Love Travels through Time (My father who traveled through time and space to cultivate immortality came back to pick me up) - Chapter 64
Chapter 64: No Road Back from the Bian City (1)
After his words fell, a long silence followed, with not a peep heard from Xiang Haikui.
Jing Ran brought his gaze back down to her face, where he couldn’t spot much surprise.
“Did you guess it?”
How could Xiang Haikui have possibly guessed it?
She was utterly dumbfounded.
Shaking her head, she patted the sword box behind her back with her hand.
“No wonder my Tian Kuang suddenly started surging with mad intent.”
Presumably, he had an “on/off switch” on him that had been hidden all along.
These golden lotuses on the sea leading to the Bian City were manifested from the special power he released.
With the golden lotuses present, even if he was in a reincarnated mortal shell, these high-ranking officials of the Underworld would step out to pay their respects without the slightest shadow of a doubt.
Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, as the Underworld Lord was walking nearly right up to him, Jing Ran still turned his head to keep looking at her.
“Student Xiang’s reaction is quite beyond my expectations.”
Xiang Haikui let out a couple of awkward chuckles.
“I’ve already said all those insults… what else can I do? Take them back?”
Jing Ran lost his laughter.
“I didn’t mean the part where you cursed me—I was referring to my identity.”
“Oh, identity.”
Xiang Haikui knit her brows slightly. For some reason, she felt a brief sense of disorientation in that moment, not quite knowing what to think.
All she could say was, “Like you just said, Senior Brother, I’m a person of immense fortune now with a whole circle of big shots for friends. Your identity doesn’t scare me anymore.”
Still, cursing the Emperor of the Celestial Clan to his face had caused Tian Kuang’s mad intent to spike at a somewhat terrifying rate.
She had never seen Han Qi’s true body before; so far, aside from cursing her boss, this was the fastest surge she had ever seen.
She could almost hear Tian Kuang screaming in excitement: Ah! Another massive fat sheep! Grab onto him! Leveling up is what matters!
Jing Ran nodded.
“Fair point.”
“Instead, I feel pretty amazed by myself.”
It had felt like a dream just now, but Xiang Haikui was slowly coming back to her senses.
She rubbed her forehead, muttering softly to herself.
The very first time she had a secret crush on someone, it had to be a damn reincarnated Emperor of the Celestial Clan undergoing a mortal tribulation.
The “god” she called him as a joke turned out to be an actual god.
These eyes of hers must have been blessed.
These hands too—she had even pulled down the Emperor’s trousers once.
This was way too thrilling.
Jing Ran leaned forward slightly.
“What did you say?”
She shook her head repeatedly.
“No—nothing.”
“Emperor.”
Stepping across the golden lotuses, the Underworld Lord Jin Ying walked up and cupped her hands in greeting.
This female ruler was of the Celestial Clan, fair-skinned, beautiful, and long-legged.
Like Jing Ran, she wore a black robe, with only a spider lily embroidered on her sleeve to represent her status as the Lord of the Underworld.
Xiang Haikui had heard Bai Xingxian mention before that Jin Ying was previously a Master of the Twelve Palaces—a colleague of her boss who had always been on bad terms with him.
After the former Underworld Lord passed away, she successfully took the throne and hunted her boss for many years, possessing immense capability and decisiveness.
“We welcome the Emperor upon his return from his mortal tribulation…”
Jin Ying spoke a string of formal pleasantries.
As she spoke, her gaze darted over to Xiang Haikui three times.
Jing Ran instructed her,”I have only just awakened, and my spiritual energy has not recovered; I need to borrow the Soul Pool.”
For someone of his level undergoing a reincarnated tribulation, once the soul’s seal was undone, his cultivation would slowly restore itself, allowing him to return to his true physical body at any moment.
“Your humble servant shall arrange it immediately.”
Jin Ying stepped aside to yield the path.
“Emperor, please.”
She asked nothing about Xiang Haikui’s identity.
As Jing Ran passed by Jin Ying, he sent her a voice transmission: “Yin Changli has arrived in the Bian City.”
