Chapter 141 The Mechanist
Mei Liangyu felt as if he had just had a brief dream.
In his dream, the sea was a deep abyss during the day, with waves crashing against the cliffs and making a sound that made the boy standing on the shore turn around.
The boy saw a man in white speaking gently to someone near the bottom of the cliff.
He didn't meet those people until many years later.
Wen Yangzhi whispered to Madam Linxiang, as if he were introducing the man in white to her.
Grandmother Situ raised her head slightly and spoke to the man in white. Her usually cold and serious expression in front of the younger generation seemed somewhat relaxed at this moment.
Behind Grandmother Situ stood a lifelike spirit puppet, with obvious cracks at its neck and wrists. The puppet's features resembled Grandmother Situ's, yet it also looked more like her deceased sister.
The spirit puppet closed its eyes, its expression serene, and remained silent.
A wheelchair was parked beside the spirit puppet. The man in scarlet robes rested his hand on the armrest of the wheelchair, and the sapphire ring on his finger shone brightly.
He was about the same age as the man in white, and he didn't listen to what Situ's grandmother and the others were saying. Instead, he stared at the spirit puppet, turning the gem between his fingers and watching the refracted light and shadow flicker on the spirit puppet's face.
The man smiled, his eyes filled with patience, waiting for the spirit puppet to open its eyes and look at him.
A figure in a black cloak arrived late in the distance, and upon approaching, his gaze fell upon the two children standing on the beach.
Someone called the boy's name.
The boy turned around, blinked, and his clear, bright eyes reflected his older brother, who was a few years his senior.
The two brothers were dressed identically, neat and elegant, except one wore black and the other gold. The boy's collar had a band of gold trim, while the older brother had three or five black wooden talismans hanging from his waist.
The older brother was a head taller than the boy, about eleven or twelve years old. Although young, he had the air of a little adult. From a young age, the older brother was calm, reliable, and quiet, a stark contrast to his younger brother's arrogant and domineering nature.
"Didn't your sister tell you?" The elder brother gestured towards the sea ahead. "The red coral in Taiyi is also known as the fire tree of the sea. It is very precious. It absorbs the unclaimed energy of the sea, which allows it to glow and shine in the cold deep sea with a lustrous and full luster. Your sister said that we should dig up a few to take back. She wants to make coral bead necklaces for Mother."
The boy frowned as he listened to his older brother's earnest explanation, then lowered his head and kicked the sandy ground in boredom: "She wanted to make coral beads for Mother, why doesn't she come to Taiyi to dig for coral herself?"
The elder brother said, "Someone should stay home to keep Mother company."
The boy said, "I didn't want to come to Taiyi either, so let me come with you."
His older brother reached out and patted him on the shoulder: "Didn't you come because you couldn't beat your older sister?"
The boy's face contorted for a moment, and he rolled his eyes and snorted coldly.
“But we came to Taiyi secretly. How are we going to bring back coral we dug up from the sea?” The boy gestured to his brother to look behind them. “There are so many people watching.”
The elder brother scratched his head and said, "Judging from their good relationship with Father, they shouldn't stop us from taking a few corals with us."
“Look how chaotic the five elements are at sea, it’s not a good place to go down.” The boy observed for a moment, then stroked his chin and pondered, “Why don’t we let Father go?”
"Where do you want me to go?" A deep, gentle voice came from behind.
The boy and his brother turned their heads together, and the man in white put his hand on their shoulders, pulled them into his arms, and leaned close to them, whispering, "Shh, the old man in black over there heard you trying to steal the coral from the sea."
The older brother's eyes widened slightly in surprise. The boy glanced at the man in the black cloak not far away, but wasn't afraid. He lowered his voice and asked, "How could he hear us from so far away?"
The man in the black cloak said in a deep voice, "Grandpa?"
The man in white chuckled softly, stood up, and said to the group behind him, "I cannot and am not qualified to represent the entire Yan Kingdom to agree to your request, nor do I intend to live in Taiyi."
