4. Treasure on a Special Isle

What was it? It was so hard.

Ye Lan dug down out of curiosity, but suddenly closed her eyes as there was a flash of light that was too bright for her.

As she reopened her eyes, she saw a ring clearly stood on layers of brown earth.

The ring seemed to be old as it appeared rusty red, and people could tell that this was an exquisite ring from its vague decorative design.

How come there would be a ring here? Who left it here?

Ye Lan didn’t bother giving too much thoughts on this. She pulled the ring out and kept digging, never expected her fingertip would be pierced by the edge of the ring and started to bleed.

The rust on the ring gave out a beautiful blue ray when it was mixed with the blood. Ye Lan felt a squeeze on her little finger and the ring got on her finger itself!

To her surprise, Ye Lan intuitively wanted to pull out the ring, but the ring remained intact like it was born out of her hand.

What’s going on?

Even more surprising was the change of the ring.

The ring that used to be rusty had now turned to be a brand-new one. It was circled by a bronze edge and had beautiful decorative designs, including moving clouds and flying cranes. There were also some inscriptions she didn’t recognize.

Being small, delicate and very special, the ring reminded Ye Lan of the modern nut-carving, a technique that could carve the image of the poem, Shui Diao Ge Tou (TN: known as The Middle Festival: Tune ‘Prelude to Water Melody’, a poem written by the famous Chinese poet Su Shi in Song dynasty), on a less than half inch-wide nut.

The ring before her eyes was just as spectacular as a nut-carving art.

She wanted to get off the ring again, but was in vain; the ring seemed to root on her finger. After several failed attempts, Ye Lan gave up.

“Where are you from on earth? Why do you have to be on my finger?”

After saying that, Ye Lan couldn’t help but smiled, she couldn’t believe she was asking an object such questions. She shook her head and kept digging.

With no idea how long she had been digging, a grave was finally formed. Ye Lan felt exhausted and had to lie on the ground. She finally regained her breath after a very long time.

She put lots of dandelion in the grave, making it look like a fluffy snug blanket, and then made a flower pillow out of the many flowers at the corner of the blanket.

Ye Lan gently put the mother’s body in and sprinkled many petals on her but was reluctant to put mud after that.

“In my last life, I was an orphan and never had the chance to feel the love from my mother.” Ye Lan looked at the mother in the grave while sitting along, “After traversing, I finally had a mother, but unfortunately, who died very soon.”

One drop of tear was shed from the corner of her eyes, Ye Lan was a bit of surprised as she never ever cried, but this time would be an exception.

“I was used to living alone in my last life, but was lucky to have a mother in this life… what a pity… I came late.”

Her voice began to shiver and she shed even more tears.

One’s destiny was really interesting. Who could expect someone would be reborn and live with a whole new identity after his or her death?

“I promise, mother, I will revenge for you!”

Ye Lan began to put mud into the grave and her heart twitched with every handful of mud she put in.

This was the first time ever for Ye Lan to experience bereavement. From this time on, the memory of bereavement had injected more of her hatred for Ye family.

After the whole body of her mother was buried underneath the earth, Ye Lan set a tombstone before the grave and knelt down and kowtowed.

Ye Lan swore with her hands up, “Mother, I will let Ye family pay, blood for blood… what they owed to us, Me, Ye Lan, will get all of them back!”

She then lowered her body and gave another kowtow.

“Mother, I’m leaving, take care!”

Then Ye Lan got up and saluted to the tombstone, “I will come back to see you regularly.”

She then left without turning back. She knew that what she saw when she turned around would make her heart break forever, and currently she had no time for sadness. What she needed to do right now was to go back to Ye family like nothing ever happened.

After crossing the pond, she went all the way up and again stood in the snow field. Out in the vastness of the wilderness, she was as small as a pea.

In the Fengtian Continent, a land full of surprise and magic, Ye Lan had no idea what lay ahead. The only thing she knew was that she was fearless.

She took big strides towards Ye family, leaving a string of determined footprints. Some drops of water swung off as the wind blew on her wet hair.

Ye Lan avoided the guards and returned to her residence following her memory—the small residence of peach blossom, in a deserted peach orchard.

Her mother was keen on the tranquility of the peach orchard, that’s why she chose to live here and built a bamboo house for herself.

But all have changed and now the hundreds of acres of peach trees were all shrouded in white snow . All the good days when she used to take care of the peach trees with her mother flashed back in her mind, making her feel sad.

After closing the door and lighting up a light on the table, she then found some needles and thread and sat along the table. After she tore up her sleeves, numerous wounds that were so deep that bones could be seen through had now been revealed and they were like hideous centipede lying on her arms.

“Ye Wanru, you were being too cruel!” Ye Lan had never seen any girl who could be just as vicious, like the special agent Firefox.

After she cleansed her wounds with water, she put the needle over fire and then stitched her wounds one after another. The sweat kept oozing out from her face, but a smile that carried the sense of unexpectedness also appeared at the corner of her mouth.

A hostile look was shown in Ye Lan’s eyes. She talkedto herself, “Ye Wanru, let’s wait and see, I will let you know, what it felt like to live in hell!”

“How can a little girl harbor such malicious thoughts?”

An old and soft voice came, which seemed to be from a sleepy old man.

“Who are you?”

Ye Lan bit off the thread that’s still connected with flesh and pinched the needle between her fingers, her eyes searching around, sharp and vigilant.

The light of the candle swung, only shed some light around the table, the other areas were still immersed in darkness. Ye Lan could only see a vague silhouette of the bedding. She held her breath but still couldn’t sense the position of the man.

“Well, well, well…This is really hard to witness in a thousand years! Unfortunately, with too much hostility. But you definitely will have some achievements after some time of harnessing your skills.”

Ye Lan had no clue what he meant by saying this, and couldn’t even understand a word he said. She lowered her voice, “You better show yourself right now, or you’ll beg for mercy if you get caught by me!”

“…”

The person let out a sigh and yawned, and then everything went silent, Ye Lan thought he was gone, but the next moment, she saw a golden flash on the ring and a streak of white air was coming out.

The rising white air suddenly condensed and an old man in white appeared in the air.

The old man looks agreeable and amiable, with his eyes crystal clear and full of kindness. His hair was a thousand zhang(TN: a measuring unit, about 3.3 meters) long; his eyebrow is long enough to touch the ground. He is dressed all in white; the lower hem of his clothes is ink blue, with several ink strokes on his gown, like several cranes either crying into the sky, or picking food on the ground. The drawings were so vivid as if they would fly out at one moment.

Without even asking, Ye Lan threw the silver needle at the old man using her wrist strength at the right moment.

The pointy end of the needle cut through the air; a slight wave spread and the light of the candle had a slight move.

The body of the old man was pierced through and dispersed into a streak of white air, but the white air immediately condensed into the old man in white.