Chapter 65 Suddenly It's the Past

  Silence, once again quietly shrouded a corner of the palace. The wind blowing from an unknown place gently stirred the layered silk curtains hanging in the palace, creating wave after wave of gentle ripples, gradually approaching the two figures standing on the bluestone slab, mischievously lifting the crimson skirt and trailing the blue-white sleeves.

  After a long time, the slender figure in red finally moved, her smile fading from her jade-like face, and a layer of frost covering it again. Her bright eyes suddenly shone with an unusual light. Her voice softened a few degrees, as if she had already confirmed some facts, but still wanted to ask: "You call me Mother? I... am I similar to your mother in any way?"

  The young man in blue clothes and white robe had no expression on his face, motionless, still maintaining the posture when the seal of the mind was released, but the faint light flashing in his narrow eyes confirmed that he had heard what was said. After another half a moment, the red light in those eyes suddenly brightened and dimmed, and finally dimmed a bit. The young man's eyelashes trembled slightly, and he replied slowly: "...Yes."

  Her eyes sparkled with even more color, but her voice was soft and gentle as she asked, "Could you tell me about her?"

  Xuan Zhen raised his eyes and looked at her, a cold glint flashing in his gaze. However, Yu Rou was not intimidated in the slightest, and instead, her sharp chin rose even higher. Xuan Zhen saw that she had the same aloof expression as his mother when she was alive, and he almost called out "Mother" again. Fortunately, he came to his senses just in time, but no matter what, he couldn't refuse this woman who looked so much like his mother. He paused for a moment before continuing slowly: "Mother... she looks like you, beautiful, aloof, always distant with everyone, as if she's never happy. No matter where she looks, her eyes only hold worry and hatred."

  He whispered softly, as if to himself, his gaze drifting away from the crimson figure in front of him and into the higher void, where a pair of familiar eyes seemed to emerge, so melancholic yet filled with infinite resentment. Yes, since he could remember, his mother had always been like that, never once showing a smile even to her own son, her closest kin...

  "Oh, is she unhappy?" Yu Xiao also said lightly, but there was a hint of strangeness in her voice.

  Xuan Zhen's eyebrows furrowed slightly, and he looked up at her, but was taken aback by the expression that seemed to be both a smile and anger. His eyes flickered several times before continuing: "Yes, from when we lived...lived in that lake bottom, she never smiled again. Mother's body wasn't good, always needing many fragrant medicines to nourish her, those fragrant herbs could have been bought in the nearby towns, but mother hated humans...the human tribe..." He stopped here, his mind a jumbled mess, as if it had been untangled a bit, yet also tangled tighter. A faint voice seemed to be calling out from the depths of his mind: "Humans are accustomed to disguising themselves, pretending to be likable, but in reality they're more poisonous than snakes and more ferocious than tigers! They'll stab you in the heart when you least expect it! How can you just forget?!"

  How could you just not remember... The sound echoed in his mind, every time it sounded, Xuan Zhen's heart ached even more. Guilt and regret, unwillingness and incomprehension, layer by layer wrapped around the tip of his heart, wave after wave surged up to the sea of his heart.

  Suddenly, a cold voice interrupted his thoughts: "She hates humans extremely? Can there be such a ridiculous thing?"

  Xuan Zhen suddenly turned his head and looked at Yuanyu with anger, saying in a stern voice: "What did you say?"

  "I told you, your mother was quite ridiculous. Back then, she stood in front of me, holding that person's hand from the human tribe, determined to leave this Fantasy Realm no matter what. Did she ever think there would be a day of regret?" Yan You remained calm and composed under his gaze that seemed to devour her, coldly saying, "But it's not surprising, after all. As a demon, even if you once believed in the human tribe, you will eventually come to understand. Those humans are all shameless. Look at those people who intruded into our Fantasy Realm today, aren't they the same?"

  What ethnicity is that person? Xuan Zhen was silent, and his mind once again surged with shockwaves. It turned out that his mother had also believed in... what kind of person? He thought to himself quietly, and inadvertently glanced at the tattered handbag in his hand. The image of his mother's ferocious expression when she cut it up with scissors years ago reappeared before his eyes, making him feel a chill in his heart.

  A moment later, Yu Wei urged again impatiently. Xuan Zhen continued: "...Later, those Taoist priests were all killed by Auntie, but we couldn't stay in Chaohu anymore...After hiding in Huangshan, we originally lived in a small village, but one morning, I woke up and found that Auntie was gone..."

  He spoke in a disjointed manner, and the memories he had lost for nineteen years gradually came alive before his eyes through these descriptions. Those fragmented images, those indistinct faces, those vague figures also became clear in his sorrowful narrative.

  "...I found her in that cold and eerie stone cave, but as soon as I woke up my mother, she...she seemed to have changed into a demon-like creature, suddenly using her hand...to tightly strangle my neck!"

  A faint pain flashed across the young man's pale face, as if the scene from many years ago still made him feel unbelievable and painful even now.

  "Then she cast that secret spell on you, which is why her good son has been muddle-headed all these years and doesn't remember anything." Yanyu continued slowly, her tone very certain, as if she had witnessed the scene herself. After a while, she lowered her head to look at the small dark purple crystal in her palm and hummed, "Hmph, she's indeed very bold! If not for this dream-seeing stone assisting on the side, I'm afraid she wouldn't have had the strength to complete that secret spell even with her injuries... It seems that when she made the dream-seeing vase, she secretly took away a piece of leftover material and brought it with her..."

