here. Additionally, this person held intense malice toward Fang Yuan or Fang Zheng…
If these clues were separated, it would not be easy for a person to detect. But once connected together, it was suspicious!
The more Fang Yuan pondered, the more he felt the layers of fog enveloping his vision becoming thinner and thinner.
The afterglow of the setting sun shone through the windows onto his face, so heavy that it seemed like a smear of blood color.
The surroundings seemed to fall into a dead silence. Was someone hiding closely behind, constantly spying on him?
Suddenly, Fang Yuan's eyes lit up sharply. His gaze seemed to piece through time, and he saw the truth!
"Wang Da did not die."
At this moment, profound light radiated from his eyes!
"Not only did he not die, but by a stroke of coincidental luck, he became a demonic path Gu Master!"
It was not that mortals completely lacked cultivation aptitude, but the clan system tightly held the methods of a Gu Master's cultivation strictly in their hands.
But things in the world were never absolute.
There were instances where mortals were able to cultivate into Gu Masters. For example, accidentally encountering a Hope Gu in the wild and opening their aperture. Or inheriting a certain strength inheritance, or receiving private teachings from a person within a clan, and so on.
But such Gu Masters were always unaccepted by the clans and could at most become thugs on the clan's periphery. Thus, remaining unreconciled, they became lone Gu Masters. The conditions for cultivation were extremely arduous, and as time passed, in order to compete for resources, they had to resort to burning, killing, and looting. This led them onto the demonic path.
"Due to a certain fortunate encounter—the most likely possibility being obtaining a legacy from the corpse of a Gu Master—Wang Da became a Gu Master three years ago. To deceive the public, he released false news of his death. In reality, absolutely no one had ever seen his corpse. After Old Man Wang's family learned of this matter, they moved out of the village, braving the risk of being attacked by wild beasts to live in isolation, specifically to continue covering up this truth."
"But some divergence appeared in this. Wang Da's wife disagreed, perhaps wanting to report to the Gu Yue village. The Wang family had no choice but to murder the wife and deliberately spread some half-true, half-false rumors. Things like wanting to remarry, being forced to death, and so on, firmly covering the truth beneath these rumors and gossip."
"Every set period of time, Wang Da would return home to live. Old Man Wang drove away those youngsters who came knocking to seek experience. Through his interactions with his older brother Wang Da, Wang Er's fear towards Gu Masters gradually dissipated, and he naturally developed a grand ambition to also become a Gu Master and roam the outside world!"
"Out of worry that Wang Da's whereabouts would leak out, Wang Er, despite his age, did not carelessly take a wife. Wang Da could not always reside at home, so Old Man Wang drew three red circles on the beast skin map. These three places should all be such hidden residences. A crafty rabbit has three burrows; Wang Da took turns living in these residences, surviving in the cracks between the territories of the three great villages."
The meaning behind these three red circles was finally clear at this moment!
Red often represented something eye-catching and important. To Old Man Wang, these were the residences of his eldest son. That was why when Fang Yuan asked Old Man Wang to draw a map, he did not draw these three red circles on the bamboo paper, so as to protect his eldest son. Similarly, he drew fewer red crosses, wanting to avenge the murder of his son.
"Perhaps at a fixed time every year, Wang Da had to return home to stay for a period. After returning, he saw his family dead. After inquiring secretly, he traced it to me, which was why my portrait was nailed to the wall with a dagger; it was to seek revenge on me!"
Relying on his past life's experience, Fang Yuan was almost certain this was the truth.
If other factions wanted to assassinate Fang Zheng, they could be completely more covert about it. There was also no need to develop a mortal hidden informant like Old Man Wang. After all, Old Man Wang lived at the foot of the mountain, not inside the Gu Yue village.
"To think that for the sake of a beast skin map, I provoked a demonic path killer. The affairs of this world are truly wondrous," Fang Yuan could not help but sneer involuntarily.
He killed Wang Er first, and then Old Man Wang and the Wang family sister later, to obtain the beast skin map more directly. Old Man Wang was the number one hunter in the surrounding villages, so his beast skin map naturally held the most value.
At the time, he thought: they are just the lives of three mortals, what's the big deal; killing them is just killing them along the way.
In this world, everyone had the right to survive, and everyone could die.
Now, he didn't expect that a demonic path Gu Master had actually popped out!
Regarding this, Fang Yuan had absolutely no regrets; instead, he felt fortunate.
If he had been soft-hearted at the time while wanting to obtain the Wang family's beast skin map, Wang Er, Old Man Wang, and the Wang family sister would have all been a huge obstacle. To protect Wang Da's secret, they absolutely would not bring out the genuine article.
Wang Er's combat strength was already capable of slaughtering an ordinary Rank one upper stage Gu Master. Old Man Wang was even more seasoned and vicious; if it truly came to a life-and-death struggle, his threat was even greater than Wang Er's.
Even if he did obtain the genuine map, once Old Man Wang informed Wang Da of the details, Wang Da would immediately learn Fang Yuan's accurate information. No matter how he dealt with it, he would be in the dark while Fang Yuan was in the light, and the initiative would be firmly grasped in his hands.
"Thankfully I initiated killing right away! No matter what, I continually kept the situation firmly under my control. Doing it this way, even if I ultimately could not obtain the genuine map, I suffered no loss and could just go rob from other hunters. Moreover, executing Old Man Wang and that girl so cleanly and decisively made Wang Da waste time collecting intel on me. Without a doubt, those two young hunters who survived have definitely already been silenced by him." Fang Yuan's heart was completely clear.
The people who knew were only a few. Wang Da would not make a move on Jiang He; once Jiang He died, the clan would dispatch people to investigate. However, if those two hunters went missing on the mountain, it would be easy to manipulate. For the sake of his own evaluation within the clan, Jiang He would not expose this kind of thing, but would instead cover up for Wang Da.