by <unknown>
Li Yao blinked and took the opportunity to ask, "So, this is your real appearance. Are you a woman?"
Long Yangjun coughed in embarrassment. Instead of answering Li Yao's question, she simply went on. "However, as I grew older, I gradually discovered some uncanny features on my body that couldn't be explained in any way. I was too different from other kids!
"Since you are the bloodline of the barbarians and you can display the distinctive features of the ferocious beasts with the 'Berserker Arts', you should know that most of the people in the borderland between the Great Qian Dynasty and the Dark Cloud Prairies are hybrids who have some bizarre features more or less. Tusks, feathers in their private parts, and even tiny horns on their heads are nothing unusual!
"However, even compared to the bizarre-looking kids, I could also be called the strangest one. For example, the crystal external skeleton that I can trigger at will from my body is one of the inexplicable features.
"However, my weird body is not worth mentioning at all compared to the pictures and sounds that often appear in my head unbearably!
"I don't know if you have had similar experiences, but ever since I can remember, every time I went to sleep late at night, the most dazzling and inexplicable pictures would always show up in front of my eyes. I would also hear a lot of noises and people talking!
"You dream what you think during the day. Generally speaking, however creepy one's dream is, it can't be far away from the real world that they are living during the day, despite the twists and distortions.
"My dreams, on the other hand, were absolutely nothing that a four-year-old kid could bear. They crawled into my head like vipers at night, causing me excruciating pain and driving me crazy!"
Li Yao's heart was pounding, and he almost moaned out. He struggled to ask, "What—what were your dreams about exactly?"
Long Yangjun shook her head and said gloomily, "They were like the swirls made of countless bodies of mottled butterflies. It was very rare that I could understand part of the information. In general, some of the bizarre-shaped humans were fighting each other, or they were moving in the boundless universe surrounded by burning stars. The real stars!"
Li Yao's breath grew more and more hasty. "Are you referring to the God-Sealing War in the primeval era?"
"I don't know," Long Yangjun said straightforwardly. "I didn't know the concepts about the Nuwa Clan, the Pangu Clan, and the God-Sealing War until today. How could I have understood the meaning of the uncanny dreams a hundred years ago?"
Li Yao was silent. Two different thoughts were fighting hard inside his brain.
Although Long Yangjun's answer was not completely flawless, it was indeed logical and contained tremendous information. It did not seem to be entirely made up.
The mental devil, however, shouted desperately inside his brain. "False! False! It is certainly false! Wang Xi or Long Yangjun, she is one of the most terrible existences in the Ancient Sages Sector who manipulated the entire world of Cultivators by herself! How can such a great schemer trust an alien of unknown backgrounds in just an hour and tell her birth to you honestly? That's too childish!
"She must've dug a great pit waiting for you to jump in. Watch out!
"I know that you haven't had a competition of beliefs with Ding Lingdang for a hundred years, and you must be thirsty, but even if you are to fall for a woman, you must not be fooled by the quirky ladyboy!"
"Fair enough!" Li Yao calmed himself down, but he was not so sure. "However, she is indeed by herself and did not foresee that I would break into the room. The wound that she suffered from Yan Liren is authentic, too. All this suggests that even if there is a trap, she did not prepare it in advance but is improvising!
"Therefore, this is unlikely to be a trap targeting me or the Star Glory Federation. I must've been involved by accident. Assuming that she is lying, what is her real purpose exactly?"
"Who knows?" the mental devil sneered. "Chances are that she is trying to earn your sympathy with her pitiful past so that you will help her gain control of the Nuwa warship. Do you think that she will be as friendly as right now after she gets the Nuwa warship up and running?"
"Exactly!" Li Yao was suddenly alarmed. For such an enormous Nuwa warship, even someone who was deeply associated with it in the past would not be able to maneuver it on their own.
Li Yao was a master of refining, and he appeared to be quite familiar with the Nuwa warship. It was possible that Long Yangjun was tricking him into being her assistant. After they finished maintaining the Nuwa warship and soared into space, Long Yangjun would reveal her real face.
"When then?" Li Yao secretly wiped off his sweat in his head.
Long Yangjun glanced at him coldly and said, "Don't you feel that your question is too long? Shouldn't you trade your own background for such priceless intelligence regarding the secrets of my birth? Who are you exactly? What is this mysterious force behind you that has the capability to craft such a delicate armor?"
Chapter 1479: This Isn't a Coincidence! |
Li Yao shook his head. "This question is too sensitive for me to answer. You'll have to ask a different one."
"I can guess the answer even if you refuse to reply," Long Yangjun sneered. "The delicacy and the style of your armor far exceed the expertise of the Cultivators in any dynasty in the Ancient Sages Sector. Also, you are familiar with the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan, you know a thing or two about the Nuwa warship, and you don't appear thrilled when discussing the voyages in the sea of stars. So, you should be from a world beyond the dark nebula, where cruising the universe is just a common technique, right?"
Li Yao sniffed in confirmation.
The Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit, as a crystal suit built in the industrial system of the modern Cultivation civilization, was greatly different from the armor of the ancient Cultivators crafted purely by hand. Anyone who was not blind would be able to tell that.
"I'm not surprised that you are an extraterrestrial Cultivator. What surprises me is why you have shown up in the Ancient Sages Sector," Long Yangjun said. "You are obviously on your own without any support. If you didn't end up here in an accident, you must be some sort of scout collecting intelligence for the main troop behind you, right?"
Li Yao's heart nearly skipped a beat. He did not know that Long Yangjun's senses were so keen that she had figured out his real identity through the insignificant traces!
Long Yangjun's eyes suddenly grew sharp, and her voice turned cold. "If you have countless warships similar to the Nuwa warship that we are standing on right now, coveting us outside of the dark nebula, I don't see any possibility of cooperation between us!"
"Make no mistake!" Sensing her rising killing intent, Li Yao hurried to reply. "We mean no harm to the Ancient Sages Sector!"
"Then it is quite odd." Long Yangjun raised the critical question immediately. "Since the Ancient Sages Sector is hidden inside a dark nebula and can hardly be noticed by the rest of the universe, why are you here if you mean no harm?"
"In fact, it was the Ancient Sages Sector that sent a signal to my world first."
After pondering for a moment, Li Yao attempted to narrate the whole story in a fuzzy way. "I cannot tell you the specific details right now, nor can they be explained in a few words. Let me just put it this way.
"One peaceful, summer night, when you are resting in your own house, you suddenly hear someone chuckling right next to you. You rise and investigate in shock, only to discover that the laughter was probably from a mountain thousands of meters away from your house. What would you do in such a situation?"
Long Yangjun was slightly dazed and deep in thought. "The laughter from thousands of kilometers away found its way into my house late at night? I'm afraid that I would not sleep well until I found the source of the laughter!"
"Precisely," Li Yao said. "You may consider me as an investigator who has come to the Ancient Sages Sector to locate the source of the laughter!"
Long Yangjun rolled her eyes.
"Then, have you located it?"
"Not yet," Li Yao admitted frankly. "The distance between the Ancient Sages Sector and my world is much longer than you can ever imagine. Even if a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator with infinite spiritual energy rushes at full speed for ten thousand years, they may not be able to cover the whole journey!
"To deliver the laughter to such a long distance away requires some very advanced magical equipment or rune array. However, although I've been active in the Ancient Sages Sector as a magical equipment specialist gathering the intelligence of the magical equipment in this world, even including the groundless tales, I've found nothing useful!
"But considering that the Nuwa warship we are on is so well-preserved, even if it cannot cruise in space anymore, it is possible for the warship to send out a few chuckles to the outside world."
"Are you saying that someone sent a message to beyond the dark nebula through the Nuwa warship about a hundred years ago?" Long Yangjun's eyes suddenly turned extremely dangerous. "When specifically?"
Li Yao calculated for a moment and said, "Exchanged to the time of the Ancient Sages Sector, it was probably ninety-seven years and eight months ago."
It was quite odd that the time cost for the Ancient Sages Sector, the Heaven's Origin Sector, and the Blood Demon Sector to revolve around their respective stars was almost identical. Therefore, the calendar that they used was more or less the same.
Perhaps the worlds that allowed carbon-based life forms such as the Pangu Clan, the Nuwa Clan, and human beings to survive and thrive into brilliant civilizations shared something in common.
"Ninety-seven years ago." Long Yangjun's face suddenly turned extremely weird. "I am ninety-seven and a half years old right now, but I have always counted my birthday from the day when I was picked up by my foster parents, which means that I could've been born ninety-seven years and eight months ago!"
The hair on the back of Li Yao's head was all standing up. He felt as if creepy, cold air was rising all the way up from his spine to his skull.
It could not have been a coincidence!
According to the calendar of the Ancient Sages Sector, 'something' must have happened on the Nuwa warship ninety-seven years and eight months ago that resulted in the launch of the mysterious signal and the birth of Long Yangjun!
"We seem to be approaching the answer to the puzzle. I have a theory about your identity, too." Li Yao threw out a bait. "However, in order to find out the truth completely, I would like to hear your answer to the last question. How exactly did you find the Divine Palace?"
"You know who I am?" Long Yangjun rose up suddenly and glared at Li Yao for a long time before sliding down against the pillar of the crystal processor system again. "I grew up in the remote valley until I was eight. Bearing the torture of the uncanny dreams every day, and reluctant to hang around with other kids because of the irregularities of my body, I preferred to wander in the wilderness by myself. Gradually, I became a freak in my village.
"All the while, my strength was awakening.
"The folks living in the borderland were very tough. Infamous bandits often choose to hide in such places. There were a few fighters in my village who claimed to have killed a lot of people. I used to learn fighting skills from one of them. But after only a few days, I began to feel that his martial arts were too shabby and not nearly as effective as the weird arts that I received from the uncanny dreams.
"But at that time, I was too young to control my strength, and I was loathed by the villagers when I almost beat several children who were five or six years older than me when we were playing. So, I was even less willing to go back to the village. I found a cave in the valley and lived in seclusion.
