Chapter 31

Xu Yizhuo was completely stunned.

The lotus flowers had bloomed to who knew where. Everywhere visible to the naked eye was covered in snow-white lotuses, blanketing the river surface. At this moment, if someone said the entire Lidan River had bloomed full of lotuses, Xu Yizhuo would seriously consider the possibility.

Xu Yizhuo lowered her head and looked down. Beneath the lotus flowers, the river surface could faintly be seen. She happened to meet a pair of pitch-black eye sockets beneath the water. From those eyeless sockets, she sensed unwillingness.

The eye sockets soon disappeared. Smooth black fish scales flashed past, and the Eyeless Jiaoren flicked its tail, swimming away beneath the water.

Although Xu Yizhuo did not know the exact reason, it seemed the Eyeless Jiaoren knew to retreat in the face of these lotus flowers.

Xu Yizhuo let out a breath of relief, still shaken.

A soft sigh that sounded like a lament suddenly came from above her head.

Xu Yizhuo instinctively hid the Fangsheng Lotus Mirror behind her back.

Mister Yu slowly walked to the bow, swept his gaze over the lotus flowers on the river, then looked down at Xu Yizhuo from above. “Did you make these flowers?”

Given the current situation, Xu Yizhuo had to admit it even if she did not want to. Even if she stubbornly denied it, no one would believe her. She nodded somewhat helplessly.

Mister Yu raised an eyebrow. “This scene does not look like something a Qi Refining cultivator could do.”

He looked with great interest at the white lotus beneath Xu Yizhuo. “Lotus flowers capable of forcing back Eyeless Jiaoren. I imagine they are not ordinary lotus flowers.”

Without changing her expression, Xu Yizhuo put the Fangsheng Lotus Mirror back into the golden lotus hairpin and gave Mister Yu a pure, harmless smile. “Cultivators more or less have a few life-saving things on them. It isn’t strange that I have some too, right?”

Mister Yu smiled. Looking at his unconsciously narrowed eyes, Xu Yizhuo felt that he looked like a sly old fox at this moment. She only heard Mister Yu say, “If it were something else, I would not be surprised. But the appearance of this life-saving item of yours makes me unable to help thinking of someone.”

Xu Yizhuo’s heart tightened. “What person?”

In her heart, she desperately prayed that Di Xiang had not committed some earth-shattering deed in the cultivation world.

“You don’t know?” Mister Yu said meaningfully. “When it comes to lotus flowers, I’m afraid half the cultivation world would think of that person.”

Xu Yizhuo said innocently, “I’m only an inexperienced Qi Refining cultivator.”

Mister Yu nodded with a smile. With the ship beneath his feet still surrounded by the lotuses Xu Yizhuo had created, he clearly did not believe her at all.

Xu Yizhuo asked somewhat nervously, “So who is that person?”

Mister Yu did not keep her in suspense. Perhaps he was also wondering whether Xu Yizhuo was knowingly asking. He said, “That person was the number one figure in the cultivation world a thousand years ago, called the Imperial Daughter by cultivators of all paths.”

Xu Yizhuo thought, That’s probably that trickster.

She knew Di Xiang’s cultivation was extremely high, but she had never thought Di Xiang had actually been the number one figure in the cultivation world. Not just anyone dared accept the title of number one. At least Jun Yu was respected as the number one figure in the cultivation world because she had not met an opponent in a hundred years, her own talent was outstanding and pointed straight toward ascension, and her status as the master of Shiwai Tower was also transcendent in the cultivation world.

Di Xiang had definitely also been a person of great renown in the cultivation world. It was just that when Xu Yizhuo looked back on the time she had spent with Di Xiang, she could not be sure whether Di Xiang’s reputation in the cultivation world was good or bad.

To be safe, she asked another question. “Imperial Daughter is only an honorific, right? Then her name was…”

Mister Yu placed one index finger in front of his lips, signaling Xu Yizhuo to be silent.

“You must not say it,” Mister Yu said. “Although I do not know whether that Imperial Daughter is still in this world, if she is alive, she will hear you if you say her name.”

