Maiden Of The Splitting Moon - Chapter 740: Talking with the Old Goat

“Alright, Zhu Xie, what are you her-”

Lao Yang immediately noticed Ming Yue before he could even finish what he wanted to say.

“Oh, you! I didn’t know you had come! Zhu Xie why didn’t you tell me that we had a guest?!”

The goat-kin looked at Zhu Xie, almost scolding him with his words. But Zhu Xie was quick to respond, taking a few shots at Lao Yang.

“I did. I sent a message over but you probably didn’t listen to it since it’s not that important to you. When is something ever more important than your research, you old goat?”

“Ah, yo- let’s do this inside, I don’t want to just argue in the middle of the entranceway.”

Lao Yang turned around, grabbing his cane that had been leaning against the wall. Being let in, Zhu Xie had Ming Yue enter first before following after her, closing the doors shut behind them.

Inside, the young woman couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose at the smell. It wasn’t particularly bad but things seemed a little dusty. But aside from that, she was taken aback by the sight of everything.

It was much larger than Zhu Xie’s workshop, it looked much larger than the library above them and the ceilings were quite high. Aside from that, there were shelves that reached those ceilings and rolling ladders that allowed people to climb up and down those shelves. There were dozens of those shelves and each of them held thousands of documents. Some were rolled up into scrolls while others had been compiled into books.

And Lao Yang wasn’t the only person here.

There were several others, all working in their own spaces, transcribing information and recovering as much as they could on these documents. None of them paid any attention to the group of three as they walked past them.

The old goat then led them to his own worktable where there were piles of documents scattered around. Pens, papers, there was a lot happening on that table.

“This might be the messiest table I’ve seen.”

Ming Yue kept this thought to herself but her eyes were glued to all of this. She didn’t know where to look so she turned her attention towards Lao Yang. The goat-kin left his cane against the table before hopping onto a tall chair. It gave him enough height to oversee everything on the table.

It made him taller than Ming Yue though not quite as tall as Zhu Xie.

“So then, why have you come to visit me all of a sudden?” he asked.

The boar-kin opened his mouth to speak but stopped himself, instead letting Ming Yue talk.

“I need to ask you for a favor.”

After that, she gave him a quick explanation of what had happened, ending with the letter that the Huxian Tribe gave to Elder Shen.

“Knowing this, I thought that it would be best to put them under the Zodiac’s care. But I know that this is a lot to ask for. However, I’m sure that you’d find great interest in talking to Elder Shen, the Spirit Elder of Heaven’s Gate.”

After saying her part, Lao Yang rubbed hs little chinbeard, thinking about this arrangement carefully.

“Protection from the Huxian Tribe, huh? Interesting.”

His eyes then twinkled a bit as he looked at Ming Yue.

“There must be something else. What about the little girl you were with? What happened to her?” he questioned.

“She is with us and well, I believe that you could help find out her origins”, she said.

Lao Yang looked at her with interest.

“What do you mean by that?”

Ming Yue paused for a moment, pondering whether to tell him this. After all, she wasn’t sure about his character.

“Would he try to take advantage? Experiment on her too?” she wondered.

But then she looked up at Zhu Xie who nodded as if to say that Lao Yang was trustworthy. And so she told the goat-kin about Hongyu, how she was found in one of the ruins, how her origins were shrouded in mystery.

And once she was finished, Lao Yang seemed to be at a loss for words.

“You… you found someone that has existed before the Calamity? This… this is… TREMENDOUS NEWS!!”

Lao Yang shouted out in excitement, garnering the attention of everyone else while almost falling off his own chair. He did manage to keep himself steady but then hopped off anyways, landing squarely on the table.

He paced around, stepping on the papers with little care.

“Hmm, Ruins of a Broken Banner, right? Let me see, we should have a small book dedicated to that place somewhere.”

He was lost in thought before Zhu Xie clapped his hands, snapping the old goat out of his trance. Lao yan looked at him to which the boar-kin said something.

“So does that count as you agreeing?” he asked.

“Of course.”

Lao Yang didn’t miss a beat when he answered. He looked at Ming Yue with a happy little grin.

“Ahaha, this is truly a surprise. I wonder what I can dig up about her and those ruins. A new puzzle to be found!”

Gauging his reaction, Ming Yue felt some type of relief. She realized that he wasn’t focused on her but only the mystery around her. On top of that, he had agreed to it so easily. It gave her some peace of mind.

“Ah, this won’t do. I can’t just bring them here and there. I know, I can bring my materials back to the mansion! I just need to bring Jin Nao and have a few of my proteges help me with this. It will be my biggest discovery yet! I can feel it!”

Lao Yang practically ran off in a hurry, gathering all of the things needed for him to return to the mansion. He no longer paid any attention to with person.

Zhu Xie just sighed and shrugged turning around to go.

“Ah, there’s waking him from all that excitement. Let’s go, he’ll probably come around soon enough”, said the boar-kin.

Ming Yue nodded, following him out of the Pigeonhole and onto the streets of the Den. By now the sun had risen and the streets were bustling with the morning markets.

“Ah, perhaps I should take this opportunity to stock up on food. Ming Yue, you can return without me if you’d like.”

The young woman nodded, watching him vanish into the crowds.

Looking forward again, she started walking through the Den, making her way back to the mansion of the Zodiacs. But as she was well on her way there, she felt that something was amiss.

Knowing that the Huxian Tribe was watching her, Ming Yue had become much more wary of her surroundings. And in doing so, she felt a strange sensation, a pair of eyes looking at her from a distance.

However, she couldn’t quite pinpoint who was tailing her.

“Hmm, there’s no point in trying to lose the, they already know where I’m headed. Though, I suppose I should send some sort of warning.”

Thinking this, her walking pace didn’t change but she did make a detour away from the mansion.

“Hmm, why don’t I go there instead?”

She then headed towards the plaza where she had lost Cheng Wei in their chase. Once there, she circled around the plaza once, carefully checking her surroundings. And then she suddenly stopped in her tracks and vanished from sight.

Moments later, a shadow figure peeked out from one of the many roads.

“Strange, where could she have gone? Did she know that I was tailing her?”

They seemed confused not knowing what or how to respond to this development. Suddenly, a sword slid right underneath their chin, just barely gliding off the skin of their neck.

And there she was, standing behind this mysterious person.

“Who are you?”