She was merely an idle chess piece, and who knew when she might prove useful? What harm could there be in letting Feng Miao Jun accompany his daughter to Yao? Though she had once been a princess, she was now without support. Besides Great Jin, where else could she turn to?
Yes, he’d heard she had cultivated an internal elixir and become a practitioner, which was for the best. To obtain elemental power, one must pledge loyalty to a country. If she had any intention of seeking refuge in Yao, she could have easily leveraged the life-saving favor and let Miao Feng Xian take her away—he would certainly have been willing. Why bother going through Princess Han Yue? She had no interest in Yao, which was a wise choice.
Princess Han Yue was overjoyed. Though tears still lingered in her eyes, her face bloomed with smiles as she threw her arms around his arm and cried sweetly: “Father truly loves me the most!”
The Jin King glanced at her: “If I don’t let Feng Miao Jun go, does that mean I don’t love you?”
Princess Han Yue was about to continue her coquettish behavior when her father said: “After your wedding month, send her back without delay.”
The princess obediently agreed though she had planned to keep Feng Miao Jun in Yao to accompany her for a while longer. It seemed that was wishful thinking.
Why was Father so concerned about Feng Miao Jun, not allowing her to be away from Great Jin for long?
The image of her friend’s beauty, surpassing even flowers, flashed before her eyes, and she secretly wondered if her father had taken a fancy to her.
Surely not? She was, after all, a disciple of the State Preceptor.
The news that the Jin King had agreed to let Feng Miao Jun accompany Princess Han Yue was brought to her by Mo Ti Zhun.
The great State Preceptor looked at her scrutinizingly for a long while, neither approving nor disapproving, finally saying only: “My first disciple, Tie Xin Ning, will also escort the princess to Yao this time. After the ceremony, he will bring you back.”
Feng Miao Jun understood—this was the Jin King’s order. Since she was nominally a disciple of the State Preceptor, having her “senior fellow disciple” escort her back and forth was most appropriate.
“If you don’t return, your property will be managed by His Majesty.”
“…Hey!” What management? That was confiscation!
With the date for the journey to Yao set, the countdown of her remaining time in Jin began. Feng Miao Jun didn’t waste a single day, and at the crack of dawn, she would invariably board the carriage bound for Little Solitary Mountain.
Before leaving, she had to memorize as many books as possible to ponder during the journey. This task was incredibly challenging, but fortunately, with her spiritual perception of reading, the time needed for reading and memorizing had been reduced by at least two-thirds.
What she was most reluctant to part with was the pile of secret histories written in Celestial Demon script. She had been “self-studying” the Celestial Demon script under the creature’s nose for quite some time and should be able to understand at least part of it by now. So what she urgently needed to do was to go through all the jade scrolls on this shelf, remembering as much as she could.
It must be said that the secret techniques and incantations of the Celestial Demons were incredibly diverse, with a complexity that truly left Feng Miao Jun in awe. She had tried to study one or two, but found that she could, at most, master only the most superficial kinds. As for the rest, they not only required the support of powerful spiritual energy and repeated practice but also the backing of concentrated spiritual consciousness.
This was something Feng Miao Jun couldn’t achieve at present. But her understanding of incantations deepened every day. For instance, the book mentioned a basic rule: Heaven has the virtue of cherishing life, also known as “Heaven never cuts off all paths for man,” so no matter how complex or malicious a curse is, there must be a way to break it.
Otherwise, it could not have been created in the first place.
Heaven knows her level of excitement when she read these few lines—it could not be described merely as eyes brimming with hot tears.
For a full three and a half years, she had been groping in the dark alone, always without results, even doubting at times whether the giant turtle’s curse could ever be broken. If she hadn’t been inherently tenacious, a stubborn person who wouldn’t give up until all hope was lost, she might have long abandoned her original intention of seeking direction in the boundless sea of books and resigned herself to drifting with the current.
After all, most people in this world don’t control their fates, yet they still live well enough, don’t they?
She was human too, and also prone to discouragement.
Fortunately, she had finally seen these words.
A few days later, although there were still no clues about the life-sharing curse, Feng Miao Jun came across an incantation called “Substitution Death,” with quite remarkable effects:
Designate a person to transfer the harm one receives onto them.
Used well, this incantation could practically give one an extra life! Predictably, the attached conditions must be as numerous as cattle hair and stringent: the substitute and the caster had to be of the same build, their birth dates and times had to match, even their names had to be changed to be identical, the caster had to feed the substitute with their vital blood every month, and the distance between them when the spell took effect couldn’t exceed three li…
Although it didn’t mention life sharing, in essence, it was similarly about establishing a connection between two completely independent people. And when they had no physical contact with each other, they could still maintain the stability of this connection.
Wasn’t this exactly the kind of relationship between Yun Ya and herself?
If she delved deeper in this direction, would it be possible to solve her predicament?
On this day, she came across another record that excited her even more than “Substitution Death”:
There was originally a type of gu in the world that could also link the life and death of two people!
It was called the “Same Heart Gu,” also with the beautiful name “Mandarin Duck Gu.” Both male and female were refined as a pair, and each recipient had one planted in their heart, connecting their lives from that moment on.
If one died, the other couldn’t live alone.
Upon seeing the effects of the “Same Heart Gu,” Feng Miao Jun’s heartbeat accelerated uncontrollably.
This effect was almost identical to the life curse! Between her and Yun Ya, it was also a case of living together or dying together, with no intermediate state.
Could it be that what the giant turtle had planted in her and Yun Ya was not a curse but gu poison?
With this good news, even the monotonous night sky outside her carriage seemed brighter with starlight.
However, after leaving the Smoke Sea Tower, with the rumbling of wheels and the gentle swaying of the carriage, her initial enthusiasm was gradually cooled by the breeze coming through the window.
The giant turtle was a beast that had been trapped in the Sheng Long Pool for hundreds of years—where could it have obtained gu worms?
Moreover, the Smoke Sea Tower only had records of the Same Heart Gu but no method of refining it, as the book stated this technique had been lost for ages. Even with the tower’s vast collection, it might not be comprehensive, but if even it didn’t have the method, what were the chances the giant turtle knew how to refine the Same Heart Gu?
Perhaps someone had given the gu worms to the giant turtle beforehand?
No, this idea didn’t hold water either. The Same Heart Gu had to be planted in two people to be effective. Even if there were such a shadowy figure who knew Yun Ya could kill the giant turtle, how could they have known that Feng Miao Jun would appear there?
It should be noted that her accidentally stepping on Mo Ti Zhun’s teleportation formation and ending up at the Sheng Long Pool was a low-probability event, with odds perhaps equivalent to being struck by lightning twice while standing in broad daylight.