THE CRIPPLED SON-IN-LAW UNLOCKED IMMORTAL CULTIVATION

Chapter 5: The Secret Beneath the Western Grounds

The knock came before sunrise, followed by the scrape of a key in my door. I had barely slept after hearing the guards discuss Grandfather Zhao’s plans, and the ache beneath my chest wound had kept me from settling into a comfortable position. When the door opened, two guards stood outside with a third man carrying a lantern.

“The patriarch is waiting,” the first guard said. “You’re to come with us.”

I dressed without arguing. The Zhao family had spent three years treating me as if I were too insignificant to notice, yet one failed ritual had turned my every movement into something worth watching. I followed the guards through the cold corridors, keeping my steps measured and my shoulders slightly bowed. Beneath that familiar posture, I listened for the current of energy inside me, careful not to stir it.

Grandfather Zhao waited in the courtyard with two senior elders and four guards. Beside him stood a bronze instrument shaped like a shallow bowl, its surface covered in fine marks. He wore a dark coat over his ceremonial clothes, and his expression suggested he had already considered every answer I might give.

“We’re inspecting the western grounds,” he said. “You’ll come with us.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“You are under suspicion. Don’t confuse the two.”

He turned toward the western path without waiting for my reply. I followed, aware that the guards had arranged themselves so that I could neither walk beside the patriarch nor fall far behind him. The path crossed a stretch of landscaped gardens before reaching an older section of the estate, where cracked paving stones disappeared beneath weeds and the trees grew thick enough to block the morning light.

Grandfather Zhao carried the bronze instrument himself. Every few steps, its surface gave a faint pulse, and one of the elders checked the marks along its rim. They were not searching for a missing object or a trespasser. They were following the disturbance left by the failed ritual, and whatever they detected seemed to draw them toward the place where I had found the cave.

“Tell me again why you were outside last night,” Grandfather Zhao said.

“I couldn’t sleep, so I walked.”

“Near the forbidden grounds?”

“I didn’t know that part of the estate was forbidden.”

“You lived here for three years.”

“And no one thought I was worth telling.”

One of the elders glanced at me with open irritation, but the patriarch continued walking. His silence was more dangerous than an insult because it meant he was weighing my answer instead of dismissing it.

We reached the ruined courtyard where I had escaped through the broken grate. A guard noticed the twisted iron half-hidden among the stones and called the others over. The metal lay at an angle beside the wall, its rusted hinges snapped. I kept my face still, though I felt the current inside me tighten at the sight.

Grandfather Zhao crouched beside the grate and examined the broken hinges. “This wasn’t damaged by weather.”

A guard shook his head. “The iron was old, but it would have taken force to tear it free.”

The patriarch looked up at me. “Did you come here last night?”

“I may have passed through. I was trying to find my way back.”

“Did you see this entrance?”

“I saw a gap in the wall. I didn’t go inside.”

The lie came easily, but my pulse quickened when the elder lifted the bronze instrument. Its surface brightened as he aimed it toward the opening, and a low vibration traveled through the ground. I felt the same response beneath my skin, as though something deep in the passage had recognized the energy I carried.

The primordial entity stirred. “Do not let him reach the chamber.”

I kept my gaze on the instrument. “What will he find?”

“That is not a question you can afford to ask here.”

“You’ve been silent since yesterday. Now you expect me to trust a warning without an explanation?”

“Trust your survival, if you cannot trust me.”

The answer angered me, but I forced the feeling down before it could feed the current. The entity was hiding something, and I had no way to tell whether its silence protected me or served its own purpose. For now, I needed to keep Grandfather Zhao away from the chamber without making him wonder why I cared.

The guards cleared weeds from the entrance and pulled the damaged grate aside. A narrow tunnel sloped into darkness. One man raised his lantern and began to descend, while the elder followed with the bronze instrument held before him. Grandfather Zhao signaled for me to remain near the entrance, but his eyes never left my face.

The first warning came as a tremor beneath my boots. Dust drifted from the stone arch, and the instrument began to ring. The guard below shouted that the passage was shifting. Before anyone else moved, I felt a heavy pulse gather under the floor, racing toward the weakened section of the tunnel.

I saw where the pressure would strike. The energy inside me responded, eager to surge through my arms, and for an instant I nearly let it loose. Instead, I drew one slow breath and guided a narrow thread of the current toward the ground. It was like pushing against a river with bare hands, but the pulse bent away from the arch and dispersed through the broken paving stones.

The shaking stopped. A few stones dropped into the tunnel, yet the entrance remained standing, and the guard below scrambled back into the courtyard. He stumbled into his companions, pale and breathing hard.

Grandfather Zhao looked from the stable arch to me. “You moved before the others felt it.”

“I heard the stone crack.”

“No one else heard it.”

“Perhaps they were listening to your instrument.”

The patriarch studied me long enough that I could feel the pressure of his attention. I kept my breathing uneven and let my hand tremble as if the disturbance had frightened me. Inside, the current settled slowly, leaving a dull ache behind my ribs. I had redirected only a small portion of the energy, yet the effort had drained more strength than I expected.

The elder examined the instrument, then shook his head. “The passage is unstable. We should not go deeper without a proper team.”

Grandfather Zhao disliked the advice, but he did not ignore it. He ordered the guards to mark the entrance and seal it until specialists could inspect the structure. Two men were assigned to watch the courtyard, and another was sent to retrieve the estate’s old construction records.

As the others prepared to leave, I glanced once toward the dark opening. I had stopped them from reaching the chamber, but my reaction had given the patriarch another reason to suspect me. The entity offered no further guidance, retreating into silence as if the danger belonged to me alone.

The longer they searched, the more certain I became that the cave held answers the Zhao elders feared and my survival had tied me to something older than their oldest traditions.

Grandfather Zhao approached before we returned to the main estate. “You will remain available for questioning, and you will not come near these grounds unless I summon you.”

“I understand.”

“I don’t think you do. The ritual failed, an ancient passage has been disturbed, and you were found near both. I will discover whether those facts are connected.”

He spoke without raising his voice, which made the threat feel final. I lowered my eyes and let him believe his warning had unsettled me. In truth, I was already considering how to learn what the Zhao family kept in its records and whether Crystal had managed to find anything useful.

At the courtyard gate, a black car waited beside the path. A man in a grey suit stepped out, carrying a narrow case marked with symbols I did not recognize. He was older than the guards but younger than Grandfather Zhao, with a calm expression and hands that looked too clean for someone who spent his days in the field.

“This is Master Shen,” Grandfather Zhao told me. “He specializes in unusual spiritual conditions.”

The newcomer’s gaze settled on me. He did not sneer at my damaged roots or look through me as the others had. He studied my face as though he were reading a page whose most important words had been hidden.

“I’ve been asked to examine you,” he said. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll begin.”

I felt the current inside me draw tight, responding to something in the man’s presence. Grandfather Zhao watched my reaction, and Master Shen noticed it too. I kept my expression blank, but I understood that the next test would not be as easy to mislead.

The patriarch had finally found someone who knew what to look for, and I had only one night to learn how to hide it.