“All right.” Wenren Li nodded in agreement, gently stroked Chen Yixin’s hair, then slipped an arm around his waist. Shifting positions, he lifted Chen Yixin onto his back. “Come with me to the Ghost Domain, A-Rong.”
“Sure. I’ve wanted to visit the Luanmo Ghost Domain for a long time, but my master warned me not to set foot inside before forming my Nascent Soul.”
As Chen Yixin spoke, he tightened his arms around Wenren Li’s neck. He did not understand why his master, Yun Yazi, had imposed that restriction, but it had been Yun Yazi’s final instruction before entering life-or-death seclusion, so Chen Yixin could only obey it.
At those words, however, Wenren Li’s eyes cooled slightly. That old man had always been remarkably persistent about separating him from Chen Yixin.
“It doesn’t matter. Has A-Rong forgotten who my birth father is?”
A Ghost King at the Soul Transformation stage was the one and only sovereign of all ghost cultivators in Taixuan’s cultivation world.
The Luanmo Ghost Domain was dangerous to ordinary cultivators, but to Wenren Li, it was practically his own back garden. The nether ghosts there would probably obey him even more readily than plant spirits did.
“I haven’t forgotten. A-Li is a thirty-thousand-year-old antique.” As Chen Yixin spoke, he breathed against Wenren Li’s ear and mischievously ran a hand across his chest. Taking liberties with Wenren Li was becoming increasingly effortless and natural for him.
Wenren Li lowered his gaze toward the hand roaming across his chest but did nothing to stop it. He took a step forward and disappeared from the streets of Luanmo City with Chen Yixin on his back. Only a few breaths later, they had already arrived at the entrance to the Luanmo Ghost Domain.
Wenren Li did not put Chen Yixin down. Their figures appeared for only an instant before vanishing again, and not one of the cultivators gathered in groups near the entrance noticed them.
Outside the Ghost Domain, it was a bright, sunny afternoon. Inside, dusk had already descended into night. Chen Yixin could even sense that time flowed differently there than it did on Taixuan Continent. The Ghost Domain was an entirely self-contained realm.
As they traveled deeper inside, every cultivator they encountered was heading outward. Night in the Luanmo Ghost Domain was far more dangerous than the daytime, and even Golden Core cultivators did not dare remain there after dark.
Chen Yixin looked around as they traveled, but as night completely settled, he could see less and less. Since he could no longer make out the Ghost Domain’s surroundings, he stopped trying and turned his head to study Wenren Li’s profile instead.
Whatever occurred to him made the corners of Chen Yixin’s lips curve. He tilted his head and rubbed gently against Wenren Li’s ear.
“A-Li…”
“I’m here,” Wenren Li answered. His flying speed did not slow as he continued toward the deepest reaches of the Ghost Domain. Wherever they passed, the nether ghosts parted before them and escorted them onward.
“A-Li…” Chen Yixin called again.
Wenren Li’s flight faltered. Still supporting Chen Yixin by the waist, he turned around and wrapped a black cloak around him. The spiritual barrier surrounding them dispersed, and clusters of nether ghosts gathered into the shape of a lotus. Wenren Li and Chen Yixin settled upon it, and the ghosts carried them farther inside.
“Why is A-Rong calling me?”
Chen Yixin shook his head lightly, then smiled. “I simply wanted to say A-Li’s name.”
After explaining, he called once more, “A-Li…”
“I’m here,” Wenren Li answered, gently drawing Chen Yixin into his arms.
Chen Yixin slowly rested his head against Wenren Li’s shoulder. His expression relaxed, and a trace of wistfulness entered his voice. “I keep feeling as though A-Li and I have been here together before…” The surroundings were dreadful, yet somehow his mood refused to become dreadful with them.
Wenren Li’s gaze sharpened slightly at those words. He said nothing, but his arm tightened around Chen Yixin.
