Chapter 1947 - A Single Life (4)

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By the time Lin Ming had quietly returned to the Sky Spill Continent and arrived at the dark forest near the Lin Academy, 25 days had passed. There was still five more days until the conclusion of the forest survival course.

On this day, heavy rains washed down upon the forest. In the summer this sort of warm and humid forest often had pouring showers.

In the boundless waterfall of droplets, Lin Ming scratched his head. He was planning to sneak into the forest without being noticed and then make up an excuse to rejoin the group. But, he couldn’t come up with a good reason.

As he had a headache from thinking of a reason, he discovered that in the Lin Academy’s forest, there were a massive number of soldiers wandering about.

These soldiers all wore the same silver patterned war armor. Even in the heavy rain and in the thick underbrush, they still retained their strength and their movements were as flexible as a leopard’s; they were a well-trained elite unit.

These soldiers each had a cultivation at the Xiantian realm or above.

It had to be known that if a Xiantian realm martial artist was placed in a small sect they would be considered an Elder. Yet in Vermillion Bird Divine Kingdom, they were nothing but soldiers.

These soldiers weren’t part of the common military corps, but were part of the Vermillion Bird Divine Kingdom’s Silver Armor Legion. Many graduates of the Lin Academy entered the Silver Armor Legion to adventure and gain experience, and the Silver Armor Legion also produced many famous powerhouses.

This legion was under the direct control of the Lin Family, and was considered one of the Lin Family’s sharpest blades.

Normally, they weren’t easily used. But now these people had launched a massive search through the heavily raining forest, combing every inch of the land. They shouted out for ‘Prince An’; it was clear they had been searching for Lin Ming for several days already.

Seeing this, Lin Ming was a bit dazed.

This matter seemed to have gotten a bit out of control… in truth, there was still five more days until the survival course ended. He never thought that the Lin Family would use the Silver Armor Legion to search for him. This was likely because they thought he had been captured or even eaten by some vicious beast in the forest…

And to mobilize the Silver Armor Legion, it was certainly his parents who had commanded this. They were worried for his safety and thus sent out the Silver Armor Legion.

Lin Ming braced himself and walked out from the woods.

“Prince An! Prince An is over there!”

As a silver-armored soldier saw Lin Ming, he was immediately overjoyed and began to shout out as loudly as he could. In a moment, many silver-armored soldiers rushed towards Lin Ming, gathering around him in a circle.

A man wearing golden armor and with a great red cape thrown over his shoulders strode forwards. He had thick eyebrows and was towering with broad shoulders.

This man was the leader of the Silver Armor Legion – Zhou Yutian.

Zhou Yutian was the Lin Family’s son-in-law.

He possessed a variation bloodline and was considered one of the top talents of the Sky Spill Continent. He came from a small family background, but afterwards he was admitted into the Lin Academy due to his amazing talent and obtained extraordinary results there. Later, he was even crowned champion of the grand martial artist meeting and was finally taken in by the Lin Family as their son-in-law.

After Lin Ming and Lin Xiaoge ascended, Lin Ming’s parents had three more children. The one who married Zhou Yutian was Lin Ming’s second sister, Lin Ping.

“Prince An, you’ve been deliberately stirring up trouble…”

Seeing Lin Ming safely return, Zhou Yutian didn’t know just what to say. “Prince An, do you know how worried Madame was in these past days? She’s been too worried over you to even drink or eat, afraid that something might have happened to you. Do you know how dangerous the forests around Lin Academy are, just how many perils lurk in the dark? In the depths of this forest there are ferocious vicious beasts that even Destiny Decree masters are unable to deal with. You can’t do something like this again!”

Zhou Yutian sternly admonished.

Lin Ming was a bit ashamed of himself. Normally, the character he displayed was that of a boy who loved to play around. He feared that his parents probably thought he ran deep into the dark forest because he was being mischievous.

Lin Ming could only apologize.

He was escorted back by the Silver Armor Legion. As for Lin Mu, she had obtained the news and stood at the entrance of the dark forest. She didn’t sit in her carriage but stood beneath it, anxiously looking around while a maid held up an umbrella for her.

The heavy rain came down, crashing onto the umbrella with ringing sounds. Lin Mu’s bangs were already matted to her forehead; she was too worried.

As Zhou Yutian had said, in these past days Lin Mu wasn’t able to sleep at all.

All mothers of the world were like this. The more they worried over their children the easier they thought something bad had happened.

Seeing his mother wait in the rain, Lin Ming felt his heart ache a little. He had truly been anxious to see the Dragon Sovereign but he was too young and it was impossible for him to be allowed to go adventuring. He had to take advantage of this opportunity to head out once, but he never thought his mother would be so worried about him.

He ran forwards to help support the umbrella for his mother.

“Little An, you’ve caused too much trouble this time…” Lin Mu scolded. But although she had a harsh expression, her eyes were filled with kindness and worry.

“Little An, are you hurt anywhere?”

Lin Ming shook his head. He resolved his heart that for this life, he would accompany his parents until they reached the end of their road. He would take care of them until old age, until the end of their natural lives…

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Like this, the stormy commotion ended. Lin Ming thought that this minor matter would quickly be forgotten.

But, reality turned out differently.

Because of this matter, rumors began to appear within Lin Academy and the Vermillion Bird Divine Kingdom.

