Chapter 40#

The man laughed loudly, reaching out to vigorously smooth out the wrinkles for him. The almost heavy strength, the brief silence brought suffocating anger and murderous intent. The soaked clothes stuck heavily to his body. When the man made the last stroke, he even smoothed the young man’s hair, wet from the cold rain, onto his chest. Hua Jinian wanted to avoid it, but was suppressed by this terrifying pressure and couldn’t move at all. He could only turn his face slightly, gritting his teeth and enduring the man arranging his appearance with extreme patience, like playing with a toy.

He even asked him softly in a tone that could be called gentle and mild: “Didn’t you just call me father?” As he spoke, the man brought his face slightly closer, his breath, exceptionally hot in the heavy rain, spraying onto the young man’s almost frozen cheek. The man’s face looked breathtakingly handsome up close. He asked softly: “How could you say such heartless words? Am I not good enough to you? Think about it yourself, how I was trapped in the underground palace, and how you survived. Jinian, you are my only relative, the son I spent twenty years cultivating…”

Hua Jinian had never heard him speak such gentle and kind words, nor had he ever seen him so confiding. But betrayal and giving up love, once started, could not be stopped. His mind, which had already collapsed, became even more chaotic and unbearable at this moment. His head was splitting with pain, and his heart was anxious to do this one thing well, to cruelly and thoroughly cut off the hope that had been raised again and again, to escape this pouring rain, to escape the shackles he was most obsessed with and attached to.

“I can’t do it…” Hua Jinian choked with sobs: “Since I know you are not my father, I can never pretend not to know. I can’t force myself to stay by your side. I can’t lie to you, and I can’t lie to myself. I can’t, and I dare not… I’m afraid.” He had always been a contradictory person. He was weak and stubborn, he had low self-esteem and was arrogant, he was affectionate and even more heartless—he was especially heartless to himself, cutting off love with the sword of wisdom, tears congealing into blood as the sword came out. As he said this, his tone suddenly changed, forcing himself to say sharp and mean words: “Yes, you achieved the first twenty years of my life, but you cannot control my whole life—”

The man’s gentle smile stiffened on his lips like this. He only heard the words “I’m afraid”, so he didn’t stop the young man from breaking free from his embrace which still had some warmth, retreating into the cold rain, and laughed lightly in an unhurried tone: “You’re afraid? Afraid of what… Others are afraid of me, I only thought you were different. The first time I saw you, I strangled your neck fiercely, but you weren’t afraid. You couldn’t even catch your breath but still kept cursing at me, just like… like a poor little beast baring its fangs and brandishing its claws. One moment you cling to me to death, the next you don’t give me a good face. Others are afraid of me, only you are somewhat different from them.”

As the man spoke, his tone gradually turned cold. The past events buried deep in his memory that he least wanted to recall surfaced in an instant. When he was losing his baby teeth, there were always some cousins throwing stones at him, cursing loudly: “You will bring bad luck to your father and mother in the future, it’s better to die early now.” He looked back, and all the scenery was covered with a layer of blood.

Later, he knelt in the main hall, his father pointing at his nose and scolding: “They are your relatives after all! Your brothers! You are so vicious at such a young age. In the future, if someone says something unpleasant to you, will you kill even your parents!” His mother stroked his head and advised him: “Your father is right. Wives and concubines in this world are unreliable, there are many fickle women. Friends are unreliable, there are many people with honey on their lips and swords in their bellies. Subordinates are unreliable, there are even more people who obey openly but disobey secretly… But only this blood relationship is engraved in the bones from birth. Mountains collapse, water breaks, clouds flow but don’t move, who can cut it off?”

Recalling this, the man’s face changed uncertainly. Looking at the trembling Hua Jinian in the heavy rain, he said slowly in a low voice: “In the past, I hated it most when others called me a devil. I always felt that I was a human being. No matter how cruel and merciless I was, there would be some difference between joy and sorrow. Those who are not afraid of me and treat me sincerely, since my mother left, there are no more in this world. My mother told me that the only thing in this world that cannot be cut off is blood relationship. You are my only son. In these years, I often suppressed my temper and taught you with all my heart, just wanting to raise a real relative who would never fear me and never abandon me. Then, these remaining feelings of mine can be revealed to him without scruples.”

Seeing Hua Jinian stunned, the man smiled grimly: “When I was eight years old, I was insulted by my cousins. Later I killed them and threw their bodies into the leopard garden in the back mountain. Because of this, my father had a big quarrel with me. I scolded him for not being my father. With one disagreement, my father scolded me for having a vicious heart and pushed me into this underground palace under our feet with his own hands, sealing the entrance with stone bricks. It was my mother who dug open the stone bricks bit by bit with her bare hands to save me. Later he pushed me in many times, and it was always my mother who saved me. From then on, I swore that whoever bullied my mother, I would definitely take revenge.” Speaking of this, he didn’t notice the young man’s face becoming paler and paler, and continued on his own: “I learned a lot of things in the underground palace and figured out a lot of things. Only one thing I couldn’t figure out—my father, why did he push me in? Since blood relationship is the strongest, why did he hurt me? So my mother told me: ‘Your father is angry. Any parent would be angry if their children didn’t recognize them.’”

