Realms In The Firmament

Prince Hua-Yang continued speaking passionately. His face had turned red because he was excited enough to feel his blood boil.

“… Across the blade of his sword, blood flowed, dripping down to the ground. His eyes resembled two sharp swords which stared at me and he asked, ‘Su Ding-Guo, I can bring a complete turnabout in this battle, but in return, you need to give me a thing. What do you think?’ And then I answered, ‘As long as you can turn the table, I can even give you my head!’ The man in white nodded and said, ‘Very well. Follow me!’”

“The whole conversation had no superfluous words. And then he turned around and fought his way towards the densest part of the enemy troops’ formation. We fought hard, rushing here and there, covering the entire battlefield. He used incredible martial arts to change the flow of the battle and then, all my men got together under his lead and broke out of the encirclement!”

“From beginning to end, the man in black was concentrating on fighting and rushing. When his sword swung, all the people in front of him fell down. He kept swinging his sword till we got out. He never stopped, his sword never stopped.”

“The man in white was your father, Ye Nan-Tian!”

Su Ding-Guo looked at Ye Xiao, “Do you know why your father saved me?”

Ye Xiao was stunned and he said, “Was it… for me?”

“That’s right! You are not completely stupid after all!” Prince Hua-Yang humphed and said, “After we got out of the besiegement, before I had time to say thank you to your father, he said, ‘Now that I have done what I promised to do, you should honour your end of the deal. I need your Seven Hearts Nine Seeds Dreamy Lotus!’. He was completely exhausted. In fact your father had received many wounds during the fight. More than fifty cuts were gushing out blood, but he didn’t care about them at all. He simply stated his request.”

Ye Xiao was astonished.

[The Seven Hearts Nine Seeds Dreamy Lotus!

He wanted that!]

At that moment, the Xiao Monarch finally realized what had been wrong with his body.

The Seven Hearts Nine Seeds Lotus was used for curing some natural-born diseases.

Actually, when the dead Ye Xiao was still a fetus, he had been suffering from poisoning and Jing and Mai damage. Although he was successfully born, his body was weak and he was in a critical condition throughout his infancy.

This Lotus was the perfect cure for that.

It was not extremely precious, but it was extremely rare!

The reason why it was called ‘Dreamy Lotus’ was that it was only seen in dreams.

Prince Hua-Yang laughed and said, “I found it by coincidence when I was in a battle on a snow mountain. I encountered an avalanche and was buried underneath the snow. After I dug myself out, I found the Seven Hearts Nine Seeds Dreamy Lotus. Although I had been cherishing the Dreamy Lotus, after that fight, I had no hesitation and I said, ‘You can have it!’”

“After that, we returned to the capital. When we arrived, the first thing I did was to send the lotus to your father.” Su Ding-Guo smiled warmly, “And the friendship between your father and I was built at that moment.”

Ye Xiao felt that a lot of events had started to make sense.

He thought, [My ‘father’ actually did such a great thing in the past… Killing in and out a battle alone with one sword only to get the cure for his sick son. He deserves to be called ‘peerless figure’ indeed…]

When Ye Xiao imagined the scene of Ye Nan-Tian fighting and rushing inside an encirclement made by hundreds of thousands of men with only a single sword in his hand, although he showed a calm exterior, he felt his blood boil.

“What your father did for you was really…” Prince Hua-Yang looked at Ye Xiao like he was exasperated about his disappointing lifestyle, “He had been extremely worried about you! He had almost given up his whole life for you… Yet you are… Arh!”

He took a deep breath. Obviously, he had lost all interest in talking any more.

Prince Hua-Yang thought of the day when Ye Nan-Tian fought alone on the battle and then looked at Ye Xiao. He felt sad for Ye Nan-Tian.

Ye Xiao took a deep breath too. He lowered his head.

Even though the one Prince Hua-Yang was criticizing was not him, yet he felt what ‘Ye Xiao’ should feel.

[In my previous life… if I could have such a father, a father who would sacrifice everything for his son… How happy would I be?] He thought.

When collecting his thoughts, he was suddenly motivated, [Father sacrificed everything, but… what about mother? Prince Hua-Yang didn’t mention my mother all along!]

So he asked, “Well… What about my mother?”

When speaking of ‘mother’, he felt a strange excitement in his heart, even though he had been living as a man for two lives. The feeling was warm but it also contained a bit of loneliness…

[My mother…]

How warm. He felt a strong yearning for her.

He never had met his parents in his previous life… He had never known who had given birth to him. Until he died, he didn’t know who his parents were.

Did he have a mother now?

He must have!

He should!

Prince Hua-Yang wore a sad expression and shook his head slowly. He quietly said, “I have no idea. I never met your mother… Your father never mentioned her.”

Ye Xiao was surprised.

