Lighting the Incense

Gui Tang was called a pond, but it was actually a lake. This lake was half again as large as Longbo Lake, which Liu Xiaolou had helped the Qingyu Sect seize. Osmanthus trees lined its shores, and when summer and autumn came, their fragrance filled the four quarters.

Wufu Village lay beside Gui Tang, its estates stretching out in dense succession, occupying a vast expanse around the lake.

This village was where the Huang clan lived, the foundation upon which the Huang family stood as a cultivation clan.

One hundred and fifty years ago, the Gui Tang Huang clan formally established its current arrangement of five branches and five villages: the First Branch occupied Fushou Village, the Second Branch Fugui Village, the Third Branch Fukang Village, the Fourth Branch Fude Village, and the Fifth Branch Fushan Village. It was said that the villages housed more than three hundred Huang clan members, with six generations living under one roof!

To this day, the First and Third Branches were the pillars of Wufu Village, because only these two branches could uphold the Gui Tang Huang clan's prestige.

Huang Hui, chief of the First Branch, and Huang Zhong, the grand elder of the Third Branch, were both Foundation Establishment Late Stage experts. They were the foundation that allowed Wufu Village to rank among the first-class clans of the Zhanglong Sect.

Great clans with lofty gates were seldom bullied. For this very reason, the Gui Tang Huang clan had forgotten how many years had passed since anyone last came knocking at their door. In the depths of night, there was not even anyone standing watch. They had grown so lax that they had not even initiated the village-guarding formation.

Looking at the two lanterns before the gate casting their dim candlelight, listening to the