Chapter 49#
Lost Soul#
Yin Yuheng would die? How was that possible.
Shen Liyuan gritted his teeth, his expression distorted, and his vision went black in waves. He panted heavily. People around him came and went, but for a while, no one dared to touch him.
Shen Liyuan refused to believe that Yin Yuheng had died just like that. He thought that perhaps the “Relocating Emotions” incense had affected his sanity, or perhaps he was still dreaming… Shen Liyuan suddenly put his hand into his mouth and bit down hard. Blood gushed out, and the pain reminded him that he was not in a dream.
Shen Liyuan withdrew his hand trembling, his mind a bit dazed.
In Shen Liyuan’s heart, Yin Yuheng was a gentle and powerful person. He wanted to drag the god down from the altar, but he had never thought that Yin Yuheng would die.
When Shen Liyuan first met Yin Yuheng, the other was standing in the sunlight, clean and tidy, reaching out to him. How could he be lying in a pool of blood in the blink of an eye?
“Why?”
The people of the Shen family had seen Shen Liyuan go crazy, but they were still frightened by Shen Liyuan’s madness, and no one dared to step forward. At this moment, Shen Liyuan was like a malevolent ghost crawling out of hell, hideous and terrifying.
Shen Liyuan’s gaze slid past the long sword on the ground and finally landed on Yin Yuheng’s blood-stained palm. He stared blankly, and gradually quieted down, a trace of confusion appearing on his face.
“He… hurt himself,” Shen Liyuan murmured blankly, “Why?”
No one answered him.
The bright moon was silent, the clear wind was wordless, and none of the servants dared to make a sound. The surroundings were eerily quiet.
The fragrance of the “Relocating Emotions” incense remaining in the room gradually faded.
Relocating Emotions…
Shen Liyuan suddenly reached out and took off the black bead clipped to Yin Yuheng’s earlobe. The moment his fingertips touched it, Lu Yan’s anxious voice entered his mind. He heard Lu Yan’s shouts and suddenly understood something.
When the “Relocating Emotions” incense forcibly changed Yin Yuheng’s memory, Yin Yuheng stabbed himself with the sword. Pain keeps a person clear-headed; Yin Yuheng used all his strength just to say a single sentence to Lu Yan.
The person Yin Yuheng liked, the person he dreamed of, was not Li Guanghan, but Lu Yan. He liked him to the extent that he could wake up from “Relocating Emotions” and refused to forget even if it meant exhausting all his strength.
Besides this reason, Shen Liyuan couldn’t think of any other explanation.
In an instant, Shen Liyuan lost all strength in his body, and with a looseness of his hand, the black bead rolled to the corner of the wall. He slid down to sit on the ground. This young master, who was esteemed and elegant in front of outsiders, showed a disheveled and helpless expression.
“So, you would rather die… than like me.”
Yin Yuheng was good to him because Yin Yuheng was fundamentally a gentle person. Whether it was Li Guanghan or Zhu Anning… both had received Yin Yuheng’s care and protection. He was never the special one.
He tried his best to make himself a bit more special, yet from the beginning to the end, even with all his calculations, he could not get his wish.
What didn’t belong to him would never belong to him.
In the end, he didn’t even have one ten-thousandth of that gentleness left.
He had long lost the affection of his parents, and now he had also lost his moonlight. He ended up with nothing.
Shen Liyuan sat kneeling in a daze, without speaking or shedding tears. His whole person became dead silent, like a piece of withered wood submerged in stagnant water.
*
Overnight, the world of the Li Dynasty changed.
The Second Princess, Yin Xuanji, who was traveling the world, held Yin Yuheng’s letter and rushed back overnight. This princess was of a decisive character; she went straight to Quzhou and directly had people surround the Shen family.
The iron cavalry was solemn, and the golden armor was like a forest.
Before Yin Xuanji left the capital, she had been in command of the Imperial Guards and had long held prestige in the army. She kicked open the door of the Shen family, and the cold glint of her spear tip flashed as it pressed against Shen Liyuan’s neck.
Shen Liyuan didn’t react; he just sat in the wheelchair, holding the person in white in his arms.
“Give him to me,” Yin Xuanji had no patience, “Don’t think I have no way to deal with the Shen family.”
Shen Liyuan, however, tightened his arms and held the person even closer.
Yin Xuanji was amused by the anger.
“You want to defy the imperial decree?”
With the Emperor in seclusion and the Crown Prince’s life or death unknown, the words of the Second Princess, Yin Xuanji, were now the imperial decree.
Shen Liyuan lowered his eyes and gently touched the hair of the person in his arms. With a sharp spear tip pointed at his throat, he actually slowly revealed a stiff smile.
Yin Yuheng had just had an accident, yet the Second Princess had rushed back as if she had received the news in advance; Quzhou was the Shen family’s territory, yet the army was able to surround the Shen family with unexpected speed.
If it were all a coincidence, Shen Liyuan didn’t believe it. How much wind and surge were behind this, he didn’t want to delve into it either.
He just vaguely recalled that year when he invited Yin Yuheng to play chess and taste tea, and he won three rounds; outside the chessboard, the “Immortal Order” was successfully executed, and the great families lost the entire game.
“You are always infallible in your calculations. Sometimes I think I understand you, but sometimes I feel I don’t.” Shen Liyuan looked gently at the silent person in his arms, “Forget it, I lose.”
I admit defeat.
“You said you regarded me as a good friend and confidant, was it true?”
Shen Liyuan’s voice was very light, carrying a trace of imperceptible trembling.
Yin Xuanji coldly took over: “The great families have been entrenched for a long time, and some time ago they even intended to move against Xiao Heng. Naturally, Xiao Heng was vigilant. But if the families hadn’t ultimately acted rashly, the personal troops wouldn’t have acted either.”
