Chapter 23 Discovery
As expected, the Immortal Clan Grand Tournament was interrupted due to this battle.
Most of the cultivators on Buzhou Mountain have died or been injured, and they need to recuperate.
Under Meng Ji's protection, Yao Jin didn't witness the bloody side of the battlefield firsthand, but he could glean some clues from Xiao Yun's pale face.
I don't know if it's because I'm too empathetic, or because the strong smell of blood on the tip of my nose lingers for a long time.
In short, she had a dream that night.
"My Frostflower!" With a cry of surprise, Yao Jin suddenly gripped the sword. The longsword was sharp and emitted a light unlike anything in the mortal world. It carried a force that propelled her forward to thrust it.
With a "pfft".
The resistance of the flesh being pierced made Yao Jin pause for a moment.
This was a sudden, sharp sensation, the kind of feeling you get only when a sword cuts through fascia. And the direction the sword pierced...
She looked up in disbelief, only to see the Frostflower Sword trembling with the surging battle intent emanating from it, having drunk its fill of blood.
Tears welled up quickly in Yao Jin's eyes, and her body's slight trembling turned into an uncontrollable shudder.
Yao Jin let out a series of soft cries.
Little Daoist Master...
Little Daoist Master...
But she couldn't make a sound.
The eyelashes finally couldn't withstand the weight and were soaked through. The scalding tears condensed into beads and fell down in large drops.
It crashed to the ground, forming puddles of water.
Yao Jin's heart was contracting repeatedly. Amidst the waves of excruciating pain, she thought she might understand now, and understand why she had been so eager to seek answers at Fuyao Cliff.
But it was all too late.
Yao Jin was utterly terrified, yet she couldn't help but smile, "You've finally met your match, Immortal Lord Mengji, you've finally met your match!"
Blood trickled from Meng Ji's lips as he looked at her, not at all like someone on the verge of death. "...You seem to be in a lot of pain?"
This doesn't sound like something he would say. If there were others around, they would definitely laugh at him. Could it be that a murderer would feel sorry for his own enemies?
But Meng Ji did say it.
His eyes were wet with a tenderness he had never seen before.
He was neither afraid of death nor dreaded death.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have had the courage to kill his biological father and end his eight-year ordeal of being tortured.
His biological father was just a lowly stable boy who, through his master's arrangement, was assigned a disgraced maidservant from the inner quarters.
That is, his mother, Qiao.
No one knew Qiao's full name, and his biological father didn't care.
All that is known is that Madam Qiao spent her days in tears, reminiscing about the days when she served the young lady.
No one wants to face a crying face every day, and his alcoholic biological father was no exception. On another occasion when he was drunk, he forced Qiao to give birth to him.
At this point, the evil in people's hearts was unleashed.
The more subservient a man is by day, the more arrogant and conceited he becomes by night. And after each beating, Luo would lose control of her emotions.
Sometimes Mrs. Qiao would hold her child and call out to him over and over again.
Sometimes, the hatred in Qiao's eyes would overflow.
But no one would look at you like that.
He didn't even have a master.
"Stop crying." Meng Ji finally sighed softly and withdrew his fingertips.
The witch, unaware that she had narrowly escaped death, knelt on the ground and staggered over, frantically searching his chest, "Nothing, nothing..."
"Where is the Mirror of Origin? Where did you hide it?!"
"You stinking Taoist priest, I'll die without the Mirror of Reversal!"
A mournful roar echoed throughout the area, but the witch could not shed a tear; instead, blood welled up in her eyes.
Yao Jin felt a burning pain in his eyes, as if they were being burned.
The witch gradually merged with her, and Yao Jin's vision was filled with large swaths of red, while at the same time, the extreme pain in her body followed.
She looked down and was shocked to find that the abdomen of this body was already a bloody mess.
So, she's dying!
"Ah!" came a gasp.
Yao Jin woke up with a start, clutching her abdomen, only to find that her pure white undergarment was completely untorn.
The Mirror of Origin, the Witch.
Why is she connected to the witch...?
Yao Jin couldn't help but question his own guesses in the secret room.
She got off the bed and slowly walked to the dressing table, where the mirror was perfectly aligned with her abdomen.
Yao Jin held her breath and slowly pulled up her inner garment, revealing skin that had never seen the sun, gleaming with a pale white light.
However, a scar was clearly visible on the smooth skin that could be seen every day during a shower!
"No, this isn't me, I'm not a witch..." Yao Jin suddenly dropped her clothes, took several steps back, and almost lost her balance.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, as if that would make the ugly scar disappear.
When Yao Jin opened her eyes again, she moved even closer.
This time, she was only a few steps away from the dressing table.
The image of the scar kept flashing before Yao Jin's eyes, but her mind went blank. Her fingers trembled as she covered her inner garment and carefully pulled it up.
But this time, the scar was even more unmistakable in Yao Jin's eyes.
The scar seemed embedded in the flesh, and it looked quite old. The edges of the scar resembled a crawling centipede, as if it could only have been created by someone forcibly stitching it up.
It's really ugly, and it's unbelievable that such an ugly scar would remain on her stomach.
Yao Jin couldn't believe it and rolled up her inner garment a little more, but suddenly a dark ripple of light was reflected in the mirror.
The light shifted between blue and purple, like scales in some kind of reptilian motion.
Yao Jin felt a sense of unease and slowly turned to the side.
The skin, which should have been smooth, was now covered in scales!
"Ah!" Yao Jin smashed the mirror. "No, this isn't me, this isn't me..."
She didn't believe it; it wasn't her.
She is not a demon.
It must have been made with small print!
Yao Jin's eyes were filled with hatred as she clenched her fists tightly. "Come out, you devil, come out here!"
No matter how much Yao Jin shouted, the surroundings remained completely silent.
