Feng Jingyu had been a king for a long time, so he was very good at seeing through people’s true natures. However, he found that he couldn’t understand what Lin Xuanzhi was thinking about at all.
Moreover…Lin Xuanzhi seemed to know too much.
Feng Jingyu stared directly at Lin Xuanzhi, his gaze straight as an arrow, trying to glean Lin Xuanzhi’s thoughts from his expression.
Yan Tianhen hesitated a little.
He wasn’t afraid of bringing himself trouble, but he was worried about bringing Lin Xuanzhi trouble.
When Feng Jingyu saw that he wouldn’t be able to stay no matter how soft or silly he pretended to be, he could only change tactics and shook his head as he spoke half-truths mixed with half-lies, “I was poisoned by vile people and escaped to here. When I first came here, my mind was muddled and unclear; I thought that I was simply a mortal bird and even swallowed an earth-level medicinal pill. In the past months, although I looked like I was in deep slumber, in fact, I’m aware of everything that happened outside. Even though my identity is troublesome, I still understand right from wrong — I won’t ever bite the hand that feeds me. Besides, you guys have already taken in a big trouble, so what’s one more?”
Yan Tianhen listened to the little phoenix use his childish voice to speak in such a mature manner and couldn’t stop himself from stretching out a finger to scratch his head, asking in puzzlement, “Since when did I take in a big trouble?”
Feng Jingyu nodded towards Ling Chigu, who was standing silently and expressionlessly beside a stone, almost appearing nonexistent.
Yan Tianhen was shocked. “You’re talking about Ah Gu?”
Lin Xuanzhi narrowed his eyes as he asked, “Who is Ling Chigu?”
Feng Jingyu was astonished. “You actually know he’s called Ling Chigu, but you don’t know who he is?”
Lin Xuanzhi responded, “A coincidence.”
Feng Jingyu looked pensive as he jumped onto Ling Chigu’s shoulder.
Ling Chigu wanted to reach out a hand and swat him, but Feng Jingyu jumped back onto Yan Tianhen’s palm in advance.
“Who would’ve thought that the Ling family’s young general, the Crimson Tassel Snow-Robed Youth, who swept away a thousand-man army by himself throughout the Northern Lands’ vast battlefields of both wilderness and boundless seas back then, would be reduced to merely someone’s corpse puppet today.”
Feng Jingyu sighed.
Yan Tianhen’s heart moved. He looked at Ling Chigu, who was completely unresponsive, and asked, “He was actually a general before?”
“The Five Continents’ mainlands are too sealed off, so you guys don’t know very much about the events outside.” Feng Jingyu first ridiculed the Five Continents for being such an isolated and desolate place, then continued to explain, “The Crimson Tassel Snow-Robed Youth is the most powerful and gifted warrior in the current generation of the Chigu Ling family. He uses a spear with a crimson tassel to fight and built up outstanding deeds on the battlefield time and time again, defending the Northern Lands from the devil kingdoms’ invasion. However, in the heirship fight for the throne, the prince whom the Ling family supported was defeated by the current East Palace’s ruler, and the Ling family protected their master the whole way as he fled, which resulted in the East Palace annihilating the entire Ling family. This Ling Chigu,” Feng Jingyu hesitated, “before I came to the Five Continents, I received intelligence that Ling Chigu was being hunted down by the East Palace’s elite Crow Guards and disappeared into thin air; he couldn’t be found anywhere. Who would have thought that he was already dead, and had died in such a tiny place like the Five Continents to boot.”
Yan Tianhen listened with keen interest and felt some heartache for his family’s Ah Gu.
Lin Xuanzhi also couldn’t help but feel some admiration towards Ling Chigu.
He had already felt that this person was extraordinary even before this, and on top of that, he was from the Royal Heavenly Capital as well, so his identity must be very unique. However, he didn’t expect for Ling Chigu to actually be a member of the legendary distinguished Chigu family — the Ling family.
He heard people mention the Ling family as well when he traveled throughout the Nine Lands in his past life, but those were just brief remarks made in passing, for they feared letting more people hear about this information. After all, many nosy people with loose mouths might invite disaster and assassinations upon themselves if they said something that they shouldn’t have said and were found out by the exact people they didn’t want to offend.
In the Nine Lands, both martial authority and imperial authority had already combined into one without exception, so it could be said that all the social rankings were very clear-cut, with very rigid hierarchies, much unlike the Five Continents, a place where martial prowess was completely above imperial authority.
Nine Lands.
Purple Emperor’s Heavenly Capital.
This was a place that Lin Xuanzhi yearned for but was never able to truly leave behind a mark on.
Duan Yuyang’s expression was initially open-mouthed shock like he was listening to a heavenly scripture, but after slowly digesting this information, his expression changed to reverence and rueful sorrow.
