V2C165

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Sumo stayed silent in her embrace for a long time before asking in a muffled voice, “How did I get here? I… remember I… was clearly in the Western Market of Yecheng.”

“We rescued you back here,” Ruyi replied carefully, as Elder Quan instructed, “The elders found out that you had secretly escaped to the Imperial Capital, so they tracked you all the way down, and finally found you in the slave market in Yecheng and rescued you – by that time you were already dying and nearly thrown into a mass grave by the Kongsang.”

This reply, each word perfectly matched everything in the Big Dream spell, and was so well connected to the fake memories already created in his mind, that the boy should have no more doubts.

After hearing these words, Sumo fell silent.

“Ah, that’s the case…” the child murmured, unconvincingly.

He never asked about his “sister” again.

The elder Quan sent for a doctor, but the physician was not as skilled as Doctor Shentu, and was shocked to see the child’s condition, and quickly dismissed himself, saying that he was unable to help. Ruyi continued to nurse him with concern, and the other children of his age, like Yan Shi and Ning Liang, came to visit him – but the child remained silent, holding the tiny twin fetus in his hand as if it were a rare doll, his eyes completely blind and empty not giving the slightest idea of what he had in mind.

He wrapped himself up with his tiny arms and buried his head deep in the corner of the room, his body assuming a fetal defensive position, neither eating nor moving, as if his entire body was withering away, looking thinner and thinner, and his limbs so slender that they appeared to be made of glass, covered with splits from the inside out – at times, Ruyi was even afraid to touch him.

She was scared that if she touched him, the child, covered in scars, would crack open and break into a thousand pieces, never to be put back together again.

When Elder Quan came to visit, he was surprised to see the child in such a state and whispered to Ruyi, “This can’t continue, we have to make him eat something at all costs.”

“The child refuses.” Ruyi’s eyes filled with tears.

“Idiot! Can’t you be a little more forceful? Hold his head and pour some food into him!” Elder Quan was furious and scolded, “If he doesn’t eat, he’ll starve to death!”

“…” Ruyi was silent for a moment, not replying to the elder’s command.

In the child’s mind, the world has completely collapsed. If she were to turn violent on him as well, he would break down for good.

“Listen, Ruyi, we can’t lose him,” Elder Quan intoned, lecturing the loyal champion who had been faithful for so many years, “He’s our Sea Emperor… the one we’ve been waiting for so long! No matter what, you must ensure that the boy remains alive and healthy.”

“Alive and healthy?” She murmured and repeated, her eyes filling with sadness – for such a child, wouldn’t living like that be a thousand times more tragic than dying?”

After Elder Quan was gone, Ruyi remained silent for a long time before turning around and entering the room.

However, as soon as she pushed open the door, she froze in shock – the bed was empty, so was the entire room, and the child that had been shrinking in a corner in isolation was gone!

“Sumo!” She exclaimed out of breath, pushing open the concealed window.

In front of her eyes was a trail of blood that extended onwards, endlessly.

While she was away, the skinny child had silently crawled out of the window and tumbled down the wall at the back of the house. Behind the house was a patch of rubble, and with the doll made from his twin brother clenched in his mouth, Sumo scrambled across the ground, his hands and feet scraping blood all over the sharp rubble, leaving a long bloody trail behind him, without looking back.

Ruyi was just about to pull him back when, for some reason, she hesitated.

That tiny figure crawled desperately on the ground, undaunted by injuries and without fear of shedding blood, defiantly leaving, as if it was departing from a demonic cave.

As Ruyi stared at him, her entire body began to tremble and she stood there, tears falling from her eyes one after another, finally unable to restrain herself from crying out in pain: “Sumo… Sumo!”

She rushed over in a few steps and picked up the child in her arms.

“Let me go!” A grim anger appeared on Sumo’s face and he was just about to struggle desperately when he realized that instead of carrying himself back into the room, she was running in the opposite direction.

Ruyi led the child to the ancient well and pushed aside the broken stones piled on the ground.

After the destruction of the Big Dream spell, the well platform with the spell written on it was entirely crushed and squashed against the opening of the well, which was now, once cleared, exposed like a black empty hole in the ground. The underground water stream, having lost the effect of the spell’s control, reverted to an ordinary spring and flowed, leading into Mirror Lake.

Ruyi put down Sumo and whispered, “Go.”

What? The child shuddered and looked up in disbelief, looking at her with sightless eyes, and a scowl of suspicion and wariness appeared on his face.

