Uncanny Immortal 44

Chapter 44

Hearing Yun Yi mention her background, Xie Qingzheng quickly pricked up her ears and listened attentively.

Yun Yi smiled, poured a cup of wine for Si Li, and said slowly, “A long, long time ago, there was a blacksmith who, by a stroke of fate, became the disciple of a great master who had entered the world to cultivate. He was given a Daoist title and later founded a manor, which developed into a large cultivation family, famous in the cultivation world for forging divine weapons.”

Si Li: “You’re talking about the ancestor of Tianquan Manor, the Tianquan Daoist, right?”

Yun Yi: “Mm. Before that ancestor ascended to immortality, he divined the heavenly secrets and obtained a hexagram concerning the inheritance of Tianquan Manor’s family business.”

Si Li asked, “What hexagram?”

Yun Yi: “An inauspicious hexagram. The hexagram said, ‘When twins are born, the manor will be destroyed.’”

Si Li: “Ah? So serious? Then have there been no twins in your manor for these hundreds of years?”

Yun Yi said, “There have been, but the ancestor left a secret family instruction: ‘Of twin births, one child is to be removed, one is to be kept.’”

Si Li said, “What does that mean? Throw one away and keep one?”

Yun Yi shook her head. “No, it means kill one and keep one.”

Si Li said, “Ah, why be so cruel? Even if you’re really afraid of the prophecy coming true, you could just give the child to someone else to raise, couldn’t you?”

Xie Qingzheng at the side agreed, “That’s right. Wouldn’t that be creating the sin of killing? According to the concept of inheritance, even if it doesn’t fall on the ancestors, it will still affect the descendants. Look, the manor was almost wiped out later…”

Yun Yi said, “Perhaps because the manor can only have one Manor Lord. In order to ensure a smooth transition of power, the other had to be eliminated.”

Si Li: “Oh, so you’re worried that the other one will come looking for trouble, or be used by someone with ill intentions. They were born from the same womb. Why should one be able to enjoy wealth and honor, while the other has to be abandoned? Is that what it means?”

Yun Yi nodded. “Mm.”

Si Li sighed. “Then in these hundreds of years, how many pairs of twins have there been in your manor, and how many people have been killed?”

Yun Yi said, “There have been eight pairs in total, and seven people have been killed.”

Si Li said, “Mm, so there was a survivor?”

Yun Yi said, “Twenty years ago, a pair of fraternal twins, a boy and a girl, were born in the manor. The baby boy came out first, and the baby girl was a moment later. The master of the manor drew lots to decide who would go and who would stay. In the end, the lot was drawn for the baby boy to live and the baby girl to die. The mistress of the manor had been pregnant for ten months and couldn’t bear to have the baby girl killed like that. She had a trusted shadow guard take the baby girl away that night. She wanted them to go far away and never come back.”

Si Li was engrossed and asked, “And then?”

Yun Yi said, “Later, the master of the manor, afraid of the prophecy coming true and not daring to disobey the ancestral instruction, sent out assassins to hunt down the shadow guard and the baby girl. They hunted them for a full seven years.”

Si Li looked at Yun Yi, her eyes soft, and said, “That shadow guard is really amazing, protecting a child until she was seven. I wonder how that child lived for those seven years?”

Xie Qingzheng said to Mo Jiangxue, “That child must be Manor Lord Yun Yi, right? Just a moment’s difference, and her brother became the favored son of heaven, the future head of a sect, enjoying wealth and honor, while her sister was reduced to wandering the streets, hiding… I never thought that Manor Lord Yun’s background would be so tragic and convoluted, and yet her character could be so upright after she grew up. It’s truly rare…”

Mo Jiangxue hummed in acknowledgment.

Yun Yi took a sip of wine and said, “For seven years, that child was displaced, traveling with the shadow guard to escape the pursuit of her own father. Every day when she woke up, she would see someone die in front of her. Finally, one day, she felt that the world was so big, yet there was no place to hide. She couldn’t stand that life of living on the edge of a knife anymore. She didn’t want to see any more dead people. She voluntarily ran into the hands of those assassins.”

