Chapter 34

"My brother and I are the same—we weren't born to the parents I have now. We were sent to the Yi Family by the late emperor, His Majesty Lei Ming." Yi Junze

He sat down at the edge of the bed, braced both hands on the bedframe, and spoke in a low voice.

"This... Don't tell me your brother is a woman too?" Lin Hanxuan asked suspiciously. So the Yi Family had a huge secret like this.

"Pfft." Yi Junze covered his mouth and laughed. "You've got it wrong. My brother is a genuine man. I'm the only fake."

After a pause, Yi Junze said again, "It feels really good to say it. At least in front of you, I don't have to try so hard to pretend to be a man."

Lin Hanxuan did not answer. He was still waiting for Yi Junze to continue.

"It's still hard for you to believe, right?" Yi Junze said. "There's an illusion restriction placed on me, so I can't return to my original appearance. Have you heard of the beastfolk's great prophet, Chihanet?"

"No," Lin Hanxuan replied.

"...You don't know? That's strange. The old man is City Lord Fields's teacher," Yi Junze said.

"What? You're saying that... great prophet is Grandpa's teacher? Wow, then how old is he?" Lin Hanxuan could not help asking curiously. Grandpa was probably already over sixty, so his teacher had to be at least in his eighties, right?

"That, I don't know. But my brother and I were both handed over by the old man to His Majesty Lei Ming, who then had my parents adopt us." Yi Junze glanced at Lin Hanxuan, then continued, "The master once prophesied that this world we live in would be destroyed to the last by hatred. I think this was how he put it: with the heart to save the world, without the heart to destroy it; a single thread of life, three powers gathered as one."

Lin Hanxuan was listening with keen interest and could not help asking, "Three powers gathered as one? What's that?"

"Heaven knows." Yi Junze shrugged and said, "If a prophecy were stated too clearly, and it turned out wrong in the future, wouldn't that smash his own signboard?"

"..." There was such a thing? Lin Hanxuan silently grumbled in his heart. But Grandpa's teacher really did have some tricks up his sleeve. From what Sihaier had said, the World Tree was indeed facing the threat of death. Once the World Tree died before it could nurture the next generation, this world really would be completely finished.

"Then where did the restriction on you come from?" Lin Hanxuan asked.

"From what my mother said, the master added it," Yi Junze answered.

"Why would he do that?" Lin Hanxuan also sat down on his own bed. After learning that Yi Junze was actually a girl, he no longer dared get too close to Yi Junze.

"Because I'm a tool." Yi Junze suddenly said furiously, "At first, I didn't understand. When I was little, I heard Mother tell me that my future husband would save everyone, that he would be an extraordinary great hero, and I was even very happy inside. But after I slowly grew up, I came to understand many things. It turned out that the restriction the master placed on me was meant to discover the 'single thread of life' he had prophesied. He had long since seen my fate and knew I would have some connection with the 'savior.' Once this restriction encountered the 'savior,' it would come undone, and he would know what sort of sacred being that hero was."

"That's pretty good, isn't it?" Lin Hanxuan said. "A savior, you know. They must be someone extraordinary."

"Hmph." Yi Junze laughed coldly and said, "How are you so sure the savior must be human?"

"Uh..." Lin Hanxuan was struck speechless for a moment. Right, there were plenty of powerful beastfolk and high-level Magic Beasts too. Who said the savior had to be human?

"I once thought that even if the savior wasn't human, if fate truly arranged things that way, then being with a great hero wouldn't be a grievance for me." Yi Junze's eyes grew somewhat hazy as he spoke. "But then, I met you."

Cold sweat broke out all over Lin Hanxuan. From what "Miss" Yi Junze meant, it seemed like...

"In the Yi Family, I was always very lonely." Yi Junze hugged his knees with both arms and looked up at the top of the tent as he said, "To outsiders, I was the Yi Family's second young master. All my many cousins envied me, but none of them were close to me. And I had to pretend to be a man at every moment, work hard to be the Yi Family's second young master, and not disgrace my parents. I felt so tired."

"So that was it. When you heard that a fake Yi Family child like me was coming to the academy to study, you came to take a look at me?" Lin Hanxuan said in sudden realization.

"Don't flatter yourself." Yi Junze rolled his eyes and said, "Father only wanted me to keep an eye on you, so you wouldn't use the Yi Family's name to commit evil deeds."

"Heh, you all really think too highly of me," Lin Hanxuan said with a bitter smile.

"At first, I only wanted to be friends with you, someone outside the whole situation, because you had two Imperial Great Mages as your backers, and your status was even higher than mine. With you, maybe I could experience true friendship," Yi Junze said, combing his hair with his fingers.

"Mm, I truly did regard you as a friend. I've never looked down on others just because I have two grandpas supporting me," Lin Hanxuan said.

"Yes. This past month or so, I really was happier." Yi Junze touched his chest and said, "Until that damned blood—"

The mantis appeared."

"Peiganbo did indeed do something terrible, but I can guarantee you that from now on, he definitely won't hurt people as he pleases. Are you willing to forgive him

?" Lin Hanxuan spoke up awkwardly on Peiganbo's behalf. Back then, to save Hermie, Yi Junze had been badly wounded by Peiganbo's hand blade and had nearly lost

his life.

Yi Junze did not answer directly. Instead, he asked Lin Hanxuan, "I didn't ask Teacher Tidavi to treat this scar