Feng Jingyu didn’t say much, but his words sketched out an extremely abundant and vast scenery, filling people’s imaginations with countless thoughts and letting them peep into an entirely different world.
The three people’s thoughts were still in turmoil, full of all kinds of flavors, when they heard Feng Jingyu interrupt, “You’ve already taken him in, so it shouldn’t be a problem either to take in a pitiful, young, and innocent little phoenix like me.”
Lin Xuanzhi nodded calmly as he said impassively. “So, I should let you take Ling Chigu together with you when you leave.”
Feng Jingyu, “Don’t do that!”
Now Yan Tianhen was even more reluctant to part with Feng Jingyu and Ah Gu, so he coquettishly pulled on Lin Xuanzhi’s hand and shook it as he persuaded, “Dage, I want to take in Maomao and Ah Gu. Although their identities are special, they’re in the Five Continents right now, so those Nine Lands people shouldn’t be able to find them.”
Lin Xuanzhi replied lightly, “I’m not worried that someone will find them but am instead worried that this phoenix will hurt you.”
From the moment of its birth, a phoenix represents auspicious omens and radiant light. There’s nothing that a phoenix’s divine fire can’t burn through due to it containing the most Yang energy out of all types of fires. Thus, a phoenix was the bane and natural enemy of the devil tribes. Otherwise, there wouldn’t have been any need for the Jiushao Emperor to personally fight in the final battle of the Great Immortal-Demon War and take the Devil Emperor down with him in mutual destruction.
How could Lin Xuanzhi not fear Feng Jingyu detecting Yan Tianhen’s bloodline identity in the future and then burning him to death with a mouthful of fire?
Of course, it wasn’t like Yan Tianhen absolutely couldn’t raise this little phoenix.
This just required the phoenix to declare where he stood on this.
Feng Jingyu flapped his wings, pretending to be cute. “This emperor is not that kind of white-eyed wolf, as if I’ll hurt Henhen!”
Feng Jingyu raised his three long tail feathers and swept them across Yan Tianhen’s wrist to show his amiableness.
“Dage!” Yan Tianhen’s eyes were almost melted into puddles by the cuteness.
A subtle light flashed through Lin Xuanzhi’s eyes. “It’s not impossible to take him in, but he must swear — to never hurt you, no matter when.”
Feng Jingyu first paused, then was overjoyed. Wasn’t it just not hurting Yan Tianhen? What’s so difficult about that, it was clearly the simplest of matters.
Thus, Feng Jingyu solemnly vowed, “If I, Feng Jingyu, dare to hurt Yan Tianhen even a little in the future, may I be struck to death by lightning, burnt to death by fire, and become embarrassed to death from ugliness after having all my feathers plucked off. May all the bamboo and springwater completely disappear from this world, so that I die from starvation and dehydration…there, are you satisfied now, Great Beauty?”
Lin Xuanzhi’s gaze swept across Feng Jingyu and made his heart feel uncomfortable, “What did you call me?”
Feng Jingyu chirped twice, flapping his wings and slipping into Yan Tianhen’s clothes; he only stuck a small head outside, clearly intent on pretending to be ignorant.
Duan Yuyang immediately laughed as he teased, “There’s nothing wrong with his words, you really do deserve to be called a great beauty.”
“Yuan Tianwen doesn’t seem to know that there’s something wrong with your body.” Lin Xuanzhi cast him a sideways glance. “Do you want him to know?”
Duan Yuyang, “…”
Your grandmother! Lin Xuanzhi was so sinister and cunning, so petty!
Duan Yuyang restrained his laughter and no longer uttered a word.
Yan Tianhen chuckled for a while and asked the question he cared the most about but never had the chance to ask before, “Dage, how much has your Dantian Qi sea recovered?”
“There’s no trouble anymore.” Lin Xuanzhi also opened his eyes and gave a slight smile, “A celestial-level pill really is extraordinary.”
Yan Tianhen was simultaneously pleasantly surprised and excited. “Then Dage will be able to take up the sword again?”
Lin Xuanzhi nodded. “Yeah.”
Yan Tianhen was ecstatic. Lin Xuanzhi’s Dantian Qi sea was the single matter that he cared the most about. Now that Lin Xuanzhi’s body had recovered, a heavy stone within his heart fell as well.
In the end, borrowing the Qi within forged stones couldn’t compare to the might and ease of control from using your own spiritual Qi.
Lin Xuanzhi and others saw that the Pill Limit Mysterious Land had been more or less scorched to the ground and didn’t have long before it completely collapsed, so they immediately decided to leave here.
