“Do not resent your mother, nor blame your father; I was never meant to exist in the first place.”
Spilling, scalding blood continuously spread across the ground, and an overwhelming sea of red filled his entire field of vision.
Ying Laixian rushed desperately toward his father’s bedchamber. Along the way, corpses littered the ground, and blood flooded the entire palace. Stumbling and tripping, he shoved aside the mountains of bodies, and the moment he burst into the back courtyard, he happened to witness such a scene—a figure in black raised a blade and brought it down, sending his father’s head flying as blood splattered across the earth.
“No!”
A heartbreaking, piercing cry tore through the heavens and the earth. The surrounding flames and bloodstains could not rival the red burning in his eyes. Ying Laixian’s heart stopped dead, his lips twitched uncontrollably, and tears streamed down his face in an instant.
Yet he could do nothing…
He could only watch helplessly as that murderous monster walked right up to him. The black cloak shielded the demon’s face, and as Ying Laixian trembled all over, the demon hoisted him up with a single hand.
He was nearly on the verge of collapse, unable to speak properly. His throat felt tightly constricted, and it took him a long while to force out a few pale words through trembling lips: “You… I will kill you…”
“Kill me?” The figure in black seemed amused by him, bursting into loud, mocking laughter. “You? A pampered, good-for-nothing who has never accomplished a single thing? You want to exact revenge for them, looking like this right now?”
With that, the figure in black violently hurled Ying Laixian onto the ground.
“I carried out the slaughter of this entire estate single-handedly. If you want revenge, I will give you a chance, I would love nothing more than to witness your utter despair.”
Ying Laixian struggled frantically, his legs kicking and scrambling forward. Enduring the agonizing pain, he inched closer to the figure in black, mustering his last ounce of strength to rip away the black hood. He was just about to catch a clear glimpse of his enemy’s face.
“Young Master! Young Master!”
The frantic knocking against the door was exceedingly loud. Ying Laixian snapped out of the nightmare, his entire body drenched in cold, clamorous sweat.
He sat upright, his expression somewhat dazed and unfocused. Outside the door, the calling continued.
“Come in.”
Jiang Ni entered the room and lit the lamp. “Did the Young Master have another nightmare?”
Ying Laixian nodded.
“Is it…” Jiang Ni wanted to ask if it was because of Tan Congye. Ever since that day, Ying Laixian had suffered from nightmares every single time.
“No,” Ying Laixian cut her off. “Is something the matter?”
It was already noon. Ying Laixian looked out at the daylight, never expecting that he had slept for so long.
“Tan Congye has arrived.”
Ying Laixian took a sip of tea to clear his head.
“All right, I understand. You may withdraw first.”
After Jiang Ni departed, Ying Laixian slumped abruptly back onto the mattress. Staring at the bed curtains illuminated by the bright daylight, for a moment he could not tell what time it was.
In truth, he rarely dreamed of the past. Because his memories were far too numerous, once they became chaotic, he could no longer tell which repetition of life these memories belonged to.
Ying Laixian closed his eyes, and a dream he had not experienced in a long, long time pulled his thoughts far back into the past.
In Ying Laixian’s impression, his parents had been deeply in love. He was the couple’s only child, a pampered and cherished young master.
Yet the mother in his memories was always melancholy and sentimental a side of her he only ever witnessed when his father was away from home.
“Many things in life simply cannot be forced. My arrival here was an accident, meeting your father was also an accident, and giving birth to you was an even greater accident.”
There was much that a six-year-old Ying Laixian could not comprehend. At that time, indulged by his parents, he neither practiced martial arts nor studied books; there was scarcely anything he needed to worry about.
In truth, he rather disliked spending time alone with his mother, because whenever those moments arrived, she would transform into someone entirely unlike her usual self. She seemed burdened by countless unspeakable secrets, though she never once revealed them in front of his father.
“Do not resent your mother, nor blame your father; I was never meant to exist in the first place.”
Ying Laixian’s ears rang with a dull hum. As a gentle breeze swept past, he caught sight of the ethereal, beauty-like woman leaning against the railing. Quietly, soundlessly, she departed in absolute serenity, as though unwilling to disturb a single soul.
The surrounding servants panicked as they rushed to find his father. Someone stepped forward to offer words of comfort, yet not a single person dared to meet his eyes.
How could this be…?
His father hurried over promptly, yet the man who was ordinarily so eloquent fell into an unprecedented, profound silence. On that day, no matter how long or how desperately Ying Laixian cried and shouted, he could not elicit the slightest reaction from his father.
At the time, he hadn’t paid attention, because his mother’s passing was something no one could have anticipated. The nightmare had arrived with such startling abruptness, as though it had been meticulously planned out all along, waiting quietly for the most suitable moment.
Heavy, ornate outer coffins locked away the figure draped in red, while white mourning cloth draped every high tower and pavilion.
This sudden calamity cast a heavy, suffocating pall over everything. Everyone wept in hushed sobs, mourning the beautiful woman.
Yet the funeral was never completed. That very night, a river of blood wound its way across the estate, a pervasive sea of red suffocating his entire field of vision, while towering, all-consuming flames scorched his skin.
Pressing a hand to his throbbing temples, Ying Laixian recalled that murderous monster once more. He had been agonizingly close to seeing his enemy’s face.
