Chapter 98

The Empress’s what, the bird yao stammered on and couldn’t say, ultimately raising their head to the sky and letting out a cry in anxiety. One clawed hand that had not yet had time to turn into a human one messily drew a circle in midair, barely managing to gesture out what they meant — You’re the Empress’s egg.

Shui Keng believed that being called like that was an utter affront to her youth and beauty, so she put her hands on her hips and stood looking like a teapot. “Yeah, an egg getting this big is like a fishbone stuck in your King’s throat, huh? That old man sure has kept me in mind for so many years, to send you to kill me as soon as Fuyao Mountain opened up! Just really sincere… but are all of you in Yao Valley dead to the last? Isn’t not sending anyone powerful looking down on me?”

Cheng Qian quietly took a half-step back to avoid her mad raging. In his head, he couldn’t help but get a heavy suspicion — who had she learned this standardly-perfect set of naggy scoldings from?

For once in her life, Shui Keng looked to be eloquent. The bird yao was bug-eyed and tongue-tied, rendered mute. They shrank back, looking at her in full sorrow, dusky eyes filling with tears that filled the rims, yet didn’t fall.

The overbearing Shui Keng hadn’t foreseen this reaction, amazed on the spot. “Hey, all I did was say a few things. What are you crying for?”

Even if the Yao King’s mind was going, he would not have sent a crybaby assassin for the job. Seeing that the yao cultivator’s claws appeared to be caked in red clay, he used Shuang Ren’s sheath to lift up one talon; after peering at it in scrutiny for a short moment, he determined that it had come from the courtyard wall of Fuyao’s guest house.

“What were you doing at the guest house?” he asked.

The yao cawed wildly and made gestures. Noticing that no one could understand their bird words, they restlessly went to grab Shui Keng’s skirt.

Han Yuan slapped their talons away. “Speak properly. Don’t use your limbs for it.”

The yao frantically scrambled up from the ground, pointed in a direction, then cautiously took a few steps. Seeing that no one was attacking them this time, they grew bold with reassurance, straightened up, and led the way.

This beast’s heart was uncannily honest; they earnestly played guide without the slightest intention of fleeing. Every few steps, they would even stop and wait for the rest.

The three followed them doubtfully. The yao brought them right up to Tang Zhen’s guest house that he had stayed in prior to leaving. They pointed at the building a said a good deal of bird words, but upon noticing that their language wasn’t understood, they hurriedly scratched on the wall with their talons.

Shui Keng: “…”

She was starting to not look forward to going to Yao Valley and leading the entire race, because she got the sense that these people all appeared to be a bit dim-witted.

Thoughts whirled around in Cheng Qian’s head. “The one that was staying here already left — but you know him?”

The yao nodded on end.

“Could it be that it was because he saw you, that he left in such a hurry?”

They kept nodding.

“Bull.” He grabbed the yao’s neck that was thinner than a typical human’s, then easily pushed them against the low wall, voice cold. “You alone could scare him away? If you really knew something that you shouldn’t, he would have silenced you long ago. How would he have tolerated you flying all about?”

Tang Zhen’s betrayal was like a sharp knife stuck into his heart, his words containing indescribably murderousness.

Both Han Yuan and Shui Keng were startled.

“Wait, what was that about silencing?” Shui Keng asked, doubtful. “Was Senior Tang not staying here?”

The yao was nearly strangled to death by him, hairs puffing out as they desperately struggled for a short moment. In the end, they pitifully drew out a wooden tablet from their neck area. Even their tongue was getting pinched, heaving sounds coming from their throat, and they stuffed the tablet into his hands with a red face.

The power of a charm was vaguely contained with the tablet. His full-body murderous aura not yet gone, he expressionlessly reached out to tear off the tablet, then flung the yao to the side.

He saw a Red Crane carved right onto its surface, the crafting method exquisite. The bird’s body looked sleek and elegant, every iota of it represented… though, it didn’t looked to be Shui Keng that was engraved on it, but what ought to be an adult Crane.

On its back, there was a densely-packed charm that overflowed with newness despite its age, flashing with soft fluorescence in the night’s dim.

“What is that?” Han Yuan asked.

“A puppet charm.” Cheng Qian checked it over carefully. “Unused.”

“A puppet charm? How much use could that have?”

