Chapter 99: Penglai Has an Immortal Island (9)
Although Bai Chunsheng did not know why the man said such a thing, he hesitated before nodding. “That would be natural.”
The man fell silent for a moment.
He let out a long sigh. “The moment I saw you, I understood how she raised you. She even wanted to bring back the Dragon Maiden’s child to raise herself. Fortunately, Yan Jianhang refused.”
Seeing that Bai Chunsheng’s expression remained calm and unmoved, the man felt a mischievous urge to tease him. “Do you know who the Dragon Maiden’s child was?”
Dragon Maiden.
He had never heard of her. A woman of the Dragon Clan?
Bai Chunsheng thought it over. If his guess was right, the dragon woman he was most familiar with was probably Shen Yuying. Considering that she had been the one to capture him, Bai Chunsheng frowned and shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t recognize her.”
The man raised an eyebrow. “How could you not recognize her?”
“Oh, so your grandmother never told you.” He considered for a moment and said, “Ignorance is not always a good thing. Let me tell you a story you can understand. The Bibo Spirit Realm was directly under the Taixu Sect. Every hundred years, talented cultivators from that realm were brought into the Taixu Sect as outer disciples. The Bibo Spirit Realm was well-suited for the Dragon Clan’s reproduction, so most of its cultivators were dragons or dragon hybrids.”
“At that time, there was a famous figure in the Middle Realm. The strongest sword cultivator in the entire cultivation world back then was that man—Yan Jianhang as he is now.”
“He was even more arrogant than Yan Jingqiu was later. At the once-in-a-millennium Heavenly Palace Assembly, he declared that no one under heaven could match him in battle. Bai Jianghan had been second place that year, and that claim dealt her pride a heavy blow. She held a grudge because of it.”
Bai Chunsheng fell silent. That prideful temperament—he and Bai Jianghan might as well have been cut from the same mold.
The man continued, “Later, Yan Jianhang advanced to the Mahayana stage, and truly no one could defeat him.”
“As the Supreme Elder of the Taixu Sect, Yan Jianhang had no disciples under him. The sect leader pleaded with him to take in at least one disciple to pass on his sword Dao, and Yan Jianhang agreed. Coincidentally, the Taixu Sect was bringing in young cultivators from the Bibo Spirit Realm at that time, and to everyone’s surprise, Yan Jianhang selected one from among them.”
“You likely don’t know him,” the man said. “Ye Jingxing.”
Hearing that name, Bai Chunsheng was somewhat startled.
The man noticed his reaction but did not change the subject. He continued, “First, his talent was exceptional. I heard he had a special constitution, though no one knew exactly how it was special. Second, Ye Jingxing’s luck was truly extraordinary. He was only twelve when he encountered the once-in-a-century opportunity to enter the Taixu Sect. And because he had not yet cultivated any overly mixed mental techniques, he was able to be accepted by Yan Jianhang.”
“As Yan Jianhang’s first disciple, he taught him with great care. A hundred years after performing the formal rites of master and disciple, Yan Jianhang even granted him his own surname, renaming him ‘Yan Jingxing’ and merging his lineage into his own.”
At this point, Bai Chunsheng still did not see how this related to the Dragon Maiden. “What does this have to do with the Dragon Maiden—or her child?”
The man smiled. “Because the Dragon Maiden had once been Yan Jianhang’s fiancée, and later became Ye Jingxing’s lover. Although they never formally registered their union, everyone assumed that was the case.”
“Later, the war between immortals and demons grew increasingly fierce and frequent. Many demons took advantage of the chaos to slip into the Grand World. Yan Jianhang pursued a group of frost demons that had infiltrated the Northern Region and entered the ice plains to hunt them down. Fearing unrest in the Middle Realm during his absence, he left his Dingguang Sword with Yan Jingxing and instructed him to guard the Taixu Sect and the Yan family.”
“Who could have expected that Yan Jingxing would betray that trust, steal the treasured sword, and flee—eloping with the Dragon Maiden, who was still Yan Jianhang’s fiancée at the time?”
“When Yan Jianhang returned from the ice plains, he was furious. He searched everywhere for Ye Jingxing and simultaneously pressured the Dragon Clan, issuing a harsh decree: ‘If Ye Jingxing and the Dragon Maiden do not return to the Yan family to face punishment, then for every day they remain absent, a thousand dragons will die—until the clan is exterminated or the two are found.’”
