Max Level Return—I'll Protect That Fragile One

Ying Ziyao suddenly said, ”I am from the Ying Family in the Mortal World. You probably already guessed that.”

Xu Xingguang responded with a hum, ”I heard about it when I went to attend the birthday of the old lady from the Ying Family last time.”

”Do you know your mother’s identity?”

Xu Xingguang shook her head, ”Where is my mother from?”

Ying Ziyao unexpectedly said, ”The Divine Martial Realm.”

”What?” Xu Xingguang sat up slightly. ”When my grandfather adopted her, my mother was just a little girl. Do they even downgrade little girls in the Divine Martial Realm?”

”To say she is from the Divine Martial Realm is not entirely accurate. More precisely, she should be a descendant of the Divine Martial Realm.”

Xu Xingguang understood Ying Ziyao’s meaning, ”You mean my mother’s parents were from the Divine Martial Realm, downgraded to the Mortal World, and they settled in this world and then had my mother.”

”Then what kind of people were my grandparents?”

Ying Ziyao, wearing a long down jacket, had the coat open with the car’s heater on. He took out a wallet from the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a laminated photo from the wallet.

Ying Ziyao handed the photo to Xu Xingguang.

She took it, glanced down, and froze on the spot. ”I have seen this photo before.” Xu Xingguang opened the album on her phone and found the group photo she had taken in Huo Wen’an’s grandfather Huo Ziyin’s palace.

”Look, isn’t it the same one?”

The group photo from Huo Ziyin was already mottled, far less clear than the one in Ying Ziyao’s wallet.

Putting the two photos together, there was no need to compare closely to confirm they were the same.

”That’s right.” Ying Ziyao explained, ”This group photo was taken when the Neurological Research Institute was first established.” Pointing to the woman in the middle of the third row, Ying Ziyao said, ”This is Qu Yanling.”

Qu Yanling is Zhang Zhiyi’s real name.

Ying Ziyao’s photo was quite high definition, and the appearance of Zhang Zhiyi in the photo looked significantly different from the present. She said, ”Qu Yanling’s appearance is very different from Zhang Zhiyi.”

Ying Ziyao said, ”Her extraordinary ability is the ability to disguise. As long as she wants, she can abandon her original appearance and change into someone else’s.”

”So, after Qu Yanling lived for some years, she abandoned her original shell and took on the appearance of Zhang Zhiyi?” Xu Xingguang found this somewhat unbelievable.

This ability somewhat resembled the Painted Skin Ghost from mythological stories.

”Look at the second row, the second person from the left is your grandfather, and the man next to him is Huo Wen’an’s grandfather, Huo Ziyin.” Ying Ziyao introduced the identities of the people in the photo one by one to Xu Xingguang.

Pointing to the young couple embracing in the middle of the first row, Ying Ziyao said, ”They are your grandparents.”

Xu Xingguang carefully scrutinized her grandparents’ appearances.

The grandparents in the photo appeared middle-aged. Her grandfather was quite unremarkable in appearance but possessed a kind of charm that couldn’t be erased even through the photo.

In contrast, her grandmother was a beautiful woman with bright eyes and white teeth, tall and slender, wearing a red floral bat shirt with black pants, her calves hidden in a pair of riding boots, both beautiful and stylish.

”Your grandmother is very beautiful.” Ying Ziyao added, ”The teacher likes her.”

Xu Xingguang was stunned by this gossip.

”Your grandfather’s character is very peculiar; it’s hard to imagine him falling in love with someone.”

”A teacher is also human. At that time, your grandparents had not yet married; they were in the dating stage, right? According to the teacher’s recollection, he pursued your grandmother quite earnestly back then, but she still refused him.”

”What happened afterward?”

Ying Ziyao remained silent for a long time before sighing, ”Later on, Qu Yanling betrayed them, and assassins sent by the Divine Martial Realm ambushed the Neurological Research Institute. Your grandfather blocked the escape route with his own flesh and blood to protect the research results and your grandmother.”

Ying Ziyao told Xu Xingguang, ”Your grandmother, like my teacher, lived a longer life than ordinary people. After several decades, she sensed the end of her life was approaching, so she had your mother through test-tube surgery.”

”So, my mother was actually a test-tube baby?”

”Yes.”

This was the story of her mother’s identity.

Xu Xingguang felt sorry for her mother. She was the continuation of her grandparents’ love, but she never got to see her parents from the day she was born.

”Why were my grandparents downgraded to our world?”

”This is a long story.” Ying Ziyao spent half an hour carefully narrating the past events of Ying Tu and Mo Yinshu’s parents to Xu Xingguang.

It turned out that all three of them were from the Ying Family of the Divine Martial Realm.

In the Central Yu Alliance, there are hundreds of medical noble families, with the Ying Family being the top among these families. This Ying Family is the true descendant of the Medicine King.

The Ying Family has developed to the point where, besides their own clan, they have also extended to dozens of branch families.

Ying Tu, Xu Xingguang’s grandparents, were children from these branch families. Because of their outstanding talents, they were sent to the Ying Family’s main clan for studies from a young age.

The Central Yu Alliance holds a Pharma King Convention once every ten years.

The winner of this convention can enter the real Medicine King Tower for advanced studies, while the Medicine King Tower of the Chuancheng Ying Family is just a facade.

During the decennial Pharma King Convention, the Young Master of the Ying Family committed the most unforgivable sin by the convention—

Bribing the examiners to steal the exam secrets in advance!

During the Pharma King Convention, the Young Master of the Ying Family, armed with the exam questions obtained in advance, was unstoppable, astonishing everyone. But soon, news broke out about the examiner being bribed to leak the exam questions.

Instantly, rumors flew everywhere, and all criticisms pointed at the Ying Family.

To protect the family’s reputation and maintain the Young Master’s genius image, the Ying Family decided to throw Ying Tu out as a scapegoat.

Xu Xingguang’s grandparents, close friends with Ying Tu, believed he didn’t commit such bribery, publicly standing up to defend him.

And the result?

They all ended up being scapegoats.

”To this day, the names of the teacher and your grandparents are still on the Wall of Shame of the Ying Family.”

At this, Ying Ziyao pressed his index fingers against his temples, saying painfully and helplessly, ”I studied at the Ying Family for three years, and I thought about overturning the case for the teacher and them, but I am just a small piece of trash from the Mortal World. My status in the Ying Family was even lower than that of ordinary branch family members—I was helpless.”

”Xu Xingguang.” Ying Ziyao stuffed that photo into Xu Xingguang’s arms, saying, ”I know I can’t do it and have no right to ask you to do it either.”

”But I still hope that you can clear our teacher’s and your grandparents’ names of this injustice. Because as long as their names remain on the Wall of Shame, the descendants of their families will never be able to participate in the Pharma King Convention.”

So this is not just a battle for the reputation of Ying Tu and the other two, but a battle for the honor of three families.

Xu Xingguang eventually accepted the photo.

”The elders create blessings, the descendants enjoy the shade. If the elders suffer injustice, the descendants should cleanse their names of it. This is our responsibility and duty as descendants. Rest assured, Uncle, Xingguang will do her utmost.”