In a state of extreme panic, Yao Jin was at a loss and lost her composure. Suddenly, she saw the Frost Flower hanging in the room.
She rushed over, drew her sword, as if she could deceive herself, "As long as I find it, that's enough, right?"
"Once we find you, we'll take all of these back, right?!"
"Yes, that must be it, that must be it..." As she said this, Yao Jin's panic seemed to lessen a bit, and she slowly calmed down, looking at the shards scattered on the ground.
In the distorted reflection, her face was twisted and blurred—and one could vaguely make out the features of another person within it.
This image slowly overlapped with the painting in the secret room, and for a moment Yao Jin could no longer deceive himself.
And in her fair palm, a line of small words slowly emerged: "[I didn't do it...]"
*The other side
With the information he had gathered over the past few days, Liu Xiaoshun knelt in the study and said, "Immortal Lord, Xu Jinan is dying, but we still haven't gone to see her."
This "she" is Qiao Shi, Meng Ji's birth mother in the mortal realm.
Liu Xiaoshun just didn't know how to address him properly—nothing more than the fact that the Immortal Lord's mother was a madwoman.
Actually, Qiao Shi wasn't always crazy; she only went mad in the tenth year after the Immortal Lord arrived at Buzhou Mountain. It was also because Xu Jinan initially acted so well, even planting a spiritual root for the Immortal Lord's mother before bringing him back, thus granting the Immortal Lord permission not to sever his ties to the mortal world and to care for his parents until their passing.
It was this action that exposed Xu Jinan's true colors.
Everything depends on opportunity. Whether one can cultivate immortality depends on whether one has spiritual roots and the right destiny.
The spiritual root that Xu Jinan planted was extremely vicious. This kind of spiritual root could not be cultivated or maintained youth, but it could allow one to live for two or three hundred years.
The lifespan of an ordinary person is no more than a hundred years. How can one not be happy to suddenly have so many more years?
However, this joy cannot withstand the ravages of time, especially when one is soberly watching their appearance age while their bodily functions remain at the level of youth.
The wind in the immortal realm is so strong; it seems that if it blows, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes will be blown out. Qiao Shi touched the fine lines on her face expressionlessly, looked at her drooping cheeks in the mirror, and remained motionless for a long time.
These ten years are precisely the time when the youth are most vibrant.
Qiao watched over him day and night, seeing the boy grow taller and stronger.
This is youth, the youth she once had.
Resentment and jealousy, these ugly emotions, suddenly arise.
Finally, one day, Madam Qiao went mad, though her madness seemed severe, yet not quite. By day, she remained the kind elder in everyone's eyes, but at night, she would take a thin needle and viciously stab the exceptionally talented young man.
Her face contorted with an indescribable pleasure, yet tears streamed down her face. "My son, my son, you must never become like your father."
Qiao knew that as soon as she said these words, her son, who possessed extraordinary immortal power, would not resist. He would never be able to escape the mountain of morality and etiquette; his roots had already been planted in the mortal world.
Moreover, Mrs. Qiao knew, knew what he desired most.
Sure enough, when those tears, which seemed to come from her heart, flowed out, her son stopped moving.
Qiao kept Xu Jinan's words in mind: only by controlling this child could she have a chance to regain her youth.
Immortal Xu would never lie to her, after all, the extra lifespan she gained was given to her by Immortal Xu.
And this son was nothing but a disgrace brought to her by that beast.
With this idea in mind, Qiao became more and more determined, willingly helping Xu Xianren and willingly being imprisoned by him in a secret room so that she could control her son who softened at the slightest bit of warmth.
“Xu Jinan is no longer capable of doing anything, so Mother is not in danger for the time being,” Meng Ji said gently.
Having not seen Qiao for a long time, Meng Ji still felt a sense of responsibility for raising his mother, but his heart was gradually filled by another girl. Thinking of the girl's image, Meng Ji rubbed his fingertips and asked, "Do you have Hongyu?"
"Yes, Immortal Lord! Your subordinate will go through fire and water to continue inquiring about her..." Liu Xiaoshun wondered if he had misheard, his mouth agape enough to fit a goose egg, "...Huh?"
Meng Ji: "Is it because you can't find it?"
Liu Xiaoshun: ...
As an excellent subordinate, he had no choice but to seek help.
After that day
Strange sounds then began to emanate from Mount Buzhou.
At first, these voices spread only in a small circle, but later they grew bigger and bigger, and everyone in the school would talk about them.
"Have you heard?" Qingfeng winked at the neighbor next door. "I was wondering why there was demonic energy that day. It seems it was..."
The cultivator next door, who had been dozing, immediately exclaimed excitedly upon hearing this, "Of course I've heard! I'm the third person to know!"
Throughout history, the Eight Trigrams have always been something that invigorates people, no matter where they are placed.
This was just the beginning; someone else added, "I wouldn't have guessed she was a demon."
Some people didn't believe it, saying, "I don't think so. The sect leader is the strictest and most fair person. He shouldn't be covering up for anyone."
"What do you know? Is that an outsider? That's your own wife!" Those who didn't believe it got a slap on the forehead, but most people in the school still believed it.
This matter is inherently difficult to understand, and most people tend to believe the "truth" that leans towards darkness.
The school was abuzz with discussion about whether the sect leader's wife was a demon.
Qingfeng, who had first brought up the topic, successfully disappeared. He smiled obsequiously at Chi Yi not far away, signaling that he had accomplished his task.
Chi Yi raised an eyebrow and glanced at him before looking away and continuing to read.
Yao Jin walked in at this moment.
Almost the instant she appeared, the noise in the school stopped abruptly.
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Author's Note: [Starry eyes][Starry eyes] Thank you for the nutrient solution, my darling!
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