Chapter 187: A little chat with Lin Xian
Chapter 187: A little chat with Lin Xian
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Hearing his screams grow more distant, the elven woman, who had appeared in the hall at some unknown point, turned to the young elf girl before asking,
"Should I take care of him?" she said, her calm gaze and cold tone making it sound as if she were ready to act at the slightest command from the figure before her.
Ye Ning, however, merely took another sip of tea before replying,
"There’s no need. It’s pointless to waste time on someone like him. And don’t worry, I have my own plans for him," she said.
Silence returned to the hall as she immersed herself in her duties, checking through various documents.
Throughout all this time, neither she nor the elven woman who had thrown the man out noticed the presence of another person in the room, someone who, from a corner behind her, had witnessed everything with a proud and approving expression on his face as he wiped an invisible tear from his eye.
"Now that’s my girl," he said as he stepped forward.
Hearing his voice, Ye Ning, who had maintained her calm composure all this time, almost jumped from her chair and quickly turned around.
It wasn’t just the sudden fright that made her react that way, but also because she recognized that voice.
When she turned to confirm if it was truly him, she finally saw him,
"Master?"
The moment her eyes landed on the figure behind her, she immediately thought it was her master, but there was something different about him, or rather, about his appearance.
He was taller, his hair noticeably longer and tied back, his eyes sharper, and his facial features more refined and mature.
No matter how she looked at him, he didn’t quite resemble the Zhu Rong she had seen just over a month ago, he looked like a slightly older version of him.
If she had to guess, he seemed around twenty years old.
That might have made her doubt his identity, but she could sense the aura he emitted and the feeling it gave her was exactly the same, which only deepened her confusion.
Seeing her puzzled face, Zhu Rong could already guess what was running through her mind. Smiling, he reached out and gave her a light tap on the head.
"Hahaha, don’t overthink it, or your little head might explode," he said, and at the gentleness of his touch, she calmed down somewhat, though the pile of questions in her mind only grew larger. Still, she understood it wasn’t the right moment to ask them.
"Master, do you need me to help you with something?" she asked, thinking he might have come because of some business matter.
"Hm? Can’t I come to check on my disciple? Tch, you really have such a low opinion of your master, that truly hurts me," he said with a pitiful tone and a wounded expression.
Ye Ning: "..."
His outer appearance may have changed, but it was clear he was still the same master she knew.
She could only sigh and shake her head, but as she did, her eyes sparkled for a moment before she lifted her head again, this time with a slightly confused expression.
"Master, Aunt Lin asked to speak with you."
Upon hearing that, he nodded as if he had expected it, and sent a thread of his consciousness into Ye Ning’s sea of consciousness, soon materializing within it.
Once he arrived, his playful expression was no longer there, replaced by a calm one as he looked toward the figure seated upon a throne made of intertwined brown branches and vines. She gazed at him with her brow slightly furrowed.
"You... what happened to you? Why do you have that aura on you?" she asked in a calm voice, though Zhu Rong could still sense the faint trace of doubt hidden within it.
"Well, let’s just say a lot has happened lately," he said, beginning to explain.
At first, she didn’t understand the weariness in his tone, but soon she did, and the more she listened, the more her composure crumbled, replaced by something far more complex.
The way she looked at him, once like a deity observing the amusing acts of a mortal, changed into one of recognition, and something deeper.
"I see. I can’t say I didn’t expect your return... in fact, I should have foreseen it," she said as a series of thoughts crossed her mind, vanishing as quickly as they appeared.
Zhu Rong briefly explained what had happened in the secret realm, from the initial anomaly to the incident that followed,
He didn’t bother going into too much detail about the creature that was there, because she already knew it. How could she not? She had been the one to help him seal it back then.
That creature was a lesser demon, once part of the army of that other fragment of the soul that resided beyond the mountain range, in the Frozen Lands.
At that time, he had barely surpassed the mortal realm and reached the Spirit Realm, while the creature had already reached its peak.
The battle had been fierce, and due to a lack of time and strength, his group had been forced to make the decision to seal the being temporarily and focus on other, more urgent matters.
Killing it had been impossible with their strength at the time, but sealing it was, and so they did.
Although they had planned to deal with it later, the following series of catastrophic events made that impossible, leaving the creature sealed in the secret realm for all this time.
What surprised her most, however, was his apparent reincarnation.
She had, to some extent, accepted the possibility of him going back in time, or rather, being reborn back in time, for reasons only she knew.
But realizing that the strange person before her was truly that same young man she had once traveled and fought alongside was something she had not expected.
Being merely a fragment of her own soul left behind before she ascended, her memories of that time were limited, which was why she hadn’t immediately recognized Zhu Rong as that person.
Yet now that she thought about it, his resemblance to the one she had met back then was undeniable.
But none of that mattered at the moment. Though her memories of the past were faint, not all of them were, one, in particular, remained clear.
"You know, in the past, you used to complain about your bad luck," she said with a small smile.
"But judging by how things turned out in this life...
I’d say you’ve been quite lucky."