Preston nodded hurriedly. “Yes, yes, I received it. Seeing you now, I can finally be at ease. Wait—I'll go get your parents—”

  “Don’t.”

  Lauren reached out, stopping him before he could move.

  Indiana wasn’t dead—and she’d resurfaced. Lauren couldn’t risk her father, Nelson, knowing she was back.

  The fewer people who knew, the better.

  Lauren immediately took out the elixirs she’d prepared earlier and placed them carefully into Preston’s hands.

  “Grandpa, Mistvale’s too remote. The spiritual energy here is so thin, it’d be nearly impossible for you to reach Core Formation on your own. These elixirs should be enough to push you to the Great Perfection of Foundation Establishment.”

  Preston’s eyes widened in surprise, a mix of delight and disbelief flashing across his face. Then he sighed. “I’m afraid my talent’s too poor. Even if I reach Great Perfection, forming a core will still be beyond my reach.”

  Lauren smiled faintly. “That won’t be a problem. I have a Dan-Jie Fruit and some Dust-Reducing Pills. Together, they’ll guarantee your core formation.”

  “What?” Preston was completely stunned. “Those are priceless treasures—you can’t even find them on the open market! How in the world do you have them?”

  Lauren just smiled. “Don’t ask me, Grandpa. Just take them and use them well. By the time I come back next, I expect you to have formed your core.”

  Preston’s throat tightened. He accepted the storage pouch with trembling hands and nodded solemnly.

  “Also,” Lauren added, “here are a thousand fourth-grade Explosive Spirit Talismans. Keep them for self-defense.”

  Preston froze. For a moment, his mind went blank.

  A thousand fourth-grade talismans?

  His hands began to shake. The Evercrest family’s specialty had always been talisman crafting—no one understood better than he did what that number meant.

  Even the Thunder Sect’s top talisman experts couldn’t casually produce a thousand of these. The cost, the time, the materials—everything about it screamed impossible.

  “Lauren…” he said carefully, “where did these come from? Don’t tell me you—”

  “They’re clean, Grandpa,” Lauren interrupted firmly. “No stealing, no robbing, no grave-digging. Just use them for self-defense.”

  Preston stared at her, then finally nodded. “Alright, I won’t ask. But why do you even need this many? You realize this amount could blow Mistvale off the map?”

  “I’ll explain later,” Lauren said. “And—”

  “Wait.” Preston quickly caught her wrist before she could pull out anything else. “Even if you gave me a thousand of these, I can’t use them all. One fourth-grade talisman would drain my entire core.”

  Lauren smiled knowingly. “You don’t have to worry about that. The talismans I’m giving you don’t need spiritual energy to activate.”

  Preston blinked. “What? How’s that even possible? How do they work then?”

  “They function the same way as regular Explosive Spirit Talismans,” Lauren said lightly, “except they don’t consume spiritual energy. Think of it as… a self-contained detonation.”

  Preston examined one closely, his expression flickering between awe and disbelief.

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  Before he could ask more, Lauren brought out the eight black formation pillars, the Bagua plate, and the instruction jade slip.

  Preston looked at the items, dumbfounded. “…And what’s this?”

  “It’s a defensive formation I bought from a senior in the Thunder Sect,” Lauren said. “It’s both offensive and defensive. Everything you need to know is written here.”

  Preston extended his spiritual sense into the jade slip—and froze.

  He had once considered buying a defensive formation that could withstand a Core Formation cultivator’s attacks, but the cost had been so outrageous he’d given up.

  But this? This formation not only had both offensive and defensive functions—it could even withstand strikes from a Nascent Soul cultivator.

  He looked up sharply. “Lauren… all this money of yours—it’s legitimate, right?”

  Lauren blinked. “Grandpa, look at me. Do I look like someone who’d get rich doing shady things?”

  Preston stared at her for a moment, then nodded slowly. “Fair point.”

  “…So,” he said, squinting slightly, “you got rich?”

  Lauren scratched her cheek awkwardly. “You could say that.”