These charms could take a fatal hit for their owners one time, able to save their lives at key moments, but it had nothing aggressive about it itself. Why would Tang Zhen fear such a thing?

In regards to this bird of sparse cultivation base, if they didn’t die the first hit, wouldn’t the second hit do it?

Cheng Qian was confused at first, and then a guess suddenly flashed past his mind. “Was this carved by the one staying inside?” he tentatively asked.

Usually, puppet charms could only be used once, with one extenuating circumstance — given that the charm itself didn’t fade in efficacy, the one that made it would never be able to harm the one that carried it in any way.

The yao nodded like their life depended on it.

Why was Tang Zhen’s charm in the possession of a bird yao that had snuck out of caves behind the mountain in the middle of the night?

What kind of weird addiction did Zhenren Tang have?!

Han Yuan used his toes to nudge the yao. “This thing is yours?”

The lisping yao puffed out their chest, saying with sonorous force, “Empress’s!”

Hearing this, his face suddenly twisted up. “I don’t know what’s going on,” he said to Shui Keng, “but I’m afraid your dad sucks.”

She was vacantly confused, looking at this and then at that.

The yao had always been wanting to get up close to Shui Keng, but was pitiably getting obstructed by Cheng Qian’s Shuang Ren. Gesturing, they took a box out from a pocket, with something seen to be wrapped in multiple layers of silk inside. After said layers were peeled back, a fire-red feather that was half a chi long was revealed.

The yao offered the feather up with both hands, cautiously extending their arms to offer it up to Shui Keng. An unspeakable expectation was within those misty eyes.

She was briefly startled, then involuntarily reached out to take it. Whatever was on the feather’s surface, it pricked her finger open; a drop of blood flower down, then merged into that blazing red in the blink of an eye.

A pure, drawn-out birdsong resonated through the air, immediately after which a cloud of mist rose up, fell down to the ground, and spread out. A real-looking mirage emerged before all their eyes.

Everyone’s lines of sight were first captured by a female yao. She was draped in brocade robes that dragged on the ground, graceful and luxurious from head to toe, and there was not a bit of unsightly yao qi about her face. In spite of the man beside her barely being considered to have an impressive appearance, his limelight was clearly seized by her dazzling glory.

The two were dressed similarly, appearing to be a married couple, but there was a far distance between them, rather giving an overtone of ‘mutual respect like ice’.

The bird yao pointed at the two major yao inside of the mirage, gesticulating. “E-Empress…”

Han Yuan looked at the Yao Empress in surprise, then at Shui Keng. He wholly didn’t see how their little sister, who made herself up like a country chicken, had ever come from the Empress.

There was another person behind the King and Empress. He appeared to be there as a guest or to attend some ritual, standing like he was a detached party.

Cheng Qian suffered a shock. “Is that our sect grandfather?”

The bird yao glanced at Tong Ru, adopting a reverent posture.

At the frontmost part of the mirage was an old man. Who even knew how long he had lived for, as his wrinkles were heavy enough to trap and crush flies in them. Painting with bright colors, his bone-thin hand gripped several pieces of old tortoiseshell, and he chattered as he knelt on the ground. After closing his eyes for a long while, he opened them like he had heard enough of Heaven’s sounds; face full of a waning life, he sighed, then spat out human language thereafter. “Those above proclaim that there will be a calamity in the human world, the Heavenly Yao descending, born in response to the calamity, coming into being while soaked in blood. It will seize the power of the Yao King, causing great chaos.”

Hearing this, the Yao King’s face became disastrously hard to look at. “Where is the Heavenly Yao?”

The old man opened up his crow’s beak. “Birthed from the womb of the Empress.”

With that said, the elder did a full-body spasm, fell over onto the ground, and died, actually transforming into a big crow on the spot. He had talked up until his death.

A kick of his legs up into the air meant the end of all his troubles. There was no nonsense to be had, and yet a huge disaster was led to.

The mirage flashed before the eyes. The Yao King was seen to wield a sword, and there was a child beneath it, dead.

The child had the appearance of a five-year-old mortal child, some similarity to the King in their appearance.