In fact, he had thought that his mother might be dead for a long time. However, after hearing what Prince Hua-Yang said, he figured there must be some hidden reasons for her disappearance.

[Nobody has ever mentioned my mother in front of me. My father never did… If she died, why didn’t anybody talk to me about her?

There is something strange about it!]

He didn’t speak anymore, but he bore it in mind.

After a short silence, Su Ding-Guo continued speaking... The lotus hadn’t made any big difference. After that, Ye Nan-Tian went to see the king of the Kingdom of Chen under Su Ding-Guo’s recommendation. The king gave him the best medicine of the kingdom, but as a return, Ye Nan-Tian had to become a sworn brother to the king and guard the northern border for twenty years. The medicine attained was really extraordinary and it successfully restored Ye Xiao’s condition to a normal, healthy condition…

Ye Xiao had already heard this story from the steward, yet, after hearing it once more, he still felt excited and thrilled.

A father could actually do such a thing for his son…

However, after the excitement subsided, Ye Xiao came out with a question. The Dreamy Lotus was divine among medicines. As per his knowledge, it could easily cure every poison and diseases in the Land of Han-Yang.

However, after Ye Xiao took it, although it was somewhat effective, it still didn’t work well. He still needed the medicine of the Kingdom of Chen to be fully cured. That meant that he had suffered from an extraordinary condition, and the cause of the damage was something not from this realm!

His father, single handedly, was able to kill hundreds of thousands men in the battle…

[In another word, my father, and mother, even the steward, are very possibly not residents of the Land of Han-Yang. They must be from a higher realm…

But how did they get down?]

While collecting his thoughts, he kept finding new information about his family. Finally, he focused on the words of Prince Hua-Yang…

After that battle, there was a new prince with a name different from the royal family in the kingdom — Prince Hua-Yang. Su Ding-Guo had made great contributions, so it was reasonable that he was awarded the royal title. However, people didn’t know that there was another prince in the kingdom…

“To be a sworn brother of the king, he naturally became a prince. But your father stoutly refused the title. The king had no other choices but to announce that the title should be reserved for your clan in the royal family book. No one ever divulged information about this.”

He laughed, “So, in people’s eyes, there is only one prince with a different surname in the kingdom. Hah hah. In fact, there are two. And we got the title at the same time.”

They all smiled.

At the end of the conversation, Su Ding-Guo finished another cup of liquor and tapped Ye Xiao on the shoulder. He spoke softly, “Xiao Xiao, you better… not let your father down…”

He said with a comforting tone, “These days, I have seen you change a lot indeed. You finally stopped fooling around like you did before… Heh heh…”

At the end of the dinner, Prince Hua-Yang was seriously drunk and immediately went to sleep.

His wife naturally went to take care of him. There were only two of them left at the table, Su Ye-Yue and Ye Xiao.

Actually, Ye Xiao wanted to return home right now.

He had done what he came to to. He felt that he didn’t need to stay any longer. For him, the most important thing at the moment was to deal with his newly acquired Divine Weapon with Demonic Edge.

“I ur… I better be off.” Ye Xiao giggled and touched his head. Being criticized for a whole night, he felt that he had actually come to ask for torturing this time…

“What did you say? You are leaving?” At the beginning Su Ye-Yue blushed and kept her head low like a bashful lady, but when she heard Ye Xiao, she started acting overwhelmingly, “What does that mean? You were so happy being criticized by my father. Now you are alone with me and you actually want to leave! Humph! Move if your dare!”

Ye Xiao groaned, “Please my dear lady…”

“A ‘dear lady’ couldn’t help you!” Her tongue was vicious. She rested her arms on her waist. Apparently, she was reaching for the whip that was given to her by Ye Nan-Tian. Oh, the fabulous husband-disciplining tool.

Ye Xiao gave up immediately, “Fine. Ok. I never wanted to leave. I just want to find out if you would ask me to stay or not.”

“Humph!” She didn’t believe him, apparently.

But she was satisfied that Ye Xiao would stay. She jumped breezily with her hands on the back and said, “Let’s go to the back yard. People always say a smart man and a pretty girl staying under the moon beside the flowers show each other their … sort of love stuff… I don’t know…”

Ye Xiao held his forehead and groaned. He sighed deep within his heart.

[The girl must be seriously poisoned by those romantic stories in the books and seeking those plots in reality. That is not good…]

[A smart man and a pretty girl showing each other their ‘sort of love’… Gosh… When they have money, they are a smart man and a pretty girl. Without it, there will never be the ‘sort of love’…] Ye Xiao smiled bitterly and thought, [There was only ‘adultery’…]

…

This is the first sponsored chapter.

Special thanks to Nicholas W. and Nathan M. for sponsoring this chapter.

Translator : Rain

Editor : Alpha, Arch