"Bah!" Zhang Chengye cursed, "Someone like you, a life-borrower? Do you even know what kind of person can become a life-borrower?"

"Life-borrowers are all shrewd individuals. The underworld only looks favorably upon those with exceptional cultivation and intelligence. Ye Yang is a life-borrower. How many moves could you withstand against him?"

Zhang Qiang was silenced by the scolding. Zhang Chengye took a breath, "My right eyelid keeps twitching. It's not a good omen. Qiangzi, come here!"

After Zhang Qiang approached, Zhang Chengye took out something, "I have a feeling something's going to happen. That Ye Yang isn't easy to deal with. If he really comes looking for us, I'll hold him off. You run!"

Zhang Chengye didn't give Zhang Qiang a chance to speak. He scolded him as soon as he tried to interrupt, "Don't say a word! If Ye Yang catches up to you, use this to negotiate with him. Tell him this contains the secrets of the Little Huangquan (Little Yellow Springs). If he wants the secrets, he has to trade for them."

"Make your demands as high as you can. Your price should not only guarantee you a comfortable life, with a wife and children, but also secure the future for your children and grandchildren."

"Remember, no matter how much Ye Yang pressures you, don't give in. Even if he flays you alive, don't yield. If you hold on, he loses."

"Remember, after Ye Yang agrees to your terms, make him swear a blood oath. Only a warlock who has sworn a blood oath won't go back on their word, understand?"

Zhang Qiang had just said "Understood" when Ye Yang's sword light burst through the door. The foot-and-two-inch short sword pierced through Zhang Qiang's mouth and out the back of his head. The bloodied sword, still trembling, pinned him to the wall, as if deliberately shaking off the blood.

As Zhang Chengye watched Zhang Qiang's body fall to the ground, Ye Yang's longsword arrived like lightning. Explosive sword energy sliced across Zhang Chengye's wrist, sending his hand and the secret manual flying into the air simultaneously.

Ye Yang gently nudged the severed hand to the ground with his longsword, then used the blade to hold up the secret manual.

The manual, hanging on the sword, slowly slid down the blade towards the hilt. Ye Yang said coldly, "This manual better be useful, or I'll make sure every member of your Zhang family is obliterated, body and soul."

"Hahaha..." Zhang Chengye shouted, his eyes bloodshot, "The only heir of our Zhang family has died in your hands. What hope is there left? Let me tell you, without a member of the Zhang family, you won't be able to see what's inside the manual, even if you get it. Just wait to die!"

"Enough nonsense!" Ye Yang said, and as he took the manual, he pierced Zhang Chengye's throat with a backhanded strike.

Ye Yang sat in the blood-soaked room and opened the Zhang family's secret manual.

Zhang Chengye's ghost, covered in blood, stood in the corner of the room, and said with a ghastly sneer: "You have got the manual, so what? Can you even open it?"

Ye Yang reached out, dipped a finger in the blood, drew a couple of lines on the manual, and opened it as if he were turning a page in a book.

Zhang Chengye was stunned for a while: "You...so what if you opened it? Can you understand it? The manual is written in underworld cipher. Without me…"

Ye Yang began to read aloud: "Any descendants of the Zhang family who find this manual must not reveal its existence, as the contents herein concern the life and death of the Zhang family…"

Zhang Chengye panicked, "You're making it up, aren't you? How can you understand things from the underworld?"

Ye Yang continued: "The Zhang family's ancestor failed to retire from the martial world because he did not kill the required three thousand prisoners. What seemed to be fate was actually a conspiracy. He Hao Yu's immortality seemed to have been prearranged. The Zhang family happened to stumble into it…"

"You, you..." Zhang Chengye trembled all over, "Even if you understand it, it's useless. You can't open the last few pages of the manual. The Zhang family's secret methods are there..."

Ye Yang deliberately turned the manual face down on the table, pinched a corner of it with two fingers, and flipped it open to the last few pages: "Is that all?"

"You...you..." Zhang Chengye's eyes bulged out of their sockets. He was like a balloon that had been overinflated. With a bang, he exploded. Green phosphorescent flames scattered everywhere like water. Ye Yang turned around and slashed at Zhang Qiang's body on the ground with his sword.

This time, instead of blood, phosphorescent flames emerged from Zhang Qiang's orifices. His soul had been extinguished by Ye Yang.

Ye Yang looked at the manual again, but his expression became even more solemn.

The manual recorded the Zhang family's ancestor's three entries into the library: The truly terrifying aspect of the library isn't the labyrinthine intersections or the doors that can disappear at any time, but rather the spirits of the dead who reappear in the library.

The spirits in the library are not only immortal, but they were also top figures in their respective fields when they were alive, including warlocks. It is almost impossible to break out of the library from the inside by one's own power.

Ye Yang frowned when he read this. If there was no way to break out of the library, how did the Zhang family's ancestor escape?

Ye Yang turned a few more pages. It turned out that the Zhang family's ancestor had been sent out of the perilous place three times because he had deceived a ghost in the library.

That ghost had once told him: To break the library, one must "kill one, deceive one, trust one, and help one." As for who these four people were, the ghost did not tell the Zhang family.