This scene warranted no explanation, as everyone understood what they were looking at. The old crow had only said that the Heavenly Demon would come to be, and that it would be born from the Yao Empress; he hadn’t said whether it had already been born, or would be later. The King believed that this calamity would be from his own child; having heard that the Heavenly Yao would seize his power, he had decided that he would prefer to believe that they were than that they were no, ‘justly’ killing his own blood.

The Empress charged in, witnessed this scene, and played with fate by turning hostile towards the King immediately. Unfortunately, she was unable to defeat him, so she left the Valley with injuries, followed only by a palm-sized gray bird right as she left.

The bird yao pointed at the dust-covered, flat-feathered animal that landed upon the Empress’s back, shyly introducing themself. “Me.”

No one had paid attention to them. Who would be concerned over an ugly little bird?

Afterwards, the mirage revolved once more. The Empress was seen to have changed out of that cumbersome outfit, and was no dressed as just an ordinary woman as she hurriedly brought others up Fuyao Mountain; a young woman with a somewhat slow look, and a man that had suffered heavy injury.

They were both familiar — the woman was Tang Wanqiu, and the man, Tang Zhen.

A huge fang was jabbed down into Tang Zhen’s chest. Half of his body was charred black, yet his delicate, refined features could still be made out.

“What piece of the past is this?” Han Yuan wondered.

“Tang Zhen once said that when he was young, he had encountered dangers while traveling with his junior sister, and it was our martial grandfather that granted him rescue,” Cheng Qian answered. “This ought to be that time.”

Right after he said that, the gate of Fuyao was seen in the mirage. A young man that was in the middle of rolling up his pant legs to work on something looked up — upon seeing him, Cheng Qian’s breath automatically hitched, his entire being going still.

Master…

Han Muchun resembled what had been on his portrait, yet his mannerisms were already in the fledging state of that old weasel’s later wretchedness, inelegantly carrying a hoe on his shoulder as he saw the Empress from far away. There were no appellations of respect in the man’s mouth, so he directly shouted out her name. “Hong Yun! What winds have blown you over here!”

While he spoke, his eyes swept over Tang Zhen and Tang Wanqiu. When the latter met with his gaze, she was startled slightly for a second, then lowered her head in unease, not daring to say anything.

“He was injured by the Taowu because of me. Where is your Master? Hurry, I need to ask him for help.”

“The Fierce Beast, Taowu?” Han Muchun’s face slightly got serious, quickly after which he threw the hoe that he had just been tilling something in the dirt with into the air, stepped onto it without the slightly fussiness, and flew into the sky. “Follow me.”

Cheng Qian took in Han Muchun greedily, in spit of the thing he was using to fly, his muddied pant legs at uneven heights, and lack of any sort of immortal bearing to be seen on him.

Even so, he couldn’t look enough.

After watching man until he could no longer be seen, Cheng Qian felt a bit of desolation in the breakage of his line of sight.

The bird yao pointed at the courtyard where Tang Zhen had stayed, raising their fist and beating their chest in what seemed like high reverence.

“Your Empress was injured by the Yao King, she left Yao Valley, and then met with Taowu halfway through her journey… ah, I know. In the yaobeast clan, it’s common for the strong to be respected, and to swallow up the weak. Seeing that her cultivation base was damaged, the Fierce Beast wanted to take advantage of the disaster, right?” Han Yuan guessed.

Cheng Qian snapped out of it. “So, Tang Zhen’s alleged injured wasn’t like he said, where he ‘didn’t know his own strength’, but to save someone — the Yao Empress?”

The yao nodded vigorously again. They raised their bird claws again, unskillfully turned them into human hands, then wrangled their two slightly-deformed thumbs into bumping together.

“This, I can understand,” Han Yuan answered lazily from beside him, “They hooked up after recovering from their wounds…”

Cheng Qian shot a glance at him: Shut up.

Turning his head to see Shui Keng’s dumbstruck look, Han Yuan rolled his eyes, then quietly swallowed his own disrespectful words back down.

At this point, Tang Zhen hadn’t yet been caught in the Soul-Devouring Lamp, and did not have that dismaying, deathly aura lingering about him, his eyes as tranquil as spring waters. His cultivation base wasn’t yet high, but he was well-learned and had the modesty of a gentleman; even for a human, attraction to him would be inevitable, to say nothing of a yao that had never seen a decent man before.