“Thousands of years later, although the fate has chosen you, you do not want to become the Ocean Emperor.” Ruyi smiled sadly, gazing at the child’s wasted face, her heart aching, “If you were to be forced to stay alive, you would surely die – you would rather die than live according to the wishes of others, isn’t that so?”

Sumo nodded, his thin lips revealing an untamed sharpness.

Ruyi lifted her hand, healing the wounds on his arms and legs one by one with a spell, and whispered, “Those clansmen, including the elders, have no idea what kind of a person you are – please forgive them. They didn’t mean to torture you, they… they just have an overzealous obsession about freedom.”

By the last sentence, she was already choking up.

Sumo was listening in silence, raising his small, withered face to gaze at her.

The last wound had stopped bleeding, and Ruyi sighed, lowered her hand and said to the boy, “Alright, now go to the Jialan Capital and find your sister!”

“No.” Sumo, however, suddenly opened his mouth, speaking one word at a time, “I never had any sister.”

Hearing such categorical words, Ruyi’s body shook violently.

So, the three elders’ secret spell has worked after all?

“But I won’t stay here either.” Sumo’s voice was calm, with a coldness not befitting his age, “I don’t want to be locked up here by you and forced to be your leader – I would rather die.”

Ruyi was stunned for a moment, but finally nodded, “You shall have your freedom.”

Sumo paused for a moment, murmuring and repeating, “Yes, freedom.”

The child tilted his face up, and his hollow eyes held a kind of determination: “What I want, that is what I want.”

Ruyi’s heart shook and she couldn’t help but sigh softly, “Then go now, while no one is watching. But you must be careful not to fall into the hands of those slave-trading Kongsang people again…”

Without speaking, the child suddenly lifted his hand and cupped her cheek in a circular motion.

“Auntie Ru.” He called her out, and his little hand was cold, “What will happen to you after you let me go?”

She never expected this child to ask this question so suddenly, and Ruyi’s heart burned, tears starting to fall in big drops as she choked back a sob, “Just leave at ease. Even if the matter gets exposed, the elders won’t kill me for it. You… just go ahead.”

After a long silence, Sumo finally nodded and turned to jump into the water.

This time around, he left without the slightest hesitation or regret.

With a soft thud, the underground spring rippled and gradually regained its calm, like a dark, sunken eye – the scarred child at last left the dark waters for good, like a fish swimming into the depths of the sea, swiftly disappearing.

Where will he go? What will he experience? Where will his journey take him?

All this was no longer something she would ever know.

After that, Ruyi lost track of Sumo, unaware of where the boy had drifted and what he had gone through after leaving the secret stronghold of the Restoration Army in Yecheng.

It was not until seventy years later, when the darkest change came to overtake Yunhuang, that the shark child reappeared and stood in the middle of the stage of history – by that time, he had become a young man, handsome as a god, gloomy and cold, standing in the middle of the Purple Palace without a word, stirring up the turmoil all over Yunhuang.

It was as the prophecy predicted: this child had overthrown the world.

Another hundred years have passed. The world has changed several times, and everyone’s life has fluctuated with it. She was reprimanded and then re-appointed. Years after she went to the Twelve Counties of the Eastern Lagoon, where she was ordered to perform a beauty trap, but instead she fell in love with the foreign governor.

The shark children she trained have grown up, Yan Shi, Ning Liang, Xiao, Xiang, Bi and Ting… have all become excellent warriors, each heading into the battlefield and spending their lives inspiring the sharks to restore their country.

As for her, she came to Taoyuan County and opened a gambling house, running her business and raising funds to support the Restoration Army, while waiting for whatever was to come – and finally, one day, an avalanche occurred on the snow-capped Moushtag Mountains to the east of Yunhuang, and travelers from a foreign land arrived from ten thousand miles away.

And among them was the one she had been praying for day and night.

The boy called Sumo has finally returned!

At the time of their reunion, after more than a hundred years, the gloomy and aloof boy had grown into a man. He had wandered the world and experienced countless vicissitudes, his eyes were still devoid of light, but his entire body was shining brightly, and he looked as handsome as a god. Between his ten fingers, threads of light were hanging down, intertwined like a destiny, while at the other end, he was holding a puppet made of his twin brother.

He became a Master Puppeteer.

The homecoming man gazed at her after the long absence, and his azure eyes remained empty.

“Auntie Ru, are you still waiting for me?” He spoke, addressing her with the familiar epithet, “I have returned.”

“The Sea Emperor!” In that moment, she couldn’t help but weep out in distress and fell to her knees in front of him, “All the oceans and seas are waiting for your return!”

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