She took out an emerald-green Jade Tablet out of thin air, and in the next second, it appeared before Fu Yan.
“If you’re curious, take this Jade Tablet and wait for me at the foot of Taiwei Mountain in Feng County, Tongzhou, Shu on September 20th. All your questions will be answered.”
The process was carried out swiftly. She attached the voice message to the Jade Tablet, ensuring Fu Yan would hear it as soon as he held it in his hand.
Confirming that Fu Yan had taken the Jade Tablet, Tang Ximo’s Life-bound Sword whistled under the moonlight, transforming into a streak of light before vanishing into the sky.
On the plane, Fu Yan was filled with excitement, yet his expression was conflicted as he rubbed the Jade Tablet. After a moment of contemplation, he found his answer.
As for Tang Ximo, who had already left, she didn’t care what he thought. Having completed her task, she was now heading home.
Following the familiar path from memory, she gazed at the familiar self-built courtyard. A sudden wave of apprehension about returning home made her hesitate to step forward and knock on the door.
Lowering her gaze to hide the welling nostalgia, she reminded herself that to her parents, she had just video-called them at noon today. But for her, it had been over a thousand years since she last saw them.
Longing surged in her heart like a tide, eventually gathering in her eyes.
The faces of her parents and younger brother, preserved in the depths of her memory for a millennium, had grown somewhat blurry to her now.
Little Golden Dragon, who was tidying up tasks in the space, wisely remained silent, quietly staying inside to work.
It understood better than anyone that its host had completed countless tasks over a thousand years to return to life.
Now that she had finally made it home as she wished, it wouldn’t be so tactless as to ruin the moment.
Just as Tang Ximo mustered the courage to knock on the door, her younger brother Tangxi Xuan, who had gone out for a meal with friends in the afternoon, returned.
He had drunk a little, feeling slightly tipsy, and stumbled to the edge of the vegetable patch by the door, shaking his groggy head.
In his daze, he thought he saw his notoriously fiery-tempered older sister.
Sneaking up from behind, he was about to pounce and give her a loving chokehold to take down his dear sister, but he was no match for her speed.
In the next second, he let out a shriek more piercing than a slaughtered pig as he was sent flying backward, landing in the vegetable patch and spitting blood.
At that moment, his mind was filled with questions: Who am I? Where am I? Am I still alive?
How long had it been since he last saw his sister? When did her combat skills become so formidable?
True to her nature, Tang Ximo stood beside him with her arms crossed, watching the spectacle unfold.
“Well, well, when did this unlucky fellow start cosplaying? Are you cosplaying as a bleeding tomato? But tomatoes aren’t buried in the ground!”
Tangxi Xuan had failed in his sneak attack, was sent flying several meters by his sister, and was now being mocked and ridiculed by her. He knew all too well that opposing his sister never ended well.
Without hesitation, he clung to her leg and begged for mercy. Fueled by the alcohol, he knelt and cried out, “Your Majesty, this servant knows his mistake! Please save your humble servant!”
His apology was utterly shameless. Though her temper was no longer what it used to be, it didn’t stop her from finding Tangxi Xuan somewhat embarrassing.
“Get up, you’re embarrassing!” She took out a Medicinal Pill from her storage ring and shoved it straight into her unlucky brother’s mouth.
The pill melted instantly upon contact. In just a few breaths, Tangxi Xuan, who had needed to cling to her leg to pull himself out of the mud, transformed from a delicate Lin Daiyu into a robust Li Kui, sobering up in the process.
“Sis, what kind of miraculous medicine did you give me? It’s not only warm and sweet but also strangely delicious!”
The moment it entered his mouth, it dissolved into a warm current that surged through his limbs and bones. The internal injuries inflicted by his elder sister were rapidly healed, and even his minor cold was cured.
However, he didn’t get an answer, as the sound of a door opening came from behind him. The gate to the small courtyard swung open from the inside.
