Longevity, starting from traveling and telling stories

Chapter 234 The Past

The gentle moonlight spilled onto the open ground in front of the cave, outlining the figures of the two people gazing at each other in the distance in a somewhat hazy way.

Suddenly, the Immaculate Empress raised her hand lightly, and a wisp of sword energy condensed from her fingertips. With a loud "boom," the stone wall suddenly shattered, revealing the sword moves that Ye Suifeng had practiced here years ago.

Ye Beixuan stared at the sword moves on the stone wall, as if frozen in place.

"I'm wrong! I've practiced everything wrong..."

At this moment, a melody from a zither drifted into his ears, pulling Ye Beixuan back from his thoughts.

Before anyone knew it, the stunningly beautiful woman was already sitting gracefully on the ground, gently plucking the strings of the zither with her fingertips.

Ye Beixuan looked down and saw that a long sword was stuck in front of him.

He had just drawn his sword when he felt as if the blade was bound by a ribbon of spiritual energy.

Upon closer inspection, one end of the ribbon of spiritual energy was made by the woman herself.

A note suddenly rang out, and the Empress's fingertips moved nimbly as she gently plucked the strings of the zither. The spiritual energy emanating from her fair hands seemed to guide Ye Beixuan's swordplay, drawing sword moves from the stone wall in the air.

However, whether it was Ye Beixuan's own idea or the Empress's intention, the sword moves became increasingly uncoordinated the more he practiced them.

Suddenly, he tripped over his own feet, stumbled, and was about to fall flat on his back, a dignified celestial master.

At the critical moment, Ye Beixuan's back suddenly slammed into a soft mass, and through his clothes, he could clearly feel the burning heat of that body.

Only then did I realize that I had bumped into her arms. A faint fragrance from her hair instantly entered my nostrils and exploded in my mind.

"Reduce the force here." The Empress lightly tapped the back of his hand with her fingertip, and a surge of electricity instantly swept through his body.

In an instant, fragments of memories flooded back: playing the zither under the moon, falling asleep in each other's arms, and that long sword piercing the heart...

The back of his hand was touched, and the sword in his hand began to dance on its own. The blade caused his body to rotate naturally, and a strand of hair gently brushed against her lips.

At the same moment, another longsword clashed with the one in his hand, drawing the blade of his sword and continuously unleashing sword moves, the two swords combining in perfect harmony.

"Clang..." The sword hilts struck each other, producing a crisp sound. The vibration from the sword blade traveled up his wrist and straight to his heart, causing his blood to surge.

The Empress then realized that she had used too much force and forgotten that he was no longer the same person he was ten thousand years ago.

Just as she was about to pull back, a hot hand suddenly grabbed her wrist as she was about to leave, and with a forceful pull, she instantly leaned into his arms.

Ye Beixuan couldn't help but reach out and gently stroke her long, silky black hair.

The Empress gently inhaled the delicate fragrance so close to her nose, then looked up and gazed at him, while he looked down at his reflection in her pupils.

The fragments of memory became clearer, the familiar yet unfamiliar faces drew closer, their auras grew stronger, and they gradually intertwined.

Suddenly, he caught a glimpse of a faint dragon pattern behind her ear, and the scene seemed to reappear in his mind.

Just as she was about to touch those soft lips and feel their hot breath, a burst of spiritual power suddenly erupted from the Empress, and she instantly flung her sleeves away.

Ye Beixuan was propelled by a gentle spiritual force and crashed into the stone wall next to the cave, which was covered with sword inscriptions.

He hurriedly looked up again, trying to figure out what was going on, but the figure had already vanished without a trace. Strangely, for some reason, even her appearance became blurry, and he could hardly remember it clearly.

At the same time, a clear and melodious voice, like the sound of silver bells, rang out: "Junior Brother Ye, what are you doing here all by yourself?"

She looked at the messy, crisscrossing footprints on the ground, then gazed with a hint of suspicion at the sword inscriptions on the stone wall.

Ye Beixuan was speechless for a moment, unsure how to respond.

Should I tell her the truth that I almost kissed a beautiful woman?
To ease the awkward atmosphere, he quickly found a large blue stone to sit on and changed the subject, saying, "I was thinking about some troubling things and felt depressed, so I couldn't concentrate on my cultivation and came out to practice my sword."

Ye Yaoyao smiled slightly, her beautiful face showing a hint of comfort: "There's no hurdle you can't overcome, everything will be alright."

Ye Beixuan was taken aback upon hearing this. Having known Ye Yaoyao for so long, she had always maintained a calm and composed demeanor, as if nothing could truly stir her emotions.

So he replied, "Thank you, Senior Sister. It's just that I suddenly thought of those sincere emotions in the mortal world, and I feel a little lost. What is the purpose of our cultivation?"

