Yang Qing poked at the flames once more but instead of sparks being produced from it, a part of the flame split off and transformed into a blue veil that covered the flames.

"I wonder how long it would have taken me to realize there was a veil there. If the review committee had not allowed me access to the gold floor, would have I remained oblivious?" muttered Yang Qing as he threw the stick he was prodding with, into the flame. The blue veil that had been covering the flames, receded like a curtain as the stick was burning away.

"What happened?" asked Dai Chen.

"A lot... Where do I begin? What happened to Hao Da and the rest is as good as any.." said Yang Qing with a sigh.

He went on to describe the events that happened as he was investigating the case, from his conversation with the obsidian couple and the resulting revelation that their daughter had refined the treasure bone belonging to a flood dragon given to her by the fire adler bear, the foundation circle created thereafter by a former occupant of the range, an eclipsed spirit weaving fox named Jiang Xiang who was purported to be a worker for the White Rose Pavilion which he still needed to confirm his existence with the Shadow Hawks.

From there he moved on to the case that led him to the sacred graveyard torch where he met Gu Xing and the discoveries he made there, along with his doubts about the mastermind being someone from the Deer Mountain Kingdom. He went on to the things he discovered in his three-day period at the library such as the history of the Deer Mountain Range and its history dating back to the Bi Xie Empire and before that, the White Mulberry and its feud with the Purgatory black tiger cult, while touching heavily on their rumored background as being part of the 12 Beasts of calamity, before finishing it off with the terrifying stories he discovered as he was searching for accounts of similarity to the characteristics shown by the figure who had sent both the sacred flame swan, and the lunar fury heron on edge, and now Yang Qing."That's quite the mess you stumbled onto, Qing.." Dai Chen said with a sigh.

"I know..."

"If the perpetrator is in the kingdom, with someone from the spirit council there, and a few domain experts, it should have effectively put a stop to whatever they were planning. With their presence, the culprit is unlikely to try anything for the time being.

It's one thing for them to pull schemes with just members of the branch there, and it's another to try it with the lineup presently there.

Considering how well they have been hiding, I highly doubt they would try anything but then again, they were trying to trigger a spirit beast tide immediately after the attack on Hao Da and the rest, maybe they're desperate?" said Dai Chen.

Zhang Qingge who had been silent suddenly spoke,

"But what would they want with the kingdom? If it is lives they are after, isn't it easier to just cause a massacre somewhere that doesn't have our branch? With how tumultuous things are, it's easier to try it someplace else, not unless there is a reason it just has to be the range.."

"That is what I was thinking, maybe it has less even to do with the White Mulberry Kingdom and more to do with the Bi Xie Empire or those two statues.." said Yang Qing as his eyes reflected the wavy flames.

"You didn't detect anything off about them?" asked Dai Chen.

"No, they seemed like your normal statues, about the only thing unique about them was their durability, other than that, there was nothing that stood out. Even if they were beyond my abilities to sense anything, surely senior Ye Xun of the gold guards would have detected something about them, but she did not.. and.." Yang Qing paused as he took out two papers and rapidly drew two different maps on them.

"This map here is for the Bi Xie Empire and this one is for the Deer Mountain Range.." Yang Qing said as he used both his hands to point toward the maps.

His left hand was pointed at the Bi Xie Empire map, while the one on the right was pointed at the map of the Deer Mountain Range.

"Without even looking closely you can notice the resemblance between the two maps, but the Deer Mountain Range looks like a fragmented part of the Bi Xie. Landscapes change over time.. considering how long ago the Bi Xie empire existed, a transformation to its original makeup is expected, but not this way, this level of fragmentation looks like it was struck by a disaster that forcibly altered it.." Yang Qing said as he pointed to parts of the map of the Deer Mountain Range.

"The range seems to have been at the core parts of the Empire, it should not have changed this drastically. The borders, yes, but the center, no... They must have met with an unspeakable disaster for it to end up this way... whatever it was, it was powerful to turn an empire that was on par with the Jade Leaf Empire into this..and as for the statues, I think they bore the brunt of it, which is why the range is relatively intact in comparison to the other parts that were part of the empire.

But protecting against whatever befell them must have come at a price which is why neither I nor senior Ye Xun couldn't detect anything coming from them. Right now they should be nothing more than empty shells...

If it wasn't for me going there, I would have never known that such an illustrious empire existed, but now even knowing about it, I'm still as clueless about it as I was before.."

"So that's what you meant.." Dai Chen said with a sigh.

"You're not alone, over the years I felt the same thing.. our history seems intentionally fragmented. I've found a few ruin pieces here and there, evidence of certain organizations, but whenever I tried to dig up more about them, it's like they never existed.

Though it's not all of them, for the weaker ones I found the information relatively easy, but for the strong ones, I could not find anything no matter how much I tried..."