Xu Yizhuo: “…”

What kind of major villain setting was this? No, wait. Di Xiang couldn’t really be the main villain of this game, could she?

It was not strange at all for a game with a subject like Yellow Springs Mirror to have a main villain. Xu Yizhuo thought about the currently popular villain archetypes, then compared them with Di Xiang, and suddenly felt that this guess was extremely reasonable.

Xu Yizhuo could not help falling silent.

The current number one figure in the cultivation world once extended an olive branch to me. I firmly rejected that great, glorious, righteous-path NPC, and now I am repaying a debt to the former number one figure in the cultivation world who is suspected to be the main villain.

Xu Yizhuo made a dying struggle. “That… former number one figure in the cultivation world must have made many contributions to the cultivation world, right?”

Mister Yu smiled and nodded. “She single-handedly exterminated half the aristocratic families in the cultivation world. That was indeed a very great contribution.”

Mister Yu deliberately emphasized the words “very great.”

Xu Yizhuo fell into solitary disarray, feeling that she had already walked onto a road of no return.

She suddenly heard Mister Yu make a strange “hm” sound.

Xu Yizhuo came back to herself and looked up in confusion. She had already heard a series of unsteady footsteps. Mister Yu said, “Why did you come out… Hm?”

“Who is it?” Xu Yizhuo stood up from the lotus heart, but still could not see what was happening on the deck.

“That child…” Mister Yu casually dropped those words, then disappeared from Xu Yizhuo’s sight as well.

It seemed that a door on the ship was pushed open with great force. The door panel slammed against the wall with a loud bang, and Lin He’s cursing voice immediately sounded on the deck.

Xu Yizhuo: “?”

Could someone please tell her what exactly had happened?

Fortunately, before long, the footsteps disappeared. The people on the deck stopped where they were, and Xu Yizhuo Read on BaiLianTales could barely hear what they were saying.

First, Lin He cursed. “It’s only the first day after setting sail. Why did we enter an illusion at this time?!”

There was not the slightest surprise in Mister Yu’s voice. He even yawned boredly. “When the fog rises, nothing that happens is surprising. I suggest you tie this boy up first, then return to your room and hold fast to your original mind.”

Lin He was silent for a while. Only after a long moment did she say somewhat reluctantly, “I’ll have to trouble you to watch over the ship, sir.”

“Easy, easy.” Mister Yu said, “Pingzhou Shipyard did take your money, after all.”

After his voice fell, Xu Yizhuo heard Lin He leave with Fang Yue. Before long, Mister Yu returned to the bow.

Xu Yizhuo raised her head blankly. After seeing Mister Yu, she asked in confusion, “What happened to Fang Yue?”

“He entered an illusion, that’s all,” Mister Yu said carelessly. “People traveling from the Eastern Continent to the Western Continent for the first time usually encounter illusions on the Lidan River. Who knows what he saw inside? If no one had stopped him, he probably would have jumped into the sea.”

Xu Yizhuo asked again, “Then why did Miss Lin…”

“Anyone can encounter the illusions of the Lidan River.” Mister Yu pointed beneath his feet. “Lidan, Lidan—what is left behind is the mortal world, and what is severed is karma. But how many people can truly sever the mortal dust?”

“One reason cultivators are unwilling to come from the Western Continent to the Eastern Continent is that most cultivators must pass through the Lidan River to travel back and forth. If they recall all sorts of matters from the mortal world while inside an illusion, one misstep can give birth to a heart demon and cut them off from the Great Dao.”

“And among the mortals who go to the Western Continent to seek immortality and pursue the Dao, how ​stolen content​many can truly give up everything in the mortal world? Many people’s immortal paths are not cut off on the Western Continent, but on the Lidan River.”

After explaining in a few sentences, Mister Yu said, “You should hurry and come up too. That child entered an illusion, so it probably won’t be long before you enter one as well… Ah.”

Mister Yu looked slightly surprised.

He looked at Xu Yizhuo sitting on the lotus flower with vacant eyes and sighed emotionally, “It really came as soon as I said it.”

