Chapter 210 - An Unquiet Mind (1/2)

Chapter 210: An Unquiet Mind

Translator: DragonRider

The senile-looking old man with a seamed face had turned into someone a lot younger in a trice. There were wrinkles at the corners of his eyes but not on his face. He looked like a middle-aged man!

The old man… No, he didn’t look old at all.

Ling Zhang was sent open-mouthed. If it weren’t for this man’s clothes and gray hair, he would’ve appeared even younger. He didn’t look the age his grandfather should be of at all!

But an undeniable fact of great importance was that features of this man standing before him closely resembled his.

Even if this man was not his grandfather, there must be some kind of relations.h.i.+p by blood between the two of them.

“I’ve reached the tenth layer of the mental cultivation method. Thanks to my powerful internal energy, I don’t really look my age, but I’m indeed your grandfather.”

After saying this, he bowed his head. Before long, he raised his head and his face had returned to what it’d looked a few moments ago.

It took Ling Zhang quite a while to recover from shock. With a myriad of thoughts and ideas in his mind, he was suddenly at a loss how to face this old man. In that letter, his uncle had told him that his mother was daughter of an elder of the Millennium Pavilion. He had thought that his grandfather should be someone at his declining years. Besides, as an elder of the Millennium Pavilion, he should be the kind of person who strictly observed disciplines and would never leave the Millennium Pavilion, a stuffy, stern and heartless old man. The mental image of his grandfather he’d had was at any rate different than this old man standing before him, who’d shown him his true face.

“My surname is Ji, and my first name is Yin. I’m an elder of the Millennium Pavilion. Twenty years ago, after your mother’s younger brother archly sneaked out, she anxiously left with the intention to find him. n.o.body could have foreseen what happened next. It was the clan leader who gave the order to have your mother taken back. In that year, outside the capital city, your mother killed those who tried to restrain her. The clan leader was infuriated, but your mother had hidden herself by that time. I implored the clan leader to stop hunting her and forgive her, promising him that she was no longer a member of the Millennium Pavilion and would never come back. The clan leader agreed and rescinded the order to hunt for her. From then on, n.o.body had ever heard any news of your mother ever again.

About ten years ago, an outsider made inquiries all around about the Millennium Pavilion, which attracted some people’s attention. The clan leader worried that if the man kept doing so, those in power would discover the existence of the Millennium Pavilion, which might reduce the Millennium Pavilion to a tool of those in power once again, so he sent some men to have that person seized and brought back. However, for some unknown reason, the man was seriously wounded and dying when they found him. Those having orders to escort him back intended to leave him be but heard him mumbling your mother’s name, so they took him back. With the help of my internal energy, he came around for a few moments. I was astounded to know that he was your mother’s husband. Pity he soon blacked out and was on the verge of death. I pleaded with the clan leader, who eventually went to his help personally and revived his cardiac meridian rescuing him from imminent death, but whether he would survive or not remained unknown.

Just like that, he remained unconscious for many years, neither dead nor alive. I wanted to inquire into what he had done and ascertain his ident.i.ty, why he’d shown up alone, and how your mother was, but I encountered some obstacles – he’d used a pseudonym and concealed his family background. I went to a lot of trouble trying to find out but got nothing. Since he’d been in a coma for so many years, I was about to give up, but not long ago he suddenly revived – n.o.body knew the reason but he abruptly came around. It was just that he seemed to have suffered some kind of mental trauma and was delirious. It was from his disjointed ramblings that I came to know about your mother’s death, that they had a son – you. Then I left the mountain to look for you. When I found you, you’d left Tanyang planning to come to this city with Yuwen Tong. I discovered that your meridians had been unblocked, which was why I came up with the idea of imparting the mental cultivation method to you.”

The old man informed him of a lot of things, every one of which struck Ling Zhang as shocking. He’d been totally unaware of any of these antecedents.

‘That man… Father really found the Millennium Pavilion. The reason why he never came back home was because he suffered severe injuries and was in a coma all along…’

“How is he… my father?” Ling Zhang sounded somewhat rusty when he uttered that word. He couldn’t remember how many years it had been since the last time he’d said this word.

The old man, Ji Yin, replied, “He’s still in a state of delirium. To cure him thoroughly, I need to find a very rare crude drug, which even the Millennium Pavilion doesn’t have in hand for the moment.”

Ling Zhang’s throat felt rather sore and constricted. He was eager to say something but didn’t know what to say.

‘That man didn’t forsake us. He’d been in a coma and almost died. And even now he is still delirious…’

Ji Yin, noticing that something was not quite right with Ling Zhang’s mood, sighed, “I also had someone dig into his past. Don’t blame him.”

Ling Zhang made no response, having no idea whether he should blame him or not. Sometimes he felt that man was to blame, but he’d just been in a coma after being seriously wounded; sometimes he wanted to forgive him, but he’d indeed left home brus.h.i.+ng aside his duties as a father. In his last incarnation, those things that had happened to Ling family were so horrible but his father was not there for his family and didn’t have the faintest idea of what they suffered.

There was an intense struggle ongoing in Ling Zhang’s mind, and he wasn’t in the mood for talking at all, but he had to say something.

“In a sense you’d already evicted my mother from the Millennium Pavilion, why are you still willing to help my father? And why are you still willing to help me?”

The Millennium Pavilion’s disownment of his mother, to some extent, might have been the cause of his mother’s death…

“My mother was ill. Had you not disowned her, she might have still been alive.”

‘And that man… wouldn’t have chosen to leave home because of that.’

Ji Yin remained silent for quite a while. A flicker of grief crossed his eyes as he remarked in a somewhat low and deep voice, “Had she not been disowned, the Millennium Pavilion would’ve kept sending more men to hunt her, and she would’ve still refused to go back. The conflict would’ve been irreconcilable, which eventually would still lead to a terrible final outcome. The rule of the Millennium Pavilion has been there for hundreds of years. This strict rule is the very reason why people of the Millennium Pavilion have managed to live a secluded life for centuries. We couldn’t abandon it on your mother’s account. Otherwise the consequence would probably have been the loss of our peaceful life. There’re so many people in the Millennium Pavilion. Aren’t they innocent? The clan leader has his responsibilities, and I have mine.”