V2C95

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Her heart fluttered and she walked over with her head bowed as if she were a puppy in distress.

“Drenched like this?” Shi Ying frowned as he looked at her, flexed his fingers and flicked them in the air, and an invisible breeze of power surged through her, swiftly scattering all the water droplets off of her body to the ground, while her hair remained untouched.

His hand was extremely beautiful, like a flowing cloud without showing any marks, any flaws, but Zhu Yan was startled, grabbed his hand and blurted out, “You just got better, please… quickly stop using up your spiritual energy!”

Shi Ying paused his hand and gazed at her. Zhu Yan subconsciously shivered and hurriedly retracted her hand, feeling as if her fingertips were scorching. However, he made no comment, but turned around and walked in towards the cave, so she could only follow him obediently.

It was already dark outside and a fire had been started in the fire pit deep inside the stone cave, reflecting on the faces of the two people.

In a trance, she recalled that she had spent countless hours together like this when she was young – every time she returned from cultivation, she would follow her master back here to rest, light a fire in the stone cave, eat simple food, and after that he would quiz her on some of the spells and spiritual skills she had practiced during the day… And if she was unfortunate enough to get the answers wrong, she would be hit on the palm of the hand with a ruler and weep in pain; when the day’s practice was over, an exhausted her would fall asleep wrapped up in a blanket by the fire, while him would be sitting on his knees on the other side, meditating and retreating until dawn, not at all disturbed by the incessant little snores coming from her.

During the long, lonely years, the two of them had gotten along so well together. But in this moment, when the fire was lit up again, Zhu Yan next to the fire pit felt incredibly awkward and uncomfortable.

Shi Ying was also very silent, and after a long time, he suddenly asked, “How long did it take?”

“What?” Zhu Yan was unable to react for a moment.

He just stared at the flames, calmly: “How long did it take you to perfect the Star Soul Blood Oath?”

“Thirty… thirty or so days I think.” She nervously mumbled, “Not fast enough… I’m too stupid.”

“Adequately fast.” Shi Ying’s voice was serene, “Throughout the entire Yunhuang, there are only three people who have mastered this forbidden spell, and you are the first one who have actually had the courage and strength to ever use it – and on this basis alone, even myself cannot compare.”

“…” Her eyes lit up as she was suddenly and unexpectedly praised: oh, dear heavens, Master had actually praised her! Since she was a child, the number of times he had praised her could be counted on one single hand!

“The only thing is, the Grand Master shouldn’t have done this!” Shi Ying’s tone, however, suddenly trailed off, his brows slightly furrowed as if he was facing an extremely difficult and unsolvable situation, muttering, “Without the slightest regard for my willingness, he stepped in to interfere with the Will of Heaven and disrupt the astrolabe… Why?”

“He…” Zhu Yan was about to defend the situation with a few words, but as soon as she thought of the Grand Master, her heart suddenly ached and she could not help but turn pale for a moment – yes, she had made a vow to the Grand Master to use the Star Soul Blood Oath to restore her Master’s life. Now that he was alive, was it the time for her to leave?

Her momentary hesitation did not escape his attentive eyes, and Shi Ying turned his head, “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. The Grand Master he…” Zhu Yan murmured, and finally refrained from revealing the twists and turns, only stating, “The Grand Master, he… he just didn’t want you to die.” She lowered her head, her thick and slender eyelashes fluttering like little fans, and trembled, “I… didn’t want you to die either!”

Shi Ying looked at her with a slightly surprised expression, “What, are you not hating me anymore?”

“No… I can’t hate you.” She hesitated for a moment, finally biting her lip and shaking her head, whispering, “You died once too, one life for one life… consider it settled.”

“Settled.” He nodded, breathing a sigh of relief, yet appearing unsure of what to say; he simply stared in silence at the old bloody palm marks on the stone wall, and his bright eyes suddenly drifted into a slight trance.

The atmosphere in the stone cave became silent, and a sudden awkwardness became evident once again.

