Wu Huang seemed to have known she would ask this, and simply replied: "No, I won't. We are just going to hear what the ruler of Li Kingdom has to suggest, not to fight and kill."
"Since it's not about fighting and killing, there's even less reason to take him. Changing it to your smooth-tongued Lord Fu, wouldn't that be even more suitable?"
A startlingly cold laugh rang out.
"Oh, I forgot my good sister. You love breaking hearts even more than taking lives. Letting him stand by and watch you and your old flame being all lovey-dovey, with his heart breaking like he's being sliced by knives—that must be even more fun, right?"
Wu Huang lowered her eyelids, her heart and eyes equally dreary.
"Nian'er, matters of state are of utmost importance, not for play."
"Of course, you are all people who accomplish great things. Only I am narrow-minded."
"That's right, who told me I was born late and lingered too long in mother's womb, practically exhausting her to death? Aside from Brother Yue, who cherishes me, no one cares for me."
"Yet my good sister, you have everything, and still you want to snatch him away. How truly wicked you are."
Wu Huang shook her head weakly: "Nian'er, I didn't. You know that."
A light giggle like silver bells: "Just teasing you, sister. I know, you like that person after all. I'm so glad the two of you can meet again. Your little sister is truly happy for you. This time, you must make sure the talks go smoothly."
Yan Xiao'er listened in a daze. How could this be? Weren't the previous generation's Emperor Xu these two sisters' mother? She had thought it was a direct bloodline inheritance.
Speaking of which, in the words of the academy tutor, she seemed to have almost never heard any legendary stories about Emperor Li Ye.
The emperor who ultimately won the great war—everyone across the country knew it was the immensely brave Grand Emperor Li Xi. Children of Li Kingdom had to memorize this name as soon as they learned to speak, to commemorate his heroic deeds in single-handedly ending the three-hundred-year war.
Next came the routine of returning to the bedchamber to take medicine. This time, a small brazier was set up in the hall, so that piping hot medicinal soup could be had at any moment.
Even Yan Xiao'er could tell that there was obviously something wrong with this medicinal soup, yet every time Wu Huang drank it down completely without a single hesitation.
Every time, it was Wu Nian who stared at her until she finished it, and only then would a trace of a smile appear on her desolate and miserable face before she left.
Yan Xiao'er had no sisters or brothers, nor did she know how sisters in ordinary families usually got along with each other.
She could only think of the Yu Family brothers. Clearly they were twins, yet one did not even know he had a younger brother, while the other, upon hearing that his older brother was in a place of no return, failed to show the slightest bit of pity or shock.
A blood relation that defies definition.
And how was she herself any different? If her great-grandfather was still an utterly ordinary person back then, from which generation onwards did the bloodline of the new Wulian Clan begin?
Could it be on her great-grandmother's side?
Yan Xiao'er dizzily pondered these matters that she was still too young to fully comprehend.
If in three days she were to see her great-grandfather again, it would be wonderful if she could ask Wu Huang to press him with a few more questions.
It was just a pity she lacked the ability to make Wu Huang strictly follow her wishes.
In a hazy fog, she grew sleepy as well. Time to sleep; even a spiritual body could not go on forever without rest, after all.
——————————
The moment Yu Changmian stepped into the crevice in the rock, he immediately felt that soul-piercing oppression from several years ago, only grown stronger.
Even after such a long time had passed, he was instantly dragged back to the agonizing, life-worse-than-death feeling of the first time he had accidentally wandered into it in broad daylight.
"The Grandmaster's closing-door disciple is him?!"
"He's still an infant, how can anyone tell his aptitude?"
"Does this mean once he's taken in, none of us can ever become disciples under the Grandmaster?"
"In the past there were at least three or five, and this year there's only one!"
"Damn it all, what a wasted trip. Bah!"
"Sigh, after traveling for dozens of days, and waiting ten years for a once-in-a-decade apprenticeship ceremony—it's over, completely over."
"Could he be some precious young master from a major clan? Look at what he's wearing and what he has on, it's worth more than our family master's possessions."
"They've got him all dressed up and placed right up there on the Dao platform. How calculating."
"Exactly, exactly. They say it's anonymous and based solely on aptitude, but being born into the right womb already puts him way ahead of us."
"Might as well go home and farm the fields. Forget it, nothing is more grounded than dropping wishful thinking."
...
They say children remember things from age three, yet he was clearly just a newborn baby—how could he hear those people's words so clearly and distinctly?
Where did these memories come from?
They said he was from a wealthy background, but he had neither father nor mother. The other senior brothers all had family members coming to visit or exchanging letters.
He only had his master.
Later on, every year on the fifth day of the fifth month, his birthday, his master would lock him alone in the forbidden room, and only then did he understand that he was born bearing a jinx, and could only sever all ties of kinship to survive.
Entering the Grandmaster's sect meant food and clothing were taken care of, but barring expulsion from the sect, one was forbidden to ever descend the mountain for the rest of their life.
Master's requirements for selecting people were extremely high, leaving fewer than twenty disciples on the mountain.
Even for family members to visit, there were harsh conditions: they had to go five years without breaking any mountain rules to earn a single day's opportunity to meet.
When that day arrived, Yu Changmian would often hide behind a big tree, watching visitors sometimes cry and sometimes laugh, while the senior brothers were strictly forbidden to have any contact with the visitors, able only to gaze at each other from afar across the split in the green stone slabs in front of the main hall.
Until one time, Senior Brother Zheng, who treated him the kindest on the mountain, received clothing presented by his family in front of the main hall, whereupon his head and body parted ways, and a pillar of black blood splattered everywhere on the spot. He fainted on the spot behind the tree and never saw anyone other than his master ever again.
"Mian'er, you must leave."
"Master, what did I do wrong?"
"Your destiny is too lethal."
Yu Changmian didn't understand. At that very moment, he just wanted so very much to become Senior Brother Zheng, standing right beside him.
"Your intent to kill has already arisen, and this master can only send you there ahead of time. That is the only place suitable for you."
Master said that once the Soul-Refining Bag was engraved with the names of ten thousand souls, he would be allowed to emerge from seclusion.
His lethal aura happened to be able to subdue wandering souls at night, and souls were the same—they would only bow their heads to forces stronger than themselves.
During the day, however, his lethal aura would become the best nourishment for wandering souls, transforming them from mere spirits into soul fiends that reigned supreme in the netherworld. Sometimes, this was even harder for souls whose minds wavered to resist than being delivered across to reincarnation through proper Buddhist rites.
Yu Changmian did not know what he had done wrong for the heavens to bestow upon him things he did not want.
In the first year, strictly obeying Master's teachings, he only refined souls at night.
Yet one night, he caught a particularly troublesome soul that rambled incoherently and said many things he could not understand, insisting it was not a soul, but had simply gotten lost while searching for an unbetrothed wife—that its soul had merely left its body and it was not dead at all.
Yu Changmian was too eager to gather the souls quickly and emerge from seclusion, so he lied to it, saying that if it told him its name, he would help it find its wife.
Even though souls lacked facial expressions, he could still sense from the soul's form that it had plunged from ecstatic, tearful gratitude into bitter regret, fierce hatred, and merciless curses the moment its soul scattered into nothingness.
The next day he was groggy and slept deeply. When he woke up, looking at the pitch-black sky and mistakenly thinking he had overslept, he hurriedly leaped into the cave. The moment he set foot in the Land of Blue Abyss, he discovered that the surrounding atmosphere had completely changed.
It was scorching heat, rather than bone-chilling cold.
It was not a heat of temperature, but a heat condensed by the eager yearning in countless pairs of eyes.