Jin Ying furled her brows deeply: “Your humble servant shall set up the formation and defenses right away.”
“No need,” Jing Ran said.
“Withdraw all formations and use actions to make it crystal clear to him that I am waiting for him.”
Behind Jin Ying, nine of the twelve Palace Masters had arrived, and those familiar with each other were exchanging secret voice transmissions.
“How many years has it been since the Emperor last visited the Underworld?”
Ever since the Crown Prince was banished to the Underworld back then, the Underworld had virtually severed ties with the Celestial Clan, becoming almost a self-contained realm that no longer fell under the jurisdiction of the Upper Realm.
Luo Yunxiu and Liu Yihang—who had previously brought three small demons to Silver Sand City to hunt down Yin Changli—were also exchanging voice transmissions.
The two of them were discussing Xiang Haikui.
Only ten years had passed, but Liu Yihang’s memory was noticeably poor.
“Is she the Second Young Miss from Silver Sand City? The pawn Lord Changli used to draw us away?”
Luo Yunxiu had been sizing up Xiang Haikui for a long time.
Covering her mouth, she let out a delicate laugh.
“Back then I already felt this young girl was extraordinary. Look at my eye for talent—how long has it been, and she’s already at the peak of the Eighth grade.”
Liu Yihang didn’t care about that; he knit his brows.
“But isn’t she Lord Changli’s person? Why is she following the Emperor?”
Jing Ran had already stepped onto the golden lotuses, but Xiang Haikui was still standing on the shore, unmoving.
Jing Ran turned his head.
“Are you afraid of me?”
Xiang Haikui looked back and asked, “Senior Brother, regarding my friend list… should I add a note after your name, or delete the old contact and add you as a new friend?”
Jing Ran chuckled softly.
“Up to you, I don’t mind either way.”
Seeing the deep hesitation written all over her face, he added, “Student Xiang, even though my true identity is the Celestial Emperor, I couldn’t control where I would be reincarnated. Meeting you was the will of Heaven, and our past interactions contained not a single trace of deceit.”
“Awakening today, I will not deliberately distance myself from you because of my identity. If you no longer see me as who I was, that is your own affair.”
Xiang Haikui nodded, catching up to him and stepping onto the golden lotuses, walking step by step toward the Bian City.
It was still that familiar back, even down to the exact same walking posture.
From high school to college, over those few years, what she had looked at most was his back.
Nothing seemed to have changed.
And yet, why did he pull her away from her boss’s side during the teleportation?
—
At this moment, Yin Changli was still quite a distance away from the Bian City.
However, he sensed that all Twelve Palaces had risen above the sea simultaneously—a courtesy extended only when receiving the Emperor.
Like Han Qi, he had figured it out.
He wasn’t overly surprised, nor did he blame himself for being powerless; after all, this Emperor was the biggest winner in the war between the two clans back then, the reigning hegemon of the Three Realms.
Back then, Yin Changli was merely an ignorant, naive young lad.
This Emperor’s way of doing things was to outsmart those without brains and use brute force against those with brains.
In either skill, he had attained absolute perfection.
All these years, the Emperor had been unable to capture Yin Changli and couldn’t prevent him from gathering the old remnants of the Shanhai Clan and laying wires everywhere, so he had tossed him to Han Qi to deal with slowly.
Now, believing he had grasped Yin Changli’s weakness, he wanted to cut through the messy knot with a swift blade.
Yin Changli took the “red apple” out of the jade box and tossed it onto the ground, from which Lu Xiqiao came rolling out.
“Follow this road straight ahead and you will reach the Bian city. Go find Xiang Haikui and deliver a message to her for me.”
Lu Xiqiao couldn’t make sense of the situation.
“Senior, aren’t you suspicious of me…”
Yin Changli: “No need to test you anymore. You are the real Lu Xiqiao; Meng Nanting has certainly returned to the Upper Realm.”
Lu Xiqiao felt it was completely baffled: “Then what message do you want me to bring, Senior?”
