Novel Full Chapter 61: Secrets Revealed!
Chapter 61: Secrets Revealed!
“It concerns your parents,” Li Zhen finally said, lowering his gaze.
“My parents?” Li Yun frowned deeply. “What about them? Did they not die at the border of the Crimson Sun Empire while fighting the soldiers of other empires? Were they targeted by someone?” The questions poured out of him as assumptions formed one after another the moment he heard his grandfather’s words.
Li Zhen looked at his grandson for a long time, as if gathering every ounce of resolve he had left. At last, he spoke. “Your parents are still alive.”
“What?” Li Yun sprang to his feet in shock. His expression shifted again and again as he struggled to process the sudden revelation.
“Grandfather, are you joking?” he asked, his voice unsteady.
“I am not joking, Li Yun,” Li Zhen replied seriously, meeting his gaze. “Your parents are alive in this world.”
The confirmation struck Li Yun like a heavy blow. For more than ten years, he had lived with the belief that his parents had died as heroic soldiers at the capital of the Crimson Sun Empire during a beast tide.
It was a painful truth, but one he had long since accepted. Now, learning that they were alive left his thoughts in turmoil, and he could not tell whether he should feel anger at being kept in the dark or joy at the possibility of seeing them again.
Yet beyond the initial shock, he found himself strangely calm. After all, they were not his parents in the truest sense. He was a transmigrator inhabiting Li Yun’s body. Even though the emotions of the original Li Yun surged violently within him, he himself felt detached, unable to share the same intensity of feeling.
What saddened him most was the thought of the original Li Yun never knowing this truth. If he had learned of it before his death, perhaps he could have passed on with peace in his heart.
Shaking his head, Li Yun looked at his grandfather and spoke in a steady voice. “Grandfather, I will not ask why such an important matter was kept hidden from me. I only want to know the whole story. If my parents are alive, then where are they, and why does everyone believe they are dead?”
Li Zhen let out a weary sigh before speaking. “It is a long story. Your father, Li Tian, was once considered the greatest genius Azure Wind City had ever produced. When he reached the Xiantian Realm, he left the city to travel through other cities and counties to temper himself. Several years later, he returned, and he was not alone. He brought back a woman with him. At that time, he did not tell me much about her and only said that she was the woman he intended to marry.”
He paused briefly before continuing. “I did not think too deeply about it then. A few months later, the two of them were married, and a few years after that, you were born. When you were five years old, I finally learned the truth about your mother, and that truth shook me deeply. Her identity was far from ordinary. Your mother’s name was Xuan Ying. She was not from the Southern Martial Domain at all but came from the Central Mainland. She was the young princess of a powerful force known as the Myriad Saints Palace, which is one of the strongest forces on the entire Martial Dragon Continent.”
Li Zhen’s voice grew heavier as he went on. “Back in the Central Mainland, she had already been arranged to marry someone, but she detested that marriage and chose to flee instead. She escaped all the way to the Southern Martial Domain, where she met your father and later gave birth to you. However, her family’s influence was immense, even within the Central Mainland. It did not take them long to track her down to our Li Family.”
He sighed deeply once more. “When they discovered that she had married your father and given birth to you, they threatened to kill both you and your father. Your mother stood before them without fear and warned them that if they dared to kill either of you, she would take her own life. In the end, they compromised. They took your mother and your father away with them and left you behind in our care. Before leaving, they did something to your body. At the time, I did not understand what they had done, but when it became clear that you could not cultivate, I realized the truth. They must have tampered with your physique and caused you to be born with an attribute-less body.”
Li Zhen’s expression was filled with bitterness as he finished. “After your parents were taken away, rumors soon spread that they had died at the borders of the Crimson Sun Empire. Those rumors reached Azure Wind City, and no one doubted them. There was even an imperial decree announcing their deaths that arrived at the Li Family. With such an announcement, no one ever suspected that the truth might be otherwise.”
Li Yun stayed silent as he listened, absorbing every word with care. Only after Li Zhen finished did he finally speak.
“What is the Southern Martial Domain? And the Central Mainland?” he asked quietly. He had never heard of such places before. In his understanding, the Crimson Sun Empire was the world, and Azure Wind City was simply one small part of it.
Li Zhen’s expression turned solemn. “The Martial Dragon Continent is unimaginably vast, far greater than anything you have ever known. The entire continent is divided into five major regions. They are the Eastern Martial Domain, the Southern Martial Region, the Western Martial Domain, and the Northern Martial Domain, which together are known as the Four Great Martial Domains. The place where we currently live belongs to the Southern Martial Region.”
He continued without pause. “Among these four regions, the Eastern Martial Domain is the strongest, followed closely by the Northern Martial Domain. The Western Martial Domain is a land of constant chaos and bloodshed, while the Southern Martial Region sits firmly at the bottom. Martial artists from the other regions look down upon cultivators who come from the Southern Martial Region.”
Li Zhen shook his head, his tone heavy. “This is not entirely their fault. The responsibility also lies with the martial artists of our Southern Martial Region for lacking ambition. In the other domains, the Xiantian Realm is insignificant, Qi Sea Realm experts can be found everywhere, Essence Qi Realm and Mortal Core Realm cultivators are commonplace, and the Earthly Core Realm is merely regarded as an expert. Only those who reach the Heavenly Core Realm are truly acknowledged as powerhouses. Yet here, in the Southern Martial Region, breaking through to the Xiantian Realm is enough to be called an expert, and anyone above the fifth level of the Xiantian Realm is already considered a powerhouse. The disparity is simply too great.”
He let out a quiet sigh before explaining further. “This situation cannot be helped. The Southern Martial Region lies in a remote corner of the continent. Not only are Heaven and Earth Treasures scarce, but even the density of Heaven and Earth Origin Qi is far lower than in other regions. Martial Dao cultivation does value talent, but cultivation resources are just as crucial. Without sufficient resources, even the most gifted genius will find it impossible to rise far.”
Li Zhen went on to explain several more details about the Four Great Martial Domains, giving Li Yun a glimpse of a world far larger than the one he had known.
If an ordinary person had heard such revelations, they would likely have been terrified. To think that the strongest experts of this region were regarded as insignificant elsewhere was enough to crush most people’s confidence.
Li Yun, however, felt no fear at all. Instead, his blood surged with excitement. The wider world he had just learned about ignited something deep within him. His eyes shone brightly, filled with an intense and burning light. He clenched his fists tightly and spoke in a low, determined voice. “So the outside world is truly this vast and magnificent. I must go out there and see it for myself.”