Grandmother Situ asked, "Have you thought this through?"
"There's no need to think about this at all," the man in white said. "The Mechanical Masters were once enemies of the Six Kingdoms, and they still are today. But they should also know that the Xuan Gu Continent cannot do without the Mechanical Masters."
The man in the wheelchair said slowly, "There are many more schools of thought that have disappeared in the torrent of time."
The man in white said, "If the Mechanists disappear, then the Xuan Gu Continent will also disappear."
The two children he was protecting blinked and looked up at their father.
Men are always easygoing and gentle, whether it's their aura or their manner of talking and laughing, even their words are spoken in a gentle and soft tone, yet at this moment they give off an undeniable sense of strength.
He did what he said he would do.
The man in the black cloak said, "You have a lot of troubles right now. The Yan Kingdom alone is enough to give you trouble, not to mention Shui Zhou..."
“We’ll deal with them one by one,” the man in white said with a smile. “You all need not worry, and I hope you will not interfere in the affairs of the Yan Kingdom.”
The conversation between their father and the leaders of the four major powerful families was still somewhat obscure and difficult for the two children to understand.
The boy only stayed in Taiyi for one day.
When he woke up the next day, he had already returned to the State of Yan.
He remembered diving underwater with his father and brother.
Before going into the water, Situ's grandmother said that the Abyss Sea was chaotic and dangerous, and that taking the children down there might lead to accidents. However, the man in white said that letting the children out of his sight was the most dangerous thing, so he insisted on taking the two brothers down with him.
The memories in the water gradually became blurry and fragmented, and even the voices of his father and brother seemed to come from afar and then come near.
The boy's field of vision was filled with dense red corals. While his brother and he were selecting the red corals, they spotted six-lobed wood hidden beneath them. It was also a vibrant, fiery red, and looked like a real coral. The fuzzy branches even looked somewhat cute underwater.
While the two were fiddling with the coral and the six-colored wood, they noticed something unusual about the seawater flow and turned around at the same time:
There seems to be a whirlpool on the seabed, drawing all the seawater into one place and causing it to fall, forming a huge circular pillar. The seawater looks incredibly thick and oppressive to the naked eye.
The man in white stood suspended in the center of the sea eye, his body radiating a golden protective aura. He stretched out his hand, opened his fingers, and let the faintly glowing object in his palm fall into the depths of the sea eye.
It fell into the depths of the sea, in a corner unknown to anyone.
The familiar light made Mei Liangyu suddenly open his eyes.
The long memories were but a few moments for him, and he remembered them all. He didn't know if it was the poison from the Milky Way Water or the poison from the Six Mysterious Wood that made his brain buzz.
He is still in the eye of the sea at this moment.
The underwater suction pulled the three of them together. Zhong Lishan handed the unconscious Mei Liangyu to Xing Chun, and then drew his sword to use the Tai'a sword technique again, but he still failed to sever the sea eye.
Xing Chun pulled Mei Liangyu along, and all three of them were surrounded by golden protective energy to prevent them from being crushed into mincemeat by the suction force of the sea eye.
Before Xing Chun could even feel happy to see Mei Liangyu wake up, he was pulled down a long distance by the suction of the sea eye. The chaotic five elements in the center of the sea eye were volatile and disordered, even suppressing the five elements of the three people, making it impossible for them to float up.
Mei Liangyu knew that there was no way to float up at this point; he could only go with the suction of the sea eye. If he went against the current, he would die even faster.
Seeing that Xing Chun and Zhong Lishan's protective auras were weakening, Mei Liangyu had no choice but to use his Divine Mechanism Technique to prevent his own protective aura from being suppressed by the Five Elements Qi in the sea. He chased after Xing Chun and Zhong Lishan, who were being swept away, and pulled them to his side to protect them. Together, they were swept into the depths of the sea by the sea eye.
Outer city.
