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Chapter 553: Mother and Son
🕑 Added 2025-01-06 14:00:14 +0000 UTCTianyi furrowed his brows. Why did his mother ask such a question? He knew he wasn’t the most dedicated cultivator out there, but he could cultivate in seclusion for a long time too, okay?
“Mother, I’m completely fine,” Tianyi said. “You don’t usually seek me out like this. Is there something wrong?”
Mengfei nodded, causing Tianyi to frown. Were the demons making trouble, or did the Numinous Sword Sect plot something sinister?
“I haven’t seen you in a hundred years.”
“Is that so, in that case—” Tianyi paused mid-word. “I’m sorry, what?”
In complete seriousness, Mengfei repeated her previous sentence. “We haven’t seen each other in a hundred years. It’s the first time that this has happened. If we don’t see each other often, it means we are drifting apart.”
Tianyi didn’t answer immediately. He glanced at Mengfei and saw her holding a Xiyi Talisman. Instead of answering, he used his immortal sense to bring up his mother’s Xiyinet history. Lo-and-behold, he guessed exactly right.
‘Ugh, she found some troublesome books again. One Hundred and One Ways to Stay Connected with Your Child, Understanding Your Child No Matter the Age, Maintaining Boundaries Between Mother and Son, How to Raise an Excellent Son? Those I can somewhat understand, but what the hell is Weaning Your Baby and Keeping Your Baby Close!?’ Tianyi thought with exasperation. ‘I better screen out what Mother can read so she won’t fill her head with unneeded and weird knowledge again.’
He looked at her again. As usual, she had the same expressionless face, but Tianyi could sense a forlorn aura wrapped around her. ‘Now that I think about it, what Mother said is true. This is the first time we haven’t seen each other in so long.’
Tianyi looked at Mengfei again. Her figure overlapped with another figure, one sickly and wearing a hospital gown. He knew that figure. It was his mom from his first life on earth. But now, her face had become indistinct, as if hidden behind a haze.
He sighed and looked up at the sky. He hadn’t seen his mother for over a hundred years, but he hadn’t seen his mom for thousands of years. Her face was no longer even clear to him. Of course, he had taken precautions and stored his memory of her in an artifact, but that wasn’t all. His emotions toward her had dulled.
That didn’t mean Tianyi didn’t want to find his mom. Quite the opposite. He was determined to find her, even if it was only a vestige of her soul. Logically, he knew that she had likely already died, entering the cycle of reincarnation or her soul dispersed. However, that would not stop him.
No, his search for her was no longer primarily based on his emotions, but on his duty.
This was the cruelty of time. No one, not even immortals, or an existence like himself, was immune. Perhaps one day, he would become an emotionless being, only seeking the end of the immortal path. That thought frightened him.
Tianyi looked at Mengfei. ‘Maybe Mother has the right idea.’
His emotion toward his mom had already dulled. Tianyi didn’t want his emotions toward Mengfei to dull as well.
“You’re right, Mother. It was my fault for failing to notice,” Tianyi said, bowing in apology.
Mengfei quickly raised her hand and stopped Tianyi. “No. You did nothing wrong. It was my fault for hoping for more time together.”
However, her words only brought Tianyi a pang of guilt. Looking back, he had actually neglected Mengfei with all that happened: the war against the Demon Clan, visiting other timelines, and entering a lower realm. Sure, he always had a conduit present, but the number of times he interacted with her had decreased compared to when the Primordial Realm was still the Huang Realm.
“No, it’s my fault,” Tianyi insisted, though he no longer bowed. He looked around and said, “This isn’t a good place to talk, let’s move to somewhere else.”
Mengfei didn’t object and the two soon found themselves in the gardens of the Nine Heavens Palace. She looked around at the unique landscape. The garden was divided into nine floating platforms above a large pond at the back of the palace. Some were filled with water and formed a miniature waterfall that flowed to another platform or into the pond below. It resembled a microcosm of Nine Heavens Peak.
Each platform had a unique style. The one that Mengfei and Tianyi sat in was formed predominantly by gray sand. The amount of greenery could be counted on one hand and were placed atop of large rocks placed aesthetically throughout. Tables, chairs, and other decorations were placed atop the wooden walkway placed above the sand.
“I haven’t seen a garden like this before. Yi’er, you have the talent to become a gardener,” Mengfei said.
Tianyi’s lips twitched. Who would praise an immortal to have the talent to become a gardener? Had it been anyone else, he would have thought they were mocking him. “It’s nothing. It was a style I remember seeing in my previous life.”
“Previous life…” Mengfei muttered. “Can you tell me about your past life?”
Tianyi paused. He had never talked with anyone about his past life except for the reincarnators. Even then, it was only reminiscing about society and not about himself. The other reincarnators didn’t talk much about their past either.
“Okay,” Tianyi said.
He didn’t immediately delve into his past, but began with the history of Earth. After all, earthlings like himself did not have the ability to cultivate and only had a scant seventy to a hundred years of life. The inability to cultivate molded society.
Society in the Primordial Realm progressed thanks to the Xiyi Talisman and the information network it granted people access to. But it did not change the fundamental nature of society. Where individual power reigned supreme, those with the largest fist had the greatest rights.
Compared to the history and the society, the amount of time Tianyi spent talking about his own was pitifully small, less than five percent of the entire narration.
