Chapter 165 The Forbidden Room "Have you come to your senses and are you going to let this old man out?"...

At the foot of the Tianque Linggu Pagoda.

Beneath the underground palace lies a forbidden chamber. Because the underground palace houses the Water Mirror, it is a place accessible only to a select few, and the forbidden chamber beneath is even more unknown.

The forbidden room was dark and without candles. Only faint breathing could be heard in the dim light. In the deepest part, someone sat cross-legged with his eyes closed. His long, white eyebrows were relaxed and his face was calm. If it weren't for the ropes binding his hands and feet, one would almost think that he was meditating and cultivating himself.

The door to the forbidden room was pushed open a crack, and light slanted in through the gap, allowing a figure to enter.

The person deep inside lifted their eyelids, revealing a pair of aged eyes.

"Have you thought it through? Are you going to let this old man out?"

The old man gazed at the newcomer, a glimmer of light appearing in his aged eyes.

After the door closed, the forbidden room did not return to its previous darkness. The person who entered was dressed in white, surrounded by a faint, soft light, like a luminous pearl shining in the darkness.

The person shook his head.

"I just came to see you." The visitor sat down beside the old man's stone bed and placed a bottle of jade dew beside him. "There is cold poison on the dragon tendon. If it is bound for too long, the poison will invade the meridians. You are old and your body cannot withstand the cold poison. Drinking this will make you feel better."

"Ga Yue!" the old man roared, but the forbidden room was already protected by the Buri Barrier, and no matter how loud his voice was, it could not escape the room.

"How can you still be so stubborn! It's just a memory from your time in the human world, a mere few months. What does that mean in the thousand-year lifespan of your merfolk? I took it, and that's that. I don't believe I've wronged you. Your way of repaying me is utterly disheartening!"

The man who had been berated remained calm, toying with the jade bottle. "Yes, it's just a few months' worth of memories, why can't you bear to forget them?" Jia Yue lifted her eyelids, her icy blue eyes fixed on him. "Xing Xuan, what is it that makes you so afraid I'll remember?"

Xingxuan felt a chill run down his spine under his gaze, and the dragon tendons binding his body emanated a bone-chilling cold. He suppressed the chill emanating from him and said in a deep voice, "I have already told you. When we found you that day, you were already in the process of differentiation, and your situation was extremely dangerous. You still insisted on going to find that mortal. Half fish tail and half legs, every step you took would tear at your wounds. I couldn't persuade you, so I had to knock you unconscious. Later, that mortal died. I know that your mermaid clan has deep feelings, and to prevent you from being too heartbroken and affecting your future cultivation, I had no choice but to take away your memories of the mortal world."

“You should thank me for your current level of cultivation, not punish me.” Xingxuan softened his tone. “Jiayue, I’m doing this all for your own good. I brought you back from the Sea Kingdom back then, and I watched you grow up. I would never harm you.”

Hearing Xingxuan say this, the merman's face remained expressionless. "I will remember your kindness."

Xingxuan noticed the emotion in his tone and continued, "That mortal has been dead for many years, so there's no point in you dwelling on it anymore. Besides, you've regained your memories now. If you release me, I can pretend this never happened after we get out."

The jade bottle landed on the stone bed with a crisp sound, and Jia Yue's voice suddenly turned cold, "But in this matter, you did not act out of kindness."

Xingxuan was startled. Just as he was about to argue, he saw the other person's deep blue eyes suddenly narrow and stare at him like icy needles. "Do you want me to tell you? My memory is very clear. Even during the differentiation, my body only felt hot, without any pain. So you didn't stop me from looking for people at first."

He ate the thing Xiao Jiang gave him, but he didn't experience the pain of the merman's supposed blade splitting his fish tail. He just felt hot all over, dizzy, and weak, but he was more than capable of going out to find someone.

