Thus, he said, “Father, Mother, I apologize. I’ve forgotten to bring something for this visit.”
Naturally, no one answered him. Xie Lian slowly sat down and leaned against one of the coffins.
After zoning out for some time, he finally spoke again.
“Mother, I saw Qi Rong.
“Qi Rong didn’t die, he turned into a ghost. I really don’t know how he’s lived these past hundreds of years.”
Xie Lian shook his head.
“He…killed a lot of people, and now there are people trying to kill him. The Upper Court probably won’t forgive him either.” Xie Lian sighed. “I really don’t know what to do with him.”
He was going to say more when suddenly, from someplace extremely close, there came the sound of soft weeping.
Xie Lian froze, and his expression changed drastically.
He listened closely; it wasn’t a hallucination. It really was the sound of crying. The voice was very low, very small, and would’ve been easily missed if he didn’t hold his breath and pay close attention. The sound was also soft, and if it wasn’t a child, it had to be a woman.
The crying was very close; it was as if they were only separated by a thin wall, the sound clinging close to him. Xie Lian whipped his head around and at last confirmed—the sound came from the coffin he was leaning on!
Amidst his shock, the first words that came blurting out were unconsciously joyous.
“Mother, is that you?!”
However, Xie Lian snapped out of it immediately, knowing that what he had desperately hoped for would never come true. His mother had passed eight hundred years ago, relieved of her suffering, and she had never devolved into a grudging ghost. The emotion behind those cries was also not of sorrow but of fright.
In this time and place, who in the world would be hiding in his mother’s coffin and weeping?!
Xie Lian couldn’t wait for another second, and he threw open the cover of the coffin with his left hand, his right on Fangxin, ready to strike. But the moment he saw what was inside, the striking sword stopped abruptly in its path.
Lying inside the coffin, alone, was the form of a person covered in elegant, black attire, with their head wrapped in a face cover.
The only person who this should’ve been was his mother, but the one lying in the casket was most definitely not her. The form was small and short, the body type completely different, and most significantly, this person was trembling—it was a real, live person!
Xie Lian ripped off the face cover. Sure enough, beneath the fabric was the face of a young child! His heart froze at that moment. He grabbed the child and lifted him, his voice shocked and panicked.
“Where’s my mother? Where’s my mother?! What did you do to my mother’s body?!”
Although that elegant black dress didn’t look like anything out of the ordinary, it was in fact woven from the silk of an extremely rare worm. The silk was a tribute from a small foreign nation, and weaving it into clothing took intricate craftsmanship. Interwoven with fragrant herbal satchels and sealed into the coffin, the cadaver would remain preserved for thousands of years, allowing the dead to look like she was still among the living. However, at that moment, the one wearing that black silk dress was this child, so where did the body of his mother go? What condition would it be in now?
Xie Lian didn’t dare to think deeply on it and could only demand answers from this unknown child in his hold.
He questioned once more, sternly, “Where’s my mother? Who are you? Why are you here? What did you do with my mother’s body?!”
But how could a child terrified to tears answer any of his questions? He was too scared to even speak. Xie Lian dragged him out of the coffin and realized suddenly that some ashen white powder had been shaken out of the black dress with that movement.
Face white as a sheet, he looked into the coffin and found that the bottom of the casket was also covered with a thin layer of powder. The world spun, and Xie Lian felt his heart stop. His grip loosened, letting the child go, and he fell to his knees before the coffin, his mind blank.
He didn’t dare to touch that powder with his hands, but he couldn’t just let it sit and sift either, like incense ashes flying in the wind. Although in denial, he knew deep within what that was.
Once the silk funeral garb was forcibly removed, what else could a sealed cadaver of eight hundred years become?
Instantly, Xie Lian’s mind fell into chaos, unable to think; he held his head with his hands and there was ringing in his ears. Just then, his back tensed as his instincts sensed danger behind; he whipped his head around, and with a hand fast like lightning, he seized the blade of a sword barehanded. Someone had tried to stab him from behind—it was that stack of bundled hay!