Heavenly Star
Chapter 318 Poison
“That’s right. **, is always the most terrifying thing in the world. It can turn brothers against each other, husbands and wives to nemesis, and accomplices to destroy each other. The human heart can rot and change within the **, making it extremely ugly… Shui Yunlan, he and I were born only a few days apart and we look amazingly alike. Due to this natural coincidence, he and I have always been the best partners and have grown up together since childhood. His talent is limitless and he has lofty aspirations. He has always put in an extraordinary amount of effort when he was very young. Originally, in every generation of the Southern Emperor Sect, the strongest would have the pure blood of the Southern Emperor and is destined to become the head of the Southern Emperor Sect. However, in my generation, he was far superior to me in both civil and military affairs. People in the sect all praised him. Even my father and grandfather praised him. As his partner, I never felt jealous, but admired him from the bottom of my heart. I was proud of him.”
Shui Yuntian’s voice stopped for a while, and his thoughts returned to the source of the nightmare, “In our teenage years, he and I both fell in love with your mother, and Fu’er also favored me when we were very young. After we were together, I felt Shui Yunlan’s estrangement, the hatred in his eyes when I turned my back on him. However, at that time, I was too naive and couldn’t fully understand how a person full of resentment and jealousy could become so frightful. I didn’t blame him, but felt sorry for him. At the same time, the voice of discord in the sect was getting louder. Some people insisted on keeping in mind of the mission left by their ancestors, because if one goes against the orders of God, one shall be punished. Meanwhile, there are others who insisted that the Southern Emperor Sect would no longer eschew the world, but control the world power just as the Northern Emperor Sect wanted to do. At that time, the entire Tianchen Continent did not know that, in fact, the entire Kui Shui Country had already fell into the hands of the Northern Emperor Sect. Several generations of monarchs of Kui Shui Country are just puppets of the Northern Emperor Sect.”
Shui Mengchan nodded lightly as her heart tightened. She could already guess what happened next. Sin was the result of that greed for power, as well as jealousy and resentment.
“Later, everything suddenly calmed down and no one talked about this matter again. Instead, it made father and grandfather worried. It was more like the incident had been negotiated, hidden, and waiting for a precursor to have a blast of opportunities. But, at that time, the situation was too complicated. The numbers of those people who abide by the words of the ancestors without any dissent were relatively few. After all, apart from those who have the pure blood of the Southern Emperor and are loyal to their ancestors, to my grandfather and father, there are not many people who are willing to run around all their lives solely for one sword. This is also the reason for the change in the Northern Emperor Sect. Although no one knew how the change in the Northern Emperor Sect went, what’s certain was that the Northern Emperor Sect’s real sect master had died. Those who stood on the same front as him also died… After the change, the Northern Emperor Sect did not wait any longer before extending his minions to Kui Shui Country. This action is enough to explain everything. How similar the stalemate situation of our Southern Emperor Sect was at that time. This is the human heart. People, after all, they are not ‘saints’ who have no desires and no deceit…”
“My father and grandfather worried every day that there would be a change in the sect that was the same as that of the Northern Emperor sect. However, even if they were worried, it was impossible to really reverse the situation. The calm lasted for a few years. It was also during those years that Fu’er and I got married and had you… Two years after you were born, she was pregnant again. My mother said that Fu’er was carrying a boy that time… She could have a son and a daughter. I strongly believed that I was the happiest father in the world that time, but I didn’t expect… that it was a beautiful and short evening before my nightmare.”
“Father,” Shui Mengchan whispered, “tell me, what happened afterwards…”
“Later, hehehe…” Shui Yuntian gave a miserable chuckle, “That day was Shui Yunlan’s twenty-fifth birthday. Compared to me, who was about to have a second child, he was still alone, and everyone in the sect knew the reason. It makes my guilt towards him deepen every year. There was a birthday, but I don’t know why a birthday banquet was held. I, Fu’er, my father who was the sect master that time and my mother went to this somewhat strange birthday banquet that Shui Yunlan’s father, Shui Xuanfeng, had invited us to. My grandfather will be having his seventieth birthday in three days, so he had gone to the secret room in the sect to do preparations for passing down his power of arts, so he did not go… Chan, my child, can you guess why they chose that day…”
Shui Mengchan’s eye pupils were flickering violently, and she bit her lip.
In the Southern Emperor Sect, at the age of seventy, the cultivation of the Art of Water Jade would automatically regress. Therefore, in order to make the descendants of the Southern Emperor Sect continue to be strong, the owner of the Southern Emperor’s direct bloodline must pass on all cultivation bases to the grandchild at the age of seventy to help the grandchild step directly into the realm of Shinto (A religion from Japan). To the people of the Southern Emperor Sect, it was many times easier to cultivate to heaven tier than ordinary people, but the gap between the heaven tier and god tier was huge. Even if a person had reached heaven tier during youth, it was extremely difficult to achieve the realm of Shinto. Each generation of the Southern Emperor Sect relied on that method to enter the realm of Shinto at a young age. It was the same for Northern Emperor Sect. The Southern Emperor and the Northern Emperor were old enemies who fought for countless years, but what they left behind was so similar.
