Chapter 341 - Memory Lane (1/2)
It was true, he really should have asked better questions. But back then Qi Lou honestly had no idea what he was facing. At the time of the occurrence, he simply saw it as something interesting to pass the time. It was only after Jun Kai left that the bright idea dawned on him...an idea he now questioned the validity of. But it was too late to turn back now, he had dealt the cards and the damage had been done.
After Jun Kai had disappeared from the crystal cave that night many years ago, Qi Lou had promptly gone to his most secretive vault of treasures to seek out the crystal he had long kept hidden in the most obscure of his trove. This crystal was his most precious gem for what it held - a swirling wave of golden light swam about inside it. What that crystal held was, in actual essence, a piece of an old friend he had lost a long, long time ago... A piece that had now become known as the Long Empress dowager.
All those years back when Qi Lou had decided to keep this portion of her soul essence, he had no idea what he was going to do with it. Back then, when he had collected her soul essence, he had no idea what he was going to do with it then, but he still did it to satisfy himself.
It was only after meeting Jun Kai that night that he finally knew what he wanted to do. She deserved a second chance at life and a second chance he gave her.
Naturally, no one knew that he had kept a piece of her soul and no one could know. If anyone found out, they would have either tried to destroy it - destroy her, or would have tried to use her to satisfy their own greed again.
Qi Lou had thought he had fixed it, believed he could control it, believed he had mastered it... but of course, things were never that simple. It now looked like he might have simply been dancing to someone or rather something else's tune.
But back then he had not expected so many complications and troubles. Once he had made up his mind on this path, he had set off to look for the world Jun Kai had come from. It took him a few years, he got sidetracked a few times, but he found his way there, to the Long and Xia countries. At the time he located them, Jun Kai's grandfather was still a young prince and he watched as both he and the Xia prince at the time battled together and forged their friendship on the battlefield.
Qi Lou found it all very interesting. He even watched their father, Jun Wei be born and after seeing his good nature and the good nature of the Xia royalty at the time, he decided that this would be it. So he went and planted the little soul he had been protecting for so long in the w.o.m.b of the Xia Empress, and hence, Xiao Yu was reborn and she was just like he remembered.
She was good-natured and sweet and with the right upbringing, her confidence was in the right place. She was perfect but still, he feared that any instability in her behavior might cause history to repeat itself so he always warned her about negative emotions as he kept her company, and just as she was before, she was an attentive good child.
As for Jun Wei, well, Qi Lou also quietly watched him grow up and as much as it irked him to admit it, Jun Wei was exactly the Empress dowager's type; strong, kind, and quiet. And as expected, the Empress dowager liked him.
Even though Qi Lou was the one who technically arranged her marriage with the Long prince Jun Wei, it was a bit hard to watch their relationship blossom. So once she got married, Qi Lou made himself scarce and busied himself with other things. He spent some time watching little Lei Xing in her other life, then spent some more time hanging out with his drinking buddies, and then he spent the rest of his time in seclusion, resting.
Anyway, after two years of leaving them alone to enjoy their marital bliss, Qi Lou finally decided it was time for the next generation to arrive so he returned to the Long empire. And it was at this time that he realized that his cleansing was apparently not thorough enough as it seemed that little specs of the dark miasma had remained in her soul.
What's worse was that it had been festering in his absence, feeding on her feelings of jealousy and insecurity caused by her philandering husband. Qi Lou had noticed that the Long Prince, Jun Wei's personality had changed but he did not think much of it and believed it to simply be his natural course in life. However, Qi Lou did think it was unfortunate that he did not rise to meet Xiao Yu's expectations of him.
Regardless, Jun Wei was not his concern, he had too much to do already. Since the situation was like this, he used his own soul essence to cleanse her soul with his own, it was a bit tricky since she now had a ”living” body now, but he managed to work around it. After all, she had once been held in a crystal he had refined with his own essence. Once that was done, he then went about getting her to ”conceive” Kai, hoping her time with her son will console her. But then this proved to be another problem. No matter what he tried, her body refused to accept baby Kai.
Qi Lou found this extremely frustrating as the longer it took, the more agitated the Empress dowager became, which made it more difficult as she was becoming more unstable. At one point, out of frustration, Qi Lou considered that perhaps the Empress dowager's soul was not ”pleased” with Baby Kai hence the rejection. To test this theory, he actually took Shan and tried to make it work with him.
After all, Kai had simply said Shan was his older brother, he gave no specifics as to the relationship. So even though Shan was not part of an initial plan for Xiao Yu's life, two children might be fine too.
But as expected, Shan did not work either. So after sitting around doing nothing for a long while trying to figure what the issue with conception was, he finally decided to go situate the others first.