“Just say…”
After Yin Changli finished speaking, he left Lu Xiqiao behind and headed toward the Land of Nine Sufferings.
Without spending much time, he found the little hamster trembling in fear, hidden inside a small crevice.
Bai Xingxian was injured; upon seeing his uncle, he shed a few aggrieved tears.
Spitting out the Little Black Orb, Yin Changli opened the palace.
Bai Xingxian transformed back into human form and sat inside the palace to meditate, feeling as if a lifetime had passed.
“Uncle, are you really awake?”
Yin Changli returned to sit behind the desk; Xiang Heng hadn’t messed with his belongings, which were still arranged in their original positions.
“Do I look like I’m sleepwalking?”
“Is the matter with the Jinling resolved? How is Little Lu doing? What about Little Sister Xiaokui?”
Bai Xingxian asked a barrage of questions in one breath.
Yin Changli answered none of them, “Recover quickly. While the Emperor is in his recovery period, it’s the perfect time for us to get things done.”
Bai Xingxian pursued relentlessly.
“Then what about Little Sister Xiaokui? Are we not taking her with us?”
Yin Changli tidied the desk and wiped it down carefully.
Only after wiping it clean did he realize that apart from Little Bai, many earth spirits were kept under the Little Black Orb; why was he cleaning it with his own hands, as if out of force of habit?
His movements slowed down, and a wave of gloom suffused his heart.
“She was taken away by the Emperor.”
Bai Xingxian stood up in shock.
“What?”
Yin Changli explained in a few brief sentences, “I always thought that I was the one who chose her and dragged her into this. Looking at it now, the Emperor appeared by her side even earlier. This shows that everything was meant to be her destiny all along. My so-called alteration of fate was merely being led by the nose by destiny.”
Bai Xingxian walked quickly up to him.
“Uncle, to hell with fate! You have to go save her!”
“Save her how? The Emperor has opened the doors waiting for me to throw my life away. Or perhaps he wants to figure out my forces in the Bian City.”
Yin Changli gathered his feather cloak tighter around himself.
“Besides, I don’t dare let her stay by my side anymore…”
Just like the words he had spoken to Han Qi before parting: a girl Han Qi had harmed, while he had saved and personally cultivated—what did Han Qi have to compete with him?
Yet now she and the Emperor were practically childhood sweethearts, and she had admired the Emperor for many years; what right did he have to compete with the Emperor?
Relying on that single night of transient intimacy?
“The possibility of her turning her blade against me is extremely high. The Emperor might coax and deceive her into staying by my side as a spy.”
“Impossible,” Bai Xingxian rejected flatly.
“The Emperor is capable of doing so.”
“I mean Little Sister Xiaokui—she wouldn’t,” Bai Xingxian stated with absolute certainty.
“You don’t have those ten years of memories, but I do! Do you know how hard Xiaokui pushed herself just to help you gather demon power? Once, when we were ambushed, an Eighth Grade demon beast almost harmed you. She threw herself forward to block it for you without a second thought, remaining unconscious for several days before waking up…”
“On ordinary days, at the slightest sign of trouble, she would jump up like a grasshopper, guarding you with eyes and ears peeled in all directions.”
“Uncle, even Little Bai couldn’t do all that for you. What she gave along the way isn’t something a simple trade can compensate for. No matter how much compensation you offer, you can never repay this deep affection of Little kui’s…”
Yin Changli interrupted him, “I don’t want to hear it. Go regulate your breathing at once, we are leaving as soon as possible.”
Bai Xingxian had never disobeyed his orders.
Yet after pursing his lips for a long time, Bai Xingxian sat on the steps with his arms crossed, adopting an attitude of throwing up his hands and quitting.
“Uncle, whether you truly cannot remember or simply refuse to think about it, you know best in your own heart.”
His uncle had always been like this.
Bai Xingxian recalled when he was young and couldn’t yet take human form, often perching lawlessly on his uncle’s shoulder.
His uncle had doted on him and spoiled him terribly.
