Chapter 114 "Since you saw me,..."
"After you saw me, you changed your mind about killing me."
The boy's face was serene, his tone resolute. The cool moonlight cast a hazy glow on his face. His almond-shaped eyes, inherited from his mother, turned slightly as he looked directly into those similar eyes.
The pressure on her neck never loosened, and each steady pulse beat was transmitted to the palm of that hand.
Lin An tightened his grip slightly, pressing on the throbbing vein. Blood flowed beneath the skin, but the blood ties connecting them had long been severed.
Despite feeling the pressure on his neck, the boy's tone remained calm and unhurried:
“If you were going to kill me, you wouldn’t have put me in a nearby courtyard. You would have locked me up here like them, or you wouldn’t have given me a chance to open my eyes again.”
His clear, bright almond-shaped eyes slanted slightly downwards at the corners, and the moonlight illuminated his distinct eyelashes. The opening in front of him emitted a faint glow, and its irregular edges resembled a crescent moon with a missing piece in the sky. Lin An's face, which was closer, was completely hidden in shadow, and the expression in his eyes was colder than the surrounding environment.
“I have what you’re looking for,” Xie Baoqiong said decisively.
The hand gripping his neck loosened, and the icy touch felt like a snake crawling across his skin.
Lin An treated the boy like a cat or dog, gently rubbing his thumb across the boy's chin and throat. Only when he saw the boy curl up did he withdraw his hand with satisfaction.
Then, their forms shifted, and the two emerged from the dark underground palace onto the mountaintop.
The young man stood on the edge of the cliff, his brocade robe and hair billowing in the fierce wind of the canyon, with a huge crescent moon hanging behind him.
The boy, who had landed on the grass, spun around before he could make out the figure in the distance. The next second, his body was lifted into the air and pulled toward the moon, landing beside the beautiful figure under the moonlight.
His true form was just an ordinary rock. Even if he were carved into a tombstone, it would only be a change in shape and could not change the fact that he was a stone. The world was so vast, and although the number of stone demons was small, he was by no means the only one. He really couldn't think of anything about himself that would make Lin An, who seemed to lack nothing, covet him.
Lin An glanced at the small hand on the hem of her dress, her gaze lingering for a moment, the subtle admiration in her eyes overshadowed by a playful glint:
"You yourself don't know?"
Xie Baoqiong's confusion deepened. What should he know?
“Then there seems to be no need to support you.” Although the young man said this, he did not turn hostile. He pressed the child’s head down, forcing the child to look down the mountain.
"What did you see?"
The young man's cold voice was carried to her ears by the mountain wind. Xie Baoqiong's eyes reflected the flickering lights. In the huge palace, there were figures moving around. Further down, the lanterns that had not yet been removed were like a river of light that had fallen to earth, and blurry figures moved among them.
"Houses and people?"
He looked up and answered uncertainly.
The fingers that were intertwined in his hair twitched slightly, and a youthful, disdainful chuckle drifted in the wind:
"No, it's a bunch of tools for me to use."
Xie Baoqiong looked at the young man with a calm yet strange gaze. He could not agree with the young man's ideas, but he did not utter a word to refute what sounded like something a madman would say. Xie Zhuo had taught him not to argue with a madman.
The young man's eyes, brimming with ambition, lowered at this moment, reflecting his bewildered face:
The taboo of life and death, which is not tolerated by words, has been broken by you. I am very curious about what kind of magic could preserve a soul that should have passed away...
Lin An was still recounting his research on mastering the art of resurrection when Xie Baoqiong's ears suddenly rang, and all the sounds seemed to fade away from him.
Therefore, there is no Shuangmu, no Lin Mushi, it is Xie Baoqiong from beginning to end.
Xie Baoqiong raised her eyes, telling herself that she couldn't completely believe what Lin An said, but the stubborn look in the young man's eyes was undeniable.
The young man's mouth opened and closed, but he couldn't hear anything; his expression was filled with confusion.
He longed to go home, to return to the home where Xie Zhuo was, to rely on Xie Zhuo to clean up all the remaining mess, and to tell Xie Zhuo the good news he should be happy about…
It turns out he had been murdered.
It turns out that the grave he had been guarding for so long belonged to him and his mother.
It turns out that he was his own and his mother's tombstone.
...
Xie Baoqiong's eyes flashed with a fierce glint, meant to protect her, as she faced the young man who had already stopped speaking:
"You killed me back then!"
Hearing the change in his tone, the young man's expression revealed a lack of interest and boredom.
“I wasn’t the one who wanted you and Xiao Jin dead back then. You were my elder sister’s only child, so I, as your uncle, wouldn’t be so heartless.” He changed the subject, becoming more interested: “But that fool did one right thing, which allowed me to meet you now.”
The mountain wind whipped Xie Baoqiong's hair back, revealing a look of surprise on his fair face. Suddenly, the back of his collar was grabbed, and he was thrown off the cliff. The wind below the cliff cut like knives across his face. Xie Zhuo was gone; no one would hold him back.
