curse
Yan Dan was shocked and moved, not because of Nong Cui's words about the curse, but because she would rather let Liu Weiyang be mistaken by her own people as the murderer of her mother than let him leave. This was really too extreme.
With a soft sound, Liu Weiyang's jade flute had already been turned open, revealing a thin, sharp blade inside, which he pressed against Nong Cui's brow: "I hate being coerced more than anything in my life." He raised his hand and waved it, and several sword lights flashed, instantly splitting the low table beside him into dozens of pieces. Then, he flicked his sleeves and left.
Yan Dan squatted down, picked up a piece of wood, and examined it from all angles. Every edge was exceptionally neat, and she murmured, "Impressive..." She touched her chest, thankful that she had only gained an advantage verbally and hadn't really angered Liu Weiyang. Otherwise, even with her boundless magic, she wouldn't have been able to piece it back together after it had been cut into so many pieces.
Nong Cui suddenly raised her hand to cover her face and began to sob softly.
Seeing Nong Cui's tear-streaked face, Yan Dan felt a pang of pity, but truly no sympathy. Love between a man and a woman should be mutual, but to take it this far was simply too much. Even if she were Liu Weiyang, she wouldn't be able to stand it. She couldn't help but think back to when she first met Nong Cui; she thought she was both delicate and beautiful, but she never expected her to be like this. Her family was a prestigious clan within the Luo Yue tribe; hadn't her parents properly raised her? How did she develop this kind of personality?
As they stepped out of the mortuary, they were greeted by warm, bright sunlight. Suddenly, Yu Mo murmured, "Sometimes, feelings really can drive people crazy."
Yan Dan thought for a moment, then smiled slightly and said, "Feelings themselves don't drive people crazy; it's the weakness in human nature that drives the person who's stuck in the mire to madness."
Yu Mo lowered his eyes and chuckled almost imperceptibly: "That's true."
Yan Dan was very unhappy and pouted slightly: "You should at least say something to praise me. Just saying 'that's true' so casually doesn't have any sincerity at all."
Yu Mo stopped in his tracks and unconsciously reached out to turn her shoulder, but when he saw Yan Dan's smug face, which seemed to say "Praise me, praise me hard!" he fell silent. After a long while, he said softly, "...I really can't say it, let's just forget about it."
Seeing him turn to leave, Yan Dan quickly grabbed his arm and stammered, "Yu Mo, you got hurt because of me... I know it's all my fault... but, uh, thank you..."
Yu Mo turned his head away and smiled slowly: "You're welcome. It's not the first time anyway, I'm used to it."
Yan Dan was immediately embarrassed.
However, the curse from Nong Cui continued, like a plague, slowly and silently spreading among the Luo Yue tribe.
The second person lying in the coffin at the mortuary was the father of Yi Lan, the young man who had tried to tear up the portrait of Nan Zhao that day.
Yi Lan's father was a renowned warrior of the Luo Yue tribe in his youth, and later became the tribe's chief. He too was stabbed to death in the chest, the wound running from his chest to his ribs, uneven in depth, as if cut by an unsharpened sword. If Nong Cui's mother could be ambushed by an acquaintance with mediocre skills, how could Yi Lan's father possibly be killed head-on by an incompetent opponent?
Before dying, Yi Lan's father mustered his last strength to crawl out of the room and screamed hoarsely, "It's a curse! They, they're back!" Blood gushed from his chest, and half of his face, stained with blood, looked ferocious.
When Yan Dan and the others arrived, Yi Lan's father had already died. He lay in a pool of blood, his face contorted in pain, his eyes wide open, his expression one of unspeakable terror.
When Yi Lan saw them, he rushed forward like a madman, his eyes bloodshot, and screamed, "It's all because of you foreigners! You're the ones who brought the curse! I'm going to kill you all, kill you all!" Yan Dan knew that he was in a state of mental and physical collapse and it was understandable that he would take his anger out on them, so she dodged away without saying a word.
But Liu Weiyang stepped forward, shoved him aside with his sleeve, and said coldly, "Think about it carefully, what kind of curse is this?"
Yi Lan fell to the ground, unable to get up for a long time, her eyes still fixed on him. Suddenly, Nong Cuiman said, "Everyone, calm down and think about it. Who in our clan has the ability to kill the clan chief?"
Yan Dan's heart skipped a beat, and she couldn't help but turn to look at her. She saw Nong Cui standing gracefully amidst the torches and lanterns, her face indifferent, yet exuding an indescribable ruthlessness. Yi Lan's father was a renowned warrior in the Luo Yue tribe, naturally with few rivals. The reason she said this was simply to shift the blame onto Liu Weiyang.
After a long while, the Luo Yue people, who had been looking at each other in bewilderment, finally turned their gaze to Liu Weiyang.
