Chapter Seventeen: Shards of Memory

  The ninth city is a very prosperous and beautiful city, as one of the top ten prosperous cities, it can be said that every place is bustling with people. Especially in the morning, the main streets are full of people participating in the morning market, with hawkers' calls and bargaining sounds rising and falling. Everyone walks slowly, showing a very leisurely and comfortable slow life.

  But among them, there was a woman who was extremely out of place in the entire scene. She walked quickly, without any pause, and strode straight through the crowd. Her clothes were extremely elegant and neat, with her hair slightly disheveled. The white-edged blue satin dress clung to her body, and the wind generated by her rapid pace kept blowing up the hem of her skirt, revealing the woman's urgency at that moment.

  Her face is finely crafted, especially her beautiful eyes. Today, due to lack of rest for a long time, she looks a bit gaunt, with high and dense eyebrows that make her entire face look somewhat arrogant, causing people around her to frequently glance at her sideways. However, upon seeing her ascetic and cold expression, they can't help but retreat in dismay.

  Jiang Nian found the place where the light spot disappeared a few minutes ago, but was blocked outside a wall. The wall had been sealed off, and if she forced her way in, she would be immediately discovered by the people inside. She didn't want to have a head-on confrontation, so she retreated and went around from the side of the bustling street.

  The bustling streets weren't long, but very crowded. She didn't like it, even hated the physical contact, but it wasn't convenient to use her powers in the city center for fear of startling people. So she raised an eyebrow and made her way through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, taking a very long time to walk a short distance.

  When they arrived at their destination, Jiang Nian furrowed her brow in some surprise. Actually, she had thought the thing was at Lan's house, but unexpectedly they ended up at the gate of Wu's house. What could Wu's house possibly have to do with the Lianhua tree?

  Ling Yu gave her two memory fragments before letting her go, one was a very complete big piece, and the other was a very fragmented memory light spot. For those memory light spots, Jiang Nian had an instinctive fear and rejection, tried several times but couldn't get it out of his mind, so he could only add three more layers of seal to seal it in the deepest part of his brain.

  And another memory had no sense of threat, Jiang Nian thought for a moment, and still opened it after leaving the cave.

  That's a memory of Lingyue.

  The memories were all gray scenery, more oppressive and depressing than what Jiang Nian had seen himself, like the surface of a lake that was forever calm, without even a ripple.

  She spends most of her time sitting next to the persimmon tree, staring blankly, with every blade of grass and every tree outside the Temple of Heaven etched in her eyes. For over a decade, not a single thing has changed. Forever like an inanimate puppet, waiting for the end of life next to the persimmon tree.

  One day, colors suddenly appeared in her eyes.

  At first, Ling Yu didn't react and just sat there stupidly. Later, after an unknown amount of time had passed, she suddenly stood up as if she had been frightened, her expression stiff to the point where she couldn't even make a surprised face. She subconsciously looked towards the nearby tree with blooming flowers, which began to fall due to her emotional turmoil. The delicate pink petals floated before her eyes, some of them even sticking to her eyelashes. Those warm colors almost instantly struck her heart, which had been sealed away for many years, and she couldn't help but want to cry. The accumulated mist slowly covered her eyes, making the colors in front of her blurry and invisible, yet unexpectedly reflecting a dazzling colorful light.

  At that moment she knew that these colors were the stumbling block of her life, she knew it was the stumbling block she couldn't get over.

  Even with prior knowledge, she couldn't resist the temptation and gave her soul to Beelzebub.

  "I'll give you color, and in return, you must give me your soul." The voice was warm and clean, yet inexplicably made one's heart feel numb.

  Beyhemos quickly reclaimed the colors he had given to Lingyue, telling her that if she still wanted to see the wonders of the world, she should take out the tree spirit of the Lianlian tree and bury it in the 50th city, then burn her life to summon a woman.

  She agreed.

  She fell in love with those colors, and fell in love with a lifetime of unrestrained, elf-like jumping beauty. So there was no objection to what was required.

  Jiang Nian slowly opened his eyes, looking at the familiar black and white in front of him, feeling a little melancholy. If it was her first time seeing colors after all these years, she would probably be powerless to resist as well.

  Apart from that memory, Ling Yu gave Jiang Nian a guiding map. The tree spirit planted in the 50th city was fake, she deceived Bei He Mo. The real tree spirit had been taken away by her long ago and stored in the 9th city. She gave Jiang Nian the coordinates of the real tree spirit, hoping that she could take it out.

  The tree spirit is the root of the Lianlian tree. Without the tree spirit, the Lianlian tree will not be immortal and will wither away in a few decades. However, Ling didn't tell Jiang Nian why he took the tree spirit away, only hoping that she would bring it back and reinsert it into the roots of the Lianlian tree.

  Jiang Nian absorbed the energy of the white petals of the Lingyue tree left in the memory fragments, used the illusion power of the Huan Shen to find the location of the tree spirit, then removed the tracking powder scattered on his body, and instantly moved to the center of the Ninth City, following the light point to find the house, but was blocked outside the wall.

  Jiang Nian raised his head and looked at the extremely high and large signboard at the entrance of the Wu family, with a hint of a blurry smile in the corner of his eyes, and walked over.

  Digression

  Alas, how did I become more and more infatuated with the plot afterwards? The lid of the pot ran away.