Yan Tianhen sat down on the ground next to Rong Zhishui, no longer disturbing him. The process of stealing the scroll was rather dull. The strict ancestral array of the Rong Family Ancestral Temple made it difficult for even him to step into, but they were very lenient with their own people. They probably never thought that someone inside the Rong family would steal it.
In addition, Rong Zhishui was the heir recognized by Lian Hua. When he took the scroll from behind Cang Rong’s memorial tablet, he didn’t trigger any security precautions, and naturally he did not attract anyone’s attention. As a lookout, Yan Tianhen did nothing else besides taking a nap on a tree, and they stole the scroll and disappeared without a trace.
Rong Zhishui was worried that the family would soon find out that he had stolen the scroll. After thinking about it again, he actually snuck back inside the Rong family residence and took away the life tablet that could track his location, replacing it with one that could only show whether he was alive or not but held no other connection to him.
Speaking of which, Yan Tianhen really admired Rong Zhishui.
This kid used the excuse that he was training and gaining experience in the Northeast Land’s dense forest to avoid returning home for many years, but in fact, he secretly changed his name and his surname to enter Myriad Dao Academy, which could only be described as “daring and brave”. Even Yan Tianhen was willing to bow down to him. If the Rong family were to be notified of this, he still didn’t know how much chaos it would cause. However, Yan Tianhen also really felt that this kid was full of ideas, could stir things up, and was capable of doing great things.
About an hour later, Rong Zhishui opened his eyes.
Yan Tianhen immediately leaned over and asked, “What did you see?”
Rong Zhishui frowned, staring at the scroll. “Why can’t I see anything?”
Yan Tianhen was stunned. “How could this happen? Look again.”
Rong Zhishui shook his head and said distressingly, “There’s a seal on this scroll. The ones who can read the scroll can effortlessly do so with a simple touch. For those who can’t read the scroll, it’s useless to keep trying. They won’t be able to read it, no matter how much effort they put in.”
Yan Tianhen: “…”
Rong Zhishui suddenly yelled and said nervously, “It can’t be that I stole the scroll and angered the heroic soul of the ancestor, so he has opinions about me and won’t let me read the scroll anymore, right?”
Yan Tianhen’s mouth twitched. “You’re overthinking this.”
Your family’s ancestor has already reincarnated a long time ago. His remaining one soul and one spirit are still in the soul gathering device. He has no time to torment you.
“Ah, it must be so!” Rong Zhishui had the urge to kill himself by running into a wall.
Yan Tianhen: “…” I already said that’s not true.
Yan Tianhen didn’t know how to comfort him. Looking at the unfolded scroll, he didn’t know what came over him. He suddenly decided to press it lightly. Suddenly, a gust of wind swelled up and Yan Tianhen just felt that his body was about to be torn apart. His vision turned so dark that he couldn’t even see his fingers. He felt dizzy, the sky was spinning, he lost his sense of hearing, his eyes went blind and he couldn’t even open his mouth. However, this situation did not last long.
Soon his vision returned to normal.
This place was both familiar and unfamiliar to him.
Jade Ocean Jasper Heaven.
The man with a snake body coiled around the Jianmu tree, slowly opened his misty light-colored eyes. Yan Tianhen felt his heart palpitating suddenly, but his feet seemed to be firmly grasped by something, unable to move away.
“Lingyu.” The man’s pale but graceful lips opened and closed lightly, and called out a name that made Yan Tianhen tremble.
Yan Tianhen barely held his figure, raising his eyes to the man whose eyes seemed to be able to see through everything, and said, “Cang Rong.”
Cang Rong said, “You’ve come.”
“You can actually recognize me.”
Cang Rong looked at him and said, “This seal can only be opened by you and Chang Sheng. I had hoped that the one to come here would be Chang Sheng.”
Yan Tianhen took a deep breath, looked at Cang Rong, with anger, and said, “You once promised me that you would never mention the things you shouldn’t have known, and they would rot in your stomach forever, but what are you doing now? Cang Rong, you should not leave this hidden danger. You are not helping me, you are harming me!”
Cang Rong was a very cold man, and he was only gentle when things involved Lian Hua. Cang Rong looked down at him from above. His calm eyes met Yan Tianhen’s eyes, which burned with anger. Cang Rong met his gaze without fear. “Lingyu, among all the disciples of the Spirit Sect, you are the most courageous, the most temperamental, and the most fierce. You shouldn’t have been the one who was willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of the world’s righteousness, but in the end, you still chose to be that blade.”
Cang Rong’s voice was extremely indifferent, “The word ‘love’ has harmed people since ancient times. Lingyu, I only know a part of the story but not the whole story. But I dare to guess that your actions and your choices were related to Chang Sheng.”
“Don’t presume to guess without any basis.” Yan Tianhen turned pale and clenched his fist. “Even if Dao Zu decided to have me become the blade to slaughter the evil Qi cultivators with, it still has absolutely nothing to do with Shixiong. It never had anything to do with him.”
Cang Rong looked at his anger, but he smiled softly and said: “I don’t care whether it was related to him or not. But you have to know it in your heart. Lingyu, do you know why Chang Sheng failed to ascend in the end, even though he accumulated many merits and virtues by slaughtering the demons and exterminating the evil Qi cultivators?”
Yan Tianhen gave a pause and said, “Because Jianmu cut off his roots and severed the path of ascension to the upper realm.”
