Chapter 16 - Return of the Matriarch!

Yu Xue found the entire spectacle rather entertaining. After months of stress, watching some comic relief in the form of Yu Bao losing her crap was exactly what Yu Xue needed. She was a little worried about the missing guardian treasures as their absence probably had huge implications, most of which were known only to Mother and Grandmother. It was fine though, after all she knew who had them.

At some point Yu Bao somewhat regained her composure and stopped screaming, much to Yu Xue’s displeasure.

"I've got to inform the Matriarch!"

She scrambled about, trying to pull something out of her interspatial ring and eventually a round stone materialised in her hand. The stone was obsidian black with a few particles of white light coming off it. This stone was a sound transmission stone. Just as she was about to activate it a cold voice interrupted her.

"No need for that Yu Bao, I'm right here."

Yu Xue turned around to find Yu Xiuying floating above her, looked down at them with cold eyes. Her silky blond hair and imperial white robes were fluttering in the indoor breeze and her emerald gaze was stabbing into Yu Bao like daggers, probably causing her heart to stop beating for a second or two. Yu Xiuying descended from the sky like an immortal fairy to stand next to her, eclipsing any presence Yu Bao has with her own dignified aura.

‘So Mother has finally returned, that means that SHE’s probably here too…’ Yu Xue thought.

"What the hell is all this screaming about! I leave the palace for a few weeks and just like that, we have pandemonium! It's a surprise our family hasn't descended into ruin already!" Another voice joined the fray.

Yup, there she is.

Yu Jingli joined the crowd at the secret vault of the treasury, complaining about all the noise as she did so. The first thing she noticed was Yu Xue's shocked appearance.

"Yu Xue! What on earth are you doing in here! How do you even know about th....."

At this point, her eyes at wandered to where the Silver Qilin horns would be normally kept. Upon seeing the absence of said Qilin horns, her sentence was cut off by her sheer shock.

"WHAT IN THE NINE HELLS HAPPENED HERE?!!!"

Her yell was imbued with her full cultivation throughout the area, causing a few cracks to appear in the palace walls. It was a good job everyone present had some element of strength, else they would have been severely injured by her shout. Yu Xiuying let out a sigh at her adverse overreaction. Although to be frank, it wasn't an overreaction at all considering the circumstances.

"Calm down Mother, we'll be sure to get to the bottom of this!" Yu Xiuying assured.

With an otherworldly smile on her face, she turned towards Yu Bao and spoke in a cold tone which didn't match with her friendly appearance.

"Yu Bao, can you explain the situation here for me?"

Confronted by Yu Xiuying's inquiry, she was sent into a stupor. Only after a few seconds had passed did she bow down and respond to her.

"Esteemed Matriarch, I'm going to be quite honest with you. My dear niece and I were just retrieving the Vindicator's Rod to welcome you home. The guardian treasures were missing when we arrived and we have no idea as to...

"SHUT UP!!!"

Yu Jingli stamped her floor angrily on the ground, creating gaping fissures which spread across the marble floor. She slowly walked towards Yu Bao with her soul power leaking out from her body, causing icy crystals to freeze over the environment. The bitter cold caused even Yu Xue, who was standing away at a distance, to uncontrollably shiver.

"You think we don't know all that crap already?! Ying'er was clearly asking how you let such a thing happen! We all fully well know the ancestor's blood is needed to enter this place, so how the hell did they vanish like that eh?! Let out another fart in front of me and see how I'll kill you with a slap!"

Yu Bao's pupils narrowed into pinpoints as she knew the Grand Matriarch wasn't bluffing. Although her status and strength were much less than Yu Xiuying's, Yu Jingli was actually much more feared than her! She had always been a loose cannon, with her unbridled temper and her unpredictable personality. Offend the Matriarch, she may grant you a second chance. Offend Yu Jingli, you were dead without a doubt! Even somebody like Yu Bao, the third-in-command of the Yu Family was not exempt by her undiscriminating fury! Yu Xiuying shook her head.

"Let the woman speak, she may have something more to say...."

She looked at Yu Bao expectantly, yet Yu Bao wasn't reassured by this at all! She didn't know a thing about what had happened in the slightest. Heck, she desired to know where the guardian treasures were just as much as they did!

"Matriarch, the ancestor's blood has been with me the entire time and other than the people present here, nobody knows the method to enter this place anyway! If I, Yu Bao, am found to have borne false witness, let my soul burn for eternity in the depths of the ninth hell!!"

"WRETCH! You DARE lie a second time!!"

Yu Jingli charged forward towards her, waving her hand to conjure an overbearing spear. A trail of ice was left in her wake as she darted through. Just before she reached Yu Bao, a flicker of light flashed in Yu Xiuying's eyes! She held out her arm, causing Yu Jingli to come to a grinding halt.