"My foster parents regarded me as a blessing from the heavens because of my mysterious backgrounds. They did not dare to discipline me but simply let me go!
"At that time, I trained myself and hunted in the wilderness during the day. At night, to get away from the torture of the uncanny dreams, I sat outside of my cave and looked at the sky. All kinds of weird questions occurred to me.
"What was beyond the sky? What were the so-called deities all about? The enormous bones that were occasionally found in the wilderness were claimed to be the ecdysis of the primeval deities and worshipped by everyone. Temples and altars were even established to enshrine them. But when I touched the bones, I did not feel any reverence at all but only familiarity and sorrow. Why was that?
"Of course, what I thought about most were still my dreams."
"Was everything that happened in my dreams just my fantasy, or was it real? Was the picture where the stars in the universe exploded instantly and ten thousand starships were burning something that I saw in my previous life?
"Just like that, the mottled pictures and the squeaky noises, after being repeated in the dream countless times, gradually condensed into an inexplicable belief. I was somehow told that the answer lay at the end of the Land of Eternal Night. As long as I came to this place, I would find out who I was exactly!"
After saying that, Long Yangjun paused for a moment and took a long breath. With vague sorrow on her face, she quickly said, "Later, the village that my foster parents were living in was pillaged by a bunch of defeated soldiers from the prairies. At that time, the Divinity Transformation Stage Cultivator Meng Chixin and Wu Suiyun had both vanished in the Land of Eternal Night, and the new dominator Han Baling was yet to distinguish himself. The situation on the Dark Cloud Prairies was extremely chaotic. The tribes and the few sects were fighting each other all the time. The soldiers who were defeated always plundered all the way while they were running as bandits. My hometown was unfortunately caught by them. All the villagers were massacred.
"When I trained myself in the wilderness, I chose the most inconspicuous spots, sometimes even the underground crevices, in case other people ran into my secrets. I didn't know it when it happened.
"It was not until my training section was done and I saw the rising fire on the horizon that I realized something terrible had happened. After I returned to my village, the only things awaiting me were the burnt, dilapidated buildings.
"My foster mother was hiding in an underground burrow. She was already dying because of the high temperature and the intense smoke and passed away after she managed to tell me about my birth.
"I tracked the bandits, trying to kill all of them, but outside my expectation, there were quite a few tough fighters among them. Also, my strength was newly awakened. Eventually, although I executed each and every one of them, I was also heavily wounded and nearly dead, and I wasn't myself again until three days and three nights of slipping in and out of consciousness later!
"However, it was exactly because of the life-and-death struggle that my intuition grew much keener. The pictures and sounds in my head were clearer than before, too!
"My hometown had been destroyed, but an origin that was much more remote seemed to be concealed inside my body. I suddenly felt a strong urge to find my real hometown and figure out who I really was!
"What was odd was that I should've been extremely ignorant since I grew up in the wilderness uneducated and barely visited the town hundreds of kilometers away before.
"But my head was extremely clear at that time. I reached the conclusion instantly that it was absolutely impossible for me to reach the Land of Eternal Night on my own. Even if I did, I wouldn't be able to find my destination, which was hidden in a certain place on the vast snow field!
"I had to conduct real training to improve my capabilities. I also needed to establish my own force and gather more intelligence about the Land of Eternal Night!"
Chapter 1480: Long Yangjun and Emperor Phoenix! |
"Therefore," Li Yao said, "you chose to enter the royal palace as 'Wang Xi'?"
Long Yangjun smiled. "I needed tremendous resources to improve my capabilities and special channels to recruit subordinates. I also needed to collect all the information from the past thousands of years about the entire world to
search for traces of the depths of the Land of Eternal Night. Where could I have achieved my purposes simultaneously except for the royal palace?"
"But your body…"
"It is none of your business." Long Yangjun suddenly grew alarmed, and her voice grew cold again. "All in all, you only need to know that I smoothly entered the royal palace and became a common eunuch.
"My uncanny dreams endowed me with extraordinary analysis and planning abilities. Even the most experienced old eunuchs were manipulated by me without them realizing!
"I worked as a librarian in the royal library for decades in order to search for everything related to the Land of Eternal Night from the books that were as vast as oceans. It was during that period that some scraps about the Divine Palace aroused my interest. I was gradually certain that the dreams that had been haunting me must be associated with the Divine Palace!
"However, even the latest books about the Divine Palace were written thousands of years ago. Nobody today knew specifically where the so-called 'Divine Palace' was. Most people simply regarded it as an illusory place cited in folklore.
"But I knew that the Divine Palace was in the real world!
"In the decades that followed, I tried to determine the specific coordinates of the Divine Palace until I found the 'map core' and the 'Thousand Stars Tray' in the end.
"It was a pity that I didn't know where the 'map core' was hidden exactly and that the 'Thousand Stars Tray' had already been dissected into more than ten parts that were held by multiple sects as their secret treasures!
"In order to collect the components of the Thousand Stars Tray and reassemble it, I would have to break into the sects!"