Chapter 3408 — Found It!

The car raced along, and soon they reached the expressway entrance at Chenbei City. Since Donghai City was fairly close, Wei Zhao pulled into the toll station and saw, at the waiting area by the roadside not far ahead, Feng Xiaoxiao's Land Rover parked there.

Wei Zhao honked twice. Yu Dake signaled that he had received the message, and the two set off one behind the other, heading toward the Hakunamata Desert.

This was their second trip, and both knew the route well. Finally, on the second day, they arrived at the Yu family residence.

By now, the place had regained its former tranquility. After the Gu family left, they truly had never come back—and presumably would not dare to. Their patron had been done in by Wei Zhao; how would they dare cause trouble again?

"Where's the ancestral hall? Let's hurry over," Wei Zhao said.

"Right!" Yu Dake, too, was anxious about his sister's condition. He led Wei Zhao through a maze of turns until they reached a courtyard. Inside the courtyard stood a building of classic antique style—this was most likely the Yu family ancestral hall.

Wei Zhao had never seen a real ancestral hall before, though he had seen similar ones on television, and the exterior here looked somewhat alike.

But just as Yu Dake was about to step into the ancestral hall, he suddenly halted in his tracks, his expression changing drastically! Pointing at a plaque above the hall, he said with barely suppressed anger, "Mr. Lin, look at that..."

Wei Zhao looked up and saw four large characters on the plaque—Gu Family Ancestral Hall. His brows knitted at once! What was the meaning of this? The Gu Family Ancestral Hall? Did that mean the spirit tablets enshrined inside had all been replaced with the Gu family's?

At that thought, Wei Zhao rushed inside. Sure enough, the tablets enshrined within all bore the surname Gu, with none of the Yu family. Wei Zhao was furious!

The Gu family had lived here for over a decade, so they must have swapped out all the tablets in this hall for their own. No one would enshrine another family's tablets—that would be absurd.

Moreover, the Gu boy had probably fled in such haste back then that he had no time to take the tablets with him, so they were left here! And that Gu boy was hardly a filial sort—even if he had thought of them, he likely would not have bothered.

But then, where had the Yu family's old tablets gone? Wei Zhao had not paid attention to such things back then. Had he known, he would have asked the Gu boy. Now he could only search for them himself.

Yu Dake's face was likewise dark. The tablets here were no longer the Yu family's—so where was he supposed to find his ancestors' tablets?

"Mr. Lin, let's split up and search. Maybe the tablets were thrown somewhere," Yu Dake said, though he could only hold on to a sliver of hope. After all, the tablets had most likely been discarded by the Gu family, and if so, they would never be recovered.

"All right, that's all we can do! But let's also check the storehouse—the old underground treasure vault. There just might be something there," Wei Zhao suggested.

"Fine." Yu Dake nodded. The Yu family's treasure vault had been turned into a storeroom by the Gu family. Last time they had gone there only to find the oral formula for Yu Xiaoke's Nüwa Mending the Heavens technique, and had paid no attention to anything else. Perhaps the tablets were in there.

The two went to the storehouse. It was a chaotic mess—after the Gu family took over, they had piled all sorts of things inside, and it was impossible to tell what any of it was. The two split left and right and began searching the storehouse for the tablets.

They ransacked every box and cabinet, working from night until the next morning, but to their disappointment, no tablets were found! It seemed the Gu family had not dumped the tablets here.

On second thought, it was understandable—the Gu family had no reason to preserve another family's tablets. Still, Wei Zhao and Yu Dake could not help feeling dispirited.

"Let's search elsewhere. Don't lose heart." Both were cultivators, and this level of physical exertion posed no problem at all. So they left the storehouse together and began searching the residence.

From the sun rising in the early morning to its setting and the stars filling the sky, the two scoured nearly the entire residence without finding the tablets discarded anywhere.

If their earlier assumption was right, the Yu family tablets had likely been thrown away. After all, the residence had changed hands and names—who would want another family's tablets sitting around? What dreadful luck that would bring.

"Ah!" Yu Dake sighed. "I wonder where the Gu family has gone. Now there's not even anyone left to ask..."

"If they threw them away, asking wouldn't help. If they didn't, we'll find them eventually." Wei Zhao patted Yu Dake's shoulder and comforted him. "Let's search the ancestral hall again! Maybe they're tucked away in some corner."

"All right." Yu Dake thought Wei Zhao had a point, so he stood up and headed to the ancestral hall with him. Earlier, they had been misled by first impressions and had not searched the hall carefully, so now they returned.

The ancestral hall had electric lights too. Though the residence was antique in style, it had long since caught up with modern civilization. The two began searching the hall, but after a long while, they found nothing.

After all, the hall was not large, and there was not much inside. Whatever was there could be seen at a glance.

Yu Dake sighed and sat down on the ground, helpless and dejected.

"Dake, let me ask you something. You said the ancestors' life journals were written on the backs of the tablets?" Wei Zhao suddenly thought of a very important question. The tablets were only so big—how long could a person's life journal be? Could it all fit on there? At most a few lines, surely, a brief summary?

"No..." Yu Dake began, then suddenly shot to his feet and slapped his thigh. "That's it! The life journals are kept in wooden slots right beneath the tablets!"

With that, Yu Dake hurried to a tablet, reached out, and knocked it to the ground. Then he pried at the base a few times, and the wood beneath the tablet opened like a mechanism!

With the small lid removed, a compartment was revealed—and inside it lay a booklet exactly.

On the booklet's cover were three large characters: Yu Dengtian.

Yu Dengtian—clearly a member of the Yu family. This revealed something crucial: the Gu family had never discovered the hidden mechanism beneath the tablets, the compartment that held the life journals. They had only discarded the tablets themselves, never noticing the journals hidden in the compartments below.

At the sight, Yu Dake was both shocked and overjoyed!