Taking advantage of the separation from the person, Xie Baoqiong took the opportunity to take out a magic weapon from her sleeve in mid-air, but at this moment, the back of her collar was controlled again. One hand pressed down on her hand that was taking out the magic weapon, and the magic weapon in her sleeve was also sealed.
Lin An led him through a cliff, and in the blink of an eye, the environment changed. At first, it was pitch black, then specks of light emerged from the surrounding rock walls. The young man, carrying a half-grown child, skillfully navigated through a complex tunnel and arrived at a spacious room filled with tattered scrolls.
Xie Baoqiong struggled from time to time, but could not escape the young man's clutches and was eventually thrown onto a stone platform.
When two stones collide, it is undoubtedly Xie Baoqiong, who has taken human form, who will feel the pain.
"Since you don't know how you were reborn, let's try it slowly according to the method in the incomplete scroll."
Beneath her was a cold stone platform, and before her lay an enemy closing in. Ignoring the pain in her back from the fall, Xie Baoqiong pushed herself up and jumped off the platform.
“I am not entirely ignorant of the matter of resurrection.”
He spoke with great conviction, but only he himself knew how much of it was true.
Lin An naturally didn't believe it, but looking at the figure before him, who resembled a startled bird in a cage, he still stopped in his tracks:
"Oh, tell me about it?"
Xie Baoqiong pretended to recall something, then subtly shifted her foot two inches towards the entrance, stopping only when she stepped into a small, raised area of the cavern:
"I saw someone at the beginning of my rebirth."
He wasn't entirely lying; he had seen a blurry figure in a dream about his birth, but Lin An didn't ask whether it was reality or a dream.
The young man wasn't unaware of his subtle movements, but he didn't move. He wasn't worried about where a rock whose strength he had crushed could possibly go. Lin An raised an eyebrow, becoming more patient with his words:
Who is it?
“I can tell you, but you have to tell me what happened back then first.”
Although he himself did not know who the figure he saw in his dream was, Xie Baoqiong acted as if he really knew:
"For example, who killed me and my mother? And what was your relationship with him?"
Xie Baoqiong believed every word Lin Anhui said about being soft-hearted.
The young man narrowed his eyes as he looked at the boy who dared to make demands despite being imprisoned. The most that could be done in the existing records was to revive an unconscious body, like the story of the Twin Trees. But the boy in front of him showed that the power of life and death could be controlled by people.
This news made him feel relatively good about his past relationship with his younger self, so he condescended to slightly part his lips:
"Back then, when my elder brother was finally dying, I chose an obedient nephew to help him. But my elder sister always sided with my elder brother, and the Xie family was closely tied to my elder sister by marriage, so they stood with her. Originally, they were just mortals and wouldn't have blocked my way, but then there was Lin Zhechun who cared about Xiao Jin. Even though he didn't care about worldly affairs, my stupid nephew was worried and tied him up."
Lin An's tone was nonchalant, as if a vibrant life were casually tossed onto a chessboard like a chess piece:
"It's a pity my elder brother is too strong-willed. Everything my nephew did was in vain. He can't live, and naturally your mother and you can't live either. Don't worry, I sent someone to deliver a message before your mother passed away. She must have hated my elder sister and the Xie family for the rest of her life, but unfortunately, she didn't become a vengeful ghost in the end..."
The young man stared at Xie Baoqiong's heaving chest and spoke nonchalantly:
"She didn't give birth to you, and besides, she was just a mortal."
Xie Baoqiong interrupted the young man loudly: "If you hadn't interfered, how could she have..." not given birth to me?
His voice trailed off towards the end.
He had no basis to even imagine what kind of life he would have as a human being born and raised as a human being.
He didn't even know what a human mother should look like. The moment he realized he should be human, all he could remember about his mother was a low grave mound and... himself.
Faced with the boy's fluctuating emotions, Lin An remained calm, slowly approaching him and coaxing him:
"Once we figure out the resurrection technique in your body, your mother might be able to be resurrected too. Being with your parents, isn't that what you want?"
Despite saying this, Lin An was prepared to use the Soul Searching Technique if he couldn't get the boy to talk, but if possible, he didn't want to damage the intact soul in this body.
Just as his hand was about to touch the boy, Xie Baoqiong raised her face and smiled at him. Her figure then dissipated and turned into a palm-sized stone, falling into the narrow cave below.
With his inner world sealed, the jade pendant hanging on his body clattered and rolled together with his true form, plummeting into the endless abyss below.
The young man standing at the edge of the cave ended up only clutching his fallen clothes, his face turning pale from the humiliation.
Lin An tossed aside the brocade robe in his hand, not worried that Xie Baoqiong, whose inner power was sealed and unable to withstand external forces, would be able to escape the barrier he had set up.
But next time you catch someone, you can't let them stay conscious...
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Author's note: It's a bit late tonight, lol
I thought I could finish writing the main text within this list. [Sigh]
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