Chapter 57: What are you dawdling for? Are you even a man?

Chen Huian completely lost his temper.

"Damn it!"

"What kind of junk is this!"

"If it won't open, I'll smash it open for you!"

"Are you out of your mind!"

With quick eyes and swift hands, Ye Qingyan strode in and grabbed his wrist.

The iron box was a mere zero-point-zero-one centimeters away from the hard edge of the table.

Chen Huian stiffened his neck, his eyes flushed red with anger.

"Eldest Miss! Let go of me!"

"This damn thing is completely impervious to reason, and I've been wrestling with it the entire night!"

"I've burned it, soaked it, and hammered it, but it's completely useless!"

"I think this thing is tougher than my own life!"

Ye Qingyan snatched the iron box away and shoved it into her embrace.

"Can you just behave yourself!"

She glared at Chen Huian.

"This is the only clue your mother left behind. If you smash it to pieces, where are you going to find a replacement?"

"Besides, do you take her for a fool? Would she leave behind something that could be forced open by brute violence?"

Chen Huian instantly deflated, slumped back into his chair, and sullenly brooded.

"Then what do you suggest we do?"

Ignoring him, Ye Qingyan brought the iron box up to her eyes and examined it closely.

The surface was densely carved with intricate patterns, not resembling mere decoration, but rather some sort of formation.

"Astrology... the Eight Trigrams..."

Ye Qingyan muttered to herself.

These patterns were far too complex; one part resembled a star map of the night sky, while another part looked like a Taoist Eight Trigrams formation.

Two completely different systems had somehow been forcefully fused together.

"This lock is quite something."

Her mind raced at high speed as she suddenly recalled something.

Among the heirlooms left by her mother was a rare, esoteric volume on metaphysics.

Back then, having nothing better to do, she had read that book like a novel and had long since memorized it by heart.

It seemed... to have mentioned something similar inside.

"Huian, close all the doors and windows tightly. Do not open the door for anyone, no matter who comes."

Ye Qingyan's expression was solemn.

Seeing her look this way, Chen Huian knew the matter was no triviality and immediately got up to follow her instructions.

Ye Qingyan closed her eyes, trying hard to recall the contents of that rare book.

Page by page, line by line, the hazy memories gradually became clear.

Meanwhile, Chen Huian took charge of the analysis, matching what Ye Qingyan dictated against the patterns carved on the box.

"Tiansheng aligns with Yuheng, Kaiyang and Yaoguang..."

"Qian consists of three unbroken lines, Kun of six broken lines, Zhen resembles an upturned bowl..."

"No, this part doesn't match!"

"Eldest Miss, think about it again. Regarding the astrological phenomenon known as the 'Twin Stars Accompanying the Moon,' are there any other interpretations in the book?"

Just at that moment, a sarcastic voice echoed in her mind.

[Is this really it? Is this it?]

It was that idiotic system that claimed to be "Zhen" (The Emperor).

[Mere parlor tricks!]

[Back in the day, the Minister of Works under My rule could craft a lock with his eyes closed that was a hundred times more ingenious than this!]

[A pair of total noobs, struggling for ages and still figuring out nothing. Hilarious.]

The veins on Ye Qingyan's forehead throbbed.

"If you're so capable, you do it! Why are you just sitting here flapping your gums?"

She retorted angrily in her mind.

"If you have the ability, open it for me! If not, shut your trap!"

[I am merely a system without a physical form.]

"Then what the hell are you blabbing for?"

"Mute package, incoming!"

Ye Qingyan unilaterally blocked the system.

Their research fell into a deadlock once again.

The mechanisms on the box were interlocked ring by ring; a single wrong step could cause the entire mechanism to lock down permanently.

Feeling somewhat irritable, Chen Huian subconsciously rubbed the keyhole with his fingertip.

Just a moment ago, he had accidentally scratched his finger on a piece of paper, oozing a tiny droplet of blood.

He hadn't even noticed it himself.

At this very moment, the droplet of blood on his fingertip happened to align precisely with the tiny keyhole.

A single crimson drop silently seeped inside.

"Click."

An extremely faint, crisp sound.

The two of them froze simultaneously.

They lowered their heads to look.

To their astonishment, a ring of patterns on the surface of the iron box slowly rotated, revealing the second layer of the mechanism beneath.

The first lock had opened!

Chen Huian: "What?"

Ye Qingyan: "Holy crap!"

They stared at each other in blank dismay, a ridiculous thought flashing through both their minds simultaneously.

