novelraw Chapter 263 : Childhood Revisited
Chapter 263 : Childhood Revisited
Hearing this, Chu Sang felt an eerie sense of expectation yet inevitability. So the family guarding the city tonight was the Xuanyuan family.
Based on her shallow understanding of Xuanyuan Cheng, that young master of the Xuanyuan family from back then, the Xuanyuan family cultivators were all extremely arrogant, carrying themselves with an air of "all outside Xuanyuan are insects," making one want to hit them every time they saw them!
The Xuanyuan family held themselves in high regard but were always overshadowed by the Mo family.
However, the Mo family unexpectedly fell twenty years ago, and the Xuanyuan family took the opportunity to consolidate power, benefiting greatly. In recent years, their momentum has been like the sun at high noon, living quite comfortably.
Putting herself in their shoes, if she were from the Xuanyuan family, she couldn't help but marvel at how fortunate they were, like someone offering a pillow when you're sleepy, unstoppable luck.
Now, seeing the Xuanyuan family head's fake expression of regret before the Eight Great Immortal Sects, Chu Sang's lips twitched. If there really were traitors in the city, the Xuanyuan family would be her first suspect.
It would be irresponsible to jump to conclusions without evidence, but seeing Xuanyuan Cheng's undisguised hostility and wariness towards Mo Qingchen before, it was clear that the relationship between the two families was far from friendly. He had even tried to take advantage of opportunities to eliminate Mo Qingchen more than once in the arena. This wasn't just a bad relationship; it was wanting to completely end the other's life!
Rather than simple wariness, it wasn't necessarily about fear.
For example, fear of exposure?
Mo Qingchen was the only survivor of the Mo family back then. If the Mo family's extermination was really related to the Xuanyuan family, once exposed, the person most likely to seek revenge against the Xuanyuan family would naturally be Mo Qingchen.
The principle of eliminating the root along with the grass is understood by everyone, not to mention that Mo Qingchen's growth far exceeded everyone's imagination, with the Tianyan Sect backing him. The threat to the Xuanyuan family was too great. Wanting to find an opportunity to eliminate him was only natural...
"Little Junior Sister, it's snowing."
Mo Baizhou raised his hand, a flake of snow falling on his fingertip, melting instantly.
He looked up in surprise. Snow had started falling at some point, drifting down in flurries, covering the silent night. The fragmented snow carried by the fierce cold wind swept across the entire city, adding to the chill.
The cultivators around remained silent for a moment before someone suddenly said,
"It's snowing in the month of Flowing Fire..."
Chu Sang raised her hand. The snow hadn't fallen before it was melted by the fire spiritual energy covering her body.
She came back to her senses.
She remembered that on that night, it was a snowy night dyed red with blood.
⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱
The blood moon hung in the sky, the thick night color eerie and deathly silent. This snowfall was also inexplicable, making people feel even more oppressed.
Outside the city, they were still searching extensively for escaped demon cultivators. Inside the Mo family residence, it was deathly quiet. Cultivators sent by the sects were dealing with the situation, searching through the corpses filling the courtyard one by one, hoping to find survivors to clarify what had happened. Unfortunately, the demon cultivators had been too ruthless and vicious, leaving not a single survivor...
After checking the list, they found that the Mo family head's child was missing.
A Ten Thousand Swords Sect elder immediately ordered people to search thoroughly, especially to search the inside and outside of the residence again. Whether the child was dead or alive, they had to find him.
In the snowy night, deep in the forest, a seven or eight-year-old child was stumbling forward. He was covered in blood, half his face stained red. The visible half of his small face was extremely pale, his pitch-black eyes particularly lifeless, not with hatred, but completely bewildered and at a loss. He had never imagined his family would suffer such a calamity tonight. It happened so suddenly that during his escape, his mind was completely blank, only remembering his father's last words—Run quickly!
In the moment of life and death crisis, the Mo family head had desperately sent him out, but was unfortunately discovered by a demon cultivator and had his heart meridians pierced. Mo Qingchen, as the young master of the Mo family, had quite a few life-saving magical tools on him. A blast of demonic energy couldn't cause him fatal damage, but it had injured eight or nine tenths of his heart meridians. Without timely treatment, his blood and qi were rapidly depleting.
The snow was falling heavier, gradually accumulating an inch thick on the ground. The footprints, deep and shallow, were becoming increasingly red. Each of his movements also became increasingly heavy, his body feeling as if filled with lead, unable to move. His vision was dizzy and dark. Whether it was an illusion or not, he seemed to hear the voices of those demon race people again.
His body could no longer support him. His vision went black, and he collapsed to the ground.
The demon race people understood the principle of eliminating the root all too well. They couldn't possibly let such an important Mo family young master escape. Whether dead or alive, they had to bring his body back to complete their task.