"True feelings?" Ye Yaoyao murmured softly, her face slightly gloomy, and said, "On the path of pursuing immortality, what true feelings can there be?"

Ye Beixuan was taken aback again, and couldn't help but think that his senior sister also had her own troubles.

"Senior sister, don't you believe in true love?"

"Junior brother, do you know how Master found me?" Ye Yaoyao said slowly.

"why?"

Ye Yaoyao sighed softly, walked slowly to Ye Beixuan's side, sat down next to him, then tilted her head slightly and leaned on his shoulder, saying softly, "Don't move, let me lean on you for a while."

A gentle breeze rustled through them, causing their hair to intertwine. She spoke slowly, murmuring, "Thirty years ago, strange demons roamed freely. My father was once a celestial disciple of the Heavenly Palace."

Ye Beixuan listened quietly.

It turns out that thirty years ago, the southwestern region was almost completely overrun by demons, and Ye Yaoyao's father was also caught up in that escape.

Everything should have gone smoothly during the retreat, but who could have imagined that her mother would be poisoned by the Blood God Child and mutate halfway through the journey?

Left with no other choice, the father killed the mother, but was seriously injured in the process.

In order to survive, her father abandoned her when she was only eight years old.

This scene was witnessed by Zhang Tong, the sect leader of Tianyan Sect, and she was subsequently adopted by Tianyan Sect.

"That's how it is. I've been refining pills with all my might, just to repay my master's kindness in raising me." Ye Yaoyao's tone seemed calm, but Ye Beixuan could hear the struggle in her heart and feel the sadness in her soul.

"Can you hug me?" Ye Yaoyao whispered, "Like when you hug me underwater."

Ye Beixuan was immediately embarrassed. Was this girl conscious at the time? If so, wouldn't she know everything when he performed CPR and chest compressions?
After hesitating for a moment, he reached out a warm hand and gently embraced her soft waist.

To divert attention from the awkward situation and to comfort her, Ye Beixuan quickly changed the subject: "Perhaps, your father didn't really want to abandon you?"

Ye Yaoyao was taken aback by his words, but she still shook her head and smiled sweetly, saying, "You don't need to comfort me."

"Let me tell you a story!" Ye Beixuan said calmly, "A story that happened in the mortal world, about an ordinary family of three." As soon as he finished speaking, a little head unexpectedly rested against Ye Beixuan's chest.

He could clearly feel the warm breath coming from his chest and the faint fragrance emanating from his hair.

This instantly brought back the reaction he had just had towards the beautiful woman whose face he couldn't quite remember.

He forcibly suppressed the strange reaction in his heart, repeatedly reciting the sword moves on the stone wall in his mind, trying to dilute the feeling at this moment, and then began to speak aloud: "In the mortal world, there is a wonderful place. Although the people there do not cultivate immortality, they have invented flying iron birds and iron boxes that run very fast."

His voice was deep, and his fingertips unconsciously traced circles on her supple waist, yet his tone was unusually serious: "At that time, the zombie plague had just broken out. Anyone bitten or scratched by a zombie would turn into one within two hours. One day, a man, with his wife and daughter, opened an iron box and prepared to flee..." (from the short drama "Bearing the Burden")
"The abilities of these zombies seem somewhat similar to those of the Mysterious Sea!" Upon hearing this, Ye Yaoyao's long eyelashes trembled slightly, and the more she listened, the more she felt that the story was about her.

Her eyes were full of curiosity as she listened intently to Ye Beixuan recount this legend of the mortal realm, even acquiescing to the subtle movements coming from her waist and turning a blind eye to them.

Upon hearing that "the man's wife was infected with cadaveric virus," she suddenly became agitated and said, "Did he kill his wife and then abandon his daughter? Just like my father?"

"No." Ye Beixuan held her tightly as she tried to get up, whispering in her ear, "That man knew he was about to become a zombie, so he bound his hands. When uninfected mortals saw him..."

He paused slightly, and a sudden mountain breeze blew, causing their hair to become tangled together.

Ye Yaoyao listened silently as he continued, the steady, powerful beat of his heart ringing in her ears.

"Bang! With a loud crash, an ordinary man wielding a musket easily killed the man, just as they usually did when hunting zombies... But just as they were about to leave, they suddenly heard a child crying..." Ye Beixuan's tone was tinged with melancholy.

"Was his daughter also killed?" Ye Yaoyao asked curiously.

"No, he has always protected his daughter in his own way."

"Impossible!" Ye Yaoyao suddenly became agitated and said, "Even we cultivators find it difficult to resist the Blood God Child, how can a mortal withstand this terrible contagion?"

Ye Beixuan sighed, "Because he stuck a bamboo stick in the ground with a piece of rotten flesh at the end, planned his route, and with his last bit of sanity, turned himself into a compass to guide him all the way to the safe zone, deliberately attracting the enemy's attention."