The assailant had not killed him, and for him, that was a far more agonizing nightmare.
He fled Wuzhou, yet along the journey, assassins pursued him relentlessly without end. He knew those pursuers were deliberately orchestrated by that person, an intentional forcing of him into desperate corners. Every single time assassins battered him into critical wounds teetering on the brink of death, that same person would reappear to bestow upon him a renewed, cruel hope of survival.
Back then, Ying Laixian had thought to himself: It doesn’t matter. As long as I stay alive, as long as I live…
Endless repetitions of the same tragic cycle taught Ying Laixian that he could never escape this man. Even when he escaped to Quedu, he still could not hide. Every time he closed his eyes, that evil, mocking voice would continuously echo and circle within his mind:
“Didn’t you say you were going to kill me to avenge them?! You useless good-for-nothing! Stripped of them, you can accomplish nothing at all. You’re so utterly mediocre that even if you died, nobody would care. Your family’s destroyer stands right before you, yet you are completely powerless—what a pathetic waste of space.”
Ying Laixian’s ears were filled with the mockery of that voice. He managed to live peacefully in Quedu for a few years, and as time passed, his appearance grew increasingly striking, earning him a modest renown in the city. Yet he remained utterly incapable of seeking revenge, unable to even parry a single strike from that man.
Afterward, he successively came to know many people, forging deep friendships with numerous companions, and for a long time, he did not lay eyes upon that person again.
Just when Ying Laixian thought his life was finally turning upward, he received the blood-drenched heads of several close friends, and that man appeared once more.
“You live a more pathetic life than anyone else! Your parents and your friends all died because of your uselessness! Stand up! Take up your sword and kill me to avenge them!”
His tears long since dried, Ying Laixian stared at the mangled flesh and blood on the ground before raising his sword against his own throat.
Following that, the entire world plunged into pitch blackness. It felt as though he had been locked away in some forsaken place for an eternity, his entire body bound by heavy iron chains. Here, time ceased to flow, there were no clamorous human voices, and even the sound of his own breathing vanished.
It seemed as though he had been severed from the world for ages, until suddenly one day, a sliver of light pierced through that realm of darkness. The chilling iron chains dissolved into nothingness, and Ying Laixian was blinded by the brilliant radiance.
A glaring splash of dazzling red suddenly broke into the sea of blackness. Stunned, Ying Laixian stared at the boundless mountains of corpses and roaring, blazing infernos before him.
“This…” Ying Laixian opened his mouth, but his voice sounded incomparably childish and young.
Panicking, he rushed headlong into the flames, sprinting toward the back courtyard, only to witness that murderous monster all over again…
It was precisely the same scene.
The nightmare repeated in an endless loop. No matter what alternative path he chose, as long as death claimed him, he would inevitably be dragged back to the exact day the nightmare began.
He had once thought that merely staying alive was enough, but now, death was far more difficult to attain than survival.
When Ying Laixian stepped out into the courtyard, Tan Congye was seated in his usual spot, quietly studying a chessboard. Standing obediently beside him was a gentle-featured youth whose meridians and acupoints had all been completely sealed.
Yan Zhou’s appearance matched Ying Laixian’s memories. In his previous lives, he had interacted even less with Yan Zhou, because this young man had died at an extraordinarily tender age.
Fortunately, this time, he had seized the exact window of opportunity to have Tan Congye rescue him in time.
“I’ve brought him to you,” Tan Congye said as he stood up. “Just as you wished.”
“Thank you.”
“Let’s skip the formalities,” Tan Congye replied. “Though I have no idea what scheme you’re plotting, if you actually manage to acquire the clues to the Changye Hall treasure, I’m afraid it will only invite a fatal calamity upon your head.”
“I’ll be fine.” Ying Laixian turned his gaze toward Yan Zhou standing nearby. “Young Master Yan, I will arrange to send you home shortly.”
Yan Zhou was hardly a fool; he understood that the person who orchestrated his rescue must have had ulterior motives. Yet, now that he had reached Yuye City, rather than facing the unknown terror of continued assassinations on the road, following obediently alongside them was by far the safer choice.
Thus, he blinked hard in acknowledgment.
Tan Congye finally reached out and unsealed his acupoints.
Freed from his bindings, Yan Zhou knew running away was futile. Fortunately, throughout the journey, aside from sealing his acupoints, Tan Congye hadn’t mistreated him, which naturally softened his attitude toward Ying Laixian somewhat.
“Thank you for arranging your people to rescue me. Um…” Yan Zhou rubbed his nose, at a loss for words.
He didn’t even know who this person was, yet he felt that someone of such ethereal appearance was truly a rarity, inexplicably stirring a sense of closeness within him.
“No need to thank me,” Ying Laixian replied with a gentle smile. “I imagine you haven’t heard yet, Pavilion Master Yan went to extraordinary lengths to search for you. We are merely engaging in a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
Yan Zhou had never encountered someone so refreshingly candid. He glanced left and right, but nobody paid him any mind, as though his presence were entirely negligible.
“When do you plan to send him back?” Tan Congye asked.
He waited for the youth’s reply, knowing full well that everything was already well within his preparations.
Ying Laixian answered, “Immediately. I am simply waiting for a friend.”