Yet after he was once caught by pursuers, even though his uncle had eliminated all of those people without lifting a finger, from then on, his uncle never let him get close again, forbade him from taking human form at will, and treated him entirely like a spirit pet or servant.
His uncle was accustomed to coming and going alone. No matter who he interacted with, he used the method of transaction, settling the score on the spot and never becoming overly entangled.
He didn’t know whether it was for fear of harming others or harming himself.
In short, he had forced himself into becoming a solitary, isolated person.
Thinking of these things, Bai Xingxian came to understand his uncle a bit more.
Feeling that his words just now might have been a bit too harsh, he cautiously turned his head to cast a glance at his uncle.
Yet he saw a whole table of items spread out before him, all of which had been taken out of a storage bracelet.
There was a wooden comb, a portrait, beautiful feathers, exquisite embroidery, and even a… kitchen knife.
“Uncle…?”
Yin Changli stared at that kitchen knife for a long time.
Then he closed his eyes.
Seeing his brow deeply furrowed, Bai Xingxian knew he was pondering major matters. Not daring to breathe too loudly, he silently went to regulate his breathing.
After a long while.
“Let’s go.”
Bai Xingxian: “Where to?”
Yin Changli opened his eyes: “The Bian City.”
Bai Xingxian: “Are we going to sneak in to save her?”
“No.”
Yin Changli formed a hand seal and pointed into midair toward a coiled dragon pillar to the side.
More spiritual mist spewed from the dragon’s mouth.
Within the spiritual mist, a blurry figure appeared, performing a single-handed salute of the Shanhai Clan.
“May I ask what instructions the Patriarch has?”
Tapping his fingers against the table a few times, Yin Changli said, “Have your branch prepare. I intend to take the Bian City.”
The figure in the spiritual mist froze for a moment, “Patriarch? According to the plan, shouldn’t we first go unseal…”
“There is a change of plan,” Yin Changli said.
“We attack the Bian City first.”
“But…”
“Back then, with Master Qi and the others present, didn’t it still end in total defeat?”
“…”
“We won’t need them for this battle. The Underworld is where the Emperor’s hand reaches the shortest. Just listen to me.”
Yin Changli made a grabbing motion in midair, pulling out a handful of spiritual arrows.
Similar to the spiritual arrow he had given to Xiang Haikui before, yet somewhat different, these were tally arrows.
With a toss of his arm, the tally arrows all flew out, soaring in every direction.
He didn’t want to wait any longer—the longer he waited, the more variables might arise.
He wasn’t fully prepared, but neither was the Emperor.
If the Emperor wanted to flush out his pawns in the Bian City, then he would lay them all out for him to see.
With his own forty percent cultivation against the Emperor who had just awakened from reincarnation, they would see who lost half their life first.
“The final battle of life and death for our Shanhai Clan shall begin from the Bian City.”
He had spent his whole life calculating destiny, exhausting every plot, only to feel increasingly powerless.
So this time, he would follow his heart.
—
Xiang Haikui’s eyes were stung so hard by the heat that she couldn’t open them.
This was an extraordinarily magnificent palace. Aside from layers upon layers of drifting gauze, the palace contained only a water pool similar to a hot spring.
The aquatic mist could nourish souls; one didn’t need to enter the water, but merely sit by the pool to meditate.
With the Emperor arriving here, he enjoyed the highest level of treatment.
This soul-nourishing water was naturally of the absolute highest grade; aside from the Underworld Lord, not even the Twelve Palace Masters enjoyed such a privilege.
Having inexplicably clung to the Emperor’s thigh, Xiang Haikui was riding his coat-tails, sitting cross-legged by the pool at this moment.
Jing Ran was to her left, his eyes closed as he said, “Focus a bit.”
Xiang Haikui quickly closed her eyes. She had already felt the efficacy of this soul-nourishing water, yet she remained unable to settle her mind.
“I think I’ve experienced what Senior Brother felt.”
“Hmm?”
“What you felt back on Earth—that sense of unreality.”