With a loud shout, a nimble figure pounced forward.
In the blink of an eye, several flashes of cold light appeared. Liu Weiyang held a thin blade in his hand, his pale white sleeves dancing slowly in the breeze. The clothes of the Luo Yue person who rushed up were almost completely torn off, falling off piece by piece, but the person's skin and flesh were not damaged in the slightest.
Liu Weiyang said calmly, "If I want to kill someone, I won't leave them with a breath left." He slowly closed the jade flute with his sleeve, hiding it inside. His tone was still calm, but it carried an air of arrogance: "Now, if anyone else wants to come up, I don't care if I kill a few more."
Only now did Yan Dan realize that Liu Weiyang was the true master of Shenxiao Palace, completely disregarding how others viewed him and acting solely according to his own desires. For some reason, she felt a pang of envy.
After Liu Weiyang said that, Luo Yueren really didn't dare to take another step forward. Instead, she stepped back and stood there silently facing each other. The atmosphere was strange and rather ridiculous.
Just then, a girl dressed in a light purple shirt rushed over, panting, and called out, "Father, Father, something bad has happened! Nan Zhao has been beaten up and thrown outside—wait, what?" She rolled her eyes, looked at the scene before her, and knew that something was wrong, so she shut her mouth.
"Shuixing, what did you just say happened in Nanzhao?" Nongcui's father asked in a deep voice.
Shui Xing patted her chest, took a breath, and said softly, "I don't know what happened either. Nan Zhao had a large bruise on his neck from being strangled. When I found him, he was unconscious in the grass outside and hasn't woken up yet."
“It’s very likely that Nan Zhao saw the murderer who killed the clan leader, which is why he was silenced. Young Master Liu, please forgive us for our rudeness, but you cannot leave until this matter is resolved.” He cupped his hands and strode out. “Shui Xing, lead the way for your father. We’ll go and wait for Nan Zhao to wake up.”
"Should we stay or leave now?" Tang Zhou asked after a moment of silence.
Liu Weiyang held the jade flute, lost in thought: "Stay. This is definitely not a curse; there must be some other mystery behind it."
Yan Dan squatted listlessly by the stream, watching Shui Xing and Nan Zhao practice martial arts.
Looking from her perspective, she could clearly see the large bruise on Nan Zhao's neck, indicating that the attacker had used considerable force. While Nan Zhao was unconscious, many prominent families in the Luo Yue clan sent people to wait for him to wake up, as he was likely the only one to see the assailant's appearance.
Unfortunately, when Nan Zhao woke up, she had no recollection of how she had fainted in the haystack or how she got such a large bruise on her neck; there was absolutely no clue. All attempts to extract crucial information from Nan Zhao were ultimately unsuccessful.
After observing for most of the day, she realized that Nan Zhao, despite being a year or two older than Shui Xing and destined to grow into a respectable man, was still inferior to her in martial arts. And Shui Xing, frankly, wasn't particularly skilled; it seemed her recent association with experts had made her more discerning in judging people…
As she was thinking, Shui Xing's face suddenly loomed several times larger in front of her, and a loud cry of "Sister Yan!" rang in her ears. Yan Dan quickly reached out to cover her face, creating some distance, and asked weakly, "What are you doing?" The reason she was here watching these two young people practice martial arts was entirely thanks to Palace Master Liu. With a casual remark, he had banished her here, leaving her to watch helplessly as these two so youthful and beautiful. Even though she didn't want to admit that she was quite old, she had to concede that she was getting on in years.
Although Liu Weiyang said that if it was indeed a criminal targeting Nan Zhao, they might come back if they failed this time, and she could keep an eye on things and provide some protection, she had been watching all day and hadn't even seen a few ants, let alone anyone suspected of being the criminal. Instead, she felt mentally and emotionally drained, and felt like she had aged considerably for no reason…
Shui Xing skipped and hopped a few steps along the stream, then waved to her: "Sister Yan, shall we go bathe in the river over there? I've been practicing sword and fist all day and I'm sweating so much!"
"It's not even dark yet, aren't you afraid someone passing by will see you taking a shower now?"
Shui Xing shook her head: "Of course you won't see it. In our Luo Yue tribe, men only bathe in the men's river, and women only bathe in the women's river. No one usually walks by there."
Yan Dan only learned today that the Luo Yue people actually had this custom. However, she had spent some time in the Luo Yue village and felt that the customs and habits of the Luo Yue people were not much different from those of ordinary people. Even the sword and fist techniques practiced by Shui Xing and the others were similar to those Tang Zhou knew. It's just that Shui Xing had dragged her to the Women's River, and she couldn't keep an eye on Nan Zhao. She thought for a moment and pulled Nan Zhao over: "You come along too."
Nan Zhao's face flushed red: "I... I can't go!"
