The Heroine's Background

Chapter 25: The Heroine's Past

Heroine Yin displayed astonishing martial arts talent from a very young age. It was precisely this talent that earned her the favor of her parents. Otherwise, she likely would have been sold off by them before she turned ten, either as a maidservant or a child bride, so they could have a son instead.

Upon discovering their daughter's talent, her parents began to treat her a bit better, teaching her martial arts and reading.

It was clear the Heroine did not enjoy reading.

As a child, Heroine Yin was taller than other girls her age, and significantly taller than boys her age. She possessed incredible strength and her physical condition was outrageously good, yet she also loved to fight. Whenever her parents took her to visit friends in the martial world, she could take on several children at once, beating them until they cried and begged for mercy.

At such times, Heroine Yin's parents would pretend to scold her, but afterward, they would secretly buy her a meat bun or add some fatty scraps to the stir-fry.

Young Heroine Yin was ignorant and understood nothing. She only knew that if she fought, her parents would hit her, and then inexplicably, she would get meat to eat. Gradually, this fostered her combative nature.

But one summer night, it all ended.

Heroine Yin was fourteen that year. At such a tender age, she had already blossomed into a graceful young woman, standing at nearly 1.5 meters tall, almost as tall as her father. Heroine Yin had not wasted her talent; at just fourteen, her parents could barely fight her to a draw. If she used a saber, even her parents couldn't defeat her.

The night was stiflingly hot and dry. Suddenly, the sound of galloping horses spread from the village entrance, filling everyone with dread.

Heroine Yin's parents seemed to have foreseen the danger the moment they heard the crack of a whip echo from the end of the village. They quickly hid her in a haystack on a nearby hill before turning to face the uninvited guests alone.

Through a gap in the haystack, Heroine Yin widened her eyes, staring blankly at everything below.

The attackers' orders seemed to be to leave no survivors. Even the fully armed imperial soldiers were unwilling to engage in close combat with two desperate martial artists in confined spaces. Thus, an arrow with an orange-red glow first pierced the darkness of the night, followed by a rain of fire that rose from the ground like a swarm of locusts…

Houses made of crumbling old wood and impossibly dry thatch were instantly engulfed in flames!

The inferno that swept through the entire house reflected in Heroine Yin's young, pure eyes. In her ears, she could hear the whistling of arrows cutting through the night sky, the neighing of warhorses, the thunderous drumming of hooves, the cold orders of the leading officer, and the shouts of the soldiers. Her parents' pleas and justifications were instantly drowned out by the ear-splitting clamor.

Her parents were dead, their heads severed by the soldiers to claim bounties. Two headless corpses were left behind, and no one dared to bury them.

Young Heroine Yin remained motionless, afraid to make a sound, her eyes blurred by tears of sorrow and fear.

She vaguely recalled her parents tucking her into the haystack and whispering in her ear: "Dandan, be good. Hide here and don't move. It's too dangerous outside!"

"The government's crackdown on martial artists is widespread this time; we can't escape. But we have no connection to the Yingtian Alliance, so we don't need to be afraid. If we're captured, you find a chance to run and look for your Uncle Le."

"We have connections with the renowned Flying Fish Ravine. They'll definitely vouch for us!"

"If you get caught, we're finished!"

"Do you understand?"

At the time, Heroine Yin was completely flustered, nodding repeatedly.

Clearly, her parents had miscalculated.

The attackers had no intention of capturing them at all. They weren't even ordinary soldiers, but well-equipped border troops recently recalled from the frontier!

Heroine Yin dared not come out of the haystack, staying there for several days. She ate dry grass when she was hungry, nearly starving to death, before the man she called 'Uncle' finally found her.

Because her martial arts talent was considered one in a million, that man decided to raise her as his adopted daughter, hoping to live a comfortable life through her one day.

Thus, Heroine Yin moved to a new place, resumed her martial arts training, and began a new life, gradually growing up.

Fueled by a burning desire for revenge, she trained diligently. In a short period, she achieved results that greatly astonished the man. At the time, her only thought was to find those soldiers and avenge her parents! Even later, when she chose to enter the martial world, constantly absorbing any profound martial arts she could learn, it was all for the sake of avenging her parents.

Unfortunately, it was only much later that she realized how naive that thought was.

And it was also much later that she discovered that just a few days before her parents were killed, the Prefect of Hengzhou, in collusion with the Grand Commander, had petitioned the central court to borrow a full thirty thousand troops from the King of Zhenxi to purge Hengzhou, a great quagmire of the martial world! Under the onslaught of thirty thousand elite troops, the renowned sect of the martial world, Flying Fish Ravine, which had been passed down for hundreds of years, was flattened in just one day! Of the entire Flying Fish Ravine, only a handful of humble servants managed to hide and survive by sheer luck!

The martial world's finest Southern School Flying Fish Saber Technique, its famous masters, three thousand disciples with three thousand sabers, the great master 'Western Pacification Saber' who once split a stone tablet at the edge of the sea with a single strike… under the volleys of arrows and the charge of heavy cavalry, not a single one survived!

And the murderers who killed her parents? She couldn't remember any of them. With one hundred thousand men in the Zhenxi border army, she couldn't possibly go around with her saber, asking each one if they had killed her parents.

Heroine Yin fell into despair for a long time.

Later, the martial world did retaliate. At the cost of immense casualties, they assassinated the Prefect and even infiltrated the imperial palace… but these were all matters unrelated to Heroine Yin. She only heard fragmented accounts from others.

Clearly, Cheng Yun had dreamt of Heroine Yin this time.

He had speculated before falling asleep whether he would dream of Heroine Yin tonight, and his guess had come true.

This time, Cheng Yun was slightly surprised because he wasn't viewing her world from Heroine Yin's perspective. Instead, he was observing the events around Heroine Yin from a God's-eye view. It seemed the meditation technique taught by the Old Mage had some effect, as his resistance had strengthened slightly. Thus, the temporal node fed him more content. He felt as though he had skimmed through all the major events of the Heroine's first twenty years in a single night!

Cheng Yun sat up in bed, rubbing his temples. He felt he had grasped the key points of the Heroine's world...

Height!

The Heroine's father was at most 1.5 meters tall, considered rather short for men in that world. Using the Heroine as a reference, the average height of men in her world should be around 1.53 meters. So, the Heroine... could actually be considered to have a model's physique!

The problem then arose.

How did her father have her?

Her 'Uncle' was quite tall.

Cheng Yun shook his head, glanced at the time, and was surprised to find it was almost eleven o'clock. He quickly put on his clothes and got out of bed.