Chapter 29 Little Demon Siji and Liu Tianshi Who Has Regained His Memories
The old ancestor was determined to die.
"Do you think I want to stay there?! Chef Wang's cooking is terrible! In such a cold place, living in such a big house, you only care about being extravagant, without thinking about how many braziers of charcoal you have to burn to warm up the whole house? I'm thick-skinned and don't feel the cold, every time I go to the woodshed to burn charcoal, it's for you!"
"You say I'm only being nice to you because I'm willing to die? Would you freeze to death if I didn't do these things? You're such an ingrate!"
After Duan Jiuyou left Dijiang, he also stormed off. The disciples of Aozong now live in Shifeng Ridge. As soon as they heard that childish yet angry voice, they knew that their ancestor had gone up the mountain.
Looking down from the top, they guessed that the ancestor must be furious this time. Look, she even forgot to ride the clouds, lifting her skirt and cursing as she climbed up the mountain, her two little buns on her head swaying back and forth, looking just like an angry little yellow ox.
The mountains are vast and empty; every word spoken echoes repeatedly. Duan Jiuyou uses one sentence as if it were ten, always stepping on the last echo of the previous one.
"Ungrateful, heartless, he's infuriating!"
Another shout.
The disciples of the Ao Sect rushed down the mountain to meet them. Although their ancestor had not named who he was cursing, they all knew that it must be the Lord of the Great Wilderness.
The old ancestor and that person argued more than once. Sometimes the old ancestor was unhappy and would run back on his own, and sometimes that person was unhappy and would kick the old ancestor out.
—Anyway, it's always the Ancestor who comes out, and after a few days, he still goes back because he's unwilling to give up.
The house isn't hers, the land isn't hers either. It's like a girl who's married off to a distant place. Her family lives in the mountains, they're poor and destitute. The girl has a bad temper, and so does her husband. There are no adults in the family, so they can only watch them fight. The girl's family is somewhat reasonable, but the husband's family are all idiots!
Duan Jiuyou returned wearing a fox fur coat from the Imperial Army.
Di Jiang was much taller than her, and the fox fur draped over her was like a thick, large quilt. She dragged its tail as she walked on the ground, her forehead covered in a fine layer of sweat.
The disciples didn't have time to ask why; after taking over, they quickly tried to soothe their ancestor.
The old ancestor sat on the ground, tilted his head back, and turned around to tell them about the incident.
She hadn't said a word earlier not because she couldn't win the argument with Di Jiang, but because she saw that he was seriously ill and had a hard life. If she had actually won the argument, she might have angered him to death.
Duan Jiuyou said, "A dying man's face is talking eloquently in front of you, spouting a bunch of things he thinks are very reasonable. His lips are purple, his face is colder than ice, and he breathes out white air with every breath. Who would argue with such a half-dead person?"
The disciple said, "Ancestor, you are quite angry now."
Duan Jiuyou took a deep breath; she wasn't as carefree as she seemed.
"But do you really have to say that?"
Duan Jiuyou glared at the tactless disciple.
She was truly wronged this time.
When she first entered the Tenth Realm, she admitted that her heart and mind were completely focused on the mission of the chosen one. If you had asked her then whether her good care for the Imperial Frontier was for a purpose, she would have nodded directly: Of course.
Why go through all this trouble? Is she just too old to have a son? Why would she go to the Tenth Realm to find a demon to be her family?
But if you ask her now, she'll definitely tell you that it's not just that.
There are feelings between people. Even if there aren't any, spending a lot of time together and going through some stories will create some feelings.
Duan Jiuyou is a straightforward person. Once she puts her heart into something, she puts it into it. She cares about his temperature and worries about his discomfort when he has an attack. If she really only sees the Imperial Territory as a mission, wouldn't it be enough to ensure his survival? Why worry so much?
To put it simply, my kindness to you initially stemmed from your status. Now, my kindness towards you is first and foremost because you are who you are, and only later because of the series of events that this status will involve.
