Chapter 168: Old Stories (3) Both of them felt that things were a bit...

It seemed like something happened that Si Ling was unaware of.

But this didn't seem to be the point, because Si Ling soon realized more information from the "mummy's" words.

She glanced at Xuan Chi and asked in surprise, "Your brother?"

Seeing that she no longer continued the previous topic, Hyun Chi secretly breathed a sigh of relief, and Hyun Yeon nodded.

Si Ling immediately said her name: "Hyunryeon?!"

The mummy lowered its head, its hoarse voice still indistinguishable between male and female: "It is me, Your Majesty."

"You..." Si Ling looked at her, countless questions suddenly flooding his mind. For example, why did she work for Di Jun? And why did she mummify herself? For a moment, he didn't know which one to ask first.

Hyun-ryeon looked towards the wooden house beneath the barrier. "It's a long story. Can I come in?"

"Of course." Si Ling opened the barrier, and the three of them landed back on the open space in front of the wooden house, then walked towards the wooden house together.

Passing the outdoor kitchen, Si Ling casually took the plate of fried fish. Hyun Chi and Hyun Yeon were already walking behind him. Seeing Si Ling enter the house, Hyun Chi deliberately slowed down his pace, frowning and whispering to Hyun Yeon, "Why did you bring up that?"

"I only realized I said the wrong thing after I finished speaking..." Hyun-yeon was speechless. "I just learned about what happened before, but it was all fragments. I thought she knew it all along..." She paused, then asked in confusion, "Didn't she know all this time?!"

"Who would mention this to her?" Xuan Chi shook his head helplessly and quickened his pace into the wooden house.

The living room in the cabin was initially quite bare, with only a dining table, two chairs, and two large and small cabinets. Si Ling immediately began furnishing the room. By the time Hyun Chi entered, she had already cast a spell to arrange the sofa, and the coffee table was materializing. By the time Hyun Lin entered, tea was already on the coffee table, along with the plate of fried fish.

Si Ling nodded and said politely, "Please sit down."

So Si Ling and Hyun Chi sat together on the three-person seat, while Hyun Ye sat alone on the single seat on the side.

Si Ling didn't exchange many pleasantries and directly asked the first question: "How did you find this place?"

There was obvious distrust in these words.

Hyun-ryeon smiled, flipped her right hand, and produced a piece of paper. She held it firmly in her hand and handed it to Si Ling: "There's no trace of you in the Eastern world, so I thought of asking in the West. When I arrived in Lingbo City, I found that many people were discussing this missing person notice."

It was the missing person notice Si Ling had distributed a week ago in order to find Xuan Chi. Later, when Xuan Chi returned on his own, she immediately brought him here to recuperate, not even bothering to collect the paper figurine and the missing person notice.

Hyun-ryeon said, "I found out about the Ghost Academy through the missing person notice, but Lucifer only said you weren't there and wouldn't reveal any more information. I had no choice but to look for you on my own. However, your cultivation is very strong, and the ghosts and demons will notice you wherever you go, so finding this place isn't difficult. It's just that those goblins two kilometers away are quite greedy..."

Hyun-ryeon sighed softly, "A clue in one sentence. They asked me for gold. Which immortal would carry such a thing? I had no choice but to give them an elixir."

Si Ling didn't comment and asked again: "Why did you make yourself like this..." She found a suitable word, "appearance?"

Hyun-ryeon lowered her brows and pondered for a moment before raising her left hand and undoing the bandage with her right hand. The skin on her left hand soon became visible... scarred, seemingly from burns. There was not a single intact spot on her hand, and the scars still looked fresh.

When Hyun-ryeon untied the strips of cloth, some of the wounds had begun to slowly worsen and showed signs of festering.

"My whole body is like this. These wounds won't heal, they'll just keep coming back." Hyun-ryeon calmly wrapped the strips of cloth back together. "And the burning sensation is still there. Using the black ice silk to calm it down will make it feel better."

Si Ling's heart trembled, and Hyun Yeon's past appearance appeared in his mind.

She wasn't just beautiful; she was truly a daughter of heaven. Back then, the heavens were dominated by women, and the Suhuang clan was completely ruled by women. As the eldest daughter of the Suhuang King, Hyun-ryeon was recognized as the heir from the moment she was born, so it was only natural that she grew up to be noble and confident.

She is indeed very talented. When Xuan Chi just entered the Heavenly Palace and became a member of the Imperial Guard, Xuan Lian was already the powerful crown prince of the Suhuang clan.

"How could you..." Si Ling wanted to ask, but when he opened his mouth he found that his voice was trembling.

"This is the long part of the story." Hyun-ryeon smiled bitterly, "Before Hyun-chi came to find me, my memory began when I was found at the foot of Mount Buzhou."

Si Ling was stunned: "Buzhou Mountain?"

Hyun-ryeon nodded. "The Emperor of Heaven was touring Mount Buzhou when he found me sealed away at the foot of the mountain, in this burned state. He searched through all the historical records but couldn't figure out who I was. However, he still found the Mysterious Ice Silk for me and gave me an official position in the Immortal Registration Academy."

Si Ling paused, then asked the same question as Xuan Chi: "Is the Emperor of Heaven still Emperor Jun?"