The approximate content of these rumors was that the Lin couple had spoiled Lin An too much. Lin An himself was nothing but a useless black sheep, a wastrel who ruined his family’s good name. He had a pitiful background and possessed no good points, and what was most disgusting was that he skipped all his classes and caused trouble all day long.

During the survival course in the dark forest he had caused a mess, completely ruining the survival course for everyone else!

If an ordinary student of Lin Academy were to have some problem during the survival course, the academy simply wouldn’t do anything at all and would sum it up as a death due to training. This sort of thing happened every year at Lin Academy and several students would die.

But, Lin An had only been missing for 20 some days and this was enough to cause the Lin Family to mobilize the Silver Armor Legion to search for him. This used up military resources and was simply making a massive fuss over nothing. Even the academy survival course was terminated early.

The survival course had only gone on for ten days. As for the missions assigned by the academy, only a very small number of people were able to complete them. This made it so that 99% of the students weren’t able to obtain any good results.

The students of Lin Academy were incredibly unhappy with such an ending. Just who did Lin An think he was? He wasn’t even related to the Lin Family to begin with; he was nothing but a bastard abandoned by his birth parents!

His talent and cultivation were the same as an average person’s. In normal times, he would be nothing but a punk with no good points, a street rat wandering the city.

The Lin couple not only took in such a bastard child but even allowed him to arrogantly do whatever he wished, doing all sorts of evil and nasty things. Not only was he not discipled but the Lin couple even dragged in others to search for him.

This was a clear case of injustice. It caused the Lin couple’s prestige to be greatly affected.

Some people even privately said that the Lin couple were nothing more than common citizens who had never seen the wider world before. If they hadn’t luckily given birth to their amazing son Lin Ming, then they would have already died and turned into white bones.

Even now, people were filled with thoughts that the reason they occupied their seat was only because of Lin Ming. They felt that the Lin couple shouldn’t interfere with the Vermilion Bird Divine Kingdom and that they shouldn’t have the right to mobilize the forces of Vermilion Bird Divine Kingdom. They should just look for some nice and quiet place to retire.

These discussions, either intentionally or unintentionally, passed to Lin Ming’s ears.

Lin Ming frowned. During this life, his original intentions were to accompany his parents. While he honored his parents, he wanted to experience their fatherly love and motherly love, becoming more aware of the samsara of life and death.

He didn’t think that his careless actions would cause his parents to be criticized.

“Really, wherever there are people, there will be struggles. I just wanted to be a prince that didn’t try to seize power, but it seems that someone has targeted me…”

Lin Ming didn’t care what others said about him, but he wouldn’t tolerate his parents being harmed.

Perhaps he should consider giving suitable honor to his parents so that they wouldn’t be criticized.

He went to look at the Lin Academy’s rankings. In order to encourage students and push them harder, an array formation stone tablet was set up in the academy’s back mountains. The most outstanding students of every class had their names engraved into the stone.

In addition, the Lin Academy had done something similar to the Seven Profound Martial House and had created many examinations. The record holders of these examinations would also be written in the rankings.

These rankings were looked upon by many students every day. Motivated students would even come over a dozen times a month.

As for Lin Ming, he had never looked before.

Today, he came to take a look. A name caught his eye. This person was called Situ Mingyue.

This name seemed to be a girl’s and it often appeared on the rankings. This was because she maintained several current rankings and even had a record high.

“Situ Mingyue?”

Lin Ming was curious. Another person named Situ. Those of the Situ surname often possessed a variation dantian and extremely high levels of talent. Could it be…

Lin Ming casually asked one of the students standing in front of the ranking list. “Who is this Situ Mingyue?"

The student looked a bit unhappy to be asked this question by Lin Ming, but he didn’t dare to not reply. He said, “You haven’t even heard of Situ Mingyue? ...She is the most splendid student from the third class and is Situ Yaoyao’s little sister, Situ Yaoyue’s niece!”

This student’s words confirmed Lin Ming’s guess. It seems he wasn’t wrong.

Situ Yaoyue was a genius from the Asura Divine Kingdom. She possessed an Extreme Violet Dantian and was skilled in the Darkness Laws. She was crowned the most talented junior of the Asura Divine Kingdom’s younger generation.

When the Asura Divine Kingdom chased Lin Ming into the Forsaken God Clan and forced Lin Ming into a continuous battle, Lin Ming had faced opponent after opponent until he encountered Situ Yaoyue.

Although Situ Yaoyue was a woman, she grasped the Great Desolate Blood Halberd and engaged Lin Ming in a fierce battle. They had fought to a near standstill but in the end Lin Ming had relied upon his body transformation technique to defeat her.

Although Situ Yaoyue at the time was older than Lin Ming by many years, it was still amazing for her to accomplish what she did.

As for Situ Yaoyao, she was Situ Yaoyue’s little sister and also possessed an Extreme Violet Dantian. When Lin Ming returned to the lower realms in the past, he had seen Lin Xiaoge battle against her. In truth, Lin Xiaoge wasn’t able to suppress Situ Yaoyao, but Lin Xiaoge was finally able to win due to the foundation she established because of all the precious medicines used on her. Only through a competition of endurance did she win. From this point, it could be said that Lin Xiaoge had actually lost to Situ Yaoyao.

Now, Situ Yaoyao actually gave birth to a daughter. And it was clear that this daughter also possessed an Extreme Violet Dantian. This Situ Family really possessed far too many talents and the Extreme Violet Dantian was passed down like this.

As for himself, he seemed to have a fate with the Situ Family.