Ye Yaoyao trembled violently, and her breathing became somewhat disordered.

Even the moonlight shining on the stone wall seemed to reflect her slightly distorted face.

Her thoughts instantly drifted back to when she was eight years old, and in a daze, she remembered what her mother looked like when she was infected by the Blood God Child.

When my father killed my mother, was he also affected by the Blood God Child?

The atmosphere fell into silence.

Ye Beixuan didn't speak. Instead, he brought his palms together, formed two fingers into a sword shape, and casually waved his hand. Instantly, spiritual energy gushed out like a spring, condensing into a figure.

He was a father, carrying a thin bamboo pole. As his eyes turned deathly white and he had only a sliver of reason left, he turned to look at his daughter behind him and gave her a final smile.

Boom! After the spiritual energy dissipated, in a certain moment, Ye Yaoyao seemed to see her father carrying her on his back, fighting against the demons with all his might, and there seemed to be a very deep wound on his wrist, with an unusual blood light swirling around the wound.

The cold wind grew increasingly biting.

She shivered uncontrollably from the cold, just like when she was abandoned at the age of eight. Not only was her body cold, but her heart felt as if it had fallen into an ice cellar.

Fortunately, the hand that was holding her waist was constantly transmitting warmth, which greatly reduced the chill in her body and made her heart feel less empty.

After a long silence, Ye Beixuan finally spoke: "Before that father died, he wrote a message on his daughter's body..."

"Tell my little Ah Xi that every time Daddy goes to battle, he misses her." She murmured unconsciously, and when she came to her senses and realized that she had lost her composure, tears had already soaked Ye Beixuan's chest.

For thirty years, this senior sister, who had always been calm and collected and unafraid of hardship, was now crying loudly in the night wind without any restraint, crying like a lost child longing to go home.

At the summit, Empress Wugou gently touched the dragon pattern behind her ear. The familiar touch reminded her that he used to like to stroke her like this.

However, a hint of displeasure appeared on her face, and her tone carried a trace of jealousy: "You promised to only coax me, but now you're coaxing her. If it weren't for her, how could we have been separated for ten thousand years?"

the other side.

Ye Beixuan held Ye Yaoyao tightly in his arms as if he were coaxing a child.

If he was a little reserved when he first hugged her, he had completely let go by now, and she didn't resist at all.

"Feeling better now?"

The tears that had been building up in her heart for over thirty years were released all at once, and the release of pent-up emotions brought her to the brink of collapse several times.

How could I have done this? I've hated my father for so many years.

Fortunately, Ye Beixuan still had some solutions. Gradually, Ye Yaoyao went from wailing to sobbing softly, which could be considered a kind of progress.

Strike while the iron is hot, Ye Beixuan quickly changed the subject: "By the way, Senior Sister Ye, what brings you here so late?"

Upon hearing this, Ye Yaoyao quickly wiped away her tears, inwardly blaming herself for almost forgetting the important matter.

"Here's the thing, we're going to the Valley of Broken Souls for trials in seven days. I've come to inform you, Junior Brother, so you can make some preparations."

Trials? Ye Beixuan thought to himself that something was wrong. His cultivation had just stabilized, so why was he being put through trials again? Wasn't it agreed that he would only leave the mountain when he reached the Great Luo Golden Immortal realm?
So he tentatively asked, "Is it okay if I don't go?"

"No!" Ye Yaoyao immediately jumped up and said righteously, "Now that demons are rampant, we cultivators should take it upon ourselves to protect all living beings."

"But there's no reward for this..." Ye Beixuan said in confusion.

Suddenly, he felt a soft, warm touch on his cheek. Before he could react, Ye Yaoyao, blushing, had already flashed far away, with a small pill furnace beside him.

Her voice drifted from afar, and Ye Yaoyao waved her hand behind his back: "You stole a kiss from me in the Misty Swamp, this time I'm going to kiss you back. Remember, no slacking off. This alchemy furnace was left to me by my father, so make good use of it."

Looking in the direction where Ye Yaoyao disappeared, Ye Beixuan felt helpless and thought to himself: At least tell me how this thing gets bigger!

He had just picked up the alchemy furnace to study it when he suddenly noticed a storage ring placed below it.

He picked up the ring and probed it with his divine sense. He was immediately surprised. He had made a huge profit this time. There was a large amount of top-grade herbs inside, as well as a jade slip containing the instructions on how to use the alchemy furnace.

Never mind all that, let's go refine pills now. With no woman in my heart, refining pills will naturally be a divine skill.

With these materials, the chances of succeeding in the trial will definitely double.

Just as he hurriedly took the new equipment into the cave to study it, a figure that seemed invisible and colorless slowly followed him into the cave.

(End of this chapter)