Chapter 79

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Chapter 79: Aji

A full moon over the land.

The distant mountains were covered with snow, and the nearby lake was frozen solid with ice. It emitted an eerie blue glow under the moonlight, chilling but beautiful.

A man in black walked alone on the surface of the frozen lake. He came to a stop where the ice looked as ordinary as anywhere else. His hand reached out from his cloak with a sword and slashed down.

He took two steps back and watched as the ice in front of him slowly broke apart and cracked into a web like pattern, revealing the water below.

The eyes inside the cloak looked into the depths. A faint glow could be seen at the bottom.

He dived in. The water pushed back his cloak and uncovered his face.

Lin Haoqing.

He headed for the faint glow in the darkness where the moonlight did not shine, finally landing his feet at the bottom of the lake.

With a pinch of magic in his hand, light from his fingertips lit up the surroundings. It also illuminated what looked like a woman frozen under layers of blue ice.

The water was clear and transparent, so this little bit of light was enough for him to see her face and the pearl next to her cheek.

A jiaoren's tear...

Lin Haoqing pulled out his sword again and stabbed into the ice. It went in deeper and deeper until it touched her abdomen, then he thrusted forward until the tip of the sword touched something deep inside her.

He pulled the sword out.

The blue ice healed itself and sealed the gap, isolating her body again from the surrounding water.

Lin Haoqing looked at his sword. A round, black object now sat at the tip, as if her body had formed a black capsule.

Lin Haoqing carefully collected the capsule and turned to leave. Then, out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the pearl shimmering next to her face with a dazzling luster...

It looked as if she was forever frozen in time, weeping.

Did Ji Yunhe like to cry?

He had known her since they were little, and had never seen her shed a single tear.

Of course she did not like to cry...

Lin Haoqing pondered for a while.

...

The small courtyard on the island had been shut down, and Changyi never went there again.

He moved back to where he was supposed to live, the main hall of the Demon Terrace. The Northlands had already been full of affairs for him to take care of, now with a large number of demon masters joining them, things became even more troublesome.

Another report came from the dungeon today, stating that Lin Haoqing had escaped. Changyi rubbed his brow and waved the messenger off.

Kongming entered the study to an exhausted Changyi. He wanted to ask him how many days since he last slept, but on second thought, he already knew. Changyi had not closed his eyes ever since Ji Yunhe was sealed at the bottom of the lake.

This fish did not dare to idle for even a moment.

"Lin Haoqing ran away, what do you want to do?" Kongming finally asked him.

"Get him back."

"One more thing." Kongming walked up and placed a letter on top of Changyi's desk. "That princess in the capital has gone crazy." He paused then continued, "Seeing the demon masters joining the north, she dumped large amounts of frost poison into the source of several major rivers."

Upon hearing the news, Changyi blinked slightly then turned to the monk. His bloodshot eyes made his blue pupils look purple, and black shadows gathered under his lids. He looked demonic and frightening.

"How is the situation?"

Kongming shook his head, "Very bad. The rivers carried the poison everywhere, and many uninformed people drank from it. It's harmless to ordinary people, but it poisoned many young children with a double pulse. Fortunately, the water flow diluted a lot of the toxicity so no one died yet. But it's enough to damage them for life... "

Changyi thought for a moment holding his pen. Then he took a deep breath and said, "You've been studying the frost poison for many years. Although you haven't yet found a cure, you can still relieve some of the symptoms. Are you willing to travel south..."

"That's exactly why I am here. I want to immediately head south. If I can relieve the pain of even one child, it is better than sitting here and doing nothing."

Changyi nodded. "Ok. I will oversee things here, you take a hundred men and go south. Be careful of the imperial court while you are down there."

Kongming nodded. Before turning to leave, he took a good look at Changyi sitting at the desk. Behind him was the dark screen of the Demon Terrace main hall. His black robe blended into it, making his pale face and silver hair stand out even more.

"You should get some rest," he finally said. "I don't want to come back to a dead fish. It's not going to help no matter how much you punish yourself."

Then he left, leaving Changyi sitting alone in the hall.

Punishing himself wouldn't help...

But he was not punishing himself, he was just afraid to stop.

If he stopped for just one second, his mind would flood over with that thin and frail figure.