  The things she said, Xuan Zhen had no idea what they were and didn't want to know. He only trembled his fingers, slowly stroking his neck, as if the cold feeling of being tightly bound still lingered on his body. Faintly, a thread of red light appeared in the depths of those narrow eyes: "......At that time, I only felt a severe pain in my brain, probably because of the illusion technique......But even then, I firmly believed that Mother would never harm me......She touched my face with such gentleness, speaking to me in a tone she had never used before......Only once......Never again......"

  As he spoke, his hands hanging down on both sides of his body were trembling more violently, and unknowingly, his fingernails had dug deep into his palms. After a moment, several drops of crimson fell gently onto the bluestone slab.

  The nearby Yan You seemed to be shaken by the layer of sorrow that surrounded him, and her originally cold and mocking voice also gradually stopped.

  "You just said, what's your mother's name?" After a silence of half a moment, Yu Rou suddenly broke the calm.

  Xuan Zhen was taken aback for a moment and replied in a low voice: "Her surname is Shen, and her name is Qing."

  "Shen Qing?" Yan You seemed to have a few doubts, as if she was thinking deeply, lowering her head and muttering to herself, "Shen... Qing... Qing... Ah, I see! It's actually like that!"

  Her last two sentences were slightly raised in tone, and her voice was even more excited, as if she had solved a puzzle. Xuan Zhen frowned at her, only to hear Yan You coldly laugh: "She changed her name to avoid us... Hmph, since she hated the human race so much, why did she still keep that person's surname?"

  "Changed his name?" Xuan Zhen muttered in confusion. The surname of that person... Who was that person, could it be the one Mother had trusted?

  "Xuan Qing... hum, now that I've told you, your mother's name wasn't Shen Xuan Qing after all. My Dreamweaver clan is different from humans, we have names but no surnames. Her true name should be... " Yu Xiao gazed at Xuan Zhen's stunned expression, a hint of pleasure flashing across her face, "Yu Jing!"

  "Xuan Jing? Could it be that she had revealed her true name, Ah Niang... Why did she never say it to herself? Xuan Zhen's eyes widened in surprise as he suddenly remembered something and quickly looked up at the red-clothed woman in front of him: "You... what was your name again?"

  "Hmm... did you just realize that now?" Yan You raised the corner of her lips and sneered, "Her name is Yan Jing, mine is Yan You, aren't they similar? It's only natural because... we are actually sisters born to the same mother!"

  Never had there been a moment that shocked Xuan more than this one. The unacceptable truth, the tangled mess in his mind, was shattered by Yu Rou's words. Suddenly, a wave of sadness swept over him, but it was also so expected, he should have thought of all this earlier, shouldn't he?

  From the moment Yu Xiu saw herself and spoke out that truth, she should have vaguely anticipated this situation. The demon realm she was supposed to attack turned out to be her hometown, the demons she killed were actually her own kind, and the woman in front of her, whom she had once looked at with anger and suspicion, was actually her mother's younger sister!

  After the sorrow passed, what surged up to his throat was a wave of laughter. Xuan Zhen looked up at the sky in confusion, and what he saw was the hazy roof of the Fantian Palace shrouded in clusters of purple light. The vast heavens above seemed to be mocking him as well. In the end, who was it that refused to be lonely, reaching out to disrupt the wheel of fate, causing destiny to twist and turn into such a pathetic and laughable state?

  "Your mother, thirty-eight years ago, abandoned her position as the head of the clan and left with a human during the nineteen-year passage of the demon realm through the mortal world... Ah, who would have thought that in the end, she would fall to such a state, hating until death the person she once loved?" However, Yu Ru's ears were completely unaware of Xuan Zhen's abnormality, and he coldly laughed as he poured out all the dissatisfaction that had been buried in his heart for over thirty years. "Humans are ultimately untrustworthy, but you've mixed with those humans, don't you think your mother's death was tragic enough? Are you going to follow in her footsteps?"

  A sudden clap of thunder, flashing through his chest, exploded in his mind. Xuan Zhen slightly lowered his head, motionless, only the clothes on his body gently fluttering, unknowingly, the wind that swept past the Huan Ming Palace was howling and rapidly spreading outwards with him as the center, bringing up layers of gauze along the way, like a piece of purple-red light dream, but in an instant, it was torn into flying fragments by the wind!

  "Hah, hahaha... So that's how it is, so that's really how it is!"

  Who is laughing and why does this laughter sound so desolate? Xuan Zhen looked around in a daze, and it wasn't until after a while that he realized the laughter was coming from his own mouth.

  He should be smiling, of course. The memories he had lost for nineteen years had returned to his mind. Wasn't that something worth rejoicing over? Memories that had haunted him in his dreams and made him search even as far as the southern borders were now...now so laughable and pitiful!

  Author's note: Thank you to beini1127, LuLu, 123, I'm a loyal dog with a twisted personality who wants to lock up his master and roll around in bed every day, One Drunken South Wind, Cheng, Yi Shui Han, Hua Chen, ily for your comments~

  P.S. I feel that this chapter isn't written well, the suffering of Master Brother hasn't been expressed... Alas, a certain author is incompetent at writing abuse, everyone will have to make do with it...