Shui Xing chuckled: "When he first came here, he didn't know this rule. As a result, one time when he walked to the Women's River, my sister Nong Cui had even taken off one of her clothes and beat him until he looked like a pig's head."
When Yan Dan heard her mention Nong Cui, she tentatively said, "Your sister Nong Cui's personality is very different from yours."
Shui Xing thought for a moment, then said in a mature tone, "Of course it's different. My sister is older than me and has seen more of the world. She even met Prince Xuanxiang when she was little. It's a pity I wasn't born then, otherwise I could have seen him in person. Just looking at the portrait, I think he is a very handsome man."
Yan Dan remained silent. The impression Nong Cui gave her before and after was so different; it couldn't just be because of her age and worldly experience. But that shouldn't be related to the two previous bloody incidents...
"Ah, you must not be fooled by Liu Weiyang's outward appearance. Let me tell you, there is absolutely no one more wicked than him in this world. It's one thing to like living under someone else's face, but he also deliberately pretends to be that kind of despicable person. He used gunpowder to blow me up, burned me, and even pushed me off a cliff. The bad things he has done are simply too numerous to count."
"That sounds like a lot of trouble. What about Young Master Tang Zhou? I heard from Nan Zhao that Brother Yi Lan was very rude to him, but he never got angry."
"You're all too naive. The only reason Tang Zhou doesn't bother with the other party is that he looks down on them and can put on an air of superiority. In reality, he's someone who fusses over the smallest things." Yan Dan was practically bursting with righteous indignation: "He's absolutely the second most wicked person in the world! He once locked me in a magical artifact for twenty whole days, not only without seeing the light of day, but also without a drop of water or food. When I finally got out, he locked me up with this restriction and that restriction. What's even more infuriating is that he told others that I was so strong I could kill a tiger. What woman would be happy to hear that?"
Shui Xing was speechless for a moment, then asked, "Where is Young Master Yu Mo? He is very patient when listening to others, and his smile is very gentle."
"You've still been fooled. Yu Mo is a little better than the previous two, but not by much. The clan chief sent us to Yu Mo to be his concubines, but he chose me from among so many clansmen. I think it's probably because my appearance and temperament suited his taste. But the next thing he did was tell me to go to the study and tidy up the desk, and he even called someone to teach me how to organize his room. Now, my clansmen scold their daughters, saying, 'You must never be like Yan Dan. Look at her, even though she took her as a concubine, she never touched her. Later, she didn't even get the title of concubine anymore. If you're like her, no one will want you in the future.'"
Shui Xing murmured, "It sounds like you've had a very miserable life..."
Is it tragic...?
Yan Dan thought for a moment and honestly said, "That's not quite right." She saw a small river in the distance and stopped. "Shui Xing, you go over there yourself. Nan Zhao and I are here. I'm afraid someone might take the opportunity to harm Nan Zhao."
Shui Xing was about to pull her along, but after hearing her last sentence, she nodded and said, "Then you have to wait for me here, okay? Don't wander off."
Nan Zhao smiled shyly: "Go ahead, we'll wait for you here."
Yan Dan watched as Shui Xing walked away, then turned around to look at the bruises on Nan Zhao's neck and asked softly, "Don't you remember at all who hurt you?"
Nan Zhao shook his head apologetically and said, "I really can't remember. At that time, I just felt like I couldn't breathe, and then I didn't know anything."
"If you see that person again, will you be able to recognize them?"
He frowned and pondered for a long time before whispering, "Maybe... that won't work either."
Seeing his dejected expression, Yan Dan gently patted his shoulder. They were about the same height, so it was easy to pat him. "It's good if you can't remember anything at all. That way, the person won't have any scruples and will be more likely to make a move."
Nan Zhao lowered his head, blood rising to his thin cheeks: "Actually, when I was young, I had a great talent for martial arts. Later, I fell ill and my body grew weaker and weaker. I don't know why, but I can't learn sword moves that I used to be able to learn after seeing them once, even after practicing them dozens or hundreds of times... I know I'm useless, not even as good as a water lily..."
Suddenly, Yan Dan asked, "How old are you this year?"
Nan Zhao was surprised for a moment, and said shyly, "I'll be sixteen in about ten days."
Yan smiled and hugged his shoulder, her voice gentle: "At my age, I'm more than old enough to be your great-grandmother. If you're unhappy about anything, just tell me. Maybe you'll feel much better after you talk about it."
Nan Zhao blushed instantly and stammered, "Miss Yan, everyone likes to say they are a few years younger than themselves. You look less than half the age of my mother. Why do you want to be my great-grandmother?"
Yan Dan was very frustrated. It was rare for her to be so understanding, yet the other person still complained that she didn't have white skin and hair or a face full of wrinkles.
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