Chapter 1969 — Family Crisis
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
In a small town near Donghai City, inside a lavish manor, two brothers sat at the computer desk in the study, replaying the same video clip on the screen over and over...
These two were the very pair in the Ferrari that Wei Zhao had run into on the road to Songjiang City.
"Brother, still nothing? Checking who a license plate belongs to takes this long? Uncle Han Jiu's information channels aren't all they're cracked up to be!" The one who spoke was the younger of the Ferrari pair, Han Xiaoling. The one who had been driving was his elder brother, Han Xiaohu.
"Uncle Han Jiu has always handled intelligence for our hidden Han family. That there's still no word by now doesn't mean his channels are poor. It means the car's owner is no ordinary man!" Han Xiaohu was one of the young heirs of this generation of the hidden Han family; he saw things with some clarity, and he spotted the problem at a glance.
"Ah, brother, then tell me — if this owner isn't an ordinary man, would he still drive for us?" Han Xiaoling asked, a little uneasy.
"I don't know. But first we have to see which side he belongs to. If he's not from a hidden family, then so long as we offer enough benefit and sincerity, there shouldn't be a problem," Han Xiaohu said.
"Oh..." Han Xiaoling was Han Xiaohu's own brother, and so within the hidden Han family he kept very close to Han Xiaohu.
The hidden Han family was a clan that kept a very low profile. Its rise had come only in the past ten years. The head of the Han family had begun as a lone cultivator, with strength only at the early Mystic Rank. But fifteen years ago he found an ancient ruin, and from it he obtained a golden elixir; after swallowing it, his strength soared from early Mystic Rank all the way to early Earth Rank. Together with the other treasures he carried out of that ruin, this let Old Master Han, a lone cultivator with nothing to his name, smoothly take his place among the hidden families.
Only, the hidden Han family's foundations were still far too shallow. Apart from Old Master Han himself, an early Earth Rank expert, holding down the fort, the best of the family's second generation had reached only Mystic Rank, and the third generation was more pitiful still, with nothing but Yellow Rank strength.
Had they not obtained the treasures of that ancient ruin — and had the Han family not also caught the tide just right, with the Arbitration Association of the Hidden Families newly established — that whole chain of circumstances would never have made the Han family, by sheer freak chance, one of the hidden families...
But Old Master Han understood: his family's roots were too shallow. Had an old, established hidden family obtained the treasures of that ancient ruin, they would have had nothing to fear; they might even have advanced another step and become an ancient family!
For even without a Celestial Rank expert, such a family would have a peak late Earth Rank expert holding the fort. By the compact among ancient sects and ancient families at that level, Celestial Rank experts were not permitted to make a move at will; so with peak late Earth Rank strength, a family could essentially rest easy.
The Han family was different. The common man is blameless; the jade in his keeping is his crime. So in recent years the Han family had developed quietly and cautiously. The Ice Palace Trials, the council of elders of the Arbitration Association — the Han family took part in none of it. Their only task was to rest and recover, slowly building up the family's strength. The day an expert of peak late Earth Rank, or even a Celestial Rank expert, arose among them — that would be the day the Han family rose to glory!
Of course, held in check as they were by the Arbitration Association of the Hidden Families, no other family had done anything to the Han family all these years. But lately Old Master Han had heard bad news: the Grand Elder of the Arbitration Association of the Hidden Families had vanished!