Tangxi Xuan’s earlier howls hadn’t reached the neighbors’ ears, but they had disturbed the elderly couple who were preparing to rest.
Under the light at the entrance stood Xu Wanqing, who had simply draped a coat over herself, alongside the slightly tanned Tangxi Hua.
The couple stared wide-eyed at their two children rolling around and “fighting” in the vegetable patch—though it was more of a one-sided beatdown.
“Tangtang? Why didn’t you call ahead? Mom would’ve picked you up… Oh dear! Come out quickly. The vegetable patch was just watered with manure this afternoon—it’s filthy.”
As she spoke, Xu Wanqing walked over to her daughter, pulling her toward the house without sparing a single glance for her unlucky son, who was lying sprawled on the ground.
While mother and daughter chatted, they had already entered the house. Tangxi Hua, lagging behind, added, “Xuan’s tough-skinned and thick-boned—rolling around a bit won’t hurt him. But Tangtang is delicate and frail—she can’t be like him!”
Tangxi Xuan: Could you at least go somewhere else before badmouthing him? He’s right here!
If he’s so tough-skinned and thick-boned, how could he have been beaten until he coughed up blood by a delicate, frail human-shaped powder keg?
The key point was, he hadn’t even seen how she struck. A flash of white light before his eyes, and he was cosplaying as a vomiting tomato.
As his biological father, Tangxi Hua finally remembered his unlucky son hadn’t followed. Standing at the doorway, he turned back and shouted, “What are you still lying there for? Get up and come inside. No sense of awareness at all—looks like you’ll be sleeping in the fields tonight.”
Hearing this, Tangxi Xuan stopped hesitating and immediately scrambled to his feet, following his father into the small courtyard.
It wasn’t that he was cowardly—it was just that his dad really would lock him out.
Once inside, he found his elder sister already sitting on the sofa, eating freshly prepared pomegranate seeds.
Those were the ones he had painstakingly peeled in his spare time. He hadn’t gotten a single taste—they were all offered up to his dear sister.
Watching with a sour expression as Father Tang and Mother Xu sat on either side of his elder sister, even cutting up the honeydew melon he had bought, he felt a pang of bitterness.
{Crawling in darkness.JPG} He had never received such treatment {Twisted scream.JPG}.
Seeing their precious son enter, the couple simply said, “Go take a bath,” and paid him no further mind.
Smelling the stench of manure on himself, he couldn’t help but gag and hurried into the bathroom to wash up.
Under the attentive feeding of Father Tang and Mother Xu, Tang Ximo “elegantly” polished off the entire fruit platter.
Taking a moment, she mumbled to Father Tang and Mother Xu, “Dad, Mom, I have something important to tell you.”
“Alright, alright, we’re not in a hurry. Finish these fruits first, then we’ll talk about anything else!”
Xu Wanqing picked up a bunch of purple grapes and handed them to her husband to wash.
Tangxi Hua, carrying the washed grapes, sat back on the sofa and joked with a smile, “You’ve gotten so thin since you came back—almost like a monkey. It’s too late tonight, but tomorrow, your mom and I will go buy some meat to nourish you.”
Tang Ximo paused from eating the honeydew melon, pinching her own plump, smooth cheek full of collagen.
Speaking in her hometown dialect, she chuckled and said, “How could I possibly be as thin as a monkey? But if there’s good food, I won’t refuse it.”
“It’s best if you don’t refuse. If you pick at your food, Mom will force-feed you.”
Xu Wanqing knew very well that her daughter was extremely picky about food. If something didn’t taste good, she would only take one bite and then not touch it again for the entire meal.
“No, no, no, I definitely won’t be picky anymore.”
She hadn’t eaten a meal with the taste of home in over a thousand years—she was practically dying of craving!
Ignored, Tangxi Xuan sprawled over the back of the sofa like a scruffy puppy, holding a tablet with a game open in his hands.