THE CRIPPLED SON-IN-LAW UNLOCKED IMMORTAL CULTIVATION

Chapter 29: The Secret the Patriarch Buried

The warning in Grandfather Zhao’s voice stopped me before I could touch the metal plate again. The old man had ruled the Zhao family for years, yet the fear on his face had been real. Whatever name lay beneath the damaged letters carried more weight than the stolen page.

Crystal stood beside me, watching him guardedly. Elder Wu waited near the doorway, his eyes returning to the plate.

“You know who the buried person is,” I said.

Grandfather Zhao looked at the guards. “Everyone else, leave us.”

Elder Wu hesitated. The patriarch gave him a sharp glance, and he led the guards out. Crystal remained where she was.

“I said everyone,” Grandfather Zhao told her.

“And I heard you,” she replied. “I’m staying.”

The patriarch finally looked away, deciding to let her remain.

“You have already involved yourself in matters you do not understand,” he said.

“I understand that our family tried to sacrifice my husband,” Crystal answered. “I understand that records were altered and people disappeared. If you want me to keep trusting you, stop treating me like a child.”

Her words carried a resolve I had not heard before. She was no longer willing to protect the family by remaining silent.

Grandfather Zhao studied her before turning back to me. “The original formation beneath Property Seven was not built by the Zhao family. We inherited responsibility for maintaining it. Several specialists were brought here because they understood formations beyond the methods used by ordinary cultivators.”

“Jian Luo was one of them,” I said.

“Yes. He understood the structure better than anyone in our household. But he was not the only specialist involved.”

The patriarch paused, as if measuring how much he could admit without losing control of the conversation.

“Another man disappeared during the same incident,” he continued. “The formation failed, the passage became unstable, and several people were lost. We recorded the man as dead because there was no safe way to search for him.”

“You buried him without a body?” I asked.

“We held a burial ceremony. The register recorded the decision.”

“That is not the same as proving he died.”

His expression hardened. “You think I do not know the difference?”

I held his gaze. “Then why was his name erased?”

Grandfather Zhao did not answer immediately. Elder Wu returned to the doorway, carrying a report. The patriarch took it and read the first lines, his face growing colder.

“The two guards wearing the old emblem are gone,” Elder Wu said. “The men assigned to watch the eastern corridor claim they saw no one leave, but the injured guard has regained consciousness. He says the intruder entered with an authorization mark. The archive lock recognized it.”

“Was the mark copied?” I asked.

Elder Wu shook his head. “He could not tell. He saw the symbol only briefly.”

The report confirmed what I had suspected. The intruder had not broken into the archive by force. The family had left an old path of authority active, and someone knew how to use it.

Grandfather Zhao folded the report. “Find every person who has handled the old access records. No one is to leave the estate until I know who helped this intruder.”

“Your order will make the whole household suspicious of one another,” Crystal said.

“Then they should have thought of that before allowing this to happen.”

His answer came quickly, but it did not hide the concern behind it. He was afraid that the intruder had reached something the family had spent years keeping out of sight.

Crystal stepped closer to the cabinet where the missing register had been stored. “There may be another record. I remember seeing a metal case in your private study when I was younger. It had the same broken-circle symbol.”

Grandfather Zhao’s attention snapped toward her. “You will stay away from my study.”

That reaction told me more than his answer.

“What is in the case?” I asked.

“Old family documents. Nothing that concerns you.”

“Then opening it should not be a problem.”

“It is not yours to open.”

Crystal looked at him steadily. “You have spent years deciding what I am allowed to know. That ends now.”

The patriarch’s expression darkened. “You are risking the family for a man who has barely begun to understand what he has become.”

“No,” she said. “I am refusing to keep protecting people who decided his life was worth less than their traditions.”

I watched Grandfather Zhao absorb her words. He had expected obedience from her, perhaps even fear, but Crystal did not retreat. Whatever happened between them after this, she had made her choice.

The patriarch ordered Elder Wu to seal the archive and preserve the remaining records. Then he dismissed us with a warning that the intruder might still be inside the estate. As Crystal and I reached the doorway, he called my name.

“Ryan, stay.”

Crystal turned toward me, but I gave her a nod. She waited just beyond the entrance, close enough to hear if his voice rose.

Grandfather Zhao approached until only a few steps separated us. “The person connected to that missing name may not have been an enemy of this family.”

“Then why hide his identity?”

“Because some people become dangerous when they return, even if they were once trusted.”

“Are you saying he is alive?”

“I am saying you should stop treating every mystery as an invitation to open another door.”

His warning sounded less like advice than an attempt to keep me away from a truth he could no longer control. I left without giving him an answer.

Crystal was waiting in the corridor. “He knows something about that case,” she said.

“He knows more than he has admitted. We need to see it before he moves it.”

She led me away from the archive, choosing a narrow corridor that ran behind the ancestral wing. The main passage was watched by guards, but Crystal remembered an older route used by servants before the estate was renovated.

As we walked, I sensed the strange energy again. It clung to the stone near a sealed side door, faint but unmistakable. I touched the surface and felt a pulse answer from somewhere beyond it.

“This corridor was closed after the formation incident,” Crystal explained. “My grandfather said the old passage was unsafe.”

“Has anyone used it recently?”

She examined the dust around the frame. A narrow line had been disturbed near the floor, and the lock carried a fresh scratch.

“Someone has been through here,” she said.

The passage connected the archive to the ancestral wing, giving anyone with access a way to move between the two without crossing the main courtyard. The intruder could have used it to reach the private study, or someone inside the household could have used it to remove the missing page.

Crystal pressed a small latch beneath the doorframe. A section of wood shifted, revealing a narrow service entrance.

“I used to hide here when the elders held their meetings,” she said. “The servants were not supposed to know this passage existed.”

We slipped through and reached the private residence without encountering anyone. The study door was locked, but Crystal found a concealed key slot beneath the carved frame. She turned a small metal piece inside it, and the lock released.

The room smelled of old paper and incense. A large desk stood near the window, with shelves of family records covering the walls. Crystal went straight to a cabinet beside the desk.

“The case was here,” she said.

A dark metal box sat behind several bound ledgers. Its surface bore the broken-circle symbol and three cuts, but another seal had been engraved beneath it. I had never seen that second mark before.

The primordial entity stirred as I approached.

“Do not open it carelessly,” it warned. “That seal is connected to the one who was buried.”

I placed my hand against the lid. The black mark on my wrist warmed, then spread into a thin line beneath my skin. The case clicked, and its lock released by itself.

Inside lay an old formation record, a small identification token stained with dried blood, and a photograph protected by a thin sheet of glass. Three men stood before the second gate. I recognized Jian Luo at once, his face matching the description in the records.

The man beside him was unfamiliar. The third figure made my breath catch.

Grandfather Zhao stood between them, younger but unmistakable.

I kept my attention on the patriarch, waiting for him to deny what the photograph had already revealed.

On the back of the photograph, faded ink formed a sentence: “If the gate opens again, do not allow Zhao Tianren to reach the host.”

I read the name twice. Before I could ask Crystal who Zhao Tianren was, footsteps stopped outside the study.

Grandfather Zhao’s voice came through the door, colder than before.

“Ryan, step away from that case.”