Chapter 576 - Master and Servant, Westbound, A Strike to the Heart - Part 2

The next morning.

Li Yuan had a bowl of noodles at a street stall, then wandered through the quiet little town. His steps were unhurried, without purpose. He passed a general store, then heard a peddler shouting.

“Malt candy! Fresh malt candy!”

After a moment of thought, he walked over, pulled out some money, and bought an entire crate. The candy seller just stood there, stunned, watching this strange man casually sling the whole box over his shoulder and walk away.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Two and a half months later.

Li Yuan’s carriage arrived near Sword Mountain Pass.

The pass had regained order. New soldiers in gleaming armor patrolled the weather-worn black ramparts, long spears in hand. The thawed-out stronghold now looked...refreshed.

The grass was sprouting a vibrant green. Flowers, just beginning to bloom, dotted the land with splashes of red. After more than four years under snow and ice, life had returned with explosive force.

Fawns skipped and danced across the borderland meadows, only to startle and flee at the rustling of wind-blown grass, bounding off to drink from crystal-clear streams.

Farther out, shepherds rode across the open plains. Cows and calves trailed behind in a long, slow procession, lowing occasionally as they munched contentedly on fresh spring grass.

It had only been four years, and yet the once-frozen land had transformed into a serene frontier paradise.

Sword Mountain Pass was still closed, officially, a strategic barrier to fend off the Nine Flames Tribe. But could anything really stand in Li Yuan’s way?

A flicker of domain power lifted the entire carriage into the air. It soared silently over the desolate peaks and bypassed the guarded checkpoint entirely, landing gracefully on the far side of the border.

The horses trotted on.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Several days later.

Li Yuan and Ying Zhuoyao entered the Evernight.

Though the cold had yet to fully recede, the region was slowly healing.

Ying Zhuoyao was surprised to discover that the carriage was wrapped in a soft red glow. Within it, the air was as warm as spring. Even she, just a mortal in essence, felt no need for winter clothes, her green robe was more than enough.

Over the years, Li Yuan might not have made dramatic breakthroughs in raw power, but his control over that power had grown sharper than ever. Things that once strained him now came effortlessly.

He used to exhaust himself just to shape the withered flame with his domain, like conjuring the Flame-Tipped Spear or summoning the Heaven-Binding Ribbons.

Now, he could regulate temperature itself.

He could raise or lower the heat around him at will, even to the point of melting metal with ease.

It wasn’t some new skill, just a deeper, more precise manipulation of Yang energy, drawn in and released with perfect finesse.

The carriage glided across the snowy plains.

Ying Zhuoyao held the reins, guiding the horses. She felt a faint pull in her heart, an instinctive tug, leading her forward and guiding her toward the secret stele.

It was the same feeling she’d once used to find Li Yuan. And of course, it had never been about

memory skill

as she’d claimed before.

It was presence.

𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

As long as the target existed and she had seen them before, she could feel their presence like a quiet thread in the dark, tugging her forward.

The closer they got, the stronger the feeling became.

Tracking down Li Yuan had been incredibly difficult. He was always on the move.

But the secret stele wouldn’t be moving, and so, naturally, the upgraded

Guiding Sprite

Ying Zhuoyao came bundled with a

self-navigation

function.

Now that she had fully bound herself to Li Yuan, Ying Zhuoyao had no reservations. She spilled everything from the past, every scrap of dirty laundry, while also throwing in a flattering, “Young Master, your powers are unfathomable. This humble one is not even worthy of comparison. Even now, I still have no idea how you vanished from my senses back then.”

“Mhm...” Li Yuan acknowledged her, but said no more.

The truth was he didn’t know either. At first, he thought he had simply altered the memory. But now, he understood it had nothing to do with memory.

If Ying Zhuoyao’s current words were to be trusted, then the moment he allocated stat points and relived those

memories

, he hadn’t merely

pretended

to be someone else.

He had

become

someone else. A real, distinct existence however brief or transitional that had been enough to completely block detection.

To put it bluntly, he had veiled himself from fate itself.

Li Yuan fell into thought again. Many of those memories he’d experienced...they didn’t feel like echoes or illusions. They felt like the real footprints of a person who had truly lived. And now, those footprints...were all walking with him.

His thoughts drifted to the Human Seed Fruit.

To the moment he first crossed into this world, standing above a vast, mysterious ocean, that azure robed figure waving at him from afar, and the three beams of light that had spiraled around him.

And suddenly, deep in the back of his mind, a silent, frustrated question echoed.

Just how the hell did I end up transmigrating here in the first place?

The carriage galloped across the frostbitten land.

The horses, which should’ve frozen to death in the Evernight, continued on unfazed within the glow of Li Yuan’s crimson aura.

Taking a detour, Li Yuan decided to visit the Deathless Tomb. He wanted to check in on Sheng’er.

Lately, he’d come to realize something.

Even he could suffer cracks in his mental state over the years. So how could his daughter not be affected?

Behind the mischievous, impish laughter of all those crows...perhaps there was a face quietly crying in the dark.

But the Deathless Tomb had shifted again. He couldn’t find it immediately.

Fortunately, on this land, the crows of the Crowmother were everywhere.

As their carriage pressed deeper into the territory, a black crow landed atop one of the horses. Its eyes, dark and endless like twin black holes, locked silently onto Ying Zhuoyao.

She kept her smile, but her entire body tensed with caution.

Then, voice drifted from the carriage.

“They’re one of ours.”

The tension in both the woman and the bird melted away.

The crow flapped once and flew into the carriage. Li Yuan opened the crate he had hauled all this way and said, “I stopped by to check on you. Got you a little something, malt candy.”

The crow cawed, “She’ll be thrilled.”

Hearing the word

she

, Li Yuan paused, eyes darkening slightly. Then he asked, “Aren’t you her?”

The crow replied, “I am her, but I’m also not. She’s the trunk. I’m just a branch. But we’re both your daughters, Papa.”

The crow quickly added, “But Papa, it’s best if you don’t come right now.”

“What’s going on?” Li Yuan asked.

“She’s gone mad. That woman, Meng Xingxian, she’s really lost it. Tengsur’s about to die of old age. And she insists on personally delivering him to the Deathless Tomb But we all know what she’s really after. She wants to ambush my main body and take back control,” the little crow explained.

“We refused to let her in. We told her we’d accept our nephew, but she wasn’t allowed to enter. But she wouldn’t listen. Now she’s stubbornly sending packs of direwolves and warriors to attack the Deathless Tomb. These past years, she’s been secretly raising a new army, so strong even my glacier avatar can’t hold them off. The situation’s stuck in a stalemate. It’s been days now.”

Jen’gal Tengsur? He’s dying of old age?

Li Yuan barely even knew his grandson, and they’d barely crossed paths.

Still, he didn’t dwell on it. Instead, he said calmly, “Meng Xingxian hasn’t gone mad.”

“Then what is it?” the little crow asked.

“It’s just a desperate thrash in the end times,” Li Yuan replied. Then, without pause, he said, “Let’s go. I’ll handle it.”