At twilight, more and more people were in Yiyun Yard.
The total power of the seven branches of the Su Family was not weaker than any of the 25 sects and even stronger. So, hearing of the news of the promotion feast of the Seventh Miss, countless small forces and small sects came to congratulate.
And it was the same case this time. At the place not far from the yard, Qing Weiyue and Su Li saw the long queue from the gate of the yard.
“Grand Elder, how can we get into the yard?”
Being in the enemy’s territory, Qing Weiyue was in uncontrollable anxiety, although he appeared composed.
Hearing Qing Weiyue’s voice, Su Li, who was gazing at Yiyun Yard which saw a lot of vicissitudes, smiled and replied in a mild and calm tone.
“Don’t forget why you come here. Remember, if you want to cheat others, you must cheat yourself first.”
It seemed that there was something magical in these words which calmed Qing Weiyue down. Pondering over Su Li’s words, he nodded.
“Now that you have understood it, just get in.”
A mild pushing power from Su Li came to Qing Weiyue’s back, which made him stagger and pass the crowds in the queue. And all the representatives of the small forces had their eyes on him at once.
Realizing that so many people gazed at him, Qing Weiyue felt very awkward and uncomfortable, but had to stride towards the gate of the yard.
At that moment, he still felt somewhat uneasy, but fortunately, he had already understood Su Li’s words. He worked out a scheme in his mind. Then he changed his mild countenance, chin up, and showed his arrogance, which even made the representatives of many small forces dare not look at him.
“What big force is he from? Why have I never seen him?”
“He must come from a sect that ranks top in the 25 sects. No wonder he dares to jump the queue.”
“Of course! Those who belong to the 25 sects don’t have to queue up. How I wish I can be an apprentice in the 25 sects.
“…”
As the crowds gossiped, Qing Weiyue, along with Su Li, had walked to the porter. With his nose in the air, he said, “We are the representatives of Meng Sect. We have something important to do. Let us in!”
The porter thought Qing Weiyue was from a big banana. Hearing that Qing Weiyue came from Meng Sect, he pulled a long face immediately. Temperamental for a moment, the porter finally stepped aside and said, “Please go inside!”
With laughter, Qing Weiyue held Su Li’s hand and strode into the yard.
“Does Meng Sect have a strong background?” The other porter asked out of curiosity by transmitting the sound in silence.
Upon hearing this, the grim old porter sneered, “How is it possible! That little sect just put itself under our seventh branch and became so exaggerated. I have seen lots of this kind of people. They must be disciplined in the future.”
Although the younger porter didn’t fully understand the older one, he nodded, contemplating when he could be as sophisticated as the older porter.
Of course, Qing Weiyue didn’t hear the conversation between the two porters. At that time, he arrived at the empty dooryard with Su Li where he was greatly relieved and felt his back was drenched by sweat.
As Qing Weiyue panted, he felt an unutterable excitement from the bottom of his heart. He couldn’t help clenching his fists, “I’ve never had such an exciting experience…”
While thinking, he turned to Su Li who was looking around, expressionless as usual. Suddenly, he felt the realm gap between them.
Was this the so-called genius …
At that time, Su Li pointed in the direction right before them, saying in a light voice, “Yiyun Yard is designed in a symmetric pattern in the shape of a square. The biggest yard in its very center is the venue for promotion ceremonies. Go there and you will find the steward of the seventh branch. You know what to do, and I won’t say more.”
Qing Weiyue nodded subconsciously in a daze, but then came to his sense, asking repeatedly, “Just me?”
With her eyebrows raising slightly, Su Li replied, “You want me to go with you?”
Feeling a cold shiver of fear, Qing Weiyue said no for many times, and, after a while, he uttered with hesitation, “But the yard is well guarded. You…”
“That’s not the thing you need to worry about.”
Su Li turned back and waved, “See you.”
In a blink of an eye, she turned into a dim lane and disappeared.
“All right. Grand Elder has far-reaching supernatural power. The guard is nothing for her.”
Thinking of this, he made up his spirit, and left in the direction Su Li pointed at.
A tough battle was confronting him.
Su Li was on one of the most intricate paths in the very interior of the yard, a flagstone path wet with dusk dew.
She looked at the winding path in the distance, eyelids flickering.
She knew from Qing Weiyue that Yiyun Yard, for thousands of years, had been serving as the venue for such important occasions as promotion banquets. But in terms of luxury and geographic position, it was overshadowed by any other yard of the seventh branch.
It was still a mystery why Su Family made it an important place for reception.