“Until I reached the sacrificial site, where there were many people, you started advising me not to go any further…” He paused, “I told you to stay where you were and wait for me to return, and I went to the sacrificial site alone. But you took advantage of my inattention and knocked me unconscious.” He looked up at the void, as if recalling something, “After regaining my memories, I kept thinking, was there someone there? Someone you didn’t want me to find… I vaguely saw a cultivator in the crowd, was it him?”

"Nonsense! I went to that place to find you, how could I know anyone there?" Xingxuan denied it outright. The intense fluctuations of his emotions aroused the dragon tendons in his body. The dragon tendons were sentient and thought he was struggling, so they bound him even tighter.

“I know you are naturally suspicious, but how could you make such unfounded connections! You just hate me for taking you away and not saving that mortal in time. But you mermaids shouldn’t be entangled with mortals. Besides, you have a mission in this life and shouldn’t be preoccupied with personal feelings. It’s better to end it sooner rather than later.”

Jia Yue's lips twitched, and she smiled. What high-sounding words! "For your own good," indeed a good weapon for teaching people a lesson.

The jade bottle was crushed in his palm, and the jade dew and the shards of the bottle were slowly scattered in front of Xing Xuan. Xing Xuan's eyes narrowed. He did need the jade dew to resist the cold. The cold poison in his tendons was now making him feel extremely cold. Seeing the jade dew, he thought he could finally feel better for a while, but Jia Yue actually brought it over and destroyed it in front of him!

"Still unwilling to tell the truth?" Jia Yue said calmly. "It's alright, I can wait until the day you're willing to tell." He stood up. "After all, as you said, I have plenty of time."

As Jia Yue left the forbidden room, the images from Xing Xuan's memories still lingered on the water mirror in the underground palace.

Not long after regaining his memories, he approached Xingxuan, but Xingxuan refused to tell the truth. Cultivators travel far and wide, and even if they suddenly disappear, it won't arouse suspicion.

Out of consideration for their long-standing relationship, he did not use harsh methods on Xingxuan, but simply trapped him here and used a strand of his hair to trace his memory with a water mirror. Unfortunately, he did not have any further information about that cultivator in his memory.

Jia Yue brushed away the image in the water mirror and replaced it with another strand of black hair.

Jiang Yuhuo only has half of her memories; she has changed bodies, and the events of Liyue Village are all stored in another body. He has no way of knowing what happened that day, and can only hear a little about it from her.

Perhaps only when he finds her body will he know what really happened that night.

The water mirror slowly revealed the scenes he had seen countless times. During the most difficult days, he could only rely on these scenes to imagine that she was still by his side.

Jia Yue watched silently for a long time until the Life Bead suddenly emitted a burning sensation.

She's in trouble.

Has the fire element within my body started to backfire again?

With his life bead suppressing it, this situation shouldn't happen again.

*

Jiang Yuhuo finally met Li Yanluo.

In the waterside pavilion in the backyard of the Li family, with snow-white skin, black hair, and a green silk dress, she looked more like a young girl than Li Mengbai's aunt, as fresh as the green branches in the pond. She was truly beautiful, among the most outstanding in her family, and no less so than Li Mengbai.

The aunt Li Ziying, whom I saw at the banquet the night before, was standing next to Li Yanluo. The two seemed to be chatting and laughing, and they looked like sisters.

Being too far away, Jiang Yuhuo only heard words like "ancestor worship" and "winter solstice," guessing that they were discussing the upcoming ancestor worship ceremony.

According to the Li family tradition, on the day of Lidong (the beginning of winter), they go to the Li family ancestral mausoleum to pay homage to their ancestors. According to Li Shichuan, although they have not yet formally formed a sworn brotherhood or been included in the Li family genealogy, Jiang Yuhuo is now considered half a member of the Li family, and he will also go with them on the day of the ceremony.