“Actually,” Zhu Yan paused, opened her mouth and spoke with an embarrassed voice, “Yuan… Yuan also told me: he and you fought for the sake of your respective clansmen and countries, whether to kill or be killed, as a warrior who deserves a dignified closure, he asked me to not be upset… unfortunately at that time, I wasn’t able to understand this and come to terms with it.”

“Is that so?” Those words sent a chilling shudder through Shi Ying, his eyes changing slightly. Never expected that this shark could once say such words to Ah-Yan. How could a despicable shark have such a broad mind? Probably, he had also vaguely predicted his own end, so he wanted to plant a seed of understanding in her heart beforehand, to avoid her being caught in an irreversible dead-end situation in the future.

That shark, it turns out, he genuinely loved her.

Figuring this out, however, brought him a burning, agonizing pain inside.

“Anyway, Ah-Yan, I’m sorry,” Shi Ying looked at her and spoke in a grave tone, “I was forced to kill the person you loved the most in your life.”

“…” her eyes flushed and she almost burst into tears again.

“I… I’m sorry for you too, Master,” she confessed to him, choking back a sob, “at that time, I was so angry that I was so determined to… just… kill you.”

Her voice was soft and tears sprang from her eyes, “I’m sorry!”

When Shi Ying heard the word “sorry”, he looked at her in surprise: “What, are you feeling guilty? I killed him, you killed me, wasn’t that the right thing to do?”

Zhu Yan recalled the shock and fear she felt at the time when her blade pierced his heart, and could not help but shudder all over, out of breath: “No! I… don’t want this! I don’t want you to die… I’d rather kill myself than to kill you! But… but, I was so furious that I couldn’t control myself at all!”

After suffering the great catastrophe of his demise, she finally had the chance to express what she felt in her heart, and as soon as she opened her mouth, she couldn’t help but cry out in pain, her shoulders twitching violently, and big tears rolling down her cheeks one after another: “Master, you… have been so good to me, I… I can’t believe I would even want to kill you!”

Shi Ying stared at her tears in silence, with a hint of pain in his eyes, raised his hand to stroke the stone wall covered with old blood marks, and said, “Ah-Yan, you don’t have to feel so guilty. You know, ten years ago, I was seventeen years old, yet I had been living alone in this valley for the past twelve years…”

“Huh?” Zhu Yan was caught a little off guard and choked out a sob.

She naturally knew all these things, so why did he suddenly bring them up at this moment?

Shi Ying continued to stare at the stone wall and said, “On that day, it was raining heavily, and a messenger from the Imperial Capital came to Jiuyi Mountain with the sad news that my mother, who had been relegated to the Cold Palace, had died… The body was only found ten days later. If it weren’t for the bitterly cold weather, it would probably have rotted away.”

“Huh?” She winced and paused, unable to speak.

“And my father, who held a grudge against my mother for the death of his favorite shark slave girl, wouldn’t even let her be buried in the Valley of the Kings with the rites of an Empress… My mother was the first daughter of the White Clan, the Empress of Kongsang, and he dared to humiliate her in this way, in her lifetime and in her afterlife, from beginning to the end!”

When Shi Ying looked at the blood marks, his tone suddenly became intense, “He drove me away from my mother when I was five years old. Even after her death, he denied me the right to set foot outside this Valley, to see my mother for one last time!”

“…” Zhu Yan didn’t know what to say.

She remembered that one rainy day, entering the grotto alone and encountering the teenager in a raging blaze – so this is what was happening that day? No wonder his face was streaked with blood and tears back then, with a terrifying expression she had never seen before.

So that’s why he always hated the sharks so much?

“Originally, I always thought that if I put my heart and soul into my cultivation, I will always have a chance to get to see my mother again when I become a Great Priest or when Father dies. And yet… l will never have that opportunity.”

Shi Ying’s voice was soft and chilling, as if carried from an extremely distant place, “The day the bad news came, I was devastated in an instant, completely forgetting all my years of cultivation and my heart filled with evil thoughts – I wanted to break out from the Valley to go to the capital of the Jialan Empire and kill my father!”

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