Chapter 829: Bailies Past
He Chunhua smiled. “You’re my child of fortune. Your old man is still counting on you.”
“You’ve been climbing steadily for the past year and a half even without me around.” He Lingchuan smiled back. “You’re plenty fortunate yourself.”
He Chunhua’s smile faded slightly. “What are you afraid of? Chuan’er, don’t you want to go back?”
Go back? “Go back where?”
Does He Chunhua mean the Panlong Ruins? He Lingchuan mulled over those two words. Why is He Chunhua asking me if I don’t want to “go back”?
“Come with me. Your father needs you.” He Chunhua’s voice was gentle, but he shot Zhao Qinghe a glance.
Zhao Qinghe waved his hand. More than forty men immediately stepped forward, beginning to encircle He Lingchuan.
Qiu Hu, however, had been keeping a close eye on them all along. The instant he saw this, he led his fellow disciples into the crowd and placed themselves protectively around He Lingchuan.
The atmosphere between the two sides instantly grew tense.
Qiu Hu said coldly, “What are you planning to do to the special envoy?”
By emphasizing the words special envoy, he was reminding He Chunhua that the young man before him was not merely his eldest son; he was also the envoy sent by Rongshan!
To harm He Lingchuan would be to jeopardize the relationship between Rongshan and Yuan!
Yuan was still borrowing money to fund its wars. If Rongshan suddenly pulled the rug out from under it, how much hope of victory would Yuan have left?
“Chuan’er, Great Yuan has been at war for years. Countless people have been driven from their homes.” He Chunhua’s expression was earnest. “Now we finally have a chance to end the war. Will you lend your father a hand?”
So if I refused to go, would that mean that I’d failed Great Yuan? He Lingchuan drawled, “Fine, but I have one condition.”
As long as he’s willing to go, that’s enough. He Chunhua relaxed slightly. “Name it.”
“I want to know everything about Lu Xiaoyun.”
The instant the name “Lu Xiaoyun” left his mouth, the muscles in He Chunhua’s cheeks twitched twice. He blurted, “Y-you know...?”
His eldest son’s question had caught him completely off guard, ripping open the most deeply hidden corner of his heart.
“You mean how I know she was my birth mother, and Madame Ying isn’t?” He Lingchuan cut him off. “Old man, there’s no wall in this world that doesn’t eventually let the wind through!”
For a moment, He Chunhua was at a loss.
Chuan’er’s personality changed dramatically after returning. Could it somehow be connected to this?
He glanced toward the distant Chipa Highland. The warm wind blowing against his face helped settle his thoughts.
They had already come this far. The arrow was nocked and the bowstring drawn. How could they possibly stop now?
“Fine.” He agreed quickly. “It’s all history. If you want to hear it, I’ll tell you.”
With that, he turned away and walked over to a large rock beside the water, where he sat down first.
Only He Lingchuan followed. Everyone else tactfully retreated several steps farther away, leaving the father and son some privacy.
With both hands resting on his knees, He Chunhua looked at his eldest son. “What do you want to know?”
“How did you meet her?”
He Chunhua drew a long breath.
“Back then, Heishui City was still under Andong rule. I killed the comprador they had planted in the city, then fled into the Panlong Desert to escape pursuit. That year, the season of mad sand arrived early. It stopped my pursuers, but it nearly killed me as well.” He slowly dredged up the old memories. “When I finally woke up, I was lying in the Lu Family’s house. Lu Xiaoyun had dragged me out from the edge of the desert before the sandstorm arrived.”
“For the next several days, all we could hear outside was the roar of wind and sand. No one could leave, so she treated my injuries.” He Chunhua pressed a hand to his forehead. “She was very good to me. I already knew Hongchan back then, but I still, still...”
He never finished the sentence, but He Lingchuan knew exactly what he meant.
He Chunhua had only been fifteen at the time, a boy just awakening to matters of the heart, not yet the seasoned statesman he had become today.
