Chapter 396 Yan Family

That night passed uneventfully.

It wasn’t until the next day when Xia Xinyan got out of bed that she felt fully revived, shoving last night’s events to the back of her mind and diving back into business mode.

She relayed the information she heard from Summer Jincang yesterday to Ling Mo, the Fatty, and the others, explaining the opportunities and possible dangers involved.

The Demon Strongholds in the Dark Zone were not singular, but not overly scattered either. If they recklessly attacked one stronghold, it was highly likely the demons inside wouldn’t be wiped out, and the other strongholds’ demons would come rushing over in response.

This was also one of the demons’ habits—they often acted collectively and would rush to assist other demons when they sensed or were alerted to an attack. Their low IQ did have this one advantage: they weren’t afraid of death and wouldn’t retreat. So even if an individual demon wasn’t very strong, their combined strength was nightmare-inducing.

She recalled how in a past expedition, the commander had severely underestimated the demons’ strength and attacked recklessly, which led to her unit being surrounded by countless demons. In her despair, she manifested the strongest weapon she could use at the time—a space battleship—taking herself and all the demons along with her straight to the afterlife.

And then, she was reborn.

That was a past experience.

However, if nothing unexpected happened, the distribution of the demon strongholds this time should be the same as in her previous life. With this predictive information, they could accomplish a lot.

For example, they could aim to secure a solid victory to gain command over the expedition.

This required the Chicks and Eagles Alliance to rapidly expand and build cohesion; only then could they form a stronger fighting force. Naturally, that job was left to Fatty.

Additionally worth mentioning, a little later, Morning Light came by representing the Ability Bureau to discuss some matters regarding the prior invasion incident.

They already had some preliminary results from investigating the traces in the sewers, including signs of magic circles, marks left by magical beasts, and many more that still needed clarification. One clear point was that the entities behind this weren’t Eden—not the main culprits at least. Some battle traces had already pointed to targets, but those involved major powers, making in-depth investigations quite troublesome.

According to Morning Light, the Eternal Life Palace was currently the biggest suspect.

The Eternal Life Palace was one of the earliest established guilds in the game and also one of the oldest major powers in reality, led by the Yan Family.

Previously, the Eternal Life Palace had made quite a few small moves, placing it on the Ability Bureau’s watch-list. After this incident, the Bureau’s attention on them spiked even more, yet with the current world situation, they couldn’t act as freely as before. Therefore, Morning Light merely reminded Ling Mo and the others to maintain vigilance.

Furthermore, there were results regarding the investigation into the sister known as Bai Yan who had been acting alongside them at the time—Bai Yan had always been at odds with the Eternal Life Palace, having had several direct conflicts before, though none had significant repercussions, so the Ability Bureau hadn’t paid much attention.

This time, that group of sisters probably uncovered something that made them care about the matter so much.

However, there were no results concerning Bai Yan’s background investigation. That group of sisters was quite mysterious, having saved numerous civilians during the urban disaster, but quietly left after everything was resolved. The people they rescued tried to organize a commendation but couldn’t find anyone, ultimately sending all the rewards to the Ability Bureau for them to pass on to those sisters. As a result, the Bureau was now filled with a pile of rewards that didn’t belong to them, with no one to deliver them.

Speaking of all this, Xia Xinyan recalled some things.

She remembered when she encountered Bai Yan and her group in the dungeon before; they were also chasing after the Eternal Life Palace’s people. The leader among them also had the surname Yan, so it seemed that this grudge had been building for quite some time.

After Morning Light left, Ling Mo also mentioned something: “I have an impression of that Yan Family.”

After a brief pause, he suddenly smiled: “You all remember the time I got roasted by so many people online for no reason, right?—I looked into it later, and there was a shadow of the Eternal Life Palace behind it, or rather… the Yan Family.”

Upon hearing this, Fatty started shouting right away: “Damn, is that so? Let’s beat the hell out of him!”

Damn, just hearing about the Yan Family sounded like they were up to no good.

Bai Yu, however, was curious: “Why would the Yan Family target you? Did you have conflicts before?”

“No direct conflicts, but we did bump into each other once,” Ling Mo chuckled. “I remember playing a dungeon that was called Witch’s Castle. The plot was a bit special, so it left a pretty strong impression on me—together with me was a guy named Yan Zi Gui. I looked into it afterward; he was a young master from the Yan Family, so he should be the only one capable of doing something like this.”

As Ling Mo said that, Xia Xinyan also recalled.

The Yan Family…

“Then why did he target you?” Fatty asked as he felt wronged on behalf of his brother.

Ling Mo pondered for a moment and shrugged, “Maybe it’s because we cleared the dungeon and they didn’t.”

At that time, the dungeon’s plot was quite unique; he nearly fell for it too. Without Xinyan’s reminder, he probably would’ve ended up failing the task just like the others without even realizing how.

Perhaps they showed off in front of Yan Zi Gui, leaving that young master feeling embarrassed in front of the sisters, leading him to behave poorly—after all, for a family capable of supporting a major power like the Yan Family, dealing with a small fry like him was probably just a few careless words.

That was the only explanation that made sense. Or maybe that young master from the Yan Family was just a lunatic, acting without reason.

And whatever trouble that guy causally stirred up caused Ling Mo quite a headache.

Although in the end, he proved he wasn’t a playboy through strength, he had always cared about this incident. Someone intentionally targeted him, and he didn’t even know who it was—this wasn’t his style. However, later on, using the Chicks’ information network, he followed those old leads to uncover the Yan Family but didn’t take further action.

At that time, the Chicks were far from being a match for the Eternal Life Palace, and since the Yan Family didn’t make any more moves, he kept this to himself.

Little did he expect they were now involved with the Yan Family again.

“So, what does Old Ling plan to do? Not gonna settle the score with him?” Fatty naturally felt indignant on Ling Mo’s behalf since he knew what had happened back then.

Ling Mo shook his head: “Not necessary. If the previous invasion incident was indeed the handiwork of the Eternal Life Palace, then the Ability Bureau will naturally help deal with them. Right now, we have more important matters to attend to, so we don’t have time to deal with these trivialities.”

Xia Xinyan tilted her head and gazed at him for a moment.

Now, Ling Mo truly exhibited the temperament and mindset of a leader…