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 The clan leader agreed and rescinded the order to hunt for her.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.”
However, Ling Zhang didn’t want to hear any of these. Maybe these remarks were right, but it was his mother that they were talking about. It’d been his mother who’d died, and he was unable to remain sensible without feeling he was heartless.
“I know you have a grudge against us, but we couldn’t change these things at will. The clan leader rescued your father when he was dying, and he didn’t stop me from leaving the mountain. He showed great tolerance for your mother’s deeds,” sighed Ji Yin.
Ling Zhang had been informed of so many things in such a short time, but he found it difficult to accept all of them.
“Good boy. I know you need more time to accept all this. Let’s call it a day. We may continue our talk after you’re more collected,” said Ji Yin.
Ling Zhang was indeed unable to calm himself down at this moment. He had mixed feelings and there was a mult.i.tude of thoughts in his mind. Right now the only thing he wanted to do was find a place to spend some time alone and then find someone to confide what was on his mind. He wanted to go back to Yuwen Tong.
He rose to his feet, took his leave and then walked out of the house with an unquiet mind.
Ji Yin was still sitting in his chair, following Ling Zhang with his eyes as he left. Eventually he heaved a sigh of disappointment. He had stated his ident.i.ty but hadn’t heard Ling Zhang call him grandfather. ‘Maybe I really did the wrong thing in that year,’ he thought.
…
Ling Zhang didn’t go back to attend cla.s.s. He asked for leave and returned to his residence.
Seeing the preoccupied look on his face, all guards worried that something had happened.
Ling Zhang asked, “Where’s Yuwen Tong?”
“The Marshal went back home to look into something,” replied Yao Yi.
Ling Zhang frowned, raised his hand to knead his temples and then said, “I’ll be in my study. If he returns, tell him that I’ve come back and would like to see him.”
Yao Yi and other bodyguards looked at each other in dismay, feeling that something was not quite right with Ling Zhang’s mood. “Childe Ling, is everything really okay? You don’t look very well. How about I go there and call the Marshal back right away?”
Ling Zhang shook his head. Since Yuwen Tong had gone back to look into something, it must be a matter of importance. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll wait for him to return.”
Yao Yi and the others were all in deep concern. Ling Zhang walked into the study, cutting a lonesome figure. Seeing this, they all went somewhat anxious.
“Did anything happen in the Imperial College?” Yao Yi and the others immediately inquired Miao s.h.i.+ba.
Miao s.h.i.+ba shook his head, “Nothing happened in the Imperial College. Everything was normal. It was after paying a visit to the new professor that Childe Ling had a sullen face and came back on leave.”
“The new professor? Isn’t he the one that the Marshal instructed us to investigate? d.a.m.n it. That professor seems to have come out of thin air, and it’s rather inconvenient to start from Gu family. We cannot find anything about him in a short time.”
…
At the time when all guards in the Ling Mansion were deeply worried, Yuwen Tong was rooting around in the book chamber left by his grandfather. This book chamber was of a special design, impervious to moisture and proof against worms. It had been specially built to preserve precious books. The key to the door of it was in his hand, and even Yuwen Zhi couldn’t get in, but since he hadn’t come back very often – once every few years – n.o.body had entered this book chamber for a very long time. Not only was there a strange odor in it, many books needed to be taken outside, exposed to suns.h.i.+ne and rebound.
However, Yuwen Tong came here to look into something on this day, so he didn’t have the time to take care of those books.
He’d spent the whole morning in this place. After browsing through quite a few books, he’d finally found a clue.
It was about martial formations. Though there was no diagram of them, there were some descriptions. The ma.n.u.script said that a long time ago, there was an extraordinarily talented man who was good at martial formations. The formations he designed were very ingenious and held enormous anti-personnel force. The then emperor, after hearing it, forced him into serving him. Thus, all martial formations designed by that man fell into the hands of the then emperor and n.o.body could get any information about them. The book also mentioned that those things were preserved in the Foreseers Agency, which was a department very much in the then emperor’s confidence.
‘The Foreseers Agency?’ Yuwen Tong’s brow corrugated in a slight frown. The Foreseers Agency had been consigned to oblivion a long time ago. The inc.u.mbent emperor of the Great Yue was not a believer in this kind of things and forbade them, which was why this name “the Foreseers Agency” sounded somewhat strange to Yuwen Tong, but clearly at that time this department had had very high standing and had been trusted very much by the then emperor. It could be said that in terms of status, those foreseers had literally been second to only the then emperor!