Chen Hao's lips curled into an arc as he thought, "Because I possess the Nether King's Heart, this blade of the Ancestor of the Nether King doesn't reject me; or maybe it's like how the Evil-Banishing Moon Sword could accept Yuqiao because I like her, and since Yuqiao has me in her heart, the blade of the Ancestor of the Nether King accepted me too."

With that thought, the curve of Chen Hao's lips grew more pronounced, and he couldn't help but laugh out loud. However, he quickly discarded that theory, for when Niu Tou had gifted the blade of the Ancestor of the Nether King to him, Ye Yuqiao had not yet fallen for him.

Suddenly, Chen Hao's face showed shock!

"No, no!" he urgently thought, his thoughts plunging into turmoil. After a while, once he had composed himself, he realized: When Niu Tou gave him the blade, it had no knowledge of the Nether King's Heart within him. Surely, Niu Tou must have been aware that the blade would resist, so giving the blade to Chen Hao at that time could have meant it intended to kill him?

Clearly, Niu Tou didn't want to kill him, for it could have easily done so when Chen Hao's Yin Soul descend into the Netherworld. There was no need for such an elaborate setup. Therefore, the only explanation was that Niu Tou must have already known that Chen Hao possessed the Nether King's Heart!

If that was the case, then why did it, along with Ma Mian, pretend to know nothing about it and even take his grandfather's Yin Soul to set a deadline for Chen Hao?

Everything looked like a meticulously planned layout and conspiracy!

In an instant, Chen Hao turned pale. He simply could not understand why Niu Tou would do such a thing.

Seeing the panic in Chen Hao's eyes, Lin Mo asked, "Young brother, what's wrong?"

Chen Hao glanced at Lin Mo, his eyes filled with unease and his forehead covered with cold sweat. After taking a deep breath, the panic on his face receded, replaced by a forced, bitter smile. He thought that it wouldn't be long before the day he would visit his grandfather in the Netherworld, and it wouldn't be too late to question Niu Tou about this matter then.

"It's nothing," Chen Hao shook his head, "I was just overwhelmed by the saber aura emanating from these two blades."

Lin Mo nodded in confusion and asked, "How do you happen to have this twin blade? Shouldn't it be with Niu Tou as a matter of fact?"

"How do you know it was with Niu Tou?" Chen Hao asked in surprise, looking into Lin Mo's eyes.

Lin Mo blinked, his gaze somewhat frantic. Then, looking away to avoid Chen Hao's scrutiny, he hesitated for a long time before saying, "I won't lie to you, my grandfather was once a confidant minister next to the Ancestor of the Nether King..."

Sixty thousand years ago, before the Ancestor of the Nether King ascended the throne in the Netherworld City, leading people through wars in all directions, Lin Mo's grandfather, Lin Kai, was one of the highly trusted chief ministers by his side, privy to many secrets unknown to others.

After the Ancestor of the Nether King proclaimed himself emperor, to ensure that some secrets would not be leaked, he had those trusty ministers who had helped him conquer lands assassinated.

Lin Kai had foreseen this day long ago and had one of his sons switch identities with a servant's child at birth to preserve the bloodline of the Lin family in case of annihilation, and sealed many secrets with spiritual power into a jade pendant he had placed on his son at birth.

Lin Kai's fortunate son was none other than Lin Mo's father, Lin Fei. It wasn't until thousands of years after the Lin family was annihilated that the grown-up Lin Fei discovered the mystery hidden within the jade pendant. After Lin Fei unraveled the seal of the jade pendant, the lingering consciousness of Lin Kai that was left in the pendant appeared before Lin Fei.

Not long after sharing the secret with Lin Fei, the imprint of Lin Kai's consciousness also vanished.

Among the several secrets Lin Kai told Lin Fei, one of the most important was about the legend of the ancient city. It was said that this ancient city was a place akin to paradise, where there was no death or illness, no hunger or poverty, and no natural or man-made disasters.

The Ancestor of the Nether King was from the ancient city. He was ordered by his father to come to the Netherworld to seal off the path leading to the ancient city, to establish order in the Netherworld, and to erase all records and legends about the ancient city, ensuring that it would never be threatened by invaders.

Lin Kai told Lin Fei that there was a map which, when opened in the Samsara Path, could guide the Yin Souls to the entrance leading to the ancient city. Not long after the Ancestor of the Nether King unified the Netherworld, he tore the map into seven parts and placed each inside a scroll containing the seal of a demon. Of these seven scrolls, Lin Kai knew only that four were in the hands of the clan leaders of the four big families at the time; the whereabouts of the remaining three were unknown.

After a while, seeing that Lin Mo had nothing more to say, Chen Hao assumed Lin Mo had finished speaking and asked, "So, you entered this world within the painting in order to collect the fragments of the map that lead to the entrance of the ancient city?"

"Exactly!" Lin Mo nodded, "Sadly, I have always been unable to defeat this Sandrock Demon!"

After some thought, Chen Hao said, "Today, Huashan told me that you entered into this painting more than five hundred years ago? Five hundred years here is merely sixteen or seventeen years in the world we live in. But your father discovered this secret tens of thousands of years ago, so haven't you father and son entered any other paintings in all these years?"

Lin Mo sighed and continued to recall the past. After learning the secret about the ancient city, his father Lin Fei sneaked into Netherworld City to find the seven scrolls that were sealed by the Nether King's Power by the Ancestor of the Nether King.

After inquiring within the city for hundreds of years, Lin Fei was not only unable to infiltrate the Zhao, Qian, Sun, and Li big families, but he also found nothing about the other three scrolls. However, one day, he accidentally saw the chariot of the Second Generation Nether King, who was the Crown Prince at the time, passing by, and he quietly followed behind.

He followed until evening, when the Second Generation Nether King's chariot suddenly stopped in front of a civilian's house. The Second Generation Nether King got down from the chariot and went straight into the house to chat with a girl sitting in the courtyard. That night, the Second Generation Nether King graced the girl with his favor.

Half a month later, after observing in secret every day, Lin Fei noticed that the girl mysteriously had a dagger up her sleeve and recognized it as the Ancestor of the Nether King's personal blade.

One night shortly afterward, he quietly snuck into the girl's home and stole the Ancestor of the Nether King's blade. As soon as Lin Fei touched the blade, his right hand was scorched, and so he had to endure the excruciating pain and take the Ancestor of the Nether King's blade back home.

Since he could not find the whereabouts of the seven scrolls, Lin Fei had to abandon this thought and placed the Ancestor of the Nether King's blade into a sealed wooden box and buried it deep underground. It wasn't until four thousand years ago that his son Lin Mo, who had entered the Zhao Family as a recruited expert, was finally told by Lin Fei about this.

After learning about it, Lin Mo began to secretly inquire about the whereabouts of the scroll in the Zhao Family. Although he later found out that the scroll was in a bookshelf in Zhao Chong's room, he didn't dare to act because he was afraid of being discovered.

Eighteen years ago, as the Fourth Generation Underworld King, Yuqiao, suddenly sacrificed his Yin Soul to seal the Gate of the Nether King, and as the Ghost King, along with the Eight Great Law Kings, burst out of Hell, the Netherworld was thrown into chaos, and the Zhao Residence was busy dealing with the turmoil in the Netherworld. Lin Mo then found the opportunity to enter Zhao Chong's room, open the painting, and bring the Ancestor of the Nether King's blade into the world within the painting.

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