Mister Yu lightly leapt down from the ship. When he landed on the lotus petal, it was as if what had landed was not a person, but a leaf as light as nothing. Mister Yu looked at Xu Yizhuo’s face and discovered that Xu Yizhuo had already closed her eyes. Her expression was as peaceful as if she had fallen asleep.

She did not move at all, and actually looked rather obedient. She was nothing like Fang Yue, who had run straight out of his room and toward the river surface just now. At that time, Fang Yue had been streaming tears, his mouth constantly murmuring one word. He made no sound, but Mister Yu had seen that what he was calling was “Mother.”

Mister Yu sighed.

However, Xu Yizhuo’s calm reaction might not necessarily be a good thing. Fang Yue’s reaction had been intense, but often, people like him were also decisive enough when severing mortal ties. As for Xu Yizhuo’s state, it was as if the past of the mortal world had already wound around every thread of her life so far. Nothing was vigorous or dramatic, yet everything was difficult to let go of.

How difficult would it be to tear away all those densely wrapped threads?

Mister Yu picked up Xu Yizhuo. With a tap of his toes against the lotus heart, he leapt onto the deck. After Xu Yizhuo left, the lotus flowers did not disappear. Mister Yu could sense that they were not true lotus flowers, but were formed from spiritual energy. Who knew when this spiritual energy would disperse?

“Truly too similar,” Mister Yu murmured softly to himself.

Lotus flowers forming out of thin air. A Qi Refining stage whose cultivation and strength did not match stolen contentat all. After that person vanished from the Western Continent, no one knew where she had gone. With the world as vast as it was, there was probably nowhere she could not go. If she had gone to the Eastern Continent, it would also make sense.

Who knew what kind of connection this little cultivator had with that person?

I still have to keep an eye on her, Mister Yu thought. After all, back then, I was also that person’s subordinate.

Xu Yizhuo clearly knew that she had entered an illusion.

To her, the feeling of entering an illusion was not very different from entering the Twin Demon’s memories or seeing Zhuang Yi’s past. The only difference was that in the latter two, she did not know what she was supposed to do. She could only wait for each scene to play out on its own, then end on its own. But inside the illusion, Xu Yizhuo felt an invisible force guiding her toward a certain place.

Xu Yizhuo did not immediately follow that force. Instead, she stopped and examined where she was. Before long, she figured it out. After all, this was a place she had stayed in not long ago.

The courtyard she had rented in Yecheng.

Xu Yizhuo scratched her head, somewhat unable to understand. She had thought the illusion would make her see some unusual memories. However, after Xu Yizhuo recalled things for a while, she discovered that her life had actually been extremely ordinary. Aside from transmigrating, it could be said that there had been no turning point at all. She had lived plainly for more than twenty years, and because her life had been entirely without waves, she naturally became a salted fish.

Xu Yizhuo: “…”

Why did she feel a tiny bit attacked…

Xu Yizhuo pursed her lips and walked to the swing nearby, sitting down. She did not know how to swing, but she liked the leisurely feeling of sitting on a swing and rocking back and forth without doing anything.

What time was the illusion showing?

Xu Yizhuo wanted to find some clues from her surroundings, but after observing carefully, she realized that in the past, she had never paid attention to what exactly the courtyard she rented looked like. It turned out that facing the swing was a flowerbed. At this time of year, the chrysanthemums were blooming beautifully, each flower stretching its tender petals in the autumn sunlight and nodding slightly when the autumn wind blew past. Sitting on the swing, one could admire the flowers. Besides autumn chrysanthemums, in summer, one could also see lotus flowers in the pond beside the chrysanthemum bed. The lotus flowers had already withered now, leaving only broken branches and withered leaves in the water, waiting to regain vitality next year.

The courtyard was not large, but all sorts of plants were arranged in a pleasing pattern and filled the small courtyard. Beneath the white walls, in every season, there were plants blooming with vitality… Right, the courtyard wall!

Xu Yizhuo suddenly remembered something and jumped down from the swing.

She ran to a white wall beside the chrysanthemum bed and soon found an inconspicuous scratch.

Xu Yizhuo could not help curving her eyes.