Chen Yixin had not expected Wenren Li to answer such an inexplicable feeling. He slowly closed his eyes. He could sense none of the Ghost Domain’s ghostly energy while held in Wenren Li’s arms, nor could he feel the cold. Instead, an inexplicable warmth surrounded him.
Half an hour later, the cluster of nether ghosts dispersed, and they slowly descended onto the Ghost Domain’s dark brown earth. Wenren Li took Chen Yixin’s hand and led him onward. After crossing a suspension bridge, they arrived before a vast expanse of blue-glowing mist.
It was not truly a sea of clouds, but the Soul Sea from which nether ghosts were born. Its brilliant blue radiance was as beautiful as it was dangerous.
Yet what appeared in Chen Yixin’s eyes was not amazement, but confusion. His grip on Wenren Li’s hand tightened slightly. “A-Li, I must have been here before.”
Otherwise, there was no explaining the familiarity he felt. He had either come here before or visited somewhere remarkably similar. Alongside that familiarity came an indescribable sorrow.
He felt as though he had once turned this Soul Sea upside down searching desperately for something, as though he had lost something here that had caused him such agony he could no longer bear to live. But what could it have been? From his years with the Zhenhai Chen clan through the century or so he had spent at Yuding Sect, he remembered clearly what had happened each day. There should not have been any missing memories.
Wenren Li neither contradicted Chen Yixin nor gave any response. He raised a hand, and a cluster of blue light flew from the radiant Soul Sea toward them. Taking Chen Yixin’s hand, Wenren Li lightly touched one fingertip. A bead of blood emerged and sank into the blue light.
“This is a Nether Aegis Soul. It will grow as you grow. Once it reaches the third rank, it will be able to withstand three attacks from a Soul Transformation cultivator without being destroyed. It can also protect your sea of consciousness from intrusion.”
“Intrusion?” Chen Yixin’s expression stilled. A possibility occurred to him: perhaps he had not lost his memories at all. Perhaps someone had altered them.
After a brief hesitation, Wenren Li nodded. He wrapped an arm around Chen Yixin’s waist and rapidly carried him out of the Luanmo Ghost Domain.
Before they had even flown beyond the Ghost Domain’s entrance, however, Chen Yixin stopped him. “Wait.”
Wenren Li followed Chen Yixin’s gaze and saw several people from Yuding Sect, including Xiao Zhe.
“It’s them…”
Chen Yixin’s gaze cooled slightly. He turned toward Wenren Li, who nodded. Immediately afterward, Chen Yixin could hear what Xiao Zhe and the others were saying.
“Senior Brother Xiao, I know Master instructed us not to let Senior Brother Jing place himself in danger unnecessarily, but leaving him outside even for something like the Luanmo Ghost Domain seems excessive.” The speaker was a female cultivator surnamed Shen, with the given name Xiang. She felt that if this continued, Jing Zhihua—the disciple upon whom Yuding Sect’s sect master and elders had placed such great hopes—would be protected until he became utterly useless.
Xiao Zhe ignored Shen Xiang’s complaint and continued leading the way back toward Luanmo City. “If anything happens to him, neither you nor I can bear the consequences. We needn’t seek merit; avoiding blame is enough.”
Remembering the extraordinary importance and protection Yuding Sect’s sect master and elders afforded Jing Zhihua, Shen Xiang frowned again. “But why?”
Ever since Chen Yixin had been expelled from Yuding Sect, speculation about Jing Zhihua’s identity had never ceased. Some claimed that he was the sect master’s long-lost biological son, while others said that he was the reincarnation of one of the sect’s ancient ancestors.
“If it isn’t something we should know, don’t ask.”
Xiao Zhe issued the warning and swept his gaze across the others, forbidding the junior brothers and sisters accompanying them from asking further questions.
Chen Yixin and Wenren Li followed openly behind them, yet to those five people—and even to anyone else who passed by—they were no more noticeable than stones lying on the ground.
