On the backside of the mountain where the hall was located, in Cold Wind Cave…
Countless small caves existed on the mountainside like honeycombs. Bone-piercing cold wind blew like sharp daggers, sliding across the dark rock and starting long traces of fire.
Huaxu Lie and Huaxu Chen each sat in a small cave which could contain nothing more than their own bodies. Frosty gusts of wind blowing around them, slowly corroding their skins, muscles, and blood. They were both incredibly strong, but suffering the cold wind, their skins had already turned purple. They were stiff, paralyzed, and disabled from moving.
This was a prison of the Huaxu Family designed to punish the criminals from the family. The dark wind tortured both the bodies and souls. Staying in this place, even the marrow of relatively weaker people would disappear in a matter of months.
Enduring the piercing pain from both his body and soul, Huaxu Chen tremblingly murmured, "Something is wrong. The leader and elders..."
"What's wrong?" Huaxu Lie was a bad-tempered person. Hearing Huaxu Chen, he growled with a hoarse voice, "Those old people always think nothing but the family, family interests! They defend no one other than the Huaxu Family. They wouldn't even blink their eyes even if all the other human beings in the world died!"
Swish! A thin gust of cold wind swept across his forehead and tore his skin open. But, before the blood flew out of his wound, the bone-piercing cold wind froze his wound, covering that wound with fine ice crystals.
"No, Lie, perhaps, some of those elders are like that." Huaxu Chen frowned, seriously looking at Huaxu Lie as he said, "I admit that some elders from our Huaxu Family and the other large families are like this. They follow the ancient rules, defending nothing other than the interests of their own families; they never care about the other clans and families. But, Leader Qingye isn't one of them."
Raising his head, Huaxu Chen continued slowly, "Do you remember that three-hundred years ago when the Nether Moon and Red Sun joined hands to launch an offensive on Chi Ban Mountain, the man who sent out the reinforcement the first time around and saved us from the hapless situation was Leader Qingye.?
"A hundred and thirty years ago, the man who supported Emperor Shun with all of his power, deployed elite forces from all large families to strengthen the army under the direct command of the alliance of human clans, was Leader Qingye. For making this happen, he visited every large family and clan, and endured so many contemptuous glances and bad words. Do you remember that?"
"Even twenty years ago, when Si Wen Ming tried to enhance the Magi Palace, Leader Qingye ordered his people to copy all the scriptures in Huaxu Family's collection for the Magi Palace. For this, Leader Qingye was nearly impeached by a few master elders. He was almost forced to give up his position."
Huaxu Lie gradually calmed himself down from the burning rage. As he looked back on everything Huaxu Qingye had done in the recent years, his face turned darker and darker.
"Especially this, after his wife died, Leader Qingye never touched one single woman." Huaxu Chen continued with a weird expression on his face, "But as we saw in the hall, he was surrounded by so many dancers, and his face was even covered in lip prints!"
"Ah, he thought it through!" Huaxu Lie licked his lips and said.
"Do you think that's possible?" Huaxu Chen frowned as he looked at Huaxu Lie, who sat in the cave right in front of him. "It has been so many years. Countless girls brought themselves to him, but his heart was never shaken. The leaders of some other large families even wanted to marry their daughters to him, but he didn't make that happen. Would he suddenly change his mind for those dancers?"
Huaxu Lie remained silent for a while, then raised his head and seriously asked Huaxu Chen, "What are you trying to say?"
Huaxu Chen knitted his eyebrows, pondered for a long while, then said word by word, "Too impatient, we've been too impatient. Since something is wrong with Emperor Shun...Si Wen Ming and Ji Hao aren't here, but we should ask Ji Xia about what happened."
"Ji Xia showed up in the ceremony with a divine army, so he may know something." Said Huaxu Chen, "We aren't weak, we have many friends and we control strong forces. As brother Wen Ming's supporters, if we combine our powers, we can even control a big half of the humankind."
"But, did we ever run a discussion? Did we ever plan? Did you try to contact your friends, your brothers? No, none of us did this! Si Wen Ming isn't here, and we are unorganized. Without thinking, we sent ourselves to the frontline hastily."
Huaxu Chen gave a bitter grin and said, "Think about this. If we didn't rush into the hall alone like two idiots, but came with an army of brothers supporting us from the outside, would we be imprisoned in here so easily?"
Huaxu Lie blushed. With a muffled voice, he responded, "It's already happened, so no need to talk about it now. Talk about Hua Qingye...No, about Leader Qingye."
Huaxu Chen nodded. He made a gesture, lowered his voice, and said, "Do you remember what happened in the nine water gates area? Back then, when large families and clans sent out their elite forces for Si Wen Ming's credits, at first, about thirty percent of all elders supported this action. Do you remember this?"
"I don't know about the other families, but only around twenty percent of our elders insisted that we should do the same. Leader Qingye forbade them from doing so. At last, those elders sent their own people to the nine water gate area. It wasn't a decision made by the whole family, and those elders were reprimanded by Leader Qingye for long." Huaxu Lie narrowed his eyes and responded.
"That's right." Said Huaxu Chen in a deep voice, "Back then, Leader Qingye and most of our elders weren't as crazy as they are now."
Narrowing his eyes, Huaxu Chen continued, "Migrating mid and small clans? Occupying their territories? Looting their wealth? If we Huaxu Family people wanted to do this, we would have done it many years ago! Did we have to wait untill now? Till present? You understand how powerful we are. If we needed their territories, their wealth, if we truly wanted to do it, those mid and small clans would have been swallowed by us long ago. They wouldn't even have had a chance to survive till today!"
"Today, right now, Leader Qingye and all our elders, including those master elders who haven't shown up for years, have all been crazily seizing any profit they could see..."
A tremor went through Huaxu Chen's body as he clenched his teeth and asked Huaxu Lie with a trace of fear on his face, "Don't you think that as same as Emperor Shun, they aren't like themselves anymore?"
"Perhaps, Leader Qingye and those elders have changed...But, why are those master elders spending time with those dancers as well? They have been living isolated lives for countless years, with no other pursuit but becoming Supreme Magi."
"That was the congress hall of our Huaxu Family, but since when could those lowly musicians and dangers step into that place so freely?"
"Since when could we even host a party in that hall?"
"All these years, who dared to drink wildly before the memorial tablets of our ancestors? Who dared to put their arms around a woman's neck in that place?"
Huaxu Chen asked a series of question. Same as Huaxu Lie, his back was soaked in cold sweat, and his heart was frozen.
Their hearts sank into a great fear.