—I have weighed the pros and cons, but I also have a heart. Although I don't feel pain from the hundreds of cuts to my heart, if you say, "I feel pain," my heart will be warm!
Unfortunately, Duan Jiuyou was too angry to say anything at the time. When she finally wanted to speak, Di Jiang glanced at her coldly, generalized from a single instance, and suppressed her with a long speech.
The disciples looked on in surprise: "Everyone says that the Lord of the Great Wilderness is a man of few words, but he can talk so much?"
Duan Jiuyou nodded and sighed, "Absolutely amazing!"
The disciples were still puzzled: "But Ancestor, why did you bring this fox fur cloak back?"
Although Shifeng Ridge is cold, given their ancestor's physique, he would sweat even wearing a padded jacket, so there was no need to bring back another one.
Duan Jiuyou buried his head in his hands and smoothed the soft fox fur. He said, "What do you know? This is the thickest cloak in his wardrobe. I'll freeze him for a few days so he can come and pick me up in person."
Duan Jiuyou wasn't stupid. Even though the two had a big fight, wouldn't they make up sooner or later? She didn't intend to sever ties with him. She still had many things to do. She was easy to coax. As long as he came to find her or sent someone to find her, she could easily back down on her own.
Disciple: "Our ancestor is truly flexible and adaptable."
Duan Jiuyou said, "Those who hold divine positions should take the stability of the Three Realms as their own responsibility. If he is ignorant, how can I be ignorant?"
The disciple then asked, "But this spiritual power is also heretical; why is it that out of three thousand merits, only forty percent is obtained?"
Duan Jiuyou also found it strange, and after riding all the way, he still couldn't figure it out.
She said that the ten percent spiritual power was what Little Master Huang told me. "I repeated it exactly as it was told, without adding a single bit of embellishment. Either Little Master Huang lied to me, or he lacks virtue—" Duan Jiuyou said, looking around at the disciples. He immediately spotted Xiao Cui, the "spy" from the Desolate Clan, and stared at her, saying, "I'm not afraid for you to tell Di Jiang this exactly as it is. I really don't know where the remaining spiritual power went, and I didn't exaggerate the benefits of spiritual power to entice him to do more good deeds. He got angry with me because he was taking it out on me. Do you think I would just swallow his spiritual power for no reason?"
Xiao Cui naturally agreed. Neither of them knew that Di Jiang had never doubted Duan Jiuyou from beginning to end.
He felt she didn't have the brains, and neither did Little Master Huang from Fuyu Mountain.
However, as soon as he finished speaking, Duan Jiuyou sensed a surge of pure spiritual energy rushing into his primordial spirit. The disciples of the Ao Sect did not know what their ancestor had discovered, but they knew that her face was gradually turning ugly. Suddenly, she grabbed Xiao Cui's arm.
"There's no rush to write the letter. He's in a bad mood these days, so don't go looking for trouble."
Xiao Cui readily agreed: "Just provide me with a few full meals."
Duan Jiuyou assured her there was no problem. After dismissing her disciples, she probed her inner energy and was surprised to find that she had unknowingly gained forty percent of her spiritual power. This spiritual power circulated slowly, and since her primordial spirit was already intact, it had only now become apparent.
—So I really did take away the spiritual power of the Imperial Territory?
In just a few breaths, Old Master Duan's thoughts were racing.
It turns out that the power of merit isn't entirely received by whoever releases it; it's shared and evenly distributed among everyone who helps it. Releasing three thousand living beings was a task she and Di Jiang completed together, so she, like Di Jiang, received forty percent of the power. But Little Master Huang clearly told her it was ten percent, so even if she and Di Jiang combined their power, they would only have eighty percent. So where did the remaining twenty percent go?
The Four Seasons Ridge, which is thousands of miles away from the Ten Realms, responded at almost the same time.