When he finished, Mengfei stayed silent, as if processing what she had just heard. Finally, she opened her mouth. “I don’t like it.”
Tianyi didn’t say anything. After all, it wouldn’t be strange to dislike the fact that your son actually had another parent before you.
“I don’t like a world where humans can only live one hundred years. It’s too little time to spend with you,” Mengfei continued, stunning Tianyi.
Then, a smile appeared on Tianyi’s face. “Although it’s true that my lifespan was short, Earth was a relatively safe place. The chances of dying there are incredibly small compared to here.”
Although true immortals would disintegrate into essence of heaven and earth after they reached the limit of their willpower, the majority still died from battles or the like before their willpower reached the limit.
“That’s all in the past. We will have much more time to spend together in the future.” Immediately after saying this, a strange expression appeared on Tianyi’s face. Why did the wording seem so wrong?
Luckily for him, Mengfei quickly diverted the topic. After hearing it, Tianyi felt it was rather unlucky. Perhaps they should have stayed on the former topic a bit longer.
“Although you have hundreds of thousands of years in the future, you still need to think about descendants. You and Daoyi have been married for thousands of years, but her belly still shows no signs of pregnancy,” Mengfei said. She waited a bit for her words to sink in. “Are you and her… having a fight?”
The corner of Tianyi’s lips twitched at his mother’s words. “No. Me and Daoyi are living very harmoniously. There’s no need to worry.”
“Is that so?” Mengfei asked. “But I heard that a couple’s feelings toward each other will fade with time. Men often find new lovers once that happens. To secure it, having a child is the best insurance. You are my child, but I don’t want Daoyi to not have someone to accompany her in the future.”
Tianyi held her hand. “Mother, I’m going to stop you right there. Even if my feelings towards Daoyi die down, I won’t cheat on her.”
“Cheat? You want to divorce her and marry a new wife?”
“No, no, no!” Tianyi quickly said, shaking his hand. “It means having an affair out of marriage. Besides, Daoyi is currently taking this chance to comprehend the exposed worldly laws while she still can. Speaking of which, Mother, what about you? Although it isn’t as helpful to an immortal sovereign like you, it’s still a rare chance.”
Mengfei shook her head. “I have something better.”
Tianyi didn’t ask. “Anyway, back to the main point. It’s going to be hard to have a child with Daoyi. My current body is not exactly flesh and blood anymore. I could reconstruct it with Ba Shifang’s blood, but that’s not my original body. Unfortunately, I didn’t account for this, otherwise I would have stored some of my blood before I created my martial body.”
Tianyi sighed. Ba Shifang was his clone made from his own flesh after removing the Dragon Emperor’s influence. It could be said to be the purest form of Mengfei’s child, but doing that just felt weird. Would that child be his and Daoyi’s or Ba Shifang and Daoyi’s child? He didn’t want to think about it.
“If you need blood, I still have the handkerchiefs you coughed blood into before you switched to that artifact.”
Tianyi stared at Mengfei. Who would keep and preserve bloodied handkerchiefs? “Why?”
“Elder Shan said that most parents collect keepsakes so that parents could reminisce about the past with their child after they grew up,” Mengfei said.
He looked up at the sky. ‘Mother, I think Elder Shan meant something more sentimental and not literal.’
“Speaking of Elder Shan, he should be over three thousand six hundred years old now. Although he’s a transcending mortality saint, how has his lifespan not reached the end? Did he consume a heaven-defying treasure or longevity peach?” Tianyi asked.
“You don’t know?”
“Know what?” Tianyi asked.
“Elder Shan isn’t human. He’s a pill that awakened his spirituality and transformed into human form. Although his cultivation speed isn’t as fast as humans, he has a much longer lifespan,” Mengfei said.
Tianyi blinked. “No wonder he and Dandan are so close.”
It also explained why he also smelled a medicinal fragrance around Elder Shan. He thought it was simply because Elder Shan was an alchemist. Speaking of pills, Dandan was finally willing to come out. However, after finding out it couldn’t bite through his skin, he spent more time around Elder Shan nowadays.
“I’ll be right back.”
Tianyi blinked at Mengfei’s sudden departure. When she returned, she was holding an ornate jewelry box. She didn’t wet Tianyi’s curiosity for long and opened it. A metallic scent wafted out.
His lips twitched when he saw the piles of handkerchiefs sorted within.
“Some of the blood has dried, but most of them are still damp,” Mengfei said. “Would you be able to recreate your body with this?”
Tianyi picked up the box. “Yeah, it should be enough.”
“Do you need all of them?” Mengfei asked. Her voice contained a hint of reluctance.
Once again, Tianyi’s lips twitched. He had actually wanted to take away the entire box and throw it away. After all, it was evidence of his dark history. He coughed and said, “No, one is enough.”
He picked up a bloody handkerchief and handed the box back to Mengfei. He blinked. “Mother, why are you so focused on me and Daoyi having a child?”
In one of the few times in his memory, Tianyi saw Mengfei shift her eyes. “There’s no reason. I just thought it was time for Yi’er and Daoyi to have a child. It’s not because I want to hold a cute grandchild. You are still the most important to me.”
For the umpteenth time, Tianyi’s lips twitch. Along with her search records, he also saw her record of watching baby videos on the Xiyinet. ‘Did I turn Mother into an internet addict?’
Comments
Charles handgis
Love this chapter
Zaim İpek
This is one of my favorite chapters.
