Ah Yin

[Previously: Your Simulation ended, your foundation advanced by leaps and bounds, and after your Martial Soul Evolution, you dealt with the beasts at Nuoding Academy.]

"One good deed a day. Not bad. I'm racking up the good karma." Su Ming slipped away after finishing his work, but before he left, he suddenly remembered Gangzi.

"Damn, I almost forgot the bastard behind all this." Su Ming wanted to smack his forehead, but in his wind form, he had no solid body. He could not even tell his head from his tail.

Clicking his tongue, Su Ming searched for Yu Xiaogang through the winds of Nuoding Academy. Yu Xiaogang was lying on a wooden board while a healing-type Soul Master stood nearby, holding a Placenta and looking torn over what to do.

"Goddamn it. What a monster!" Su Ming saw that a girl had already been victimized. His gaze hardened, and the healing-type Soul Master split down the middle.

Su Ming wanted to kill Yu Xiaogang too, but to be safe, he ultimately let him live.

"Next stop, Holy Soul Village." Su Ming could hardly wait. Taking Ah Yin from Tang Hao six years early was a world apart from taking her six years later.

Su Ming landed and took the form of a half-solid phantom. He looked around the cave. Dark and damp—that was his first impression.

Frankly, that environment was unsuitable for most plants.

"Heh heh heh. Let me see where you've hidden your wife, Tang Hao." Smiling, Su Ming walked deeper into the cave, his voice echoing through the silence.

Ah Yin trembled. The voice sounded somewhat familiar, though younger, and it left her bewildered. Why had that man come looking for her already? From the fragments of memory in her mind, he was not supposed to find her until much later.

Su Ming poked his head around a corner, his eyes shining with excitement.

"Blue Silver Emperor. Heh heh heh. Found you." Su Ming stepped out from behind the corner.

On a little mound of earth, Ah Yin trembled again. She sensed an aura both familiar and strange. Part of her wanted to reach out to Su Ming, while another part resisted him.

She still could not accept what had happened in her dreams or those scattered memories.

Su Ming noticed nothing unusual about Ah Yin. He walked over to her, then glanced around the cave until he spotted his target. With a crook of his finger, he sent a light breeze to open a hidden compartment, and a heavy stone box dropped out.

Su Ming deftly took out the Soul Bone and stowed it away. Then he pulled Ah Yin up by the roots and fled.

The moment the cave was disturbed, Tang Hao, who had been dead drunk at home, snapped his eyes open. "Damn thief! How dare you touch my Soul Bone!" His gaze was sharp, with no trace of drunkenness left in it.

Tang San, only a few months old and still swaddled, looked at his father in confusion. He could not understand why his usually unreliable father suddenly seemed like a different person.

Tang Hao leaped up and smashed through the roof, without the slightest concern that he might endanger Tang San's life.

Just as Su Ming was making his escape, a massive hammer came crashing down from above the Waterfall's cliff. The blow was meant to kill. Tang Hao did not even care if it struck Ah Yin; he only wanted the person who had dared steal his Soul Bone dead.

By then, Su Ming had carried Ah Yin several kilometers away. Seeing the man she had once loved launch such a powerful attack without regard for her life, her heart sank.

Monster. Tang Hao was a monster. How could I have been so foolish as to fall for him?

Ah Yin felt wretched. When she had first received those fragments of memories of her time with Su Ming, she had refused to accept them. But now it seemed Tang Hao truly did not love her. That meant what she had seen in her dreams was probably real too.

The vine Ah Yin had wrapped around Su Ming's arm tightened, as though she were seeking one last person to lean on.

"Damn it! Damn it! Who was it?" Tang Hao stared at the ruined mountainside, unable to find any trace of the thief. His anger surged. "Damn you, Ah Yin! If you'd offered yourself up as a sacrifice back then, would I have had to carry that bastard, parading you right under Spirit Hall's nose? If it weren't for you and that bastard, I wouldn't have been expelled from the Clear Sky Sect! Damn bitch!" With nowhere else to vent his rage, Tang Hao smashed the Blue Silver Grass around the mountainside.

Tang Hao's voice carried far. Even Su Ming and Ah Yin, already five kilometers away, could still hear his furious shouting.

"Tch. What a shameless old bastard." Su Ming muttered in disgust, then looked at the drooping Ah Yin on his right arm. "See? That's the real man you fell for. You were nothing but a tool to him. Stick with me from now on, and I'll make sure you live well."

Ah Yin was heartbroken. She had begun trying to let go of her feelings for Tang Hao, but hearing what he thought of her—and how he spoke of her—made it all seem absurd.

"Come on, cheer up. You look half-dead. You're not actually dying, are you?" Su Ming said offhandedly, then sped up.

Ah Yin looked at Su Ming's youthful profile and recalled the man from her dreams. He had been a little cold, but he had treated her very well. Their images began to overlap. Gradually, she found herself wanting to embrace him for comfort. But she was only a blade of grass now. To regain her human form quickly, she needed to reach the place in her memories called the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.

After flying to a safe stretch of woods, Su Ming pried Ah Yin off his arm. "All right, you can stay here for now. I've got things to do, so I'm heading back."

Su Ming barely knew Ah Yin. It was Su Wu from the Simulation who knew her. As the original, the least Su Ming could do after Su Wu had kicked the bucket was settle his lover somewhere safe in the real world.

Ah Yin clung to Su Ming's arm and pleaded with the last of her energy. "Don't... leave me... I..."

The message came in broken fragments. After using up that last bit of energy, Ah Yin looked even more wilted.

Su Ming scratched his head. "Tch, fine. A ticking time bomb it is. Worst comes to worst, I'll throw you out to take the blow from Haozi's hammer." Grumbling, Su Ming rummaged through his wind space and pulled out a golden toilet. "This... Uh, forget it. Let's find something more normal." He rummaged again and pulled out a golden chamber pot.

Su Ming could not understand it. All he wanted was an ordinary container he could use as a flowerpot. What was with all this junk? First a toilet, then a chamber pot. Was the next thing going to be a golden squat toilet?

Still grumbling to himself, Su Ming searched a little longer. What he found was even more ridiculous than a golden squat toilet. It was far too long.