When talking to Cao Yan about Xuan Kui and Lan Du, Yu Sui always seemed to find it very troublesome, with his brows slightly furrowed and his expression troubled.
Yu Sui said, "My master is investigating the Taiyi Orchid Poison, but I have to help cover it up... You know my master is a saint of the Ghost Daoist school, right? I really don't have the confidence to deceive him."
Cao Yan's expression remained unchanged, but he lowered his eyes and said respectfully, "Your Highness means that the Princess is no longer the same person who practiced martial arts. Now that she can learn the Nine Schools of Martial Arts, she should start to inherit the Nangong family and do things that she could not do before."
"What if I can't do it?" Yu Sui stared straight at Cao Yan.
Cao Yan said, "Then you'll have to ask the Prince."
He paused, then asked, "Does the princess want me to convey this message to the prince?"
Yu Sui shook her head and muttered to herself, "Even if I can't do it, I can't tell Father this outright."
Cao Yan pretended not to hear.
Yu Sui turned her head away with a troubled expression, looking at Nian Qiuyan and the other two not far away.
She had just used the Sage Changgen as an excuse, and Cao Yan's answer was watertight, without revealing whether his master knew about Xuan Kui.
I won't reveal anything about the Sage Chang Gen. What about Qiu Yan that year?
"Uncle Cao," Yu Sui asked, staring in Nian Qiuyan's direction, "Does Senior Brother Nian have any connection with the Prince's Mansion?"
Following her words, Cao Yan also glanced at Nian Qiuyan and the other two, and whispered, "He is Xuan Kui's man and has no connection with the Prince's Mansion."
"Senior Brother Nian is actually one of Xuan Kui's men? I had no idea." Yu Sui rested his chin on his hand and continued to ask, "Is he in charge of selling orchid poison, or producing it?"
Cao Yan replied, "The Nian family has been producers of orchid poison for generations. There are many types of orchid poison, but the Nian family is most skilled in the 'fragrance' category."
Yu Sui seemed to have just realized something, then covered her mouth and looked back at Cao Yan: "Then the Milky Way water that the academy lost could not be..."
Cao Yan said, "Nian Qiuyan told me the whereabouts of the Milky Way Water tonight. He hid it in the abyss of the Mechanical Island, where it was preserved with Six-Mystic Wood. The Six-Mystic Wood is highly resistant to poison, and the poisonous velvet on its branches can completely lock in the Milky Way Water, so it is the safest place to keep it."
Now that we know the whereabouts of the Milky Way Water, the next step should be to retrieve it.
"How long does Uncle Cao plan to stay in Taiyi? Or will you wait until Zhang Xiangyun and the others get the Milky Way Water before taking it out of Taiyi?" Yu Sui asked.
Cao Yan added, "I'll leave tomorrow."
Yu Sui was a little surprised: "So fast?"
Cao Yan lowered his head and offered no explanation.
Yu Sui asked in confusion, "Then who can bring the Milky Way water out of Taiyi?"
Cao Yan said, "Zhang Xiangyun will figure something out."
Yu Sui did not return to Taiyi Academy that night, but stayed in a small courtyard in the outer city. He chatted with Cao Yan until late at night, talking about Taiyi, the Imperial Capital, and Canhai Prefecture.
After asking all the questions she wanted to ask, she pretended to be sleepy and went back to her room to rest.
The next morning, just as Yu Sui was drifting off to sleep, Blackbeard came to tell her that Cao Yan was leaving, so she hurriedly got up to see him off.
Cao Yan stood at the Cloud Chariot Flying Dragon docking point, watching the girl walking out from the morning light. She stopped on the shore and bowed her head to him, while he and several Nangong family sorcerers bowed and saluted Yu Sui.
As he left, Cao Yan pondered. After the princess came to Taiyi, there were subtle changes, but they were hard to describe.
He seemed more composed than before.
[Author's Note]
Thank you so much for your support! I will continue to work hard!
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