This kind of benevolent style of painting was very different from the Di Jun she remembered.

Hyun-ryeon didn't directly answer the question, but continued, "I had originally wanted to pray to the White Ze God to restore my memory, but I didn't even know my own name or race. Even the White Ze God, who knew everything about the past and present, couldn't help. Hyun-chi came to me this time and gave me these two key pieces of information."

"God Bai Ze?" Xuan Chi and Si Ling exchanged a look of surprise. Si Ling asked, "Does the Heaven Realm now have no restrictions on praying to the Ancient Gods?"

Hyun-yeon was stunned by the question, and after thinking carefully, she realized the difference.

During Xin Bi's reign as Celestial Emperor, only a handful of top-tier deities could pray directly to the Ancient Gods. This wasn't a rule set by Xin Bi, but rather a decision made by the Ancient Gods. On the one hand, the Ancient Gods were reluctant to interfere too much in the affairs of the Three Realms from the outset; on the other hand, the burgeoning number of Celestial Gods meant that if everyone could pray directly to them, it would be quite cumbersome for the Ancient Gods.

Now, the rules haven't changed in essence, it's just that Bai Ze...

Hyun-ryeon pondered, "For some unknown reason, Bai Ze created a sacred pond in the heavens. It holds the past and present, and any deity can enter. But perhaps to avoid confusion, aside from learning publicly available knowledge, people there can only read about their own affairs, so generally not many people go there."

"The Divine Pond? Containing the past and present?" Xuan Chi's expression was grave. "The Supreme God Bai Ze knows everything about the past and present. Was the gift he bestowed a drop of cerebrospinal fluid?"

"..." Si Ling put his hand on his arm, "After all, we are all immortals. Please preserve some beauty in the myth."

"Ahem." Hyun Chi pursed his lips, "Sorry, please continue."

Hyun-ryeon straightened her expression. "Anyway, I went to the Bai Ze Divine Pond to pray again. If he could return my past memories to me, it would prove that you didn't lie to me. Then I saw..." Hyun-ryeon took a deep breath. Although she tried her best to control her emotions, a hint of fear still flashed in her eyes. "I saw Di Jun torture me to extract a confession from me in order to find out the whereabouts of the Lord."

Si Ling's heart ached when he heard this: "You don't even know where I am."

"Yeah." Hyun-ryeon laughed miserably, "But Di Jun thought I knew... He used the sun's true fire to burn me non-stop for three hundred years until my memory completely disappeared. He then imprisoned me at the foot of Mount Buzhou and left me to fend for myself."

Si Ling fell silent. She actually had many questions, but the experience Hyun-ryeon described horrified her, and she couldn't utter a word.

Hyun Chi was equally quiet. He had wanted to ask where the other Suhuangs had gone, including their mother. But Hyun Lan, the crown prince, had suffered such a tragic fate; he feared the answer would be genocide.

Hyun-ryeon herself was quite calm. After taking a breath, she carefully continued, "So... I think the current Heavenly Emperor is not Di Jun anymore. First of all, he looks completely different. Secondly, if he was Di Jun, why would he rescue me from Mount Buzhou?"

"Maybe I'm trying to confuse you?" Xuan Chi blurted out.

Hyun-ryeon spread her hands, "What's the point? I don't remember anything anyway. It would be easiest to keep me under Mount Buzhou, right? On the contrary, releasing me..." She glanced at Hyun-chi, "This is completely the risk of releasing me now."

Xuan Chi was speechless. Xuan Lian looked at Si Ling and continued, "This time in the Bai Ze Divine Pond, I also found some supporting evidence."

Si Ling: "What evidence?"

Hyun-ryeon said, "Although after you, the Celestial Emperor downplayed his name and only called himself 'Celestial Emperor', there are three steles erected by successive Celestial Emperors beside the Bai Ze Divine Pond."

There are three in total. Si Ling held his breath when he heard this. Hyun Lian continued, "The first one is Di Jun's, the second one is Donghuang Taiyi's, and the third one is signed by Yu Heng. Yu Heng's piece is dated after I was rescued from Buzhou Mountain, but the Emperor of Heaven didn't change during this period, so it must be the same person."

Si Ling looked at Xuan Chi without saying a word, and both of them felt that things were a bit awkward.

She originally thought that this was not only a seizure of the throne, but also revenge. But now there is a new person on the throne, who should she take revenge on?

Moreover, she knew Di Jun. His values ​​and personality destined him to be a tyrant. Regardless of personal vendettas, overthrowing a tyrant would have been no problem. But now, not only were the personal vendettas gone, but it was also hard to say whether the current ruler could truly be called a tyrant. While the flaws in the management of the Immortal Registration Institute suggested problems within the Heavenly Court, the severity of "problems" and "a tyrant in power" were vastly different.

Si Ling pondered for a while, then asked Xuan Lian, "Since the Emperor of Heaven has been replaced again, where are Di Jun and Dong Huang Tai Yi?"

"I don't know. There's no record of it, so there probably wasn't any fierce battle. Maybe it was an assassination?" Hyun-ryeon shrugged. "I think they downplayed the name for this reason—assassinations are so shady. So downplaying the name makes most gods think the Emperor hasn't changed in tens of thousands of years, thus avoiding controversies like 'illegitimate access to the throne'."