The Cannon Fodder in Quick Transmigration Refuses the Usual Path

Chapter 497: The Child of Destiny’s Cannon-Fodder Mother, (11)

With his new little ponytail and the freshly made storage jade ring, he was up early the next morning. After breakfast with An Ning and led by his attendant, Xiao Yi could barely contain himself as he began his early-morning, afternoon-return elementary Tong Sheng routine.

The name Xiao Yi had been given by the original owner before leaving; it had nothing to do with the Xuanming Sect’s leader Nangong. The original owner had been passed around human traffickers since he could remember, so he had long forgotten his real surname and given name, only vaguely recalling the character “Xiao.” Not wanting the child to be tied to the Fu Family, they simply used that as his surname.

Yi carried the meaning of flapping wings and soaring high.

It embodied the original owner’s deepest hope: unbound, free to fly.

An Ning herself thought it sounded pretty good—much more pleasing than the previous name Nangong Yao.

Speaking of which, she had gotten used to the little guy’s constant chattering during the day, and for a while she actually felt a bit unaccustomed to the silence.

Oh well, cultivation had been tiring lately. Maybe she should refine an elixir to relax a bit, or practice some swordsmanship?

Xiao Yi, however, with his bright and generous personality, quickly made many little friends at the school.

An Ning had told him he would be staying here for a long time and would not be separated from the new friends he made, so he grew even more enthusiastic and lively.

Every day he dragged the kids around, and the training grounds and mountain woods were peppered with flashes of red.But playtime aside, his early life had hardened him; Xiao Yi took his studies seriously.

Even in a cultivation family, one still learned etiquette, music, calligraphy, and painting. At first he was a little confused due to joining mid-term, but thanks to his innate talent he caught up quickly.

All that aside, what truly astonished everyone was his talent for cultivation.

As his biological aunt and his assigned guardian, An Ning personally taught Xiao Yi both swordsmanship and his cultivation basics. Yet after a year:

Watching him train daily as easily as he ate and drank, his cultivation kept climbing rapidly, and he mastered sword techniques and spells in a single attempt—this little kid seemed to have no bottleneck at all. Even An Ning nearly lost her composure:

“I guess now I understand why everyone hates this kid so much!”

Looking out at the red figure happily swinging a longsword in the courtyard, An Ning couldn’t help feeling a small twinge of jealousy.

After a year of cultivation, while other children were still in the early Foundation Establishment stage—or at best looping through the first and second layers—this kid had already reached mid Foundation Establishment.

The key point: there had been no stalling, no bottleneck in between.

If nothing unexpected happened, An Ning estimated this child could successfully complete Foundation Establishment by age ten at the latest, maybe even sooner.

Only four short years, and all in such a low-spirit world.

One could only say, the Child of Destiny was terrifying indeed!

Even Xie Mubai, who already knew, could not help but clap and sigh, “Ah, no wonder Miss Shen is so young, her swordsmanship is peerless, and her elixirs, talismans, and formations are all remarkable.”

They once thought it was the influence of great teachers. Now it seemed there was some masterful instruction, but more than that, it was talent!

How frightening, the Xie family head thought to himself.

“No wonder Xuanming Cult has never given up these years, searching everywhere to bring him back.”

And this, despite the fact that the sect leader already had several sons and even grandsons ahead of him.

If such a talent belonged to his own son—not to mention a direct son—if a distant branch suddenly vanished, the Xie family head felt as if he could not bear to close his eyes.

But that was convenient too. Because in recent years most of Xuanming Cult’s efforts had been used to search for the missing person, not only the leader himself but also the scheming peak masters and elders below had poured significant energy into it.

That left little time for them to target the Xie family.

Yet unlike Nangong Ding, who searched for his son and future heir out of genuine concern, these people’s intentions were hardly friendly.

In An Ning’s view, finding the child might be a pretense; the likelihood that they wanted to kill to silence him was even greater.

Take the original owner: those people had tried to ruthlessly eliminate him everywhere; it was as if they deliberately set the original owner up to die. An Ning guessed it was unlikely to have been the leader himself.

Not because the leader was compassionate—he wasn’t—but because the moment Xiao Yi’s talent was discovered, he would have been the leader’s favored heir.

Killing the original owner would mean making a mortal enemy of this prodigiously talented child.

As a sect leader, Nangong Ding was not foolish. Whether for seeking the supreme path or for the sect’s development, it was unlikely he would have committed such an ill-advised act.

Perhaps that was the sect’s flaw.

An Ning couldn’t help but think: just like the Xie family now, no matter how much internal fighting existed, they remained highly cohesive externally.

The fact that after all this time not even a sliver of news about An Ning and Xiao Yi leaked out spoke volumes.

She sipped slowly from the exquisite spirit tea the Xie family head had recently sent, then flipped open the long scroll in her hand.

Yes, it was time to give the little guy a bit more of a challenge!

“Still, family head, don’t be careless. Who knows—if that person can’t find his heir, he might go mad and target our Xie family!”

Xie Mubai: “...”

That remark planted a foreboding in the air.

Worse, as it turned out, his premonition proved accurate. Two years later, on the second day after An Ning successfully entered mid Foundation Establishment, the nine-year-old Xiao Yi also successfully completed Foundation Establishment.

An Ning: “...”

What a relief, she had just made it in time.

But before she could fully exhale, outside the Lotus Courtyard a crimson-streaked, bloodied person suddenly appeared...