Edited by Ea
There was a fierce flash in You Ming’s eyes. “Let them come. Even if they didn’t come looking for me, I’m still going to look for them. Their light of Daoism has abducted my precious son. How can I just forget about that?”
Yan Zhonghua pinched You Ming’s cheek and said, “It’s not that simple.”
After Yin Chongyue and the others came out, they immediately informed King Ye and his wife about what happened in the Tomb of Youshan but not about Yan Tianhen’s serious injury.
Some things couldn’t be changed, even if they recounted it, so they just left it out altogether.
In the third month of the same year, just a month after Yan Tianhen and Lin Xuanzhi were trapped in the Tomb of Youshan, the three elders of Nine Lands’ orthodox Daoists went all the way to the Purple Emperor’s Heavenly Capital. They wanted to seek justice from King Ye for Huarong Sword Immortal. The orthodox Daoists insisted that this was a conspiracy of King Ye’s residence, saying he plotted to frame Lin Xuanzhi and collude with the Rong family from the Southeast Land.
No one knew what King Ye and the three elders of the orthodox Dao said to each other, but many people saw You Ming fighting with two elders in the city, destroying half of the street. They saw You Ming pin one of the elders onto the ground by his neck.
In the fourth month of the same year, the orthodox Daoists issued a notice to the world. Most of the content were as follows: “King Ye is ambitious and everything he does is for the succession of the throne. In order to put an end to this kind of behavior, the orthodox Daoists will no longer support King Ye from today on.”
As soon as this edict was issued, the Nine Lands immediately were in an uproar.
What is the orthodox Dao?
This was the Nine Land’s highest management of the world’s sects, but it was secular. It was impossible for all sects to be like Myriad Dao Academy, which accepted students regardless of background and had never participated in any worldly competition for royal power. However, the vast majority of sects were highly interested in the competition for royal power. On one hand, the survival of the sects needed the support of the aristocratic family. On the other hand, if the supporting aristocratic family won in final victory, these sects would be able to ride their success and also ascend to heaven, and become a major sect in the world.
The orthodox Dao was the place where all such sects were concentrated.
There were three major branches under the name of orthodox Dao: Alchemist League, Craftsmen League, and Mage League. The division of these leagues was based on the three halls of Myriad Dao Academy.
The orthodox Dao’s decision represented the decision of all sects in the secular world. They refused to work for King Ye again. Although the power of King Ye would not weaken too much, other sects that had never taken a side before would start to take sides to strengthen King Ye’s enemies.
However, all of this was nothing to Yan Zhonghua.
In the middle of the fourth month, Reincarnation Palace snared the world’s talented people with a lot of money, looking for ways to break the Tomb of Youshan. Under the heavy reward, there must be plenty of brave men. However, until the imperial city began to snow, the Tomb of Youshan was still motionless, and no one could clear it. Time was like running water, from one moment it was the peach blossom season and then the next it was the snowy winter.
……
“This winter is especially cold.” A man with a thick beard covering most of his face rubbed his hands. He leaned against the cold, hard, and wet slate wall and breathed out, looking at his breath condensed into water mist at that moment. He tutted. “I’m lucky that I have a good healthy foundation. Otherwise, I’ll be like the old man next door. Sooner or later, his eyes would close and he’d kick the bucket.”
This bearded man wore thick and new clothes. He had some influence in this prison. He ate the best food and wore the best clothes every day. He had never been bothered by anyone in the prison.
“Meal time.” Someone knocked on the gong and a group of prison guards came, throwing food harder than stone one by one toward each prison cell.
A young man sitting on the wall with his head down, his hair covering his face, looked in a daze at the food. Then he picked up his head and looked up.
“What are you looking at? I’m talking to you!”
When the prison guard who threw the food saw Yan Tianhen’s eyes, he immediately said crazily, “You didn’t get enough of a beating? Smelly brat, if you look again, this Laozi will dig out your eyeballs!”
“What do you care about a brat?” The bearded man opened his mouth, and he was given a plate of meat, vegetables, and five-colored rice.
Naturally, the prison guard knew the bearded man. He immediately said with a flattering smile, “You don’t know. This little kid disobeyed the people above, and they ordered us to make life hard for him. As subordinates, we can’t disobey, can we now?”
The bearded man raised his eyebrows. “The people above? Which one above? What has he committed?”
The prison guard said, “Well, I don’t know this. In fact, I want to know too, but the people at the top don’t say it.”
“Alright, alright.” The bearded man waved his hand impatiently and sat back with the rice tray.
Yan Tianhen held the hard thing in his hand, which was difficult to swallow, and his gaze was slightly numb. He had been here for so many years that he’d lost count.
There was no spiritual Qi or demonic Qi in this cell, only the malevolent Qi accumulated by the prisoners’ resentment over the years. These foods were not to prevent them from starving to death, but to maintain the most basic spiritual needs of these prisoners, so as not to die too quickly because of spiritual Qi exhaustion.
Yan Tianhen gnawed on the stone-hard food and swallowed with difficulty.
The bearded man asked, “What’s your name?”
Yan Tianhen looked up at him, then silently lowered his head, continuing to gnaw on his food.
The bearded man’s cell was next to his, and the two cells were separated by an iron fence, so they could be considered neighbors.