“To atone, the old Dragon King personally set out to retrieve his wayward daughter. Because of this incident, the Dragon Clan erased her name entirely. From then on, she was only called the Dragon Maiden.”
“The first to discover the pair’s whereabouts was Yan Jianhang himself. When he found them, he claimed the Dragon Maiden was already dead. Ye Jingxing had killed his wife to prove his Dao, leaving behind only a swaddled infant to perfect his cultivation. Ye Jingxing escaped, and Yan Jianhang took the infant back.”
“Later, Yan Jianhang called off the hunt for Ye Jingxing and no longer blamed the Dragon Clan for poor upbringing.”
The man smiled faintly. “This is what I mentioned earlier. Do you have any impression of the Dragon Maiden’s child?”
In that instant, the scattered clues seemed like pearls rolling across a jade plate, suddenly strung together. Bai Chunsheng immediately thought of the portrait in Changliu Mountain and the old dragon barely clinging to life in the mine, alongside the dried corpse.
After a moment’s hesitation, Bai Chunsheng asked, “Did the old Dragon King later disappear?”
The man replied, “He did, the Dragon Maiden had been his most beloved youngest daughter. He hated Ye Jingxing for luring her into wrongdoing, and hated him even more for being so ruthless—taking her away only to kill her.”
“I heard the old Dragon King sought out Bai Jianghan before he vanished, though that was long ago.” The man looked surprised. “How did you know?”
“I saw it in an underground mine in the Shattered Stone Mortal Realm,” Bai Chunsheng said.
The man fell silent briefly. “Together with Yan Jingqiu?”
Now it was Bai Chunsheng’s turn to be shocked. “How did you know?!”
No one had known Yan Jingqiu had still been alive at that time.
The man sighed again. “Of course I know everything.”
“Forget it. It doesn’t matter.” He added, “Yan Jianhang had long known as well. Only Bai Jianghan believed he didn’t. She never used her brain—Dingguang Sword was Yan Jianhang’s natal sword. Would he not know where his own sword had gone?”
Everything this mysterious cultivator said today was secret history Bai Chunsheng had never heard before. Though it was of little practical use, it satisfied his curiosity. Still, one question lingered. “What about the child of Ye Jingxing and the Dragon Maiden? With such parents, his talent should have been astonishing. Why does it seem like I’ve never heard of him?”
The man looked at him in silence for a moment. “You still don’t understand?”
“Understand what?” Bai Chunsheng blinked.
The man slowly enunciated each word. “After Yan Jianhang brought the child back, he feared others would mention the Dragon Maiden and question the child’s bloodline. So he went through a process.”
“First, he claimed that his elder brother’s son—who had died in infancy hundreds of years ago—had no one to offer him ancestral rites, which was pitiful. Under the pretense of giving a disgraced official’s son a chance to atone, he transferred this child under that dead man’s name. A few days later, he formally adopted both his long-dead nephew and this child under his own name.”
The man looked directly at Bai Chunsheng. “Thus, in the Yan family, that child became Yan Jianhang’s legitimate son.”
Bai Chunsheng frowned. “But Yan Jianhang only had Yan Jingqiu—”
As he spoke, he understood.
A wave of sorrow struck him. Suddenly, he understood why Bai Jianghan had said the Five Senses Sealing Technique was so agonizing—why Yan Jingqiu, despite his exalted status in the Yan family, had begun cultivating it the moment he entered the Dao. He understood the gloomy look in Yan Jingqiu’s eyes when they first met at the lakeside pavilion, and why so many in the Yan family had resisted his authority.
—A disgraced official’s son, without overwhelming talent and cultivation, would never have been able to stand firm in the Yan family.
Yan Jianhang would never become enemies with Bo Yan over the already-deceased Yan Jingqiu. There was no longer any point in seeking out the Taixu Sect.
Bai Chunsheng broke down into loud sobs. Why had he not known all this sooner?
Why had Yan Jingqiu never told him?
Of course. If his former self had known, he might even have mocked Yan Jingqiu. The thought only made him cry harder.
He felt crushing guilt—for his own willfulness and arrogance; for never confessing his long-hidden love before Yan Jingqiu lost his memory; for indirectly causing Yan Yi’s death after that loss of memory.
His crying left the cultivator sitting before him stunned. “Why are you crying?”
