Tang San stood where he was, watching Tang Hao's back nearly vanish at the end of the mountain path. It felt as if two hands were tearing at his heart.
Reason told him that now was not the best time to lay everything bare.
Yet another voice told him that if he did not speak plainly today, he had no idea when they would meet again. Gritting his teeth, he finally stepped forward and chased after her.
"Wait!"
Tang Hao paused and turned her head slightly. Sunlight slid across her profile, illuminating her drunken face.
She did not turn around completely. She merely tilted her head, her voice carrying a trace of irritated impatience at being disturbed. "Hmm?"
Tang San quickly walked up and stopped in front of her. He took a deep breath, steadying his wildly pounding heart, then lowered his voice. "Tang Hao... Clear Sky Douluo."
It was as though an invisible needle had pierced the air.
Tang Hao's drunkenness vanished completely in that instant. Her phoenix eyes narrowed like a fierce beast whose reverse scale had been touched.
Tang San felt a sharp pressure erupt from her body. The surrounding air seemed to grow heavier, while the wild grass beneath his feet bent uniformly without any wind.
It was the bone-deep oppression that belonged to a Titled Douluo. Tang Hao's voice was hoarse, carrying icy wariness. "...Where did you hear that?"
Facing that pressure, Tang San's throat tightened, but he still forced himself to continue:
"Mom, don't be nervous. Your bearing really is extraordinary, so I looked into a lot of information and asked some people. Teacher Yu Xiaorou from Nording Academy—you know her, right? She has a deep understanding of martial souls... and incredibly broad knowledge. She knows you!"
Tang Hao said nothing, her lips pressed into a thin line. But Tang San noticed that when she heard the name "Yu Xiaorou," the sharp pressure eased ever so slightly.
Yu Xiaorou's reputation was indeed formidable. Everyone in the soul master world knew that Nording Academy had a "master" who held no position in Spirit Hall, yet was more knowledgeable than even Spirit Hall's elders.
Although she had spent these years tucked away in the remote little place that was Notting City, her theoretical foundation had always held a place in the true inner circles.
If Yu Xiaorou could detect clues from the aura of a martial soul, then it made perfect sense for Tang San to know some of the inside story.
Tang Hao remained silent for a long while. She stared at Tang San for a long time, and he could feel her gaze sweeping repeatedly across his face, as though confirming something.
In the end, as though she had finally lowered her guard, she let out a long breath. The suffocating pressure receded like a tide.
She leaned back against the bluestone, pulled out the wine gourd at her waist, and tipped back a mouthful. Then she wiped her mouth with her sleeve and looked at Tang San with a complicated expression. "I never thought that after hiding for so many years, my own son would expose me with a single sentence."
Tang San secretly breathed a sigh of relief, though little showed on his face. "I want to grow stronger. Can you... help me?"
Tang Hao did not answer immediately. She lowered her head to look at the wine gourd in her hand, her thumb rubbing the faint crack on its surface over and over, as though trying hard to recall something. After a long while, she finally spoke in a low voice:
"Do you know... why I became like this?"
Tang San said nothing. He simply looked at her quietly.
Tang Hao took another drink. The fiery liquor slid down her throat as she gazed at the outline of the distant mountains, her eyes seeming to pass through those peaks and fall upon a time long, long ago.
The wind tossed her dark green hair into disarray, yet she made no effort to fix it, allowing those flowing locks to dance wildly in the breeze.
"When I was young, I was the direct daughter of the Clear Sky Sect," she said.
"At six, I awakened the Clear Sky Hammer and possessed Innate Full Soul Power. Among my peers, no one could last more than three exchanges against me, except my twin older brother, Tang Xiao. The elders all said that the hopes of the Clear Sky Sect's next generation rested on me. I thought I would live my entire life like that—cultivating, breaking through, becoming a Titled Douluo, and then inheriting the sect."
"Until I met someone."
Tang Hao's voice suddenly lowered, as though she had touched a scar buried in the deepest part of her heart.
Her speech slowed, each word spoken with the utmost gentleness:
"His name was Ah Yin. He was a Hundred Thousand Year Blue Silver Emperor who had taken human form and went by the name Blue Silver Sovereign. He was... beautiful. The most beautiful man I had ever seen in my life."
"He wore a pale blue robe. Whenever he smiled, all the plants across the mountains seemed to shine with him. The first time I saw him was in a valley within Sunset Forest. He was crouching beside a stream, looking at a flower. His brows and eyes were so gentle that they seemed capable of melting all the snow of spring."
Tang San's eyelid twitched. The Blue Silver Emperor... was a man.
Still, that made sense. Otherwise, where would he have come from?
Tang Hao did not notice Tang San's expression. Lost in her memories, her voice grew ever softer.
"We fell in love. That was the happiest time of my life. He took me to see the Starlight Lake deep within the Star Dou Great Forest, took me to the Extreme North to see ice peaks that had never melted for ten thousand years, and taught me to identify rare flowers and herbs that were not even recorded in Spirit Hall's library.
"He did not like fighting and killing. He always said that strength was meant to protect people, not hurt them. Back then, I felt that even if I did not become the Clear Sky Douluo or remain the direct daughter, as long as I could be with him, this life would be worthwhile."
Her voice paused, then gradually sank.
"But that secret did not remain hidden. After word reached Spirit Hall, the Pope at the time, Qian Xunji—that man—set his sights on him."
The corner of Tang Hao's mouth curled into a mocking smile, sharp thorns hidden within it.
"A dignified Pope mobilized all of Spirit Hall's forces for the sake of one man. He sent word that as long as Ah Yin was willing to go with him, Ah Yin could even become Pope directly. Naturally, Ah Yin refused. He did not even meet Qian Xunji once before rejecting him outright."
"And then?" Tang San asked dryly.
"And then?" Tang Hao's smile turned piercing and vicious. "That bastard flew into a rage from humiliation. He could not have Ah Yin, and when he learned that Ah Yin was with me, love turned to hatred and he developed murderous intent. He brought two Titled Douluo to ambush Ah Yin while he was alone, intending to kill him—or perhaps capture him alive and bring him back."
Tang San's mouth twitched. In his previous life, the version of the story he had heard was that Qian Xunji coveted Ah Yin's Hundred Thousand Year Spirit Ring and Soul Bone, which was why he had launched the hunt for the Blue Silver Emperor.
But in this life, Qian Xunji had become a man, and his reason for coveting Ah Yin had changed from Spirit Rings and Soul Bones to nothing more than unrequited love.
He muttered under his breath, "What the hell is this supposed to be...?"
Before you continue