"Don't do anything rash, she's speaking the truth!"

"Impossible how else could anyone…"

Yu Jingli choked on her words as a certain possibility entered her mind! Yu Xiuying nodded as she voiced the same possibility.

“All the of Ancestor’s blood has been accounted for and we can guarantee that none has been stolen. That means that a member of our Yu family has bloodforce concentrated enough to enter the treasury independently. As for who that could be, there’s one person I can think of…”

Yu Xiuying turned her gaze to Yu Xue.

"Xue'er, how is Yu Yin faring after his recent cultivation breakthrough?”

Eh? Cultivation breakthough? Pardon? Yu Xue was taken aback by Mother’s question although she didn’t let that show externally. What was she to do here? Yu Yin obviously had something he needed to outside of the Yu Family Palace, and he was desperate enough to steal the Guardian treasures. Should she cover for him? On second thought, Yu Yin would take any treasure in any situation, wouldn’t he? That didn’t really matter though.

Yu Xue looked back at Yu Xiuying. She couldn’t lie to Mother, that was common knowledge. Deceit doesn’t work on Yu Xiuying. If she was going to lie, she had to lie using only truths.

“I wouldn’t know” Yu Xue responded.

“How wouldn’t you know?!” Yu Jingli intervened. “Don’t think we don’t know how close you two are! Come one, tell us how you wouldn’t know. We’re listening!”

“When I went to his room he wasn’t there, and I decided not to look for him.” Yu Xue responded naturally, although she was staring to sweat on the inside.

Yu Xiuling narrowed her eyes.

“Is he currently in the palace?” She spoke.

Crap! A direct yes or no question. No avoiding this one. Sorry Yin’er.

“As far as I’m aware, he is not.” Yu Xue replied.

"Why wasn't I informed?"

“I wasn’t aware his departure went against your wishes.”

Yu Xiuying sighed and shook her head.

"I always knew that Yin'er had a good bloodline, but I would never have guessed his bloodforce was this potent!” She lamented. “For him to use his own blood to steal the guardian treasures...It seems I've neglected that child a bit too much."

Yu Jingli was taking this news a nowhere near as well as Yu Xiuying and was stomping around, infuriated.

"THAT BRAT! I don't care HOW good his bloodline is! When I get my hands on him, he's going to live a life of pain! Just watch as I force him into secluded meditation for 5000 years! Where the hell could he have wondered off to anyway?!"

Once she said this, the room descended into silence. That is, until Yu Xiuying rested her eyes on a certain corner of the room of the main treasury. In the blink of an eye, she vanished and reappeared in that same corner. Yu Jingli followed her wither her eyes and gasped when she saw the place that Yu Xiuying was now standing at.

"Don't tell me that he...."

Yu Xiuying nodded before Yu Jingli could finish.

"My son has always been too devious for his own good, but this time he's really outdone himself…”

The place that had gathered so much attention was an empty spot on one of many shelves of the treasury. Before Yu Yin had raided the treasury, an ancient looking bamboo slip sat in this spot. This bamboo slip depicted information about a certain hidden plane located in the country of Evergreen in the Northern region. Although this hidden plane was unknown to the vast populace, Yu Xiuying was aware of it. The hidden plane was a death-trap run by a [Shattered Soul] being, and the only reason they hadn't dispatched it yet was out of respect to the now decrepit former [Solid Soul] cultivator that rested there. Every now and again, these bamboo slips would appear in the mortal world, luring hopeful and unsuspecting victims to their demise.

Yu Xiuying had come across one by chance a few months ago. Finding it amusing, she kept it in the treasury as a collector's item. Never could she have imagined that Yu Yin would find it and run off with it! She furrowed her brows and vanished out of sight with Yu Jingli vanishing just second after, leaving Yu Xue alone with the now crying Yu Bao.

Yu Xue recognised this technique that Mother had just used. It was called [Minor Teleportation], a basic ability that only cultivators at least at the [Specialised Soul] could learn. She gazed one more time at the empty display case at the end of the hall and smiled.

‘Stay safe Yu Yin!’

…

Yu Xiuying and Yu Jingli reappeared in the ancestral hall of the Yu Palace, both of them with anxious expressions on their faces. Now not only were the guardian treasures at risk, but so was Yu Yin. Even if her son was a little disappointing in some ways, he was still her son and he could absolutely not be allowed to die.

"CRYSTAL CORPS!"

Yu Xiuying yelled out this name in an authoritative tone, causing two white-haired men to appear from nowhere outside her study. They bowed down to salute her.

"Here at your command Matriarch!"

She nodded at them, allowing them to rise.

"Tell Lord Nephrite to activate his sect's spatial formation immediately! I want it ready in 5 minutes, you hear me?!"

The men of the crystal corps nodded, before vanishing again from sight...