Young people in the first flush of adolescence were impulsive and rarely thought about consequences.
“We were only together for a few days before I slipped back into Heishui City and gathered men to drive out the Andong forces,” He Chunhua continued. “After we retook Heishui City, the Inspector of Jin Province not only refused to reward me but threw me into prison. I remained there for nine months. By the time I was released, she was just about to give birth.” He let out a deep sigh. “Unfortunately, she didn’t survive it. She only managed to leave you behind for me.”
Father and son fell silent, facing one another.
A sudden impulse stirred deep within He Lingchuan. He wanted to ask why He Chunhua had used his own son in the rite of divine recompense.
However, that was something he absolutely could not ask. Besides, he knew perfectly well that the impulse did not truly belong to him. It came from the original owner of this body.
“What was her background?”
“She was Bailie.” Since his eldest son already knew this much, He Chunhua stopped trying to hide anything. “She came from a very ancient cultivation family in the east. Chuan’er, during the Ancient Era, some immortal sects existed as formal schools, while others passed their legacies down through great families, bound together by blood.”
He Lingchuan nodded. He knew that much.
He had read about it in records within the Panlong World. During the era when spirit qi was abundant, there had been no shortage of families who pursued the Dao and immortality through bloodline inheritances. Their internal structures were actually even more complicated than those of ordinary immortal sects. Status was first determined by cultivation, and only after that did blood relation and seniority come into play.
Everyone was related, which made internal relationships and resource allocation even more delicate.
But that was getting off topic. He Lingchuan returned his attention to the matter at hand. “So my mother came from a distinguished family?”
“Yes. The Lu Family’s territory itself was known as ‘Bailie.’ During the age of immortals, it covered a vast area. After the Great Catastrophe, it gradually shrank, in step with the Lu Family’s decline.”
He Lingchuan found nothing surprising about that. Spirit qi had begun declining from the early Middle Era onward, and the old immortal sects had found survival increasingly difficult.
What happened to the Lu Family was merely one small reflection of a much greater tide of history.
“Then, more than six hundred years ago, the Bailie region was conquered by Beijia. The Lu Family had no choice but to relocate to a small territory farther east, where their descendants have lived ever since.”
He Lingchuan was astonished. “What? Beijia conquered them?”
How did the northern monster state suddenly become involved in this too?
“Yes. What is now the State of Shanyu, one of Beijia’s thirteen vassal monster states, is essentially the old territory of Bailie.” He Chunhua shook his head. “Beijia’s enormous territory was all seized from other states and Daoist schools or sects over the years.”
The State of Shanyu? He Lingchuan thought for a moment. That’s basically at Beijia’s easternmost edge. “Where did the Bailie people move to?”
“Most of them stayed and accepted Beijia’s rule. Another group followed the Lu Family on a long migration eastward and eventually settled in the Donghua Plains, right beside the eastern region of the State of Mou. Your mother told me that long ago, the Lu Family had purchased the Donghua Plains from another state. No one expected that land to eventually become the Bailie people’s final stronghold.”
He Lingchuan sketched out the geography in his head. “So it’s behind the State of Mou?”
“More or less.” He Chunhua corrected him, “Between the Donghua Plains and Beijia, there are not only the two small states currently at war, but also the enormous State of Mou. The Bailie people were probably frightened badly enough by Beijia that they wanted nothing more to do with it.”
If you could not beat them, you could at least hide from them. And the Bailie people had hidden all the way behind the State of Mou.
That immediately reminded He Lingchuan of something unusual about the State of Mou, which was that it had more Daoist sects than any other state. Perhaps that also made it more tolerant of descendants of immortals like the Bailie people.
“Why did Lu... why did my mother travel thousands upon thousands of kilometers all the way to Heishui City?”
Between the Donghua Plains and Heishui City lay the State of Mou, two smaller states, Beijia, and more than half of Yuan.