Hua Jinian seemed to finally understand what he wanted to say. Just as he was about to speak, he saw the man put a finger on his lips, so he had to shut up. The man said leisurely: “At that time, I only thought my mother was talking nonsense, but later I understood. It turns out that one really gets angry. My mood at this moment… I really want you to know that I long to kill you in ten million ways…”

As he spoke, seeing Hua Jinian trembling more and more violently, he suddenly murmured in a low voice: “But as long as there is a possibility that you will no longer be afraid of my current identity, call me father again, treat all facts as non-existent, and treat me just like before, I can’t bear to end your life so rashly.”

“It’s just like a peach tree you’ve raised for twenty years. You watch it bloom and bear fruit every year. Until it becomes the only joy in your life, suddenly someone comes and tells you that this tree doesn’t belong to you anymore, and someone else will move it away tomorrow… You must be like me at this moment, wanting to chop this tree into firewood on the last night it belongs to you. However, once the next day that person tells you, we won’t fight with you for this tree, it belongs to you again—but you can no longer see it bloom, it has withered and died in your hands. At this moment, how should you deal with yourself?”

Hua Jinian was confused by his bewitching tone like water, but as soon as he thought of the “chop into firewood” mentioned in his words, and thought of what this might mean, he felt a burst of horror. How could he have time to carefully savor the reluctance and attachment in it in this heavy rain that chilled people’s hearts?

“Jinian, you are the small tree I have raised for twenty years. Finally waiting for your branches and leaves to flourish, but you refuse…” As the man spoke, the trace of weakness revealed in his tone suddenly disappeared, and a self-mocking smile appeared on the corner of his mouth again.

“I ask you one more time, are you afraid of me like everyone else?”

Hua Jinian couldn’t open his eyes in the rain, so naturally he couldn’t see the man’s expression clearly. For a moment, he only cared about his own sadness and nodded hesitantly.

“Then, are you determined to abandon me?”

Hua Jinian nodded again.

“Are you willing to change your mind and call me father like before?”

Hua Jinian was silent for a while, and this time he shook his head.

The man looked up to the sky and laughed loudly, like a wounded male beast. He reached out and printed a palm on the young man’s chest. The young man thought he was going to die, but only heard something shatter there. The man laughed loudly: “Listen well, from today on, you are not my son, and I don’t recognize you. You and I are strangers from now on… No, worse than strangers. If you dare to appear in front of me again, I will kill you every time I see you—! Get lost!”

The young man’s body slowly went limp, but he didn’t mean to leave. The man roared: “Get lost!” Seeing Hua Jinian limp there, seeming to have no strength to walk at all, he sneered and lifted the young man’s chin, saying word by word: “In the past, it was always you escaping from my side. It’s fine if you don’t get lost today. Look carefully this time, who leaves first.”

Hua Jinian watched the man’s back quickly swallowed by the rainstorm, reached out and carefully took out the thing he had treasured close to his chest, which had just been shattered by the man. That was the only thing the man gave him, a nine-linked ring broken into pieces. Hua Jinian tried hard to piece them together, but couldn’t put them together no matter what.

In the pouring rain, the young man was so panicked that he didn’t even have time to look at the man’s back. He just pieced together in a flurry. A fragment fell to the ground in his panic, rolled a few times, and fell into the stream. Hua Jinian knelt on the ground and groped for a long time before realizing that the fragment could never be found again. He choked for a while, and suddenly cried loudly in the rain.

Inside a dim cave.

“Truly breathtaking.” The wondrous sight in front of him caused the man in pale yellow brocade clothes to utter a low, smiling sigh of admiration. This was Shen Pinzhen, the owner of Huanzhen Mountain Villa, whose whereabouts had been unknown for many days.

In this cave where cold springs constantly gushed out from the ground, a huge fossil tree in the center, mixed with various natural crystals, constantly flickered with colorful shimmer in the dim light, reflecting in the cold pool under the tree, shining with each other, making the entire cave colorful.

But what was even more moving were the hundreds of small jade bottles immersed in the cold pool. Shen Pinzhen laughed in a low voice: “A bottle of Condensing Essence Dew is expensive enough to make people sell their sons and daughters. How many bottles are there here… Calculating carefully, it can at least prolong Brother Hua’s life for decades. Fortress Master Hua looks hard-hearted, but when it comes to his own flesh and blood, he is willing to spend such a sum of money. It is truly a touching father-son relationship.”

As he spoke, he couldn’t help shaking his head and sighing: “I heard early on that to brew a bottle of Condensing Essence Dew, one needs to choose a wonderful place with natural treasures. But the world is so big, if it weren’t for your help, Hall Master, even if Pinzhen exhausted his life’s energy, he wouldn’t know when he could take revenge.”

The person following behind Shen Pinzhen was completely hidden in the darkness and replied in a low voice: “Don’t call me Hall Master anymore. I am ashamed of the name of Hall Master of Floating Pagoda Fortress. Are you going to destroy all these life-saving medicines?”

Shen Pinzhen asked in surprise with a smile: “You can’t bear it?”

The person murmured in a low voice: “That child, after all, after all, I watched him grow up…”