Chapter 76 The truth is just a veil.

As evening fell, Crimson Cloud City gradually dimmed, merging into the true night.

The sunstone in the room was nearly extinguished. Qin Ming sat there motionless, his face obscured, only his eyes still glowing.

He looked at himself at fourteen again, when he was sentimental, cared about the people around him, and couldn’t bear to part with them when faced with life and death.

At that moment, fourteen-year-old Qin Ming was trembling slightly. He wanted to see his parents and younger brother one last time, because he knew that he would probably die on this journey.

When he turned around, he only saw his parents’ backs receding into the distance.

Fourteen-year-old Qin Ming’s eyes reddened as he tried to control himself, quickly turned around, and set off with the elderly members of his family.

As expected, they were intercepted. Although they were on the run, they were eventually found.

The Cui family, a group of elderly people who were not expected to live for more than a few years, displayed terrifying combat power. In addition, their fearlessness in the face of death made the Li family tremble with fear.

“Some of these old men are powerful figures in the main branch of the Cui family. They’re getting stronger with age. Hmm, I see Cui Chonghe. He’s very likely to be the next leader.”

In the darkness, several pairs of eyes within the Li family camp were watching the group of fleeing members of the Cui family.

“Although Cui Chonghe has not yet embarked on the path of rebirth, he should truly possess special talents and may approach immortality in the future. Recent reliable sources have corroborated this, indicating that he was determined to be exceptionally suited to the path of a hermit at a very young age.”

A group of experts from the Li family suspected that the powerful figures from the Cui family had gone mad in order to lead Cui Chonghe to break through the encirclement and go to a secluded place to meet the legendary “elder,” who was also Cui Chonghe’s future master.

Qin Ming saw a lot of blood and bones, including those of the elders of the Cui family and the experts of the Li family. In the end, they broke through the encirclement and went far away, disguised in tattered clothes, and entered a village that the Cui family had been planning for many years, where they temporarily hid.

In fact, after several bloody battles, the Li family seemed to realize something, and their pursuit of them was no longer so urgent.

“The Li family may have already discovered that our Cui family has gone far away from us on another route.”

“There is another possibility: our ancestor, who disappeared more than two hundred years ago, has come out again.”

In the village, several elders of the Cui family were whispering. By now, they were all critically wounded and on the verge of death, having lost the strength to fight again.

A group of elderly men with little time left to live had fought until now, and only a few remained; they had all collapsed on the road.

It was precisely because of their madness and fearlessness that the Li family eventually became somewhat intimidated and dared not fight any longer. They failed to realize that with a little more effort, they could have wiped out their opponents.

Fourteen-year-old Qin Ming remained silent, because even the group of elderly people themselves said that they had made the most of their remaining energy.

An old man with white hair and wrinkles on his blood-stained face looked somewhat eerie when he laughed in the dark. He looked at Qin Ming and sighed, “Your talent is extraordinary, and you are very suitable for the path of the new life. It’s a pity that you’re practicing the methods in the silk book; it’s no longer a viable path.”

Another old man looked at Qin Ming with a complicated expression and said, “Let’s wait a little longer. Xiao Qi should come to save you after he hears the news.”

Inside the inn, Qin Ming watched that scene intently.

Clearly, everyone in the Cui family knew that Cui Hao, their seventh uncle, treated him the best; even these elders said so.

“Are you Uncle Qi’s… biological grandfather?” Fourteen-year-old Qin Ming asked. What he had seen and heard along the way made him realize something, and when he thought back on the past, he felt very lost.

“Yes, Xiao Qi is my favorite grandson. He has a fatal flaw: he’s too sentimental. Come, sit next to me. No one can touch you before I die.” The old man patted the seat next to him.

Is being sentimental a fatal weakness? Fourteen-year-old Qin Ming thought to himself as he sat down, “I am that kind of person.”

“You old folks, stay away from me!” Uncle Qi’s grandfather looked up at the other blood-covered old men, his attitude not very friendly.

An old man said, “We will all die here, and we have no regrets. After all, we have already killed so many members of the Li family. If the Li family wants to rise to power, they want to show their strength and gain prestige by clashing with our Cui family, and thus become a thousand-year-old family. But they will have to pay a heavy price. This time, they are destined to shed a lot of blood. No matter whether the Li family is pushed forward or not, they will not be the final winners.”

“This child is still young, he still has regrets. He shouldn’t have died here. You guys go sit over there,” said Uncle Qi’s grandfather.

Several elderly people stood up and distanced themselves from them.

Inside the inn, Qin Ming reflected, his gaze falling upon the other elderly people.

Uncle Qi’s grandfather led Qin Ming into a dilapidated house in the village and said, “Given Xiao Qi’s personality, he’ll come to rescue you after he finds out, but he’ll most likely be stopped. The clan won’t allow anything to happen to him, after all, his talent is most like mine, and he’s one of the Cui family’s future strongest fighters. I don’t think Xiao Qi will give up easily, so someone will send a corresponding expert to rescue you. I just hope they arrive soon and don’t miss the opportunity. Hmm, don’t worry, the Li family isn’t stupid. By now they know what’s going on, the experts are no longer paying attention here, and…”

At this point, he started coughing, and blood kept gushing from his mouth. Qin Ming rushed forward, but didn’t know how to help him.

The old man waved his hand and said, “My body is failing. Continue. I believe the ancestor has appeared, and both sides have probably begun to retreat. There is no major fighting anymore, so you may survive.”

The old man glanced outside and spoke using a secret technique, the words only ringing in Qin Ming’s ears: “I’m about to die. Don’t leave this room. Just say I’m healing and don’t let them disturb me.”

Fourteen-year-old Qin Ming nodded with tears in his eyes, watching the old man close his eyes and remain motionless.

