I long to return home!

In the starry sky, the two continued their battle without any sign of abating. In the end, they discarded their weapons and magical artifacts, bringing the battle to a close in the most primitive way.

With his physical body alone, Shen Lian was no match for the opponent, so he relied on the life force contained in the Yang energy within his body to fight back.

"Trying to fight me with your physical strength is the most foolish choice," Xue Wu muttered, but his fists didn't stop, pounding heavily on Shen Lian.

"Is that so... Lian felt that if we killed each other like before, the endless killing would only lead to blindness. But now it's different. Every pain in my body reminds me that I cannot lose this battle." With each physical collision, Shen Lian's body would shatter, and the pain was unimaginable. But he still relied on the life force contained in the Yang power and the limb regeneration power of the blood power to throw heavy punches.

"Hmph, utterly hypocritical! The lofty ambitions you made in your youth, the words to end the wars in the world, are all just nonsense you spout now as you invade other people's lands!" With that, Xue Wu used a Tai Chi grappling technique to pull Shen Lian over, and then punched him hard in the face.

Blood splattered across the starry sky and vanished in an instant. Blood continued to flow from Shen Lian's mouth as he trembled as he climbed up from the rubble. "Even if I have betrayed the world, what does it matter? I couldn't even protect my closest relatives. How can I talk about the world?"

A fierce wind howled, and a punch came flying, but the punch that should have landed on Shen Lian's brow stopped. Xue Wu's expression was solemn. After a moment of contemplation, he withdrew his fist, but did not give Shen Lian any chance to retaliate. He kicked Shen Lian and crippled his legs.

With a heart-wrenching scream, Shen Lian dragged his broken body to his feet again, raised his hands to his chest to block, and was once again knocked to the ground.

"Talking to me about your closest relatives, have you ever experienced true loneliness and despair!" Hearing Shen Lian's words, Xue Wu sneered, but then realized something was wrong. With the other party's prestige, he would definitely succeed to the throne of the Yin Yue Empire as the new emperor, and would not be reduced to the marshal of the border guards here.

"Cough... I have never experienced loneliness, but I have experienced utter despair!" After each sentence, Shen Lian coughed up a mouthful of blood. Although the intense pain eroded his body and mind, it was nothing compared to the pain in his heart. He would get up every time he fell. In the end, no more blood flowed from his wounds, the power of his blood dissipated, and his broken tendons and bones could not regenerate. His legs gave way and he collapsed.

Gradually, Shen Lian's face turned deathly pale, his life force visibly fading away, like a withered skeleton about to perish. His parched lips moved, and he murmured, "Shuang'er, Yi'er..."

My vision began to blur, my eyelids felt incredibly heavy, and with a "thud," all I could see was darkness.

...

After an unknown amount of time, Shen Lian opened his eyes groggily as his heart began to beat strongly. The first thing he saw was a dilapidated but clean courtyard.

He himself lay on a wooden chair in the courtyard, the pungent smell of blood on his robes and the excruciating pain in his limbs seeming to tell him that he was not dead yet.

"Oh, you woke up so quickly. It's because the vitality contained in the Yang energy can repair all damage."

Shen Lian raised an eyebrow and looked over at the sound. He saw Xue Wu, dressed in a black and white Taoist robe, sitting leisurely in the courtyard, making crisp sounds from time to time, as if he was chewing on something.

"I'm not dead?"

"No, you've been dead for a while now. It's just that the Yang energy within your body is protecting you, preserving your damaged primordial spirit. You could say you're half-dead and half-alive." Xue Wu looked at the awakened Shen Lian, finished eating some melon seeds, and then swept his sleeve to clean up the mess in the courtyard.

Upon hearing this, Shen Lian was stunned for a moment, then sat up and looked at the mangled body. Just as Xue Wu had said, the body was dead and decaying. Now, the primordial spirit was still inside the body. To survive, he either had to repair the body and rekindle its vitality, or his primordial spirit had to leave the body and possess the body of another cultivator.

