[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-watching-the-immortals-fall":3,"chapter-watching-the-immortals-fall-watching-the-immortals-fall-chapter-65":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Watching the Immortals Fall",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2259938,4410,"Chapter 65: The Old Imperial Clan","watching-the-immortals-fall-chapter-65",65,"\u003Cp>In the northwestern part of Zhongzhou, Ningcheng County.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As evening fell, the sky gradually darkened, and street vendors poked at the stoves beneath their stalls, trying to make the fires burn brighter.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Soon, a woman walked along the street and stopped before a stall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The woman was breathtakingly beautiful, wearing a snow-edged long skirt, her gaze as soft and deep as autumn water, her skin like piled snow, yet her expression cold, radiating an aloofness that discouraged approach.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Every evening she came to buy a sweet potato, seemingly fond of it, yet always muttering that it wasn’t as tasty as his roasted ones.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At first, the vendor dared not speak out, but as he heard it more and more, he couldn’t help but complain a few times.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“You always say I can’t roast as well as he does—then why do you keep coming to buy?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Because he’s not here.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The woman peeled the sweet potato, squinting as she said: “Do you know? I only met him once.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After hearing this, the vendor pursed his lips, thinking to himself: Where would I know that? But I do know—if the “he” in your words is a man, he’s clearly moonstruck.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After buying the sweet potato, the woman walked away along the street toward a derelict courtyard.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Disciples of Lingjian Mountain had once been attacked in Qingzhou; after extensive tracking and investigation, the trail led to Qiling Ruins.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But one thing many had overlooked.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That was Chen Qinghe’s original identity.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Chen Immortal Clan had a rule for taking disciples unlike any other immortal sect: all who joined must change their surname and adopt the clan name.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This rule existed because they did not wish to see overly powerful secular families nearby.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>According to the records she had uncovered, before changing his surname, Chen Qinghe had not been surnamed Chen—he was surnamed Zheng.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>During the era of warring states, Zheng was an ancient imperial surname.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After the Great Xia received aid from immortal sects and waged war across the Central Plains, the Zheng state surrendered, transforming from imperial family into a mighty aristocratic house—but it did not decline, for its descendants possessed exceptional cultivation talent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Especially the last patriarch of the Zheng family, who had once been the senior brother of Chen Ruhai, the current leader of the Chen Immortal Clan; a century ago, they were called the Zheng Twin Paragons.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But lacking a true Dao lineage, the Zheng patriarch could never reach Immortal Threshold; when his lifespan ended, he passed away.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Since his death, the fortune the Zheng family had carried since the warring era seemed to have been utterly spent; now, their descendants had dwindled to nothing, even their ancestral home sold, the entire clan relocating elsewhere.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If Chen Qinghe had merely been surnamed Zheng, it wouldn’t have warranted the personal visit of Lingjian Mountain’s Junior Inspector.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But another matter was even stranger: Hongshan Mine.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Hongshan Mine lay in Zhongzhou and was originally controlled by the Zheng family; it was said that miners accidentally breached a tunnel leading deep into Qiling.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When the Zheng family learned of this, they nearly emptied their ranks; their ancestral fortune seemed to have been lost from that moment onward, their descendants dwindling continuously.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>First, the Zheng family’s Hongshan Mine was dug through, connecting to Qiling.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then, their clansman Zheng Qinghe became something neither human nor ghost, constantly shuttling back and forth across the Qiling Mountains, escorting caravans.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If there were no connection, Yan Shuyi would not believe it for a moment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The long street soon ended; the Junior Inspector had already eaten half her sweet potato.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She now stood before a ruined courtyard, looking up—the plaque had vanished.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only the characters carved on the stone pillars before the gate indicated this had once been the ancestral home of the Zheng family.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The estate had once been vast and thriving, but now the main gate stood tightly shut, its bronze lock rusted.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Boom!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A sliver of sword qi leaked out, and the Zheng ancestral gate collapsed with a thunderous crash.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Shuyi stepped inside and immediately felt a chilling coldness pressing against her; a strange odor drifted through the air.