  “Take this too.” Lauren placed a thin stick of incense into Preston’s palm. “This is Ten Thousand Miles Incense. Actually, it works for a lot more than ten thousand miles. If you’re ever in danger, light it. I’ll hear everything you say until it burns out.”

  Preston’s earlier joy had already shifted to unease. Watching his granddaughter pile one treasure after another in front of him, his expression hardened with worry.

  “Lauren,” he said quietly, “are we facing something catastrophic? Something that could wipe out our family?”

  Lauren paused, then sighed.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. But we need to be ready. If it comes and I can’t get back in time… these things will at least keep you from being slaughtered like sheep.”

  Preston’s face turned solemn. “Has something already happened?”

  Lauren didn’t answer. Instead, she pulled out one final item.

  “Take this storage ring. Keep everything important in here.”

  It was Yusuf’s storage ring, stripped clean by the Gerald, then reforged by a smith into a plain, dignified band fit for an elder. Now, it bore no resemblance to its original form.

  After pressing it into his hand, she guided Preston to a chair. “Grandpa, sit. I’ll explain.”

  Preston obeyed, lowering himself onto the stool.

  Lauren sat across from him. “Grandpa, did you know my father has a daughter?”

  Preston’s face immediately darkened. “You already know about that? Hah… it’s your father’s fault for being a fool. He was set up. Don’t think badly of him. He never had feelings for that woman in the brothel. It was just—”

  “Grandpa, I know,” Lauren interrupted softly.

  She knew the whole story. Nelson had been framed. A prostitute who had entertained countless men just happened to conceive from him? Too coincidental. Yet despite all of Preston’s searching, no trail had ever been found. The so-called “friend” who lured him there would never have been that reckless. But with the prostitute dead, the truth of that night was buried forever.

  “My mother… she must have cared about it.”

  Preston exhaled slowly. “She did. The prostitute died, and your mother knew. There was a terrible fight. But after that… she never brought it up again.”

  Lauren smiled bitterly. So many twists, and yet, so little truly changed.

  “Did Father bring the child back?”

  “Yes. But I refused to accept her into the family. How could our name survive that kind of ridicule?”

  Preston’s voice was sharp with lingering anger. The Evercrests had always been clean. To publicly take in a prostitute’s child would’ve been an endless stain.

  Lauren thought: so her actions had shifted things after all.

  In her past lives, Nelson had first redeemed the woman, then tucked her away in a small courtyard, claiming she was his concubine. Humiliating as it was, the family tolerated it. Eventually, when the daughter’s origins came to light, Preston had raged but still accepted her—after thrashing Nelson bloody.

  But this life had gone differently. Lauren had beaten Indiana half to death, and in the chaos, Nelson must have rushed to bring her home. Preston would never have tolerated such a disgrace under his roof. No wonder Indiana hadn’t joined the clan this time.

  “After you… after you got into trouble,” Preston said heavily, “your father brought back a little girl, covered in blood. She was full of holes. Everyone thought she was long dead. But then your sixth uncle happened to return that very day… with a Seven Heart Lotus. That was the only reason she survived.”

  Lauren stiffened. “The Seven Heart Lotus? How in the hell did Sixth Uncle get his hands on something like that?”

  Preston almost laughed at the absurdity. “He saw a beggar on the street playing with it. Traded him two meat buns for it.”

  Lauren’s jaw dropped. A treasure worth countless lives, exchanged for a meal. There was no way that wasn’t manipulated by some hidden hand.

  “Then why give it to her?” she asked.

  “We had no way to preserve it,” Preston admitted. “Without feeding it to her, the lotus would have withered and been wasted.”

  What else could Lauren say? Everything had already been arranged so perfectly.

  The Evercrest family weren’t villains. Of course they wouldn’t let the Seven Heart Lotus wither away when it could save a life.

  After a long silence, Lauren finally spoke. “Grandpa… I killed her.”

  Preston froze, stunned by the words.

  Lauren pressed on. “I killed her. That’s why the thunder struck me.”