The Soul Bead within Lin Xuanzhi’s consciousness, which had been silent for a long time, actually woke up and took this rare chance to speak, “You made the phoenix swear this kind of severe oath, but if someday Yan Tianhen’s devil blood completely awakens and he turns into a full devil, there probably won’t be who can destroy him any more.”
Lin Xuanzhi heard Soul Bead’s words and paused for a while. However, with a wave of his hand, Lin Xuanzhi said, coldly and lightly, “That’s exactly what I want.”
Soul Bead wasn’t very happy. “You really are foolish.”
“I’d rather be a fool.”
Soul Bead added, “He has half of Divine Devil blood within him. The path he’ll walk is destined to be different from the path you seek.”
White light flashed past, Sky Peak Sect was near enough that it could be seen.
Lin Xuanzhi landed on the ground and reached out a hand to support Yan Tianhen. “Different routes will all reach the same destination.”
Soul Bead spoke no more.
Within Lin Xuanzhi’s consciousness, Soul Bead had already wordlessly watched the entire process of Lin Xuanzhi absorbing the celestial-level medicinal pill. Soul Bead acknowledged that even he himself couldn’t silently endure the heart-piercing and bone-gouging extreme pain unbearable for ordinary people and still grit his teeth while not uttering even a single sound for an entire three days, yet Lin Xuanzhi accomplished it.
His temperament was already tenacious to this degree; naturally, his determination wouldn’t be so easily changed by others’ casual words when it came to the things that he resolved himself to do.
After living for so many years, the ancient soul in the Soul Plate could more or less use certain abilities to divine the future.
Long before Yan Tianhen’s bloodline awakened, Soul Plate already had a vague feeling that there would be a final battle between Lin Xuanzhi and Yan Tianhen. Today, Lin Xuanzhi’s Dantian Qi sea recovered, and his Fate Star became even clearer, which made the Soul Plate’s sense of premonition more intense.
He originally wanted to warn Lin Xuanzhi some, but from Lin Xuanzhi’s resolute attitude, he’s afraid that even if Lin Xuanzhi knew that one day, Yan Tianhen would put a sword to his throat, Lin Xuanzhi would still be completely willing to be cut down by Yan Tianhen.
After all, that a person with such a resolute character could actually be so angered by Yan Tianhen’s few words that he actually coughed up blood was enough to show Lin Xuanzhi’s love for Yan Tianhen — it could be said to be carved into his bones and engraved in his heart, fusing together with his very flesh. Fortunately, Yan Tianhen was also genuine and sincere to Lin Xuanzhi and was quite fondly attached to him.
After thinking about it for a while and even thoroughly analyzing the possibility of the two people becoming enemies in great detail, then thinking about the overall situation of the entire world, Soul Bead suddenly realized, Obviously, Laozi has already been sealed, so why should I worry about these troublesome matters? In any case, this world isn’t my world, and the person who sealed me was most likely either freely roaming the world outside the sky like a true immortal or had already faded away, dissipating into nothing without a trace.
In short, everything in this world already had nothing to do with him.
Thinking about this, Soul Bead suddenly felt somewhat insipid; he might as well not worry about groundless fears and continue to absorb the top-grade forged stones placed within the soul bead, striving to get rid of the address “Soul Bead” as soon as possible and become the soul plate once again.
Lin Xuanzhi, Yan Tianhen, and everyone had just steadied themselves, but before they could even take a breath of relief, they were surrounded by people.
These people all wore Sky Peak Sect’s inner door diciples’ robes, and every single of one them was armed with a weapon. They stared at Lin Xuanzhi with vigilant eyes for fear that he would bring out some deadly magic weapons and show them some colors.
Lin Xuanzhi saw this situation and knew from a glance that the matter about the phoenix fire burning hundreds of miles inside Pill Limit Mysterious Land had already been exposed. However, he wasn’t sure whether there were any survivors who could expose the secret that the Blazing Heavenly Fire originated from a bird.
Still, Lin Xuanzhi could almost certainly conclude that no one should be able to confirm that the bird was a phoenix.
He casually swept his gaze around the entire clearing and only relaxed after confirming that Ling Chigu had already covered up his own trail, so there was no possibility of him being exposed.”Craftsman Lin, Young Sect Master invites you to come with us.” One disciple summoned up his courage to say.
Lin Xuanzhi swept them a glance and said lightly, “I will go with you.”
A little boy in red hurriedly rushed over, pushing aside the crowd to arrive before Lin Xuanzhi. “Craftsman Lin, our family’s Young Sect Master invites the four of you to join us as guests together…eh?”
He stared again and saw only three people no matter how he counted. Where was the black-clothed and expressionless fellow that Shen Changgeng mentioned?
The red-clothed child looked around, scouting out the surroundings.
Yan Tianhen responded, “There are only three of us.”
