Chapter 197 - The Woman in the Depths of the Palace (2/2)

Xiao Chen was now sure that this woman was Xiao Ning’s lover, as well as the owner of the portrait of Xiao Ning hanging in their family’s ancestral hall. It was she who left behind the divine words of “I’ll wait for you at the Heartless Temple”. This meant that this place was called the Heartless Temple.

He shook his head and sighed. “Do you know how many years has it been?”

The woman looked like she was at a loss. Evidently, she didn’t know how much time had passed either. She shook her head and seemed to be talking to herself when she said, “I don’t know. I only remember getting seriously hurt that day and Brother Ning sent me here so I could heal. He left to fight Gu Feng to the death, but he said he’d return…”

“One thousand years. It has been one thousand years since then,” Xiao Chen said softly.

“What?!”

The woman’s expression changed drastically. Her face, already pale in the first place, turned even whiter. Even though Xiao Ning’s cultivation back then had been in the Apotheosis Realm, he was nonetheless a mortal. There was no way a mortal could live for a thousand years.

She shook her head repeatedly. “Impossible… He won’t die. His skills are unrivaled! How could he die?!”

She muttered the words over and over again for a long time. In the end, she hugged her legs and started sobbing uncontrollably.

Xiao Chen felt an inexplicable sense of sadness. If he died one day, would Muxue be waiting for him somewhere for hundreds of years? There were many who would retain their infatuation for their whole lives, but how many would refuse to enter the wheel of reincarnation, just waiting for one person?

The woman in front of him had refused to reincarnate even though she had been turned into a soul body, resolutely waiting here for a bitterly long time just for her promise back then to wait at the Heartless Temple…

Xiao Chen waited for the woman to calm down enough to stop crying before walking up to her and said, “Maybe he’s not dead.”

The woman immediately raised her head. After pondering over it, she muttered, “That’s right. Gu Feng would never kill him. Five Major Sects! It must be the Five Major Sects! I received news afterward that the Xiao family and the Five Major Sects regarded him a traitor…”

She spoke to herself for a short moment before looking at Xiao Chen and saying, “You share a similar breath as him. Back then, he was entrusted with the task of establishing a branch of Xiao family in the Human World. You must be from that family. Moreover, I can sense that someone has deciphered the divine words I left on the painting. It must be your work.”

Xiao Chen nodded. He thought, “If I couldn’t reincarnate, Master would surely use the Samsara Life-reversing Technique to resurrect me. So that was why she would ask Xiao Ning to carry the Samsara Jade imbued with my soul, establish a Xiao family, and transfer my Destiny to a Young Master of the family or resurrect me through the latter’s life.”

To put it simply, he shouldn’t be alive now. He was simply living through another person by fooling heaven.

However, there were still many mysteries about everything that happened back then. The Thousand Feathers Sect had been hell-bent on stopping Xiao Ning, even going so far as to incite the Five Major Sects into entrapping him. There were surely bigger secrets behind this matter. Thus, Xiao Chen asked, “Do you know the details of what happened?”

The woman shook her head. “Brother Ning was afraid of hurting my soul, so he hardly ever mentioned these things to me.”

Xiao Chen sighed. It seemed that he would have to find Xiao Ning if he wanted answers to the mysteries back then. Suddenly, the palace began shaking violently. The woman’s expression changed drastically. She made calculations with her fingers before saying, “He’s here again!”

Xiao Chen’s heart jumped. Was it Yu Yangzi?

The woman was currently looking grave and stern, shedding her previous delicateness. She was now emanating the air of a strong fighter. Xiao Chen belatedly recalled that back then, Xiao Ning was an Apotheosis Realm cultivator. The person beside him wouldn’t be any weaker than him. This woman must have had high cultivation too.

“Hmph! If I still have my physical body, I could’ve exterminated that man outside with a wave of my hand. What a pity that I destroyed my physical body back then to ensure that my consciousness survived. That man outside has skills targeted to soul bodies so I’m not a match for him. He has been trying to ingest my soul all these years, so I placed a seal formation outside.”

Xiao Chen was alarmed. Sure enough, Yu Yangzi was a blatant liar. Yu Yangzi must be desperate to ingest this woman’s soul to repair his damaged soul.

The shaking of the palace was getting more and more severe. He couldn’t help getting worried. Xian’er had broken just enough of the formation to let them in, but if Yu Yangzi burst in, it would spell a disaster for them.

“Don’t worry,” the woman said icily as she calculated on her fingers. “In another three days, someone will be here to eliminate him.”