Si Li said, “But she didn’t die in the end, right?”

Yun Yi hummed in acknowledgment. “Those assassins didn’t kill her. They brought her back to the manor and handed her over to the Manor Lord’s wife.”

Si Li asked, “Why?”

Yun Yi said, “Because her twin brother had died. He had gone out with the Manor Lord to exorcise a water spirit and had been pulled into the abyss by a water ghost and could not be saved.”

Si Li said, “That’s not what I heard. The version I heard was that the young manor lord was lucky and was saved. So that’s not what happened?”

Yun Yi said, “No. It was the sister who later took her brother’s identity. The master of the manor had just lost a son and couldn’t bear to kill another daughter. Besides, the twin prophecy had already been broken, and there was no reason to kill her anymore. Her talent was good, and she had learned a lot of skills from the shadow guard over the past seven years. The mistress of the manor observed her for a while and decided to let her inherit the position of head of the family, grooming her as the next head of the family.”

Si Li asked, “And that shadow guard?”

Yun Yi said dejectedly, “She was put to death by the master of the manor.”

Si Li said angrily, “Good deeds really don’t go unpunished! I’m so angry! Didn’t the mistress of the manor stop him?”

Yun Yi shook her head. “She didn’t. She acquiesced to it.”

Si Li said, “That shadow guard, you call her ‘Aunt,’ don’t you?”

Xie Qingzheng also remembered that when the two of them had first met, Yun Yi had stared at Si Li’s eyes and said that Si Li’s eyes were like her aunt’s.

Yun Yi nodded. “I grew up with her. I originally wanted to call her ‘Mother,’ but she said she wasn’t my real mother and wouldn’t let me call her that, so I called her ‘Aunt.’ Not only did she die, but the assassins who had hunted me down were also all put to death.”

Si Li said, “And why was that? Didn’t a brother already die? That also fits the family instruction of ‘one child goes, one child stays.’ Could it be that just to hide the matter of the twins, so many people were killed?”

Yun Yi said, “Mm, because once the other members of the family found out that they had hidden the matter of the twins, their lineage would be forever stripped of the right of inheritance.”

Si Li said, “In the end, it’s all for the sake of profit!”

Yun Yi smiled wryly. “That’s right.”

After telling the story, she didn’t speak for a long time, just drank cup after cup of wine.

Si Li asked, “And then?”

Yun Yi: “After that, many more people died. And after that, that girl inherited her brother’s name, identity, and status. She was groomed as the next Manor Lord. Her every word and action had to conform to the identity of a famous family. Her every move had to be impartial and in accordance with the rules. She had to become a role model for her peers in the family. She couldn’t say an extra word, couldn’t take a wrong step.”

Si Li suddenly smiled. “But, later on, she married a very unruly wife… Oh my, now that you put it that way, I should have been your sister-in-law. Come, call me ‘sister-in-law’ and let me hear it.”

The moonlight was soft, and the candlelight was deep.

Yun Yi smiled, her cheeks flushed red. She looked at Si Li, a faint drunkenness in her eyes. She was drunk, but her posture was still proper. “That’s right. She married a very interesting wife. But before she got married, she also did something very unruly. No, not just unruly, it could be considered a great transgression, a violation of ethics.”

Si Li quickly asked, “What was it?”

Xie Qingzheng’s curiosity was also piqued.

Yun Yi took another sip of wine and said, “On her eighteenth birthday, she killed her own father and succeeded to the position of head of the family ahead of time.”

Si Li let out a cry, her eyes wide with disbelief.

She never would have thought that a gentleman like Yun Yi could commit patricide.

Xie Qingzheng was equally astonished. “Manor Lord Yun, you are truly full of surprises.”

She looked at Mo Jiangxue. A trace of surprise also flashed in Mo Jiangxue’s eyes, and then her expression returned to its usual calm.

Yun Yi filled a cup of wine and asked gently, “A-Li, do you still want to like me?”