Upon seeing Jiang Yuhuo, Li Ziying, still somewhat enthusiastic due to their brief encounter at the banquet, introduced her to Li Yanluo, who had been absent the previous day. Upon hearing that she was Li Mengbai's fiancée, Li Yanluo's previously indifferent expression immediately turned cold.

"Princess, it's a pleasure to meet you." Li Yanluo nodded slightly, a cold sneer on her lips, her expression clearly showing no sign of pleasure.

Jiang Yuhuo returned the greeting, "Miss Li Er."

Li Yanluo glanced at her indifferently, "You should call me 'Auntie' like Mengbai does."

Jiang Yuhuo said, "We are not yet married, so it is not appropriate to seek a marriage alliance."

Li Yanluo chuckled, this time with a hint of sincerity. Her gaze fell on Jiang Yuhuo's sword. "I heard you're a cultivator from Kunlun? A member of the royal family, how could you cultivate immortality? Aren't those people the most rigid and religious? How could they allow you to go?"

Regarding Ji Hongyu's resurrection and arrival at Kunlun, Jiang Yuhuo had already prepared an explanation. She shook her head and said, "At first, they were unaware of it."

Hearing this, Li Yanluo immediately became interested, "You went without telling them?"

"Yes and no. I died once in the palace from a serious illness. After my burial, my body was stolen by demons. Later, I was rescued by a Kunlun immortal who happened to be passing by. He found that I was still alive and brought me to Kunlun. Since my family thought that Ji Hongyu was dead, I have been living as a Kunlun disciple ever since."

"So that's how it is... So that's how it is, only this is how it is..." Li Yanlu murmured, lost in thought.

She suddenly looked up and gave Jiang Yuhuo a deep look. "After you came back to life, you didn't go home and stayed in Kunlun to cultivate without asking about anything. You are heartless."

To make such a comment about her future nephew's wife on their first meeting was quite impolite, according to Li Yanluo.

But in that instant, Jiang Yuhuo saw something profound in Li Yanluo's eyes—a mixture of approval, envy, and even a hint of resentment. Before she could delve any further, Li Yanluo had already looked away and gracefully walked away.

She walked a long way away, and Jiang Yuhuo heard a faint sigh carried on the wind.

"What a pity, she had to marry into this place..."

Jiang Yuhuo didn't feel it was a pity. She had already placed a wisp of her spiritual consciousness on Li Yanluo. Although Li Yanluo was someone who could rival Li Mengbai in the Li family, her cultivation level didn't seem to be very high.

"Don't worry about it, that's just how Yanluo is. She doesn't hate you, she just had a disagreement with Mengbai and was just venting her feelings. Don't take it to heart."

Suddenly, a voice rang in Jiang Yuhuo's ears, bringing him back to his senses. He saw Li Ziying, who was still standing beside him.

Li Ziying smiled at her, her face gentle, comforting her like a true elder.

Jiang Yuhu nodded to express his gratitude, but a hint of hesitation suddenly flashed through his mind.

She seemed perfectly normal.

But in the Li family, such an overly normal person made her feel that something was abnormal.

After the two left, Jiang Yuhuo stayed alone in the waterside pavilion for a long time.

Last night's argument seemed to have dealt another blow to Li Mengbai's spiritual sea. After she treated him with the mermaid pearl, he fell into a deep sleep. She didn't want to go back either, as Li Mengbai would wake up and disturb her.

She sat in the waterside pavilion, her spiritual sense following Li Yanluo's movements, circling around the Li family compound, seemingly resting with her eyes closed. One advantage of spiritual sense over the spirit-summoning wood is that, in addition to the person carrying it, she could also perceive the surrounding environment and the people they encountered.

For example, right now, Li Yanluo has encountered a person with profound cultivation. Jiang Yuhuo was able to track the two of them to a large hall in the east, but he couldn't hear them talking.

The man seemed to have given Li Yanluo something, very small, shaped like a piece of broken jade.

Jiang Yuhuo decided to go and see for himself.