Chapter 3098 — Gu Pengzhan's Past, Part One: Wei Zhao Nodded. It Seemed the Young Miss Truly Did Not Know Either, Otherwise She Could Never Have Been Fooled by Zhong Yongliang Back Then.

Before long, the sound of a car came from outside the villa. It had to be Gu Pengzhan!

Sure enough, the doorbell rang right after. Wei Zhao went out and opened the door, and there was Gu Pengzhan, drenched in sweat, rushing in with frantic urgency. "Xiaoyi, Yaoyao—what on earth happened?"

"Let's talk inside." Wei Zhao gestured with one hand, motioning Gu Pengzhan into the living room.

"All right..." Gu Pengzhan nodded and strode quickly into the living room, then could not hold back any longer. "Xiaoyi, can you tell me now?"

"Actually, Uncle Chu, it started this afternoon..." Gu Mengyao had intended to come clean with Gu Pengzhan all along, so Wei Zhao held nothing back. He recounted it all, from the moment that afternoon when Dongfang Cha of the ancient Dongfang family abducted Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu, to the Grand Elder and the Black-Robed Elder of the Dark Night Palace stepping in to rescue them, and finally to his own arrival.

When Gu Pengzhan heard Wei Zhao say that Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu had run into people from the Dark Night Palace that afternoon, and that those people had even saved them, his expression shifted slightly. Still, he asked, "And then?"

"What comes next is the crux of the matter! Yaoyao is the inheritor of the Dark Phoenix bloodline!" Wei Zhao said. "The Grand Elder of the Dark Night Palace wants to take her away, back to the Dark Night Palace to cultivate..."

"What?! The Grand Elder wants to take Yaoyao to the Dark Night Palace? How can that be?" Gu Pengzhan shot to his feet, visibly agitated, his emotions seeming to boil with boundless fury. "Why is she trying to take Yaoyao away again? On what grounds?"

"On what grounds..." Wei Zhao gave a bitter smile. "Uncle Chu, don't be angry. These ancient sects—do they even care about reason? When Xiaoxiao was forcibly kept in the Ice Palace back then, it was the very same principle at work..."

"Indeed..." Gu Pengzhan realized he had lost his composure, and sighed softly before lowering himself back onto the sofa. His expression, however, had turned dreadfully grim. "The Dark Night Palace... the Dark Night Palace again... If the benefactor from those years were still around, how would they dare act like this!"

"Benefactor? What do you mean?" Wei Zhao was slightly taken aback.

"Nothing... I lost my head..." Gu Pengzhan's heart lurched. The affairs of those years—he did not dare bring them up lightly. Even to Gu Mengyao and Uncle Qing, he had never breathed a single word. But today, hearing that the Dark Night Palace meant to take Gu Mengyao away, he had lost control all at once and let slip what he had kept buried in his heart.

"Nothing? Daddy, are you hiding something from us? Do you... already know about the Dark Night Palace?" Gu Mengyao had heard Gu Pengzhan's words too, and asked at once, suspicion clear in her voice.

At that moment, Gu Pengzhan was locked in inner struggle. Should he tell Gu Mengyao that his wife—Yaoyao's mother—was in the Dark Night Palace? After a long fight within himself, he decided not to keep hiding it any longer. He would tell them the truth.

After all, even if Gu Mengyao went to the Dark Night Palace, she would have to learn these things sooner or later. So Gu Pengzhan drew a deep breath and said, "Yaoyao, since you've asked, then I'll tell you everything! In the past, didn't you often ask me where your mother went, what she was doing? Today, I'll tell you all of it!"

"My mother?" Gu Mengyao's breathing quickened, and then her heart gave a violent jolt. "My mother... could she have something to do with the Dark Night Palace? This... what on earth is going on?"

"That's right, Yaoyao, you guessed correctly. Your mother... is the Palace Mistress of the Dark Night Palace!" Gu Pengzhan nodded and spoke, word by word.

"What!?" Gu Mengyao had guessed that her mother's departure back then might have had something to do with the Dark Night Palace, but she had never in her wildest dreams imagined that her mother was the Palace Mistress of the Dark Night Palace. This... how could that be?

Wasn't the Dark Night Palace Wei Zhao's enemy? How could her mother have sent people to oppose Wei Zhao? And if that were so, then could the Grand Elder have been sent by her mother?

Gu Mengyao could hardly be blamed for letting her thoughts run wild. In her understanding, within any sect, the Palace Mistress was the highest authority of all. Wasn't that how it was in the Ice Palace she knew? There, Bingtang was the strongest existence, and her every word was law!

Even in the Snow Valley, where a Grand Elder existed, great respect was still paid to Xueli's opinions, and Xueli too took part in managing the affairs of the valley.

So Gu Mengyao could not help feeling that since her mother was the Palace Mistress of the Dark Night Palace, everything must have been orchestrated by her. But... did her mother no longer care for her? How could she move against her own daughter?

At that thought, a wave of sorrow welled up in Gu Mengyao's heart. "Mother... doesn't want us anymore?"

"Yaoyao, it looks like you may have gotten the wrong idea!" Gu Pengzhan gave a bitter smile and shook his head. "Your mother didn't abandon us—she was forced to leave. And although your mother is the Palace Mistress of the Dark Night Palace, she holds no real power at all. Everyone in the Dark Night Palace, high and low, answers to that Grand Elder!"

"Forced to leave... the Grand Elder calls the shots?" Gu Mengyao was startled, and then something clicked. "Could it be that Mother is an inheritor too? Was she also seized and taken to the Dark Night Palace by the Grand Elder?"

"Exactly!" Gu Pengzhan nodded. "This is a long story! I'll have to tell you both in detail..."

In those years, Ye Wan'er had been the Young Palace Mistress of the Dark Night Palace. Only, her Dark Phoenix bloodline, having passed through several generations, was no longer particularly pure, and a bloodline like that would have great difficulty accepting the inheritance and becoming an inheritor.

And according to the calculations of the Five Luminaries Sect—that is, that place—for the opening of the Cloud-Tier Island Project, there were still at least twenty years to go. So the Dark Night Palace decided to marry Ye Wan'er to the young sect master of the Mystic Elixir Sect at the time, Tianji Xing, who was also the father of the Silkworm Transformation.

The Mystic Elixir Sect possessed a secret art—actually a secret art of the Five Luminaries Sect—that could, by certain means, concentrate the entire Dark Phoenix bloodline within Ye Wan'er's body into the fetus. In this way, the fetus would possess a complete Dark Phoenix bloodline while still in the womb.

Thus, although Ye Wan'er's own Dark Phoenix bloodline was impure, her child would possess an exceedingly pure Dark Phoenix bloodline. It might not be as pure as the ancestors', but at the very least, there would be no problem whatsoever when it came to accepting the inheritance!

The Dark Night Palace, like the Loess Plateau Sect, produced inheritors through bloodline inheritance, unlike the inheritors of fire, water, mist, ice, and wood, who needed only a pure physique of the corresponding attribute.

(Chapter 310 bonus update; the two chapters for 340 and 370 will be made up this month. Summoning your guaranteed monthly votes! A new month has begun!) RS

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