But Shen Lian didn't care about any of that. Looking at the scene in the courtyard, he only had a few very important questions in his mind: "Brother Huaizhen, how did you know where my family lives? How are the Yin Yue garrison troops stationed in Qiongzhou doing?"

Xue Wu glanced at it and then looked away. After a moment of contemplation, he said calmly, "After you died, your damaged primordial spirit kept talking about this place."

"As for the Yin Yue garrison, they are a bunch of ignorant fools. Even knowing you are dead, they still did not retreat. I had no choice but to kill a few of them. Now they have already withdrawn from Qiongzhou City and are camped a hundred miles away from Wuji."

Upon hearing this, Shen Lian frowned, lost in thought. News of Yin Yue's retreat would surely reach Yin Yue, but they would also likely report my death. Knowing of my demise, perhaps out of brotherhood, Shen Lang wouldn't want to cause further trouble for my wife and children. In that case, I would have no regrets...

Seemingly realizing something, Xue Wu's expression hardened, and he calculated with his fingers. "Strange, how can you be happier dead than alive? Fine, I have no mood to stay here with you. Now tell me everything you know, and only then can your wisp of primordial spirit live."

Xue Wu's words were cold, but when they reached Shen Lian's ears, they made him shake his head helplessly. After a moment of contemplation, he decisively spoke up: "Brother Huaizhen, I want to ask you for a favor. If you agree, I will answer without hesitation. I would even give you this primordial spirit."

Xue Wu was visibly taken aback. He nodded in agreement, and then Shen Lian slowly spoke: "Everything should be traced back to six hundred years ago. After the Qualifying Battle of the Prodigies, Emperor Wuji Lei Qianjun perished. My father and I were affected and only returned to Yin Yue a few years later."

"It was during this period that my third brother, Shen Lang, secretly colluded with Wuji and the grasslands, spending hundreds of years completely undermining the imperial power. Later, after the Wuji Empire was destroyed hundreds of years later, he joined forces with the new emperor of Wuji and the grassland tribes to seize the imperial power, forced our father to abdicate, and gave him poisoned wine, committing patricide!" As he spoke, killing intent surged in Shen Lian's eyes, and resentment manifested around him. "Under the protection of the Yin Yue Empire's protector, Wei Shi, he completely secured the throne. But the first thing he did after taking the throne was to disregard brotherly affection, imprison my second brother, and use the confinement of my wife and children as leverage to force me to send troops to Wuji."

"Even if I cultivate desperately, I still can't change anything."

"By the way, Brother Huaizhen, I've heard some rumors that the real reason for the death of the late Emperor Wuji was that Shen Lang and the Crown Prince of Wuji colluded in secret, which led to the tragedy."

Xue Wu's expression did not change much. He already knew about these things and had long since let them go. He just did not expect that Shen Lang was behind it all.

"The struggle for the crown prince position has always been like this."

"Next, even if he ascends to the throne of Yinyue, he will not be able to command the entire grassland empire to join forces in invading Wuji."

Shen Lian took a deep breath, a hint of helplessness in his eyes, and then said, "Shen Lang has reached an agreement with Batel of the grassland tribe. If he can help Batel ascend to the throne of Yin Yue, he will help Batel become the new Khan of the grassland."

"But if it is said that the grasslands will send troops to Wuji, it is because of Lian's fourth sister Shen Lingjiao and Shen Lang." He paused, then sighed again and said, "Brother Huaizhen, I don't know what happened between you and Lingjiao back then, but I can see that your fourth sister truly loves you, and even though she was injured like that, her feelings for you have not changed."

"Lian only knows that when Fourth Sister learned of your death, she was so grief-stricken that she became a different person. In the end, she was deceived by Shen Lang and heard that she could take revenge on Wuji and avenge her brother. She reached some kind of agreement with Batel."

"That concludes the whole story."