Hearing this, Jing Ran opened his eyes and looked down at her.
“How so?”
Xiang Haikui endured it for a long while before failing to hold back.
“Senior Brother, taking me away… was also to use me against Senior Yin, right?”
Jing Ran went quiet for a moment.
“You were calling him a dumbass earlier—how come he’s back to being ‘Senior’ now?”
Xiang Haikui: … “After all, I cursed three dumbasses. I was afraid you’d remember.”
Jing Ran let out a low laugh.
“Senior Brother hasn’t answered yet.”
Xiang Haikui made her stance clear.
“If you are, I hope you can speak directly like Han Qi did. I’ll try to persuade myself to understand your position, but please don’t…”
She didn’t finish her sentence.
“I know you already have your own understanding of this identity as the Celestial Emperor because of the Meng family…” Jing Ran said.
“All I can say is that the Celestial Clan has a population equal to two Earths—I cannot manage every single thing.”
Xiang Haikui opened her mouth.
He added, “I was the one who sent the message earlier. I considered the third son of the Meng family a talented individual and wanted to spare his life. As for the Meng family, after I return, I will definitely give you a satisfactory resolution.”
There was too much Xiang Haikui wanted to ask: “Did you really scheme against the former Underworld Lord…?”
Jing Ran changed his meditation posture and asked in return, “Was the one behind the Xuanwu Gate Incident a wise ruler?”
Xiang Haikui: … “But you dumped the waste onto the Shanhai Clan, forced the Shanhai Clan to counterattack, and then wiped them out…”
As heat billowed and condensed, droplets of water gathered along her cheeks and ran down her chin, falling one by one.
Jing Ran asked again, “On Earth, there is a book called the Classic of Mountains and Seas. This shows that the Shanhai Clan originally existed on Earth as well. Later on, where did they go? Why did they all vanish, leaving behind only beasts with ordinary bloodlines—have you ever pondered this question?”
This question left Xiang Haikui completely at a loss for how to answer.
Why would she ever think about such things out of nowhere?
Closing his eyes once more, Jing Ran said, “If they were to continue evolving, no other race would be a match for them.”
“Then what about the Human Clan?” X
iang Haikui thought for a moment and asked, “Senior Brother, you lived a life as a human on Earth as well. Did you gain any revelations?”
“I did,” Jing Ran nodded.
“So the Human Clan could actually evolve to such a formidable degree—I had overlooked that. From now on, not only must we extinguish the Shanhai Clan, but we must also begin suppressing the Human Clan.”
Xiang Haikui’s eyes widened.
“Senior Brother?”
“Has Student Xiang ever seen the movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes? If one day the apes on Earth truly completed their evolution, became capable of fighting humans, and demanded equal rights, do you think you humans on Earth would suppress them, or agree to their demands?”
Xiang Haikui: “A group of apes?”
“For this world, our Celestial Clan is the ‘humans,’ while humanity is merely apes that have not finished evolving.”
The fact that he granted humans resources was already akin to protecting animals.
“When even my Celestial Clan hasn’t had its fill, we are willing to yield some resources, yet people remain unsatisfied?”
A long silence followed Jing Ran’s words, with no response from Xiang Haikui.
Noticing her somewhat dazed expression, he asked, “Any doubts?”
Xiang Haikui replied, “No, I’m just really surprised. So in Senior Brother’s eyes, I’m an ape.”
Jing Ran froze for a moment, then said, “Student Xiang is naturally different in my eyes.”
Xiang Haikui gave an “Oh”: “So I’m an ape from abroad?”
Jing Ran was taken aback once more.
“No, I’ve never regarded you as an ape. I was merely using the movie as an analogy…”
Xiang Haikui interrupted, “In your eyes, humans are all apes, yet I’m not an ape—are you calling me subhuman? You cultured folks, why do you gotta beat around the bush when cursing people? Is a direct ‘fuck you’ not good enough?”
Jing Ran’s lips quivered for a moment, a sudden headache coming over him.