This scratch was one she had carved on the third day after arriving in Yecheng. After playing day and night in Yecheng for two days, she had restrained herself a lot and wanted to stay at home in the rented courtyard for a morning. She had already returned late at night, so Xu Yizhuo planned to sleep all the way until noon the next day.

But that night, she did not sleep peacefully.

Xu Yizhuo did fall asleep, but her sleep was very shallow. The faint pain in her bones prevented her from sleeping deeply. The pain was not unbearable, either. Xu Yizhuo closed her eyes tightly, hugged a pillow, and stubbornly slept until three quarters past the hour of Si without waking even once.

After she woke up, the pain in the cracks of her bones had disappeared. Xu Yizhuo hugged the pillow and could not understand it no matter how she thought. She suspected that perhaps she had not covered herself properly with the blanket and had developed rheumatism.

At that moment, Old Li knocked on the door outside her room and called her to eat breakfast. Xu Yizhuo stopped thinking too much. After dressing and washing up, she went to eat. Only at the dining table did she suddenly remember this matter again.

Xu Yizhuo told Old Li about it, [bailiantales.com]but Old Li laughed on the spot and said, “You haven’t gotten rheumatism. You’re growing taller!”

Xu Yizhuo froze for a moment, then recalled for a long time before remembering that when she had grown taller back then, it seemed to have been like this too.

After transmigrating, her body had also shrunk. Her age was probably around fifteen. The last time, Xu Yizhuo had developed very late, and it was the same this time around. She was much shorter than her peers, but this time, Xu Yizhuo had not cared about that matter.

Back then, she had cared terribly. At the time, she had been in the second year of middle school. The girls around her were all developing, their heights shooting up every few days. Only Xu Yizhuo stayed the same as always. In elementary school, her height had been enough to sit in the middle rows of the class, but at some unknown point, she had ended up sitting in the first row.

Xu Yizhuo had been so anxious she almost cried, but no matter how many methods she tried, she did not grow taller. When she went to sign up for the school basketball team, the team captain, who did not know her, even tactfully said that the basketball team did not recruit elementary school students.

The two people at home, on the other hand, had not been anxious at all. Before going to the company in the morning, they would even cheerfully press the top of Xu Yizhuo’s head. For quite a while, Xu Yizhuo had suspected that she had been pressed short by that unreliable pair of parents.

That was a major crisis in Xu Yizhuo’s salted-fish life.

Xu Yizhuo had never told others about the worries and fears in her heart. In other people’s eyes, her days had passed by calmly just like that. In her third year of middle school, she finally began to grow taller, but she grew very slowly. At first, Xu Yizhuo did not realize she had started growing taller. She only found it strange why, when she slept at night, her bones would hurt.

Bone matters were no small matter, so this time, Xu Yizhuo directly told her parents. Her mother called the family doctor over to give her a simple examination. The doctor smiled and said there was nothing wrong with her bones. During puberty, feeling some pain while growing taller was very normal, and she should pay attention to supplementing calcium in daily life.

After hearing this, Xu Yizhuo was dazed for quite a while. She could hardly believe that she had actually started growing taller too.

Her mother had her stand in front of the living room wall and drew a line above her head. After that, the first thing Xu Yizhuo did every day after coming home from school was run to that line and measure whether she had grown taller. However, during her third year of middle school, she did not grow quickly. Xu Yizhuo had worried about whether she would become a shorty.

Fortunately, after entering high school, she began growing wildly. By the end of her second Read on BaiLianTales year of high school, she finally grew to 1.6 meters, which was not considered short among girls in the south.

Recalling the past, Xu Yizhuo could not help standing before the little courtyard’s wall and comparing her height, checking whether she could exceed that line by a little.

At that moment, she heard a door open behind her. Old Li came out of his room. Seeing her movements, he could not help laughing. “You only drew that line less than half a day ago. How could you grow that quickly?”

Xu Yizhuo said, unconvinced, “You don’t understand. I’m experiencing the world from one meter forty-four. In the future, I won’t be able to experience it anymore.”

After saying this, Xu Yizhuo could not help laughing too.

Author’s Note:

Jun Yu: With this kind of plot already happening, surely it’s finally time for me to appear, right?