Si Li slapped the table and said, “I like you even more now! A quick and decisive act of vengeance! Well done! He had people hunt you down for seven years. Why should you forgive him so easily? Good riddance!”

Yun Yi seemed to be relieved and smiled. “A ruthless person like me probably won’t have a good end in the future.”

Si Li said, “Even if you go to hell, I will go with you.”

Yun Yi looked at her with tender affection, only called out “A-Li,” and could not say another word.

Si Li said, “You told me a story, so I’ll tell you a story too. But my story is not as convoluted as yours. It’s very simple.”

Yun Yi said gently, “Tell me. I want to hear it.”

Si Li said, “Once upon a time, there was also a family that had cultivated for generations. The sect master of that family, although he had a wife, did not change his romantic and lustful nature and had affairs everywhere. Do you think that next, I’m going to say that there was a girl who was that romantic sect master’s illegitimate daughter?”

Yun Yi raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that so?”

Si Li: “Of course not. What I want to talk about is an ugly monster. That ugly monster had had smallpox when she was a child, and her face was pitted. She grew up in an opera troupe, serving the old troupe master by washing clothes and cooking, and traveling with the troupe.”

Xie Qingzheng said, “Miss A-Li is also talking about herself… No wonder she always says she’s an ugly monster, and no wonder she likes to pretend to be ugly later on. She must have suffered a lot in her childhood…”

Yun Yi said gently, “What does it matter if a person’s appearance is beautiful or not?”

Si Li sneered and said, “It matters a lot! If you pretend to be a beauty, it’s easy to receive the kindness of others. But if you pretend to be an ugly monster, then it’s really, there is danger everywhere!”

Yun Yi said no more, looking at her with pity.

“Later, there were wars everywhere. People had no money for food, so naturally they had no money to watch operas. The opera troupe disbanded, and she begged for a living. On the road, she even picked up a baby girl. That baby girl was almost boiled and eaten by someone, but she stole her away.”

Xie Qingzheng thought to herself: That baby girl must be Feng Lan… Miss A-Li is so kind-hearted…

Si Li continued, “She raised that baby girl. Later, she heard that if she went to an immortal sect, she could get something to eat. Even if she didn’t have the aptitude for immortal cultivation, it would be good to stay and be a servant.

She went through a thousand hardships and finally reached the foot of Zhongnan Mountain. She was lucky enough to become a handyman on the immortal mountain.

Even luckier, one night, she ran into the sect master’s wife stabbing the sect master to death with a sword. The wife was originally going to kill her too, but when she saw the dying sect master raise his sword to kill the wife, she went up and took a sword for the wife. After the wife killed the sect master in return, she even went up and helped to deliver a final blow, saying to the wife, ‘Now we are accomplices.’

The wife was a good person and did not drag her out to take the blame. Instead, she praised her for being a smart person, took her as her goddaughter, cast a spell to heal the pitted marks on her face, and then had her take the identity of a deceased illegitimate daughter, arranging for her to marry into another cultivation family and become that family’s manor lord’s wife.”

Xie Qingzheng said, “That wife is the current mistress of the Kaiyang sect, right? After her husband died, she took over the Kaiyang sect.”

Si Li said, “My story is over. It’s that simple.”

Xie Qingzheng thought to herself: It’s not simple at all. So Miss A-Li also took someone else’s identity…

Yun Yi said nothing, smiling as she looked at Si Li.

Si Li said, “You see, you have a fake identity, and I have a fake face. We really are a match made in heaven, a perfect pair! I have no secrets from you now. You, can you now say if you like me or not?”

Yun Yi shook her head. “I can’t like you.”

Si Li slapped the table again and got angry. “Like is like, dislike is dislike. Don’t be so wishy-washy and fool me! What do you mean, you can’t like me? What does that mean?”

Xie Qingzheng said to Mo Jiangxue, “I guess she said she can’t like her because she’s afraid that if her identity is exposed, it will bring trouble and implicate Miss A-Li.”

Mo Jiangxue hummed in acknowledgment and analyzed, “Her death is very likely related to her background and her act of patricide.”