Traveling through the Immortal Realm: Starting from Becoming a Top-Level Furnace Cauldron

Southern Wei.

Winter of the fifth year of Yaozhu.

Ji Xian's life was saved.

An invisible restriction, like a sharp blade hanging over her head, always coveting her life.

Ji Xian didn't understand.

She only knew that her father looked at her with a cold look.

The days in the palace passed as slowly as a blunt knife cutting meat, and the mother and daughter became shadows in the palace.

Demonic species.

These two words were affixed to the fate of a three-year-old child.

Jiang Kui seldom came to see her.

Occasionally, he would come and just stand at the door and glance at me from afar. There was no warmth in his eyes, only scrutiny.

"unlucky."

He dropped these two words and turned away.

Ji Xian curled up in her mother's arms, her small body trembling slightly.

"mother……"

"Why doesn't Daddy like me..."

The mother's arms suddenly stiffened.

The hands that were gently caressing her back now stopped in mid-air, like a frozen butterfly.

Ji Xian raised his head and saw Ji Lian's eyes quickly lowered.

Ji Lian didn't answer, but just hugged her tighter, so tight that she almost couldn't breathe.

silence.

It's more frightening than my father's cold eyes.

From that day on, Ji Xian stopped asking.

She learned to hide in the shadow of the pillars when her father passed by, and learned to lower her head and play with the corner of her clothes when the palace servants whispered, as if she could not hear anything.

The place where she lived became increasingly desolate, and the palace servants took a detour as if there was a plague there. Even the cold wind that swept through the courtyard in winter seemed a little bit colder than anywhere else.

Only Ji Lian is the only source of warmth in this cold world.

At night, Ji Lian hummed vague songs and patted her to sleep. When she woke up from a nightmare, she would light the oil lamp in the corner and wipe the cold sweat from her forehead with a cloth.

"Don't be afraid, Shan'er," Ji Lian always coaxed in a low voice, "Mom is here."

Ji Xian saw it clearly.

There were many fine lines at the corners of my mother's eyes, and her eyes, which were as bright as autumn water, became dimmer day by day, as if covered with dust that could never be wiped off.

sometimes.

Ji Lian would stare at the gray sky outside the window in a daze for a long time, and then let out a very light sigh.

The sigh is so light, but when it falls to the ground, it is heavier than the snow in the whole winter.

*

Autumn of the seventh year of Yaozhu.

Ji Xian was used to being forgotten by everyone until that evening.

She was playing in an abandoned garden nearby and wanted to pick a small white flower that was about to wither. The slippery moss under her feet caused her to fall and scrape her palm.

It hurts.

Ji Xian bit her lip to prevent the tears from falling.

She was about to get up when a terrified scream suddenly came from the side.

A little palace maid passing by pointed at her hand with a pale face, as if she had seen the most horrifying scene in the world.

"Blood...her blood..."

The little maid stumbled back, almost incoherently uttering, "Black! It's black!"

Ji Xian was stunned and looked down at the palm of his hand.

Blood slowly seeped out from the abrasion, and under the dim light, it seemed to really emit a hint of dark luster.

She blinked hard.

When I looked at it again, the strangeness seemed to be just an illusion.

But the image of the little palace maid crawling away and her terrified scream that pierced the twilight were deeply engraved in her mind.

That night.

Ominous rumors about the demon species spread like a plague to every corner of the palace.

Jiang Kui's decree came soon, moving the mother and daughter to a more remote side hall and never allowing them to leave without the emperor's order.

It was an almost abandoned palace.

The palace door opened, and a stale smell mixed with dust hit my face. Spider webs swayed between the beams, the window paper was torn, and the howling cold wind passed through the hall unscrupulously.

Ji Lian silently packed her meager luggage, her profile stretched into a resolute line in the dim light.

The first night in our new home.

It's extremely cold.

Ji Xian was shivering in the thin bedding. While she was still conscious, her mother hugged her tightly and pressed everything she could, even her own outer robe, on her.

In the haze.

A drop of warm water fell on my forehead.

Ji Xian tried hard to open her eyes to see her mother's face clearly, but her eyes were covered by a gentle hand.

"Go to sleep, Shan'er."

Ji Lian's voice was as light as a feather. "No matter what, we must survive."

The next morning, Ji Xian was woken up by the cold. She touched the bed and found it empty.

Mother is not here.

Ji Xian was startled and jumped off the bed barefoot, staggering out of the cold bedroom, but saw a scene that she would never forget.

In the deserted courtyard, Ji Lian knelt on the frosty dry grass and kowtowed towards the main hall.

The cold wind of early winter blew up her thin clothes, outlining her thin figure.

Her back was straight, like a reed that refused to break.

Once.

Again.

The mother touched the ground with her forehead and kowtowed devoutly.

The cold gravel touched her forehead, leaving tiny red marks.

"Your Majesty, have mercy..."

"I beg you, my king, to have pity on Shan'er, as she is still young, and let her go..."

"Please, heaven, please open your eyes and bless Shan'er to be safe..."

The wailing cries were blown intermittently by the wind, but they were repeated stubbornly, like a cuckoo crying blood.

Ji Xian stood in the shadows behind the palace door.

She looked at her mother's humble posture, her figure rising and falling in the cold wind, her forehead hitting the ground again and again...

The emotion pierced her tender heart.

Not sad.

But it is colder than sadness.

She bit her lower lip hard, her small hands tightly gripping the cold door frame, her nails almost digging into the rotten wood.

Ji Xian watched quietly.

Even until the mother's pleading gradually faded and her back swayed slightly in the cold wind, the father did not appear.

The end of the palace road.

No one is empty.

Only the whistling wind, carrying dead leaves, swept through this forgotten corner, as if singing a silent elegy.

The palace maids and eunuchs are the best at reading people's expressions. The king's disgust is their direction.

"Stay away from that little monster."

"Could the Imperial Master be wrong?"

"Be careful of being contaminated by evil spirits."

Whispering, everywhere.

Like cold needles.

It is common to skimp on expenses, and the food delivered is cold or even spoiled.

There was not enough charcoal in the winter, so Ji Lian could only hug her daughter tightly and use her body temperature to keep each other warm.

In such a huge palace, only Ji Lian treated her as a treasure.

"Don't be afraid, Shan'er," Ji Lian always coaxed softly, "Grandma is here."

She combed Ji Xian's hair, told her stories about the tribes in southern Xinjiang, and about the little white flowers on the cliff that could not be broken by the wind.

Ji Xian was too cold to sleep, so Ji Lian sat by the bed and hummed a song from his hometown.

"Little white flower, little white flower..."

"Spring has arrived on the cliffs..."

"I gave my grandma a little white flower, and she called me a good kid... a good kid..."

The singing is distant.

It seems as if I can pass through the palace wall and return to the cliff covered with white flowers.

His mother's singing was the only light in Ji Xian's dark childhood, year after year.

*

The eleventh year of Yaozhu.

Jiang Kui's temper became increasingly violent. The Southern Wei Dynasty showed no improvement under his rule, but he became increasingly arrogant.

"What the hell is Longhua Country!"