Fuyao Mountain had a wide area with spare population. Sect Leader Tong Ru would show up and disappear like a ghost, going completely missing for ten days to a half-month. Han Muchun never attended to proper work, accompanying the flowers, birds, fish, and bugs all day long; unless Tang Wanqiu took the initiative to go look for him, he wouldn’t show his face. Only the disciple Jiang Peng would occasionally appear to hand over some medicines… since no one would be a disturbance, this made it a great play for a rendezvous.

This all happened quite logically.

The Yao Empress held the grudge of a murdered child, which was basically considered a rupture of relations. Her searching for another lover was not at all strange, but the terrible thing was that there came to be a child between them — exactly the one that was in answer to the calamity the old crow had prophecized.

The Heavenly Yao’s birth was inauspicious, with the Empress attracting heavenly tribulations as soon as she got pregnant, a dozen thick pillars of lightning doing all they could to hack down upon her. Even Tong Ru was alarm by this.

Tong Ru had simply watched for a short while, but ended up not being able to take it anymore, moving to protect her. Thankfully, the Heavenly Yao wasn’t born, so no credits led to no karma; the attracted heavenly tribulations were not certain in their attempts to put the mother and child to death.

Afterwards, Tang Zhen decided to leave Fuyao Mountain, embarking on a quest to find the legendary Golden Lotus Leaf of Da Xue Mountain for the Empress.

Crossing over the Northern border would lead to grasslands as far as the eye could see, after which one would enter an iceland that never melted through the year; that iceland was also known as the ‘Extreme North’, with Black Tortoise Hall overseeing it. Even further past the Extreme North, there were thousands of li of uninhabited tall mountains and deep abysses, where divine lakes of the Sea of Beiming were. At the very end floated Da Xue Mountain, with never melted.

The Mountain had no fixed location, and might not be in the same area every time, thus being dubbed a ‘Mystic Site’. All sorts of legends told of how amazing it was.

The Da Xue Mystic Site, Valley of the Heart Demon with its Tower of No Regrets, and land-of-the-dead Valley of No Regrets were all known as the three most inaccessible places in the human realm.

It was aid that golden lotuses grew at the heart of Da Xue. It only bloomed, and normally did not grow leaves, but at the exact moment when the flower withered and the mountain of snow collapsed and re-constructed, a thumb-length leaf could grow from its roots.

That leaf could reach the source of the Great Dao, and turn all sin into nothing.

Tang Zhen got the wildest idea; he wanted to go find the Golden Lotus Leaf for his child, whose gender he didn’t even know yet.

Tong Ru personally saw him down to the foot of Fuyao. “The Leaf has been nothing more than an ancient legend. I rummaged through the nine-story Library Tower yesterday, and never saw it have even one real record of a few scattered words. No one knowns if it actually exists… the Da Xue Mystic Site is extremely dangerous. Even I might not be able to escape it. Can you not think more on this?”

The other gave him a very deep bow. “I believe that effort always begets results, Senior.”

The still-young Tang Zhen did not have nearly as much exhaustion and anxiety on his face as he later would. He looked abnormally resolute, and after saying farewell to Tong Ru, he floated off.

The mirage came to its end. “H-he n… never came back,” the bird yao stammered.

“Junior sis was in that egg for over a hundred years,” Han Yuan said, “and I remember that when we first met Tang Zhen, he said that he had been a ghost sucked into the Soul-Devouring Lamp a hundred years ago. This should probably be that time.”

Tang Zhen had never returned. Following that, Tang Wanqiu had also said farewell on her own.

The Yao Empress had tried to kill her fetus several times, but ended up unfortunately being unable to. After dodging the heavenly tribulations, she left Fuyao, returned to Yao Valley, and then went up to Immortal Overlook Platform by herself — what came after that, they already knew.

Had she been willing to bring the puppet charm Tang Zhen had left her onto the Platform, maybe she wouldn’t have lost her life.

What a shame it was that she had refused.

A hundred years later, everything had changed. A few reckless children from Fuyao Sect had brought the soul of Tong Ru as they charged in, then took the Heavenly Yao away before she could get dyed in blood.

Cheng Qian inwardly sighed, thinking to himself, All those people are gone. What’s the use in keeping objects?

