Author's Note:
This chapter has two images, but I'll probably be asleep when it goes up. So I'll leave the images in the comments of the previous chapter, and tomorrow when I wake up, I'll post them in this chapter.
========
========
The solemn atmosphere had been suddenly broken by Rihai's words, leaving the trio staring at her in shock.
"Girl, what did you just call me?!"
Old Liu quickly asked, feeling his head spin.
He had just received the news that his grandson had died, and right after that, he was being called great-grandfather by the girl he had unconsciously already felt affection for without knowing why earlier.
But now, upon hearing her call him that, he looked closely at her, and his eyes slowly widened as he identified several familiar traits in her face. The feeling of connection and affection he felt toward the girl only grew stronger.
'No! Impossible!' he thought in disbelief.
"No! Impossible!"
Rihai denied with furrowed brows, unconsciously having the exact same thoughts as her great-grandfather, but for different reasons.
"You can't be him. Who are you, and why are you pretending to be Liu Taixuan?!"
She asked with a dark expression.
Her great-grandfather had died long before she was born, but she had heard many stories and seen images of him, and the man looked exactly like the images she had seen.
She respected him greatly for everything her father told her about him, and she hated seeing someone pretending to be him.
Meanwhile, Liu Taixuan, who was stunned by the sudden shift, heard the girl's accusation and felt the corner of his mouth twitch. It was the first time someone had accused him of pretending to be himself.
"Girl, I was born and died as Liu Taixuan, and I have never been anyone else. Now tell me, what is your name."
Old Liu spoke firmly, though there was a touch of hesitation in his eyes as he looked at the girl who resembled his beloved grandson so much.
He just hadn't made the connection earlier because it had never once crossed his mind that his grandson would leave his own daughter wandering, perhaps even kidnapped, on a desert continent. So he always attributed the familiarity and affection he felt toward her to the fact that she possessed a divine physique, like his grandson.
But now, before the girl's words, he wasn't foolish and had already pieced things together. He only needed confirmation.
"My great-grandfather died two thousand years ago from exhaustion of vital energy, and without vital energy, even a cultivator's soul cannot remain in the world. You cannot be him. What are you planning to do?!"
Rihai did not believe him and firmly rejected the idea, watching the opponent angrily, ready to enter combat at any moment.
Aotian beside her tightened his lips. He felt there was likely no mistake — that the man was indeed his wife's great-grandfather. And to think that just moments earlier he had been about to take action and destroy him.
Fortunately, he had been patient.
Liu Taixuan felt a headache coming as he watched the girl—whom he had already recognized as his great-granddaughter—being so stubborn, though his heart warmed at seeing her protect her great-grandfather's reputation so fiercely—himself.
"I am not planning anything, nor pretending to be who I am. And you are right, I truly died because my vitality ran out, but I had a treasure that somehow preserved my soul and has kept it alive…"
He explained with a helpless sigh at her distrust.
"Treasure?"
Rihai murmured, and her gaze unconsciously fell on Shen He's neck. Again she saw that familiar piece of chain peeking from his collar, and her eyes widened as she finally recognized it.
"My great-grandfather's necklace!!"
She shouted in surprised reflex.
"Hai'er, you've seen that necklace before?"
Aotian asked, surprised as he looked at his wife. Who would have thought that the artifact that had been giving him a headache and making him cautious seemed to be something his wife was familiar with.
She nodded, still stunned, in response to her husband.
"Yes. That necklace was with me when my father sent me through the spatial rift. But when the protective energy around me began to break, it slipped from my hands, and I never saw it again. It seems the necklace fell in the Beixu continent, while I fell in the Xixu continent, where we met."
She explained softly as her voice lowered and she shifted her gaze to the older man with red hair and gray robes, who naturally exuded an aura of authority and majesty. But his glowing red eyes, when they looked at her, could not hide the trace of affection within them.
[Illustrative Image]
"Y-You… you're really my great-grandfather, aren't you?"
She murmured shyly, unable to stop feeling nervous, excited, and anxious.
Once her prejudice faded with the truth revealed, the ties of blood could finally speak, and a wave of familiarity and longing began to bloom in her heart, as a granddaughter would feel upon seeing a loving grandfather.
Cultivators' instincts were very strong, so bonds, affection, and blood naturally revealed themselves once they stopped blinding themselves with assumptions or misunderstandings. It was like they said… follow your heart.
"Girl… what is your name? And what happened to your father?"
He didn't answer her question, since he had already made it clear who he was. Now he only wanted to know about what worried him most in that moment.
From what his great-granddaughter had said, he had already understood why his necklace ended up in Shen He's hands in such a distant continent. Now he wanted to understand what had happened before that.
Only about two thousand years had passed since he died, from what he discovered, so it was obvious that his grandson, still young, had not died from the exhaustion of lifespan like he did.