A moment later, there appeared a wall in front of Su Li. It seemed that she had come to the end of the path.
With a flicker of an eyelid, she picked a willow leaf and shot it into the eroded white wall, on which ripples appeared and then disappeared, revealing the original scene — behind the arched gate was a long-abandoned farmyard, in which there was a hut, a square of stone table, a vegetable plot and a stone well supporting diet.
Actually, it was a phantom tactical matrix.
Seeing the farmyard, Su Li smiled and entered. She cleaned the dust on the ground with a gesture and then sat at the stone table, eyes showing a wave of nostalgia.
“It’s been so long. It’s incredible that no one has discovered this place.”
Su Li looked around the yard and suddenly noticed a length of rope far from rotten beside the stone well. She reached out and held it.
She rubbed the dust off, and the golden luster revealed.
“The immortal golden silk.”
Fiddling with the rope, Su Li laughed in a low voice, saying, “I knew it was strange…”
In the previous life, almost everyone in Jiuzhou Region knew she was the holy girl of Yuxu Sect and the personal disciple of Elder Mo Qin, but few knew her origin.
Because of her surname, many people had conjectured that she was born into Su Family, but that conjecture was soon overturned, for Su Family couldn’t allow a talented girl roam outside.
However, facts often leave people dumbfounded.
Su Li was indeed born into the Su Family — the seventh branch of the Su Family.
Nevertheless, her parents were just low-status servants in the seventh branch, and the place they lived was merely a mundane farmyard.
As she closed her eyes, the pictures of the childhood when she had fun with her adoptive parents in the little yard flashed through her mind like it happened yesterday.
After a long time, Su Li opened her eyes. With resoluteness in her eyes, she sneered.
“2000 years have passed. Well, this is cultivation…”
As time elapsed, everything changed, so did she. She became a person whom herself didn’t know.
But there is always the other side of a coin — Now, she could see loads of things which was impossible for her to see many years ago.
For example, the rope.
“How could my humble adoptive parents afford such a precious rope to bind a water bucket?”
Su Li’s eyes became dark. More and more information flashed through her mind. And she was getting closer to the reality of the previous life.
“My adoptive mother told me in private that they are not my natural parents but my adoptive parents. And after she told me that, they died accidentally. I was too young to understand it at that time, so I forgot the grief at their death soon. But now…”
Su Li suddenly raised her head, and there seemed to be a flash of blood in her eyes, “I was born to be a puppet!”
“It seems that the so-called destiny didn’t begin at Yuxu Sect but at my birth.”
Looking at the golden rope in her hand, Su Li fell silent for a while and then snorted. She forced the golden silk to rupture, and it turned to golden powder and fell down on the ground.
“It’s true that being muddled is sometimes better than being clear.”
As Su Li exhaled slowly, the face of her respected teacher began to blur in her mind but soon became clear.
She didn’t go so far as to become bewildered because of some guesses.
Inhaling some cool and moist air, Su Li, whose eyes blinked, stood up and went to the hut and gently pushed the door open. And then a smell of decay came to her.
The furnishing in the hut was ordinary — there was nothing but two tables for memorial ritual.
The two memorial tablets on the tables were made of robust material, but the characters on them had already become illegible as time went by. But Su Li didn’t forget the names of the two people.
They were Su Cui and Su Erniu, nondescript names in Su Family.
Su Li smiled, thinking if she were really their daughter, perhaps her name would be something like “Su Xiaohong”. And she began to doubt whether she was really silly in the previous life or not, for she didn’t perceive that before.
Su Li thought about this earnestly and found that she was just unwilling to think too much.
“Dad, mum.”
“It’s been thousands of years. I’m back now.”
After murmuring, Su Li rubbed the universe ring with her fingers. Then she replaced the memorial tablets and incense with new ones that she had prepared and knocked head for three times.
Thousands of years ago, she came back here to open Reincarnation Mirror.
Yiyun Yard was her private yard all the time.
This was a tacit agreement between the seventh branch and her which was later discarded with her death.
What’s more, it seemed that the seventh branch was proud of what they had done, and even, they made her shabby yard an important venue for feasts.
“After I died, they still want to benefit from me?”
Su Li’s smile disappeared and eyes cold. Nobody knew what she was thinking.
Half an hour later…
After cleaning the hut and neatening the vegetable garden, Su Li went out the yard and locked the door.
This time, her cultivation was improved a great deal. She was almost a level-10 master. In Jiuzhou Region, only three people at most could open the yard.
The next time she came back might be many, many years later.