He had been living for a very long time, Ji Yunhe's appearance was such a brief part of his life. And the amount of time they spent together was even shorter. But strangely...

The dazzling light of her existence overshadowed everything else. So much that Changyi felt her presence even now, between every breath. She haunted him, sometimes breathing softly into his ear, sometimes smiling in front of his eyes, and occasionally calling out to him.

Changyi, Changyi...

Again and again, her voice was a mixture of laughter and sigh. It made him lose his mind.

He abruptly dropped his pen and stood up. "Someone!" he called out. "Let's go patrol the city..." As soon as he stood up, the early sunrise shining into the hall made his eyes grow dark. He staggered and almost fell.

Only when the servant came in and held him up did he regain his focus.

"Your Highness, you have not rested for a very long time..."

Changyi waved his hand and went down the steps of his high seat. He walked in the light of dawn, each step pulling with the weight of a thousand chains. He felt unsteady and lightheaded, but he had to keep going. No looking back and no stopping, because any slight hesitation would be enough for him to completely lose himself.

And forget why this shell of a body was still walking.

...

It was spring again.

A small girl giggled and laughed among the plum blossoms. She ran around and plucked at the grass for a while, then picked at the flowers for a while.

Her eyes were black and her laughter was cheerful, but a pair of black ears on her head showed she was not an ordinary human. A silver pearl hanging around her neck shimmered under the sun, adding to the brightness of her smile.

"Aji," a female voice called her from the other side of the plum grove, and a woman in blue slowly walked over. The little girl jumped on the woman with a grin. The woman poked her between the brows and said, "So rowdy? You were not like this before."

"Sister Siyu, you and the master always talk about before. What was I like before?"

"Hrm. You used to be much thinner."

"Sister Siyu is making fun of me for eating so much?"

"I don't dare to make fun of you."

Siyu took Aji's hand and led her through the plum trees until they reached a rickety courtyard. It was not very spacious inside. There were exactly two rooms with a plum tree in between. Flower petals floated down and landed on a stone table underneath.

A man dressed in white and blue sat at the table reading a book. He did not seem to notice the two of them had returned. Aji ran to him, climbed onto his knees, bumped off the book in his hand with her head, and gave him a wreath she had made out of grass.

"Master, look! I made the wreath for you!"

Lin Haoqing looked at the little girl on his knee, and his mind flashed an image from the past. He could not remember how many years it had been, but she had given him the same bright smile.

Lin Haoqing accepted the wreath from her.

"Does it look good?"

"Looks very good." Lin Haoqing turned his head to look at Siyu who was standing next to him. She nodded her head and said respectfully, "I checked, no one was following."

Lin Haoqing then said, "Hungry? Let's go eat."

In one meal, Aji ate fifty times as much as Lin Haoqing. The rice bucket at the table was emptied in no time and she was still hungry, so she ate Siyu's rice too. She ate and ate until her belly was round. As soon as she finished, Aji yawned and rubbed her eyes. "Master, I'm sleepy."

"Go to your room and sleep for a while."

Aji went back to her room and did not even shut the door. She threw herself down onto a simple bed and fell asleep.

Miraculously, soon after she fell asleep, her rounded stomach began to slowly disappear. In just a while, her hair grew longer and the clothes that had fitted her perfectly now revealed her ankles and wrists.

Siyu commented while listening to Aji's even breathing, "Over the past ten days, this body formed from her inner pearl grows a head every time she sleeps. If this keeps going, I'm afraid she will no longer fit inside this house."

Lin Haoqing chuckled. "Once she grows back to her original size, she will not grow anymore." He picked up the book again. "Right now, both the Grand Master's house and the Northlands are after me, so be careful when you take her out."

"Yes," Siyi replied and then paused.

Lin Haoqing looked at her. "What's wrong?"

"I just don't understand..." Siyu said. "When Ji Yunhe died, why didn't the master save her right then and there? Why go through the trouble of retrieving her from the bottom of the lake?"

Lin Haoqing was looking at the book, but his mind drifted elsewhere. He recalled the day when he saw Ji Yunhe's withered face in that room...

"She wanted to leave that place," Lin Haoqing said. "I just helped her out."

Siyu did not ask any more questions. She silently retreated and stood behind Lin Haoqing. Petals of plum blossoms fell around them like rain in spring.

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