"Eldest Miss... could this thing... perhaps be version 2.0 of a bloodline paternity test?" Chen Huian asked, stammering.

Ye Qingyan was dumbfounded as well.

She looked down at her own bleeding fingertip, then back at the lock.

"It seems... yes."

Suddenly, she understood.

This lock required a direct descendant of the Chen family's bloodline to unlock the first layer!

When Madam Chen entrusted this box to her confidant back then, she had perhaps already anticipated that it might eventually change hands and drift away.

"Mom is truly brilliant!" Chen Huian couldn't help but mentally give his mother a thumbs-up.

Such meticulous forethought was simply foolproof!

"Look at the second layer quickly!"

The pattern of the second lock was no longer astrology or the Eight Trigrams.

It was a totem they were all too familiar with.

A coiled, fierce tiger.

The family crest of the Chen family!

"Let me do it!"

Chen Huian understood instantly.

Excitedly, he moved to bite his own hand.

"Wait!"

Ye Qingyan grabbed him, her face full of disgust.

"Are you part dog? How unsanitary is that?"

She picked up a sewing needle from her vanity and scorched it over the flame of a candle.

"Give me your hand."

Chen Huian obediently extended his finger.

"Eldest Miss, please be gentle. I'm afraid of pain."

Ye Qingyan rolled her eyes.

"Stop dilly-dallying, are you even a man?"

Despite her words, she administered the needle-prick very lightly.

A droplet of blood emerged and fell precisely onto the eye of the tiger on the second lock.

"Click."

Another crisp sound.

The second lock sprang open in response!

Revealing the core, third-layer mechanism.

The two of them leaned in anxiously.

However, when they clearly saw the pattern of the third lock, they were both stunned.

It was neither astrology nor a family crest.

Instead, it was a pattern they had never seen before.

Two stars nestled closely together, revolving around each other like a pair of twins.

"What on earth is this?" Chen Huian looked utterly bewildered.

"Binary stars?" Ye Qingyan furrowed her brow as well. "That makes no sense. What do our two families have to do with binary stars?"

Silence descended upon the room once again.

The two of them stared at each other with wide eyes.

The trail of clues had ended here once more.

Twins... twins...

Two people...

They suddenly raised their heads and looked at each other.

In each other's eyes, they saw the exact same guess and shock.

"No way, surely not?" Chen Huian's voice turned somewhat dry.

The first lock and the second lock required the blood of the Chen family.

Then this third lock, featuring a pattern representing "twins" and "two people"...

Could it be...

Did it require the blood of both of them, dripped simultaneously?

The notion was utterly absurd, yet it seemed to be the only plausible explanation.

The atmosphere grew somewhat subtle at that moment.

The camaraderie of revolutionary comrades-in-arms from just a moment ago suddenly became laced with something indescribable and ambiguous.

"Shall we... together?"

Ye Qingyan took a deep breath and broke the silence first.

She picked up the needle and, without hesitation, pricked another of her own fingers.

Watching her, Chen Huian picked up the needle as well and pressed it against his previous wound.

Two bleeding fingers slowly drew closer together.

The two exchanged a glance and, with a tacit understanding, simultaneously pressed their fingers onto the binary star pattern.

Two drops of blood, from left and right, seeped in simultaneously.

At the core of the lock, they fused together.

"Clack—"

Immediately following that came a "snap" sound.

The entire iron box sprang open from the middle.

It worked.

It had finally worked!

Yet neither of them looked at the contents inside the box.

Their gazes remained locked onto each other's faces.

Just a moment ago, at the exact moment their bloodlines merged.

A bizarre sensation, unlike anything they had ever experienced before, coursed through their entire bodies.

It was a shock that transcended the bond of foster siblings.

It was a resonance of bloodlines connecting and destinies intertwining.

And above all, it was a sense of taboo—ineffable yet undeniably real.

After a long while.

Ye Qingyan slowly averted her gaze and directed it toward the opened iron box.

A letter written in blood lay quietly upon the black velvet.

With trembling hands, Ye Qingyan picked up the letter.

Chen Huian leaned in close beside her, holding his breath.

At the top of the stationery, the handwriting was wild and untamed, piercing forcefully through the paper:

"To my dear son Huian:"

"If you see this letter, your father has already met with foul play. Yet the injustice of the Chen clan is witnessed by the heavens, and those who murdered me are not emperors, but..."

The writing stopped abruptly right there.