Chapter 3099 — Gu Pengzhan's Past, Part Two: Of course, a pure metal-attribute physique or earth-attribute physique might well accept the inheritance too, but within the Dark Night Palace and the Loess High Sect that was impossible—those two sects could only produce single-bloodline inheritors.

But the young Ye Rou'er did not want to marry the Heaven's Secret Star, the young sect master of the Mystic Elixir Sect, and so... just like the hackneyed plots of novels and TV dramas, she ran away from her wedding!

On the road, the young Ye Rou'er met the handsome and dashing Gu Pengzhan, and so the two fell in love—and even tasted forbidden fruit ahead of time. It was also then that Ye Rou'er became pregnant, and conceived Gu Mengyao!

Yet fire can never be wrapped in paper forever, and the Grand Elder of the Dark Night Palace activated the Dark Phoenix Guiding Stone. By then Ye Rou'er had already been deflowered, and her bloodline had grown even more impure. In theory, the Dark Phoenix Guiding Stone could not have found her—but the Grand Elder paid for it with her own cultivation, joined forces with several experts, and forcibly drove the Guiding Stone until it found Ye Rou'er and Gu Pengzhan, who had already fled abroad!

Ye Rou'er and Gu Pengzhan had both believed this time meant certain death, but what they never expected was that a benefactor they encountered while fleeing lent them a hand—a figure formidable beyond all measure, Mr. Yang.

With terrifically fearsome strength, Mr. Yang forced the Grand Elder of that year to yield, to let Ye Rou'er and Gu Pengzhan go. She did not dare so much as squeak, slinking away in disgrace, and even then did not forget to curry favor with Mr. Yang.

As time passed, however, Mr. Yang suddenly vanished without a trace and never appeared again. And because Mr. Yang had vanished, the Grand Elder once more turned her designs on Ye Rou'er, dragging her forcibly back to the Dark Night Palace and compelling her to keep attempting the inheritance!

But Mr. Yang's lingering shadow had been so immense that it left even the Grand Elder with a psychological scar. When she took Ye Rou'er away back then, she had not dared to lay a hand on Gu Pengzhan or Gu Mengyao!

Yet no matter how fearsome a figure may be, once he has vanished for over a decade without a word, the Grand Elder's lingering dread gradually faded. In her eyes, that man was surely dead by now, and so she began once more to plot the killing of Gu Pengzhan and Gu Mengyao.

For so many years this had been the secret in Gu Pengzhan's heart, and he had never told Gu Mengyao, because the ancient sects stood very, very far from people of the secular world—existence they could only gaze up at.

Even though Wei Zhao was tremendously powerful, able to set himself against the great families and the hidden families, he still could not afford to make enemies of the ancient sects.

It was also because Wei Zhao had recently begun stepping into the ancient sects and making friends with the disciples of various ancient sects that Gu Pengzhan had finally made up his mind today to tell these old, bygone matters to Gu Mengyao and Wei Zhao!

Otherwise, Gu Pengzhan would never have dared to speak of it before. He feared that Gu Mengyao or Wei Zhao might do something reckless. After all, Mr. Yang of those years had vanished, and Gu Pengzhan's backer was gone. He was afraid too.

"What? So the Grand Elder of the Dark Night Palace took my mother, and now she wants to take me too?" After hearing the old tales Gu Pengzhan recounted, Gu Mengyao could not help being both shocked and furious. "That Grand Elder is truly wicked—she took my mother away, leaving you without a wife and me without a mother. She is the very picture of one who bullies the weak and fears the strong. Why doesn't that Mr. Yang come back to punish her?"

"Yes, I never imagined the Dark Night Palace would set its sights on you again..." Gu Pengzhan smiled bitterly. "If Mr. Yang were still here, how would she dare take your mother away? She would have been so frightened she would not know how to curry favor!"

"Then it seems certain that my mother failed the inheritance, and that is why they have come looking for me?" Gu Mengyao nodded. She was no fool, and grasped the Dark Night Palace's intent at once.

"That should be it. But what puzzles me is that in your bloodline there is no Dark Phoenix blood at all—only a tiny, tiny trace, almost negligible. The Grand Elder did once turn her designs on you, but she gave up after examining you. So why has she come looking for you now?" Gu Pengzhan said, somewhat perplexed.

"Oh? Is that so?" Gu Mengyao was puzzled as well. If that was the case, then what had the Grand Elder come all this way for?

"Oh, Arrow-Brand Brother, do you think maybe Sister Yaoyao's bloodline mutated because she ate a black phoenix?" Shen Yushu suddenly thought of something important. Once, on an outing, Wei Zhao had bought a black pheasant, but the man selling it had insisted it was a black phoenix. Could that have been a Dark Phoenix?

"Me? When did I ever eat a black phoenix?" Gu Mengyao was startled for a moment, but then her expression changed. "You mean that dream? And I actually ate a Dark Phoenix in reality too?!"

"It must be!" Wei Zhao nodded and said, "Thinking back now, you told us that in your dream, the person in it did not seem to be you but someone else—a crowd calling you Palace Master, handing you a Dark Phoenix to eat... My guess is that this was a memory inheritance that came about by a stroke of fate!"

"Memory inheritance?" Gu Mengyao did not quite understand what Wei Zhao meant.

"The place where you ate the Dark Phoenix must have been very close to the Dark Night Palace, and by my guess, the Dark Night Palace's first Dark Phoenix bloodline arose precisely because someone devoured a Dark Phoenix—and that person may well have been your ancestor, Yaoyao!" Wei Zhao said. "We happened to have a Dark Phoenix in our hands, and you are blood-related to your ancestor. I suspect that under the urging and prompting of some mysterious force, you were made to consume that Dark Phoenix! And the memory of your ancestor consuming a Dark Phoenix back then was inherited into your mind as well."

"Good grief, Arrow-Brand Brother, you're about to catch up with Detective Shu—so impressive!" Shen Yushu said in admiration.

"In that case, it is quite likely!" Gu Mengyao nodded. "That would also explain why the Grand Elder paid me no mind back then, and yet comes looking for me now..."

"It must be so!" Wei Zhao nodded and said, "And that means your bloodline is now the same as your ancestor's. For a bloodline like that, accepting the inheritance would be simplicity itself."

"Then there is one thing I still don't understand: if my mother is an inheritor, why has she not come to see me all these years, not even a phone call? From the Grand Elder's attitude toward me, she does not wish to fall out with me either, so my mother ought to hold some standing in the Dark Night Palace! Xiaoxiao can even call us from the Ice Palace!" Gu Mengyao asked, somewhat perplexed.

"Your mother's **personality..." At this point Gu Pengzhan could not help but smile bitterly.RS