Even thousands of mountains and rivers hardly seemed enough to describe the distance.
𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶
He Chunhua sighed. “She ran away.”
“The Lu Family’s direct line had dwindled badly, and its lands were shrinking rapidly. After several generations with only a single heir, by your maternal grandfather’s generation, only one daughter remained: Lu Xiaoyun. But when she was twelve, both her parents died. A nephew from a collateral branch coveted the old Lu Family’s property. With no one to rely on, Lu Xiaoyun had no choice but to flee Bailie.”
He Lingchuan frowned. “A nephew?”
“Yes. Your mother belonged to the main family, so her generational seniority was high. When she was twelve, her collateral nephew Lu Zhensheng was already twenty-seven—young, vigorous, and ambitious.” He Chunhua continued, “She even suspected that Lu Zhensheng had been responsible for your maternal grandfather’s death. She recognized the danger and escaped in time. Otherwise, she probably wouldn’t have survived either.”
He Lingchuan gave a cold laugh. “Heh, preying on an heirless family.”
Lu Xiaoyun had been a young girl, weak and incapable of protecting herself. No one in the clan was willing to uphold justice for her, yet substantial family property stood in her name. It was the perfect example of possessing treasure becoming a crime in itself.
When wealth was at stake, some relatives turned into wolves.
He Lingchuan then took out the contract Sun Hongye had left him and unfolded it before He Chunhua. “Is this contract genuine and still valid?”
He Chunhua glanced at it twice, and his expression changed. “So Sun Hongye managed to find this. It was one of Lu Xiaoyun’s possessions. Several decades ago, the State of Qing leased Blade’s Edge Harbor from the Bailie people for forty years. By my reckoning, the lease has already expired.”
He Lingchuan asked casually, “Who controls the harbor now?”
“I don’t know.” He Chunhua had never cared about it. “That’s a foreign matter, far removed from us. But given how badly the Bailie people have declined, I doubt taking the harbor back would be easy. Blade’s Edge Harbor is an excellent natural harbor.”
At this point, He Chunhua pointed into the distance. “Looking at it now, perhaps your mother crossed the sea for a second reason as well—to find this. Whoever possesses the Generous Pot possesses the power to take revenge.”
Heishui City was merely a frontier city belonging to a weak state.
If there were anything here capable of attracting the descendant of an immortal family, it was probably the fact that it bordered the Panlong Desert.
“So—” He Chunhua once again began persuading his eldest son, “Chuan’er, you truly should make another trip to the Panlong Ruins.”
Now he’s appealing to family affection. Even He Lingchuan could feel anger beginning to churn in his chest. This old man really would use any means necessary to achieve his objective!
In the end, He Lingchuan slowly nodded. “You’re right, old man. Whether by sentiment or reason, it seems I really should go.”
He Chunhua was delighted and was about to respond when He Lingchuan continued, “Give me something that belonged to Mother. I’d like to keep it as a remembrance.”
The request was entirely reasonable. He Chunhua thought for a moment, then removed a jade pendant from his waist. “This is the jade pendant passed down through the Lu Family’s direct line. Your maternal grandfather gave it to Xiaoyun, and when you were born, she left it to you.”
It was a fine piece of pure mutton-fat white jade, engraved with the character “鹿 (Lu)”. At its center was a single crimson mark resembling a drop of blood.
The pendant felt warm and smooth in He Lingchuan’s hand. Inwardly, he sneered. If my birth mother left this to the original owner of this body, then why did He Chunhua keep it hidden all these years?
Was it not simply because of his own selfish concerns?
He gently rubbed the jade pendant between his fingers before asking, “The Lu Family is still in the Donghua Plains?”
“Presumably. Your mother said it was a beautiful place, blessed with fine mountains and clear waters.” He Chunhua looked puzzled. “Why?”
“Nothing.” He Lingchuan put away the jade pendant. “Oh, right. My original name, He Xiao, who gave me that name?”