A plump cloud floating in the sky landed with a "whoosh," and a chubby-faced little girl with round eyes was thrown out. She had thick, silver-white hair and a pair of black eyes like grapes. She was none other than Siji, a little demon who had accidentally become human with the help of merit and spiritual power.
It turns out that when this little demon was in a good mood, he often wandered around the mortal world. He had "stopped" continuous heavy rains, stopped floods for the people, protected homeless travelers in the cold wind and snow, and even shed a tear of sympathy in the south, which had been suffering from drought for many years, saving a field of crops and farmers, thus accumulating a lot of merit for himself.
This time, when Duan Jiuyou and Dijiang were picking the Heart-Gathering Lotus, Xiao Siji did not contribute, but she was unexpectedly moved by "love" and opened the Icefall Gate for them in advance. This gate is Xiao Siji's heart gate. It was transformed by feeling and opened wide by love. The pure power in the original core was sensed. In addition, Xiao Siji was pure-hearted and silently recorded one and a half percent of the spiritual power on its "account".
After Emperor Jiang released the creatures, the merit and spiritual power were distributed among them according to their contributions, according to his own detailed account. Duan Jiuyou was unaware that the Four Seasons had become human. If he had known, he would surely have wondered, if the Four Seasons' spiritual power was added, where did the remaining half go?
"Xinghe, don't go!"
Tonight is destined to be a sleepless night.
Inside Zhaozhao City, another person awoke at midnight. Several hours earlier, Zhaozhao City had experienced two major formations. One was the Tear-Page Formation, also known as the Forget-Me-Not Curse, which wiped away the memories of everyone in Zhaozhao City, from the city lord to the citizens. The other was the Original Boundary, which restored the barrier above Zhaozhao City that had been broken in mid-air because the formation's core had been removed.
The one who set up the formation was Emperor Jiang, the Lord of the Great Wilderness and the strongest cultivator in the Three Realms. Even though his primordial spirit was greatly damaged, it did not affect the formation's effectiveness. Everyone in Zhaozhao City lost their memories under the "torn pages" technique, but only Liu Tianshi withstood this heavy pressure.
It wasn't that she had particularly high magical power, but rather that the half-tenth of her spiritual power happened to have been recorded on her.
Although she was selfish and unwilling to take the initiative to rescue them, the creatures inside the pill were ultimately saved because of her.
The main purpose of the merit spiritual power is to repair the primordial spirit. Her primordial spirit was intact, so the spiritual power should have been added to her cultivation. However, because she had eaten thirty-two catties of Xiazhu grass, she could not absorb it into her body, so it was reversed and became a shield to resist the Forgetfulness Curse.
Thus, by a twist of fate, Liu Tianshi became the only one in Zhaozhao City who had escaped the net and possessed the memory of that day.
In fact, if she were willing to hone the Lingtian White Blade, she would receive 30% of this spiritual power. Although it wouldn't improve her cultivation, it could help her heal the scars on her face and restore her complete appearance. The problem was that she was unwilling to sacrifice herself and insisted on using the Heart-Gathering Lotus as a trade. Therefore, in the end, she only received half of the spiritual power.
This half-formed spiritual power became the root of all trouble. She remembered Qi Xinghe's betrayal and knew there was no cure in the world to restore her appearance. Yet, she couldn't let go of Qi Xinghe. Torn between extreme love and hatred, she conjured up an incredibly foolish idea—
She planned to tell Qi Xinghe everything that happened that day.
Although the barrier wall has been repaired by the imperial army, it is still in a weak period. This is a process of recuperation, just like a patient who needs to rest after a serious illness. It will take at least five days to restore it to its original hard state.
“When the barrier was intact, even if I smashed myself to pieces, there was no way I could leave. Now it’s different. Although the array core has returned to its original position, the damaged barrier still has a weak gap. I will use this gap to break through the barrier. From then on, the two of us can break free from Du Heng’s control and leave Zhao Zhao City. This opportunity only comes once. I am willing to help you leave. Are you willing to take me with you?”