Later on, Tong Ru had risked a heinous, worldwide offense to step onto the Tower of No Regrets, then fight with the Heavens for his fate? Had that been influence in some way by Tang Zhen’s phrase of ‘effort always begets results’?

Thinking back on it, partway through the journey to Nanjiang, Tang Zhen, who had been in the middle of going to look for the Ice-hearted Fire, had suddenly stopped. Had he been drawn by the commotion of the Red Crane’s transforming yao skeleton?

In that mad dance before the Ten-Party Array, Tang Zhen, someone who had always been all talk, had suddenly gone to bar Xuan Huang’s way. Had that been because Xuan Huang’s ji had been hacking towards Shui Keng?

But, since he knew the score, after he had already escaped the Soul-Devouring Lamp a hundred years ago, why had he refused to show up for all these years?

He had lodged in Fuyao Estate, and also Fuyao Mountain, before. Shui Keng had even divulged her own past to him without any wariness. Why had he constantly refused to say anything, not changing in expression even after hearing her dissatisfaction?

Why had he left in such a rush after the bird yao had recognized him?

If it hadn’t been for the puppet charm he had carved himself years ago that the yao had, would he really have silenced them, just like how Cheng Qian had said?

Sui Keng suddenly turned around and left without another word. For the first time in her life, she felt that she maybe shouldn’t have been born.

Cheng Qian smacked the yao that attempted to keep up with her using his scabbard. He shot a look at Han Yuan. “Go and see to her.”

“I’m going to track down the Soul-Devouring Lamp.” With a raised of his hand, an everlasting lantern beside the guest house’s doorway landed in it. “Judging by Tang Zhen’s character, he likely didn’t make a stop halfway through his journey back then. It should’ve been either near Da Xue, or straight-up in Da Xue Mystic Site that he got swept into the Soul-Devouring Lamp. I’m going to go take a look… by the way, you told me last time that the reason Jiang Peng entered the ghost path was due to the Celestial Divination Bureau?”

“The Nightmare Travelers’ information source…”

“It may not necessarily be true. That other day, the Third Prince said that he had counted up the superpowers of the world, but even the Bureau’s Sect Leader’s aptitude hadn’t been enough in his eyes. I’m getting the overall sense that even though the Bureau wouldn’t have been incapable of it, with how Jiang Peng’s cultivation base status was, he might not have been in their eyes, either.”

Han Yuan raised a brow. “You have suspicions towards Tang Zhen. What for?”

Cheng Qian’s face showed a bit of upset, and he said nothing. He dared not be certain that the Soul-Devouring Lamp of today had anything to do with Tang Zhen. Therefore, as long as there was a possibility that Tang Zhen was innocent, it was impossible for him to voice out his own doubts.

Tang Zhen was, after all, his friend.

“Oh, I get it. The code of brotherhood.” Han Yuan grinned rather sarcastically. “You plan to leave without word and head out by yourself?”

“Mn.”

Han Yuan raised both brows. “You’re not telling the eldest?”

“He’s really naggy.”

“Oh, is he?” Han Yuan deliberately dragged out his syllables. “You have the guts to fool around and then leave without a goodbye?”

Cheng Qian’s face went stiff. He said nothing.

“You would be the type, little senior,” Han Yuan mocked.

Cheng Qian kept silent for a long time, then powerlessly conceded. “…I don’t have the guts.”

Han Yuan hadn’t expected that he would so bluntly admit it. After being mute for a minute, he couldn’t resist laughing. “I’ll go check on Shui Keng. You hurry on to the Sect Leader’s room to grovel at him.”

Cheng Qian returned to the Residence of Peace with a heavy load on his mind. He noticed that the bamboo forest behind the courtyard had completely transformed into a bald patch.

Instead of thinking to demand justice for the bamboo sea, he felt a bit of gratitude, hoping that Yan Zhengming’s anger would be used up and that he could be milder for a minute.

Right as he moseyed on in, and before he could come up with proper wording, Yan Zhengming had already noticed that something was wrong from his slightly evasive eyes. “What are you going to do?” he asked in suspicion.

Cheng Qian hesitated for a while, then gave a brief explanation. “I plan to go to Da Xue Mountain.”

It was unknown what emotions Yan Zhengming was having, as he didn’t say anything for a long time.

Cheng Qian’s heart thudded. Damn. That razed bamboo forest had no effect.