Inside the inn, the sunstone went out completely. Qin Ming sat there and said softly, “Before I lost my memory, I actually knew a lot back then.”

In the dilapidated room, fourteen-year-old Qin Ming wrote only the word “abandon” and then remained silent, not wanting to speak further.

Because he regained his memories, Qin Ming experienced the feelings of that moment again. That feeling was unbearable, more painful than having his skull smashed later, and more unbearable than having his heart and lungs slowly cut open with a knife. At that time, he sat there, feeling so uncomfortable that he felt like he was suffocating.

In the inn, Qin Ming shook his head vigorously, finally shaking off that emotion. He re-examined the past, as if talking to his past self from more than two years ago, telling his former self, “You think you’ve discovered the so-called truth because of what you’ve seen and heard along the way? Actually, it’s still just a veil.”

The slightly yellowed book of memories turned its pages once more, the dust settled, and Qin Ming looked back to the past, where he saw the feathered youth Li Qingxu again, who walked over with an ethereal and otherworldly air and attacked him directly.

Cui Hao’s grandfather was right. The Li family did not send out a large number of experts to continue hunting them down, but a small group of experts leading a team and gathering followers from nearby cities was enough to wipe out the village.

In the inn, Qin Ming did not skip this memory. He went through the ordeal of his broken arm and shattered skull again, quietly reviewing all the details of the past, because he wanted to completely unveil the curtain woven with the so-called truth.

Uncle Cui Qi failed to appear, and as the old man had predicted, Cui Hong, a man with long arms, and a woman with a red mole on her right eyebrow arrived and quickly disappeared into the night. They passed through Luoyue City but did not enter, choosing instead to travel far away.

“Where we go doesn’t matter, as long as it’s a remote place.” In the inn, Qin Ming muttered to himself. He looked at Cui Hong and the woman in her early thirties, knowing why they had taken him to Black and White Mountain.

More than two years ago, a beam of light pierced through the night sky and flew to various places. One of the beams fell on Black and White Mountain. The two people were originally going to go there to investigate, and since the place also met the requirement of being a “remote place”, Qin Ming ended up stranded in that area.

“More than two years ago, I was actually quite perceptive and had some awareness. It was all because I was too sentimental. Was that really a weakness? Probably!” Qin Ming said softly.

He muttered to himself, “Back then, I was still quite young, and I didn’t know as much of the truth as I do now.”

The most important point is that Qin Ming succeeded in practicing the Silk Script on his own, and based on this, his body was completely reborn. He made initial progress on this path and saw a corner of the truth of the past.

The silk scroll is magical. Since his rebirth, it has made his subconscious incredibly active. In a half-dream, half-awake state, he sees his ignorant self. He should have been only about three years old at that time. And these are not the memories he lost because his skull was shattered by the boy in feathered clothes!

Those are childhood memories that fade naturally with time; it’s difficult for a normal person to remember things from before the age of three after they grow up.

“The silk scroll, it’s worth it for me to start practicing since I was a child. At the critical moment, you showed me my original self. Perhaps it was my persistence in practicing for more than ten years that saved my life in the end.”

Qin Ming suspected that his practice of the silk scroll wasn’t ineffective; perhaps he had been accumulating something. Because when the feathered youth Li Qingxu shattered three parts of his skull, he should have been considered dead; under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have survived.

“I didn’t have a good childhood. I wore patched clothes and my shoes had holes in them. I was probably worse off than children from ordinary families. The old man who taught me to read and showed me the silk books was just an ordinary person with rough hands and clothes just as bad as mine.”

Meanwhile, at the Cui family, the Fifth Master and the Seventh Master said that the grandfather in Qin Ming’s memory had “cut off all ties” and was going to forge his own path. He had already traveled far away to the capital of the Great Yu Kingdom.

The old man who lived with Qin Ming was just an ordinary person, but they lied to him and said he was a great master. If he was so extraordinary, why did the grandfather and grandson live in such poverty?

Qin Ming felt a pang of sympathy for his past self. Through the yellowed book of memories, his gaze fell upon those days, and he once again felt the emotions of that time.

During his time with the Cui family, Qin Ming’s childhood memories gradually faded as he grew up, but he still had a vague impression that he should have a very close grandfather.

“I miss him, I miss that grandfather.” Those were his exact words from his old memories. At that time, his eyes were red, and he wanted to take back the scroll of silk that belonged to him.

However, the elders of the Cui family refused, saying that the silk scroll was an ancient artifact and easily damaged. They told him to master the rebirth technique at the beginning of the scroll before looking at the subsequent techniques.

From then on, the very young Qin Ming practiced diligently for many years, rain or shine, without ever stopping.

It was all because he wanted to get the silk scroll back; he missed the grandfather from his memories—that was the deepest emotion in his heart.

Although his memories of that grandfather faded completely with time, and he eventually forgot them altogether, practicing silk script had become an instinct for him. An inexplicable obsession sustained him, making him want to persevere.

Clearly, in the earliest days of the Cui family, he was intentionally guided to learn how to read this silk scroll in order to see the grandfather he remembered!

Looking back now, Qin Ming can see that many things have a traceable origin.

Was Second Master really drunk when he leaked the secret? Was Fifth Master’s timely guidance a bit too much? There are so many other details.

“How can a child possibly stand up to you when you do this? It’s bullying.”

Qin Ming muttered to himself in the dimly lit room. He carefully reviewed the situation and found that there were still many things that didn’t make sense or seem illogical.

“All the events, the whole process, if there were one more person, then everything would fit together, and it would be understandable.” He pushed open the window and looked out at the pitch-black night. If that were the case, then he was truly somewhat pathetic and lamentable.