Seeing Yan Tianhen ignoring him, the bearded man came to the fence with his plate, and looked at him with a crooked body. “Child, let’s make a deal.”
Yan Tianhen asked, “What do you want to do?”
The bearded man hooked his hand toward Yan Tianhen. “Come here.”
After thinking for a long time, Yan Tianhen slowly moved towards the bearded man. He stared straight at the steaming plate of food.
The bearded man handed the chopsticks to Yan Tianhen, and put the plate on the ground. He said, “Speaking of it, you and I have been neighbors for decades, but we never spoke.”
Yan Tianhen picked up a piece of meat from the gap of the fence, put it in his mouth, and quickly chewed. The bearded man looked at the visible half of his face move and thought Yan Tianhen was like a little mouse, so he said with a funny smile, “How come your hair covers half of your face? Doesn’t it block your sight?”
Yan Tianhen’s chewing speed slowed down. He glanced at the bearded man quickly and pulled up the hair covering his cheeks on the left side. The thick and ugly scar ran across the whole cheek, and it looked ferocious and terrible. If it weren’t for the bearded man being used to seeing all kinds of wounds, he would be scared to to take a breath.
Seeing that he didn’t respond, Yan Tianhen put down his hair and felt bored.
The bearded man said, “Not bad, quite chic.”
Yan Tianhen glanced at him, bowed his head and silently stuffed another piece of meat into his mouth.
The bearded man looked at him with interest and said, “Although you don’t eat well, you haven’t lost much weight.”
Yan Tianhen pinched the flesh on his face. It seemed that he was really a little fatter?
The bearded man asked curiously, “What have you committed? Although the conditions in this cell are not good, it is rare for them to abuse prisoners. It’s very rare for someone to be dragged out for a beating every two days.”
Yan Tianhen’s chopsticks didn’t even stop. “How do I know?”
The bearded man asked, “…You don’t know how you got in?”
Yan Tianhen replied, “Do you know Cang Rong?”
The bearded man nodded his head.
Yan Tianhen looked up at him. “I offended him.”
The bearded man, “…”
The bearded man’s expression became very strange.
Yan Tianhen asked, “What’s the matter?”
The bearded man said, “Cang Rong died as early as tens of thousands of years ago. What did you do, dig up his grave?”
Yan Tianhen stared in shock. “I was caught by a man who can control the vegetation. His hair is light golden and his eyes are green. If he is not Cang Rong, then who is he?”
The bearded man’s eyelids jumped a few times. “That man is Cang Rong’s Dao companion, named Lian Hua. He is the master of this Youshan Capital and lives in the most magnificent palace in the city.”
Yan Tianhen’s heart sank. Oh, he secretly thought, it seems that even Rong Zhishui doesn’t know that the “ancestor” he addresses is actually not his real ancestor at all.
Yan Tianhen swallowed the food slowly. “Is there something wrong with that Lian Hua’s head?”
The bearded man said, “You can’t talk nonsense about this. In Youshan Capital, we are all citizens under the ancient gods. The only surviving ancient god is Lian Hua. Without Lian Hua, Youshan Capital would have already fallen into complete darkness tens of thousands of years ago, and no one would have survived. Therefore, all the people here are his people and will die for him.”
Yan Tianhen curled his mouth. “He is quite great.”
The bearded man nodded. “He’s kind of great but has a bad temper.”
Yan Tianhen felt a burning pain on his face and had a lingering fear. “His temper is indeed bad.”
The bearded man said, “You are from outside.”
Yan Tianhen asked, “How do you know?”
The bearded man said, “Because no one in Youshan Capital has ever dared to say anything bad about Lian Hua. Moreover, everyone in this city knows that Cang Rong is already dead. You mistook Lian Hua for Cang Rong. Guess he deliberately misled you.”
Yan Tianhen asked, “Do outsiders come here frequently?”
The bearded man said, “How can that be possible? Only people who Lian Hua is willing to let in can enter Youshan Capital. Even the child of the Rong family who wanted to enter the Youshan Capital was kicked out by Lian Hua. Most of the other trespassers were killed by Lian Hua.”
“Oh. Then how long have you been here?”
The bearded man thought for a moment and said, “I can’t remember. Anyway, after that war, I never left this cell again. It has been too long, who can remember?”
Yan Tianhen looked up at the bearded face, which couldn’t be seen clearly, and said, “Why don’t you want to go out?”
The bearded man narrowed his eyes, as if thinking of distant events. After a long time, he said, “I am here to atone for my sins.”
“Atone?”
“That’s right. I used to be a general and should have died in battle, but in the last battle, I left my soldiers and fled back to the Youshan Capital. I heard that in that battle, my army was completely destroyed, and all the soldiers died on the battlefield.”
Yan Tianhen nodded. “I understand. You have no face to face them, so you can only hide here like a turtle shrinking inside its shell.”
The bearded man, “…”
This boy was really unpleasant to talk to. He seemed to understand how this boy offended Lian Hua now.
“But,” Yan Tianhen said, “you probably didn’t flinch in the face of battle.”
The bearded man asked, “Why do you say that?”
—
Sarah: Seeing the name general made me think of Ling Chigu ;w;
Ea: I miss him and Maomao…They’ll show up later but not for a while 🙁