Bai Chunsheng, “I’m sad,”
The man asked, “What are you sad about?”
Bai Chunsheng cried even more sorrowfully: “I’m sad for Yan Jingqiu!”
“…Do you even hear yourself?”
The man clicked his tongue in exasperation. “Why feel sorry for him? From childhood, Yan Jingqiu ruled the Yan family with absolute authority. He was practically a replica of Yan Jianhang—more alike than if carved from the same mold.”
“That was precisely why Bai Jianghan, seeing Yan Jingqiu, was reminded of Yan Jianhang and grew furious. Do you really think he was some pitiable wretch?”
“With his temperament—an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth—Bai Chunsheng, I think you’re the one who should feel sorry for yourself.”
Bai Chunsheng protested, unconvinced. “You’re not Yan Jingqiu. How would you know?”
Thinking of Yan Jingqiu brought back the image of Yan Yi’s tragic death. His words tumbled out incoherently. “You don’t understand. I got him killed. Yan Jingqiu didn’t actually die—he lost his memory. But Bo Yan wanted to capture me. Bo Yan killed Yan Jingqiu.”
The man shook his head. “Hopeless. That little brain of yours is beyond saving.”
With regret and melancholy, he said, “Go back and rest early. Don’t let your thoughts run wild and torment yourself. I had meant to warn you to be wary of Yan Jingqiu, but now I see it wouldn’t matter. If he wished, he could make you suffer with a single finger.”
“Go to sleep,” he said.
As his voice faded, Bai Chunsheng opened his eyes again. He was sitting alone in the middle of the peach grove. The recluse was gone—no trace remained. It was as though he had merely dozed off there in exhaustion.
Suddenly, a voice drifted to his ear—the recluse’s voice once more. “The tenth cup, ‘Unwilling to Forget,’ I gave to Yan Jingqiu. I forgot to tell you. I hadn’t wanted to give it, but he insisted on drinking it and claimed he would bear the consequences. I never expected… ah, he truly did bear them. I shouldn’t have given it to him. I’m sorry.”
Then there was silence.
Bai Chunsheng only half understood. He gathered that in three hundred years, Yan Jingqiu had been the only one to drink that particular cup.
“… ”
What was the use of saying all this now? Yan Jingqiu was already dead.
Bai Chunsheng felt desolate.
Though he had spent what felt like a long time in that dreamlike encounter, only a short while had passed in reality. Now that he knew the Yan family’s secrets, there was no need to seek out the Taixu Sect.
He could only return.
As Bai Chunsheng stood, something felt wrong. He turned around and saw a figure standing beneath a peach tree not far away, branches drooping heavily with delicate pink blossoms.
It was Bo Yan.
Who knew how long he had been standing there, watching him.
Bo Yan spoke slowly, “I heard you missed me.”
At those words, anger flared up in Bai Chunsheng. The fury from his earlier dream surged back instinctively. Just seeing Bo Yan triggered his rage—especially since, as in the dream, he was still holding a sword.
Through clenched teeth, Bai Chunsheng said, “I want to kill you.”
Bo Yan sighed. “If that’s the case, you needn’t raise your sword. That one sentence is enough to kill me a thousand times over.”
He looked at Bai Chunsheng with utmost seriousness. Moonlight draped softly over him like gauze drifting in the secret realm of Changliu Mountain.
The mountain mist made Bo Yan seem distant, even blurring the mask on his face. Yet the mocking curve at his lips felt achingly familiar.
If he were not wearing that mask, what would he look like? For the first time, Bai Chunsheng grew curious. In his mind, he began sketching the features he imagined beneath it.
That face shape, those lips, those ears, that build—and that voice…
The outline became clearer and clearer.
—It looked like someone.
Who was it?
As Bai Chunsheng pondered, his sword slipped from his grasp and fell to the ground with a dull thud.
The sound jolted him awake. First confusion, then a surge of unprecedented fury.
Yan Jingqiu!
Yan Jingqiu!
Yan Jingqiu!
—You damned Yan Jingqiu!
Author’s Note:
In Bai Chunsheng’s childhood eyes, Yan Jingqiu had been a pitiful boy eating coarse buns.
In reality, in the Yan family’s eyes, Yan Jingqiu had been a fierce god of slaughter.
Huge shoutout to @_nyanmaru_ on Discord for commissioning this! The chapter will be posted regularly, show your support for Ciacia at Kofi.