“A-Li, I once loved someone… or at least, I believe it was a person. I loved him very, very much. I no longer know whether the memories I have are real, but I am certain that I once loved someone.”
Chen Yixin spoke quietly to Wenren Li. Even now, the matter still weighed upon him, but after Jing Zhihua and Zhou Yan’s betrayal and Yuding Sect’s abandonment, he had learned to let go of many things. He had believed that he should already have put that past behind him.
Yet now that it had suddenly been brought to the surface again, there were some things he still seemed unable to release completely—especially now, when he suspected that something was deeply wrong with his memories.
“One year and five months ago, the sect master of Heaven’s Secret Sect secretly released a seven-character prophecy: ‘The Celestial Realm’s lost pearl shall reveal the path to immortality.’”
It meant that somewhere on Taixuan Continent was a child of a Divine Lord from the Upper Realm. If that person attained the Dao, it would be a great blessing for Taixuan’s cultivation world and might even change the current situation in which cultivators could no longer advance beyond Soul Transformation.
As Yuding Sect’s youngest elder, Chen Yixin naturally knew of the prophecy. He had even helped investigate which disciples within the sect might fit it. Yet no matter how thoroughly they searched, he had never imagined that the person would turn out to be Jing Zhihua.
Chen Yixin would not have objected to anyone being the divine scion from the Upper Realm—but why did it have to be Jing Zhihua?
“I searched through the Fentian Nether Abode for forty-nine years before finally protecting a wisp of his soul through reincarnation. Yet now the truth tells me that he was never the person I meant to protect. He was never the man who had been only one final ceremonial bow away from becoming my Dao companion in the Nether Abode.
“The person I meant to protect may have been devoured by him, or his soul may have dispersed during reincarnation, or perhaps he had already perished in both body and soul when he shielded me from my tribulation…”
How, then, could Chen Yixin possibly continue maintaining an engagement with Jing Zhihua? He had told Jing Zhihua directly that once he formed his Nascent Soul, they would dissolve the engagement. Jing Zhihua was the divine scion from the Upper Realm, so Chen Yixin would not hold his previous efforts against him, but the position of his betrothed had never belonged to Jing Zhihua in the first place.
What Chen Yixin had never anticipated was that Jing Zhihua had long resented him because of that engagement. Even after enjoying every benefit Chen Yixin had intended for his true betrothed Dao companion, Jing Zhihua still hated him.
In truth, Chen Yixin placed little importance on Jing Zhihua’s hatred. What had truly wounded him throughout this calamity was the reality that the person he had loved had already died long ago.
As Chen Yixin quietly told Wenren Li everything, they followed Xiao Zhe and the others into the guest courtyard where the Yuding Sect party was staying. Chen Yixin stood within the courtyard and lifted his gaze just as Jing Zhihua opened the door. Their eyes met.
“Chen… Yixin…” Jing Zhihua called softly. Something inexplicable lay in both his voice and his gaze, an expression Chen Yixin could no longer understand—and had no need to understand.
“I’m still alive. How disappointing for all of you. Tell Zhou Yan and Old Deng that I will personally collect everything they owe me. As for you… return every item of A-Hua’s that I gave you.”
Jing Zhihua did not answer. His expression shifted several times before he suddenly sneered. “You treated me as a substitute for a wandering soul, and now you’ve found a Soul Transformation cultivator to serve as another substitute—”
Jing Zhihua coughed up blood before he could finish. His body trembled slightly, and beneath his own disbelieving gaze, he dropped to his knees before Chen Yixin and Wenren Li.
Even if Jing Zhihua truly was some divine scion from the Upper Realm, he was presently nothing more than a low-level cultivator in the late Foundation Establishment stage. What did it matter if Wenren Li forced him to kneel?
“I am not a substitute.” Wenren Li lowered his eyes toward Jing Zhihua. A trace of mockery appeared on his normally impassive face. “A divine scion from the Upper Realm… Hah.”
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