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The first courtyard was filled with waist-high weeds; besides them, only broken tiles and bricks, and a main hall half-collapsed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Junior Inspector surveyed the place for a long while, then left the front courtyard and moved deeper into the Zheng residence.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If someone wants to hide something, they won’t put it on the surface—that’s something even a three-year-old knows.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As Yan Shuyi stepped through the weeds, she opened her delicate palm.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With the surge of immortal light, a stone mirror floated into the air; beams of immortal radiance descended, revealing every detail, piercing into the inner chamber of the last house.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Shuyi drew her sword and entered the room; watching the immortal light flicker, she pondered briefly, then slashed her sword through the rear stone wall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With a crash, half the wall was sheared away—but what lay behind was not the twilight of the courtyard, but another wall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This wall was hollow; it appeared solid, but concealed a narrow passage with a stone staircase descending downward.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“...”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Shuyi stood atop the stairs in silence for a long time, not moving.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She feared the dark.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It had nothing to do with her cultivation realm—purely a psychological fear.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But after a moment’s thought, she descended the long, dark passage, climbed the endless stone steps, and finally reached the depths.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Before her stretched a vast underground palace, nearly as large as the Zheng family’s aboveground estate.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Unlike the aboveground grounds, filled with pavilions and towers, the underground palace held nothing but row upon row of stone cells sealed by iron bars.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Zheng Jinghui, Zheng Yu, Zheng Chen, Zheng Hongwen...”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Shuyi’s gaze swept over the name plaques on the cells, then halted; her brow furrowed deeply.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>From the plaques, those imprisoned were all Zheng clan descendants.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But what Yan Shuyi saw inside the cells... were not humans.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They were desiccated corpses, blackened like charred wood, long dead, locked in individual cells, buried under layers of dust.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Shuyi walked deeper into the cells; when she reached the very end, she suddenly stopped.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Beyond the iron bars, she saw a demon seed brimming with malevolent energy, curled in the corner; the walls were covered in deep gouges—all made by its claws.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Seeing a living person enter, the demon seed erupted into violent frenzy, lunging forward, its withered claws scrabbling wildly, as if determined to tear everything apart.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet, contrary to its ferocious actions, a weak voice emerged from its mouth.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Save me...”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The ancestors lied to me—save me.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Seeing this, Yan Shuyi felt a chill surge through her heart.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Why had the Zheng family’s descendants dwindled? Was it truly, as outsiders claimed, because their fortune had vanished and they could no longer bear children—so that a once-mighty imperial house had fallen to the point of abandoning its ancestral home?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even as she looked at the earlier cells, an answer had already been forming in her mind.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But even with preparation, seeing the demon seed speak in human words still filled her with overwhelming revulsion.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet then, Yan Shuyi noticed another desiccated corpse, hidden in the shadow behind the demon seed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was a true corpse—not a demon seed that had lost its malevolence.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She could see the corpse had long, flowing hair; it was a woman, still clad in the long robe of Lingjian Mountain, clearly drained dry.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yan Shuyi turned and left the underground prison, her heart icy cold.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As she stepped onto the surface, Qiling Mountain far away erupted once more in brilliant immortal light.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Compared to the last time the immortal sect disciples entered the mountain, this light was far more violent; colorful auroras blanketed the sky, like golden scales spreading across the mountain peaks.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The immortal sect prodigies who had previously ridden flying swords and followed the disciples beyond the malevolent energy now could no longer contain their excitement; one after another, great swords plunged into the mountain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>(End of Chapter)\u003C\u002Fp>",1348,"2026-06-19T15:28:39.995Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","038880e29dac2b3502a43a0f463ba58f35401ad9840e1000e9a416d8e45e5b0c","watching-the-immortals-fall-chapter-66","watching-the-immortals-fall-chapter-64",430,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fwatching-the-immortals-fall-cover.jpg"]