"My name is Liu Rihai..." she took a deep breath and spoke gently, facing that relative she was meeting for the first time with shyness, and clenched her fists as she bowed. "Rihai pays respects to great-grandfather," she greeted respectfully.
"Rihai? What a strange name..." Liu Taixuan murmured, with a trace of strangeness in his gaze, but upon seeing his granddaughter and the two boys in the room looking at him speechlessly, he snapped out of his daze and coughed into his fist, embarrassed, quickly changing the subject. "Ahem! Well, good child, you have a good name. You may rise, now tell your great-grandfather about your father."
Ignoring her great-grandfather's oddness, Rihai straightened up and lowered her head, bitterness rising in her heart as she was forced to recall those sad things.
Suddenly her palm was gently held, and when she looked to the side she saw her husband looking at her with support and affection.
She squeezed his hand tighter, feeling safer, then faced Liu Taixuan, whom she already knew in her heart to be exactly who he claimed.
"Twelve years ago, when I was fourteen, the necklace from your tomb was suddenly stolen. No one knew who the culprit was, only that it was someone strong and skilled to be able to commit such an act, considering it was inside the family crypt, a heavily guarded place."
"We searched for a long time for the culprit, but we had no leads. Father seemed very irritated during those days. But only a few months after the theft, news reached the family that the necklace would be auctioned at the Golden Heaven Pavilion."
She spoke as her eyes turned red, but even so she continued.
"As the Golden Heaven Pavilion was backed by various powers, and its credibility and influence were very strong, my father hesitated to attack in order to retrieve the necklace, so he sent a message requesting the return of the stolen item."
"The Golden Heaven Pavilion refused. They said they valued their credibility and could not take the item from the seller nor reveal their identity, and to acquire the item my father would have to participate in the auction like everyone else."
"Upon hearing that, my father prepared to go to war against the Golden Heaven Pavilion to reclaim the item, because besides being outrageous to buy something that already belonged to us, it would also harm the family's reputation. Unfortunately, the clan elders—who also held great authority in the family—dissuaded him from going to war, and in the end, it was decided that it would be better to retrieve the item by purchasing it."
"Reluctantly, my father agreed, and decided to go himself so that no more mistakes would occur. When I heard the news that my father would go in person, I, who was bored, became excited... and I begged him to take me along..." At this point Rihai's tears began falling, sliding down her cheeks and hitting the floor.
Aotian gently caressed her back, helping her calm down.
Liu Taixuan listened in silence, and the brightness in his eyes dimmed when he saw his great-granddaughter cry. It still wasn't clear what had happened, but seeing her heartbreaking sadness already allowed him to glimpse part of the picture.
Shen He remained silent the entire time in the corner, not knowing how to react to the whole situation that seemed completely contrary to what he expected to happen that day.
Rihai wiped her tears with her sleeve, took a deep breath, and clenched her fists.
"My father held back his irritation at the situation, and with a helpless smile, agreed to take me. Under his protection, the strongest man in the world, he was sure he could protect me."
Her eyes shone with affection as she remembered her powerless yet confident father, lovingly indulging his daughter's whims.
"He took me to the auction, where he bought the necklace for a high price paid in high-level items. But before that, while my father and I were in the VIP box, I grew bored with the long proceedings and picked up a book to read… something I know I'll regret for the rest of my life."
As her voice faded, her gaze seemed to return to that day.
.
..
…
Rihai was just a little girl at the time, with her feminine beauty still in the process of maturing. Even so, her lively, gentle, and intelligent personality was already clear.
In the VIP box of the auction, she accompanied her father, a man who to her was omnipotent, who always made her smile and protected her, and who seemed to know everything in the world.
Her father was handsome, with fiery red hair and eyes of the same color that seemed to glow in the dark. He resembled the image of her great-grandfather, whose stories he had always told her, but he had no beard and looked no older than his early thirties—appearing very young, even though his true age was already in the tens of thousands.
[Illustrative Image]
Although she loved the presence of her gentle and caring father, at that moment he was strangely silent and thoughtful, staring at the stage, lost in thought.
It had been a long time since she had seen her father so silent, but she hadn't paid much attention to it back then.
She had also paid quite a lot of attention earlier to the people below constantly competing for the not-so-interesting items on the stage, but eventually she grew bored once the novelty wore off.
So to pass the time, from her storage ring — where she practically had a library — she pulled out a book to read, since she sensibly chose not to interrupt her father's thoughts.
In her life, one of the things Rihai loved most was reading and learning new things. Unfortunately, due to the danger of her physique being discovered by others, even within her family she could not go too far from her room. So she often found herself drowned in books, imagining what the world outside was like and the adventures she would one day experience when her father deemed her ready to leave.
The only moments when she could truly leave the family courtyard were when she was accompanied by her father. So when she learned he was going to the auction, nothing could stop her from joining him.