“Xiao Heng was just planning ahead; he didn’t intend to plot against you.”
Shen Liyuan listened quietly, smiling softly.
“I know,” Shen Liyuan gazed piously at Yin Yuheng, picked up the youth’s hair tip, and kissed it, “He is the best person.”
Yin Xuanji’s eyelid twitched, and she kicked over Shen Liyuan’s wheelchair with one foot. Shen Liyuan’s eyes were nearly splitting with rage; he wasn’t afraid of falling to the ground, but he was afraid Yin Yuheng would be in pain. He couldn’t care about anything else and wanted to hold Yin Yuheng to prevent him from being bumped, but a shadow flashed, and the white-clothed youth was scooped into Yin Xuanji’s arms.
“Don’t be afraid, Sister is taking you home.” Yin Xuanji’s voice softened, “This time I came back and brought you almond cakes, a specialty of Lizhou. Didn’t you like them since you were a child?”
Shen Liyuan fell to the ground and struggled to sit up again. His eyes were bloodshot, and his legs couldn’t move; he tried to use his hands to prop himself up and crawl toward Yin Xuanji: “Give him to me… Give him to me!”
Yin Xuanji gave him a cold look. Several people behind her stepped forward, twisted Shen Liyuan’s shoulders, and pinned him in place.
“Xiao Heng told me about you when he was a child,” Yin Xuanji said from above, “He said if there was a chance, he wanted to try being friends with you.”
Shen Liyuan suddenly quieted down.
“He had long been helping you look for a way to treat your leg injury, and he even mentioned this in his letter to me, saying he recently had some leads and was very happy. But do you deserve for him to be so attentive?”
Shen Liyuan opened his mouth, and the tears that had never fallen finally fell.
“The Shen family colluded with other great families in an attempt to assassinate the Crown Prince, a major crime of treason. Control everyone,” Yin Xuanji no longer looked at him and gave instructions indifferently, “The city is under martial law, block all news, say the Crown Prince is injured and in seclusion.”
At this time, the others sent to search other parts of the Shen family also rushed back. They respectfully handed Yin Xuanji a strange object emitting a faint white glow.
Yin Xuanji glanced at it, nodded, and signaled for it to be taken away.
*
Yin Xuanji took Yin Yuheng back to Chaoge.
She was older than Yin Yuheng, had traveled widely, and was very experienced. She carefully examined Yin Yuheng’s spiritual platform and sea of consciousness, confirming it repeatedly, and finally breathed a sigh of relief.
“He’s not dead; it’s Lost Soul Syndrome, his three souls and seven spirits are all damaged,” Yin Xuanji said tiredly, “I knew it, the one who can trouble people the most since childhood is you.”
As early as a few days ago, Yin Yuheng had sent a letter to Yin Xuanji, which was why Yin Xuanji could return in time.
“The Kunlun Mirror fragment you entrusted has been obtained, but with you unconscious like this, nothing you wanted to do can be accomplished.”
Yin Xuanji looked at her brother’s closed eyes, her beautiful brows furrowed, seeming somewhat helpless.
“Was this accident all calculated by you?”
Before the “Immortal Order,” cultivation methods were almost monopolized in the hands of the great families and sects, which had accumulated deep foundations. The families were intermarried and deep-rooted for a long time, with many high-level cultivators, and might even hide old monsters of the Transformation Stage. The royal family and the great families were in a mutual state of check and balance. Yin Yuheng had long wanted to move against the families but had always been patient. First, there was no perfect reason, and second, there was no certainty of a one-strike kill.
The Shen family’s actions this time were equivalent to treason, a good reason to act. The army had long been on standby, and before anyone could react, lightning-fast measures had already fallen, and the Shen family was in imminent danger. As for the Transformation Stage cultivators who might exist in the great families… there were also people who could deal with them.
Yin Xuanji raised her head and glanced toward the National Preceptor’s Manor.
*
It was clearly late spring and early summer, yet the entire mountain and field were actually submerged in wind and snow.
Green leaves were covered by white snow, and branches were condensed with frost. The extreme cold sword intent crisscrossed, and on the snow, the blood gradually solidified and turned black.
An old man fell on his back in the snow, a rasping sound coming from his throat. He looked at the person not far away as if looking at a demon.
Calling him a demon was not wrong either. Desperate baleful energy and demonic energy surged from him, his strength approaching the peak of the Transformation Stage.
Li Guanghan, the once elegant and transcendental Transformation Stage Sword Sovereign, had ultimately fallen into demonhood.
Li Guanghan said indifferently: “You deserve to die.”
All the disciples of the great families, the people who killed Yuheng, all deserved to die.
Just as Li Guanghan was planning to continue killing, someone called out to him. At this moment, Li Guanghan could no longer listen to others, but the other person called out a name that made Li Guanghan stop his hand.
“I am an old acquaintance of His Highness the Crown Prince, and I have come to persuade you not to kill indiscriminately,” Eunuch De bowed to Li Guanghan, “His Highness had no intention of slaughtering all the great families.”
Li Guanghan’s eyes were full of hostility, and he sneered: “But they harmed Yuheng. You’ve come to persuade me to let them go?”
Under the pressure from Li Guanghan, Eunuch De said calmly: “If His Highness were here, this would also be his intention. The guilty should be punished, but there are always innocent people who should not die.”
Li Guanghan was stunned for a long time, and no one knew what he thought of, but tears slid down.
Eunuch De sighed: “What His Highness wanted was stability for the Human Clan. The families do not need to be completely slaughtered, but the Li Dynasty will not need to be controlled by the families from now on.”
Li Guanghan said hoarsely: “…I understand.”
Li Guanghan thought, I will accomplish the things you wanted to accomplish.
I will be the sword in your hand; whatever your wish, I will never look back.