"Not quite. We were merely trying to find a way to resolve things sooner."
Cook Zeng said no more, but Lin Changheng could guess some of what he had left unsaid.
Dragging out a Clan War like this would cause far too much damage.
It consumed not only resources and lives, but also stalled development and unsettled people's hearts, inflicting irreversible harm on a Lineage.
The only exception was if they emerged victorious and swallowed everything their opponents possessed.
Clearly, the Huang Household could hardly achieve that.
Lin Changheng did not press further. Instead, he suddenly asked, "I wonder how you managed to escape two Foundation Establishment middle-stage cultivators for so long with your early-stage cultivation, Fellow Daoist Zeng, and hold out all the way to [Jade Belt Lake]... I am rather curious about that."
How could Cook Zeng fail to understand?
He immediately slapped his forehead and laughed. "I had already intended to give you this escape art as a special token of thanks for saving my life, Daoist Brother Lin. It is the only thing I possess that might be useful to you. My Spirit Chef skills might count as well, but that inheritance came from my Lineage, and I swore a Dao Oath not to pass it on without permission..."
"But I became so absorbed in treating my injuries that it slipped my mind."
As he spoke, he reached into his Storage Bag and took out an ancient gray-black scroll.
The scroll was made of neither silk nor paper. Its archaic patterns carried the weathered weight of long years.
Its surface was a dull gray-black, covered in extremely ancient, twisted, barely recognizable runes and lines drawn in some dark-gold pigment. These markings did not seem merely decorative. They faintly formed an enigmatic pattern, exuding a mysterious, obscure