“You are too naive.” Cang Rong revealed, “It’s because he still had attachments in his heart. It’s also because you’ve accumulated great merits and virtues, yet you forced him to end your life with his own hands. In the end, not only did his merits not increase, but they even decreased — Lingyu, did you really believe you were helping him?”
Yan Tianhen was suddenly stupefied. His eyes almost popped out of their sockets, his heart was thundering, and his hands and feet were cold. “No… Impossible! It can’t be because of me!”
“How could it be impossible? Dao Zu had already made a divination many years ago that there would be a major tribulation in Chang Sheng’s life, and his tribulation was you. You are not helping him, but harming him.”
Cang Rong sighed and said, “I just don’t want the only evidence in the world that can prove your innocence to disappear. I don’t want the fact that you made such a sacrifice for the Nine Lands to no longer exist, so I left this will here.”
“If you make a decision, you can completely obliterate this will. It’s just that between Heaven and Earth, no one else will know of your great merits, and the name Youshan Lingyu will live in infamy for tens of thousands of years.”
“You have to think carefully.”
After speaking, Cang Rong remained silent.
This was a strand of will left by him. The characters written on the scroll were left behind by his will. Once his will dissipated, those characters would no longer exist.
Let it stay?
Or obliterate it?
Yan Tianhen dropped his eyes, which were full of turbulent waves. Didn’t he want someone to help him settle his grievances and clear his name? Didn’t he want someone to cut a path for him when he was in a muddle and had nowhere to go and had to cut open a new path for himself to walk alone? Didn’t he want someone to help him when he was so desperate, even if it was something as simple as lighting his path? He certainly wanted those things. In the darkest hundred years of the Nine Lands, he dreamed day and night that someone would give him a hand.
But there was no such person.
Such a person never existed.
His Master schemed him, and his most beloved Shixiong did not want him. He fulfilled Dao Zu’s expectations and deceived the world, deceived the greedy people, and killed his own life with his own hands to return peace to the Nine Lands. He sacrificed too much.
But he wasn’t the only one who sacrificed something — Chang Sheng, Cang Rong, Xi He, Lian Hua… But also those sects that devoted their entire power in the Great Immortal-Demon War, and all the nameless disciples of those sects.
Too many people had been sacrificed.
But there were even more innocent people.
“I just want the past to be buried completely.” After a long time, Yan Tianhen raised his head, fixed his eyes on Cang Rong. His voice was a little hoarse, “When I hoped someone could redeem me, no one answered my cries. Now, I don’t care about those people’s superficial actions or words. For me, Youshan Lingyu’s life is over. It’s completely finished. No one has the right to mention it again.”
“Are you willing to keep Chang Sheng in the dark forever?” Cang Rong asked after a while.
But Yan Tianhen said with a smile, “What’s wrong with keeping him in the dark? With his temperament, if he knew that everything I did had never violated the precepts of Spirit Sect, he would definitely feel miserable and blame himself.”
Especially… especially now, when his relationship with Lin Xuanzhi was already extraordinary. Of course, he was afraid that Lin Xuanzhi would not accept him once he found out that Yan Tianhen was the lawless Youshan Lingyu who destroyed the heavens and earth. He was afraid that even if Lin Xuanzhi was willing to accept him, they still wouldn’t be able to return to the original beautiful times when there was no distance between them.
But compared to being abandoned, Yan Tianhen knew better than ever — he was most afraid that he would end up telling Lin Xuanzhi about all the hardship and grievances he had suffered just because he could no longer bear these pains.
Look, how miserable that life of mine was. None of you understood me, and all the grievances I’ve eaten are numerous enough to become the sea. Half of my life I had been smashed by the world, and in the end I was stabbed to death by you…
You killed the person who loves you the most.
You killed the person you love the most.
Yan Tianhen didn’t dare to think about how Lin Xuanzhi would accept this truth after he found out. He could never bear to see Lin Xuanzhi being even a little sad, so how could he dare to mention it? How could he dare say it? He would rather bear all the criticisms than let the truth have the opportunity to surface in front of Lin Xuanzhi. He would rather conceal the identity of Youshan Lingyu from Lin Xuanzhi for life.
“I owe my Shixiong too much. Even if it takes my whole life to pay it back, the debts still wouldn’t be cleared.” Yan Tianhen’s eyes were a little dim. “So I don’t want him to have any worries in his heart. I want him to be calm and unaffected by the past, and one day he will be successful in his cultivation and ascend. Please, I earnestly request this of you — don’t say it.”
In the end, Cang Rong sighed and said, “You are stubborn, but the truth is the truth. It will see the light of day eventually.”
“But these so-called truths shouldn’t exist in this world to begin with. Cang Rong, you may know that I was forced to cultivate evil Qi and destroy the world, but there are many more things you don’t know at all. It’s a fact that my hands were stained with blood. It’s also a fact that I have cultivated evil Qi. It’s a fact that innocent people died in my hands. It’s also a fact that I have slaughtered twelve Daoist sects. There are many despicable and filthy things I’ve done to my Eldest Shixiong, and I have no face to mention them.”
Yan Tianhen clenched his fist as he recalled those past events on the Phoenix Terrace that made even himself unable to breathe. Those moments of intimate skinship that he forced upon Chang Sheng and made him suffer humiliation and torture against his will were all debts that could not be repaid, no matter what.
——-
Zaki~ the last paragraph… just leaving it to your imaginations 😛 😛 😛