Liu Tianshi acted on her thoughts immediately. She slipped into the Qi residence and, regardless of whether Qi Xinghe was awake or not, sat down on the bed and started chatting with him.
Qi Xinghe opened his eyes and saw a long-haired woman muttering to herself. Even though he was a light sleeper, he was still quite startled by the faint footsteps he had heard beforehand.
"The timing... the right moment..."
"Awake? You can really sleep."
Liu Tianshi gave him a lonely, disdainful look. Was she angry? Of course she was! He had used her to obtain the Heart-Gathering Lotus, his only thought being to leave Zhaozhao City.
It's fine for him to leave; after all, no immortal being who has seen the grand rivers and the scenery of the Three Realms would want to live with a bunch of ordinary people who can't even figure out how to make a living. What she cares about is that she wasn't in his plans to leave. She came for him, but he only wanted to leave alone.
Liu Tianshi suddenly felt disgusted by all of this. There were plenty of men in Zhaozhao City. Du Heng had seized quite a few divine weapons, and although there weren't many whose looks surpassed Qi Xinghe's, there were still a few to count. Not to mention the distant ones, there was Zhang Huanyu, the Zhanshan Axe that she always felt guilty towards, whose appearance surpassed Qi Xinghe's.
Unfortunately, she was prejudiced from the start and fell for this seemingly affectionate but actually heartless scoundrel's face. She loved him obsessively, and felt an even stronger sense of resentment towards it all than before.
"My face is beyond repair."
She said to Qi Xinghe directly, "If you swear that you will only stay with me from now on, I will take you away."
Qi Xinghe was completely confused. Having long forgotten the cause and effect, he had no idea what Liu Tianshi was saying. However, he clearly heard one key phrase: she said she had a way to take him away.
"Who said your face can't be healed?" Qi Xinghe immediately adopted a tender expression, stood up, and took Liu Tianshi's hand. "Didn't I tell you? At the riverbank..."
"You'd better not make me feel nauseous at a time like this." Liu Tianshi took a deep breath and made a gesture that told him to shut up. "The Heart-Gathering Lotus at the riverbank is actually the core of the barrier array of Zhaozhao City. How do you know that? Two divine beings came down from the sky and picked the flower for you. You've forgotten all about this, haven't you? I'll tell you all about it again!"
Liu Tianshi couldn't let go, nor could she bear the anger. She was made of stone, yet somehow possessed a spineless nature. If she were more decisive, she could simply forget this bastard and be done with it. But she remembered her past with him so vividly, as if it were etched into her stone heart.
She remembered his sincerity when he arranged a sky full of stars for her, and the tears of emotion in her eyes when she and he pledged their lifelong love. If their love was an act, Qi Xinghe was acting too well; if it really was an act… how could it possibly be an act? She could find a thousand pieces of evidence to prove that Qi Xinghe truly loved her back then.
Then why doesn't he love her anymore?
She always felt that it was this face that ruined their relationship; because this face was ruined, he felt distant from her; because this face was ruined, she became more sensitive and irritable than before.
Liu Tianshi kept making excuses for Qi Xinghe, saying that she was no longer beautiful, her personality had worsened, and everything seemed to be her fault.
She simply refused to believe that he had never loved her that much in the first place.
People trapped in love are always as humble as a bundle of weeds. Her face was ruined, so she compromised. Even though he had lied to her and betrayed her, she was still willing to give him another chance.
She gazed intently at Qi Xinghe, still lacking the courage to remove her veil and face him.
She said she would take you away as long as you don't abandon me.
Qi Xinghe did not disappoint Liu Tianshi. He held her hands in return, his eyes filled with a deeper affection than Liu Tianshi's.
"Fool, of course I'm willing. I just really want to leave this place. When I return to the Heavenly Realm and succeed as the Immortal Lord, you will be the mistress of my Starry Sky Immortal Mansion!"
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