They chose that day, which was obviously to… “Aside from us, there were more than thirty or more people in that birthday banquet… They are these thirty people, that even if I turned to ashes, I will never forget them. Our family just entered their game like that, except you. My father and I smelled something a little unusual. Those thirty or more people were all in the hands of the Southern Emperor Sect with great power or extremely high cultivation bases. They were also the people who were determined to be involved in the world at the beginning. They can be said to be the representative of those people. Although my father and mother were vigilant and secretly keep our guards up, we still all fell into the trap. It was poison, a poison that cannot be prevented. I, Fu’er, and my parents were all poisoned. The second elder Zi Ye, who was with my parents, was also poisoned.”
Thinking of the past scene, Shui Yuntian’s fists clenched tightly.
“Poison? Impossible… The Art of Water Jade can obviously make us immune to all poisons…Wait, could it… could it be…” Thinking of that possibility, Shui Mengchan’s face turned pale for a moment, and the doubt that had lasted for a long time was also resolved.
“That’s right… It was the Water-Inflaming Leisure Disperser. After the Art of Water Jade enters the spiritual level, you won’t be afraid of hundreds of poisons, but poison is not the only fear. Instead, it was the Water-Inflaming Leisure Disperser that’s better than any poison!! Those people were in peace all those years, just to have an agreement secretly with the Northern Emperor Sect. They condensed the Art of Water Jade and soul flames to form the Water-Inflaming Leisure Disperser that can completely disperse the Art of Water Jade as time passed. We, who lost the Art of Water Jade, were all captured. I watched my parents die tragically with opened eyes…”
“I see… No wonder, twenty-three years ago, the Southern Emperor Sect and the Northern Emperor Sect staged a show that concealed the world’s ears. No wonder an agreement was achieved so smoothly. It turns out that they had already ganged up.” Shui Mengchan immediately understood. Due to that scene back then, the Southern Emperor Sect could openly enter Sky Dragon Kingdom, while the Northern Emperor Sect manipulated behind the scenes. Although the Southern Emperor Sect and the Northern Emperor Sect were strong and had many masters, they did not have “soldiers and horses.” Their numbers were too far from a real army. It was unsure how many years it would take for a person’s power to clear the chaos beneath the sky. Maybe that generation would not be able to see it until their death. Therefore, the people from the Northern Emperor Sect reached an agreement with the dissident group from the Southern Emperor Sect to help them get rid of the “stubborn” sect master lineage. In that way, the time and effort spent would be saved by more than half.
In the end… although the two sides did not mention it, they both knew it well. There was no room for two tigers in one mountain. After each achieved their goals, they would inevitably fight to the death one day.
Shui Yuntian did not seem to hear his daughter’s murmur, and continued to speak bitterly, “Those demented people have all removed their usual disguise and showed their ugly side. They humiliated my father in every possible way, and finally gave him forcible injections. My father, whose Art of Water Jade had dissipated, could not resist that kind of poison at all. He died in a short while, there was no breath left in him. When he was about to die, he told me that I must live, no matter how much pain and shame I suffered. To live, only by living can we take revenge and prevent the blood of the Southern Emperor from dying. My mother bit her tongue and committed suicide at the moment when my father died tragically. She also told me with her eyes that I must live… Every scene, every time, I have carved every of their ugly faces and evil voices deep in my brain. I have remembered for more than twenty years, hated for more than twenty years. I will always engrave Shui Yunlan’s hideous expression at that time and the way he kept feeding me his fists and kicks in my mind even more…”
“I’m not dead… Because of Fu’er, I’m not dead. If I die, Fu’er will follow me just like my mother followed my father. However, to Shui Yunlan, although he hates me to the core, he doesn’t want to see Fu’er sacrifice for love. In order to let me stay alive, and for the fetus in her womb, Fu’er promised to stay with Shui Yunlan and keep all of their secrets, but no one should take my life or hurt me and her children… They all agreed. This was the result they had agreed upon. Shui Yunlan was the most important person in their plan, and naturally he would not force Fu’er to die and cause him to be in mental chaos, which will disrupt the whole plan. At the same time, Fu’er’s existence could be a cover for them.”
“So, Shui Yunlan changed clothes with I, who was on the brink of death. At that moment, he became ‘Shui Yuntian’, and I became ‘Shui Yunlan’. With only one breath left and could say no word, I was dragged to the sect and my ‘crimes’ were showed in front of the people from the sect who came in a hurry. It said that I, ‘Shui Yunlan’, colluded with the Northern Emperor Sect to poison the sect master’s family out of emotion and hatred to death, caused the sect master’s wife to die for love, made more than thirty people present got into ‘Water-Inflaming Leisure Disperser’, except ‘Shui Yunlan’ father, Shui Xuanfeng. The one who had defeated ‘Shui Yunlan’ to his last breath and rescued the others was also Shui Xuanfeng.”
Shui Yuntian’s voice became distorted. Recalling their perfect acting skills back then, as well as the scenes that had obviously been rehearsed many times, he wanted to sorrowfully chuckle again. Those people were dignified individuals of the Southern Emperor Sect. Who knew that they could perform such a lowly clownery act after using demented vicious methods due to greed and selfishness? Afterwards, everything that happened later came naturally. There were more than thirty people with high morals and respect to testify. Some people would doubt its authenticity, and who would think that Shui Yunlan was actually Shui Yuntian, and Shui Yuntian was actually Shui Yunlan. With the begging of Shui Xuanfeng, who had previously “placed righteousness before family”, and “Shui Yuntian’s” remembrance of a sibling, “Shui Yunlan” was not sentenced to capital punishment, but his tongue was cut off. He was locked up by the magic chain and will never see the light of day, letting him atone for the dead sect master and his wife in the tormenting darkness.