They secretly sent out a demon cultivator with weak demonic energy to search nearby.
A Golden Core stage demon cultivator, though not very powerful, was more than enough to deal with a seven or eight-year-old child.
The demon cultivator didn't search for long before smelling blood nearby. Following the bloodstains left in the snow, he soon found Mo Qingchen lying in the snow, half his body buried.
The demon cultivator's face revealed a vicious smile, a demon blade materializing in his palm.
Boom—
A sudden burst of spiritual power pierced through his heart meridians. The demon cultivator collapsed in the snow. From behind a tree, a small red figure slowly walked out. It was a very young little girl. Anyone who saw this scene would find it hard to believe that it was she who had just acted!
The little girl looked down at her own hand in confusion, seeming somewhat surprised herself. But the situation was urgent, and she didn't pay much attention to it. She stepped over the lifeless demon cultivator and walked towards "Mo Qingchen".
His expression was pained, his skin deathly pale, his body temperature getting colder and colder, almost icy. A layer of thin ice had even appeared on his body!
The young Chu Sang didn't know about mutated spirit roots at that time. Under certain special circumstances, there was an extremely small chance that dual spirit root cultivators of specific types could mutate into single Celestial Spirit Roots outside the five elements.
The mutation conditions for an ice spirit root were having dual water and earth spirit roots.
Perhaps due to the severe trauma to his soul, Mo Qingchen was both fortunate and unfortunate to show signs of spirit root mutation at this time.
Spirit root mutation wasn't an overnight process. Like breakthrough, it required a huge consumption of spiritual power, needing the right time, place, and person.
It was crucial to absolutely ensure the physical condition of the person undergoing spirit root mutation, otherwise there was a high chance of failure.
Undergoing spirit root mutation in this condition, Mo Qingchen's battered and fragile physical body simply couldn't withstand it. It was equivalent to sending him to his death.
The young Chu Sang was at a loss for a moment before suddenly thinking of something. She arduously helped him lean against a tree.
A fiery red spiritual power appeared in her palm, slowly infusing into his body.
At this time, she naturally didn't know any profound techniques. She simply felt that Mo Qingchen's body was so cold, and if he continued to freeze like this, he would die of cold. So, she wanted to use her own fire spiritual power to send some warmth to his body, melting the layer of ice on its surface.
She accidentally activated the potential of her spirit root, taking the lead in guiding qi into her body without anyone's guidance. But her level was too low, the spiritual energy in her body too thin. With her meager spiritual power, she simply couldn't help much.
Her little face also gradually turned pale, but she gritted her teeth and persisted. The Mo family had saved her life, and though she had no power to prevent the Mo family from being massacred by the demon race, she wanted to do her utmost to repay this debt of gratitude.
As luck would have it, Chu Sang wasn't present when the Mo family met with this calamity tonight.
Half a month ago, the Mo family head had encountered her, a poor little beggar. Perhaps feeling too pitiful for her, he had brought her back to the Mo family. Usually, he had the slightly older Mo Qingchen help take care of her, coincidentally fulfilling the couple's wish for a daughter they had harbored for many years.
The young Chu Sang, newly arrived at the Mo family, wasn't accustomed to the serious atmosphere of these grand houses and courtyards, feeling quite uncomfortable. At that time, the young Mo Qingchen always had a cold face, not playing with her much. When practicing the sword, he found her especially bothersome, telling her not to wander around in front of him. The young Chu Sang was really bored and often went out, bringing some food to find the beggars and wanderers who had helped her before. Tonight was the same. Seeing it was getting late, she was about to return to the residence when she found the entire city had fallen into chaos.
She didn't know what had happened at the time and was a bit scared, so she hid.
Later, cultivators from the Eight Great Immortal Sects arrived. She heard what those people said: the Mo family had been attacked by the demon race.
She wanted to go back to the Mo family to see, but at that time the Mo family was cordoned off. She could only search nearby, following the bloodstains to find the unconscious Mo Qingchen.
⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱⊰⋆⋅⭑⋅⋆⊱
At the moment when her spiritual energy was exhausted, another, more powerful energy suddenly surged into her body, disappearing in an instant. The flames in her palm dissipated with it. Centered on the two of them, the ice and snow within a hundred-meter radius melted instantly. The half-foot-thick layer of ice covering the young Mo Qingchen's body shattered inch by inch.
Hot, warm energy enveloped his entire being, dispelling the bone-chilling cold that exuded the aura of death. The young Mo Qingchen's long lashes trembled slightly, his face flushing with a healthier color. In his still dark vision, a fiery red appeared, bright.
He instinctively wanted to grab it. Opening his eyes, he found himself holding one of her hands.
"It's... you?"
The spiritual energy fluctuations of the mutating ice spirit root triggered a disturbance in the ice spiritual power in the area. The temperature plummeted, frost and snow covering everything.
After the young Mo Qingchen's dual spirit roots successfully fused into an ice spirit root, the agitated, out-of-control spiritual power came under his control.
The snow stopped.
After all this, his internal spiritual power was exhausted, and he fainted again.
After watching this, the figure sitting cross-legged in the tree also left. Chu Sang had intentionally not taken Mo Baizhou back to the Mo family, but she couldn't help coming back to look at this blurry memory herself.
When she was young, she didn't have much concept and hadn't noticed many details. It turned out that Mo Qingchen's dual spirit roots had mutated into an ice spirit root at this time back then.
It turned out that she had successfully guided qi into her body for the first time at such a young age, and without a master's guidance.
Chu Sang searched her sea of consciousness and indeed found this piece of memory. However, at that time she didn't know what was called guiding qi into the body or spiritual power and such. Even if she had guided qi into her body, how had she successfully helped Mo Qingchen's spirit root mutation with her frail spiritual power at that time?
Just now, she seemed to have seen her young self suddenly burst out with a wave of spiritual power so strong that it astonished even her current self. Where did that power come from?
It seemed that apart from this abnormal spiritual power fluctuation once in her childhood, it never appeared again afterward.
It was at this moment that Chu Sang finally seriously pondered her own background.
As far as she could remember, she was an orphan, without father or mother, who had been a wanderer for a while. However, the life of a poor little wretch didn't leave much trace in her memory, because her time as a beggar was very short. Not long after, she was picked up by the Mo family head. Shortly after that, the Mo family was destroyed, and by coincidence, she went to the Tianyan Sect, where she was tested to have a heavenly fire spirit root.
Most low-level cultivators came from the mortal world. The cultivation world didn't have a clear boundary between cultivation territories and mortal territories. It just roughly considered the cities and towns where almost all mortals lived as mortal territories, while the various major sects and cities where cultivators moved about more were considered cultivation territories. The two weren't as clearly divided as the cultivation world, beast realm, and demon realm, but almost intermingled, with very blurred boundaries, collectively referred to as the cultivation world.
Though called the cultivation world, most places were actually mortal territories.
In her memory, her birthplace was a mortal town under the protection of a main city.
Life was poor for most people in the mortal territories, and there were frequent conflicts and wars between many small mortal countries. Many people were displaced. It wasn't uncommon to encounter orphaned children in the chaotic mortal realm. Children like her, poor kids without parents from a young age, were actually quite common in the mortal realm.
But what was unscientific was that she alone had a heavenly fire spirit root.
Generally, most descendants of mortals were also mortals, with only a very small number of people able to be born with spirit roots. It was considered good if one in a hundred people could have one.
Most cultivators from mortal backgrounds were mainly those with mixed spirit roots of four or five elements.
Historically famous Celestial Spirit Root geniuses all came from great cultivation world families. It wasn't that Celestial Spirit Root geniuses couldn't be born in the mortal realm, but to date, there had never been such a record.
She was the only example of a wild Celestial Spirit Root.
Just as Chu Sang was suspecting that there might be a logical bug in her background, another disturbance attracted her attention. It was a familiar face; that dog Chang Yu had indeed come again.
Probably sensing the unusual spiritual energy fluctuations here, he came to look and found two children alone.
"This is, that child from the Mo family, right." As one of the four top families in the cultivation world, almost no high-level figure from the major sects and families didn't recognize Mo Qingchen, this young master of the Mo family.
Obviously, Chang Yu initially only wanted to take away this Mo family young master and didn't pay attention to her younger self nearby. After all, a revered elder of an immortal sect wouldn't be interested in a child with mediocre talent; he wouldn't take her back as a disciple.
But after walking a few steps, he stopped and turned back. His gaze towards her seemed to have a few more traces of... wild joy?
"Are you sure this child is..."
Chang Yu muttered a couple of times, then couldn't contain his joy. He quickly took out a spirit stone for measuring talent. Until the spirit stone was completely occupied by an extremely pure, intense red flame without a trace of impurity, his expression became even more obviously joyful. "I didn't expect to encounter a Celestial Fire Spirit Rootgenius here. Heaven truly favors me." He muttered again, "Xue'er finally has hope..."
Who was he talking to just now?
Chu Sang's expression suddenly changed. She didn't care about the female protagonist's affairs, as she already knew about that. What felt eerie to her was Chang Yu's tone just now. He seemed to be talking to someone, but... there was no one else present.
His behavior was also very strange. At first, he didn't pay attention to her, this unknown child, and obviously hadn't sensed that she had a heavenly fire spirit root. Yet it was as if he had been reminded halfway and returned.