"What's your name?"
"Senior, I was given the name Haoran—the haoran from Righteous Vital Energy."
"Righteous Vital Energy..."
Cao Ci smiled faintly. Ignoring the veiled mockery, he asked, "How many generations after Meng Jingming are you?"
"Not counting the late emperor, I'm the fifth generation. If you count him as the first, I'm the sixth."
"And the current emperor is your..."
"Great-grandfather."
"Your family's good at having children."
"For ordinary families, a generation spans twenty or thirty years. In ours, it's more than forty or fifty." Meng Haoran's tone stayed steady, neither servile nor arrogant. "It isn't that we have more children. We just live too long."
"You don't seem afraid to die."
"No one in the Great Yi Royal Family fears death."
"Interesting."
"Senior, why have you brought me here?"
"You carry a fragment of an origin. I'm going to take it." Cao Ci paused, his voice calm. "But don't worry. Meng Jingming and I were old acquaintances. He was one of the rare people I could call a friend. I only dared abduct you after he died. If he were still alive, I might not have had the nerve to act against you. So I'll do my best to keep you alive and send you back. It's the least I owe Meng Jingming."
"A fragment of an Origin..."
Meng Haoran murmured the words to himself.
He did not know where he was. Wherever it was, it was desolate wilderness as far as the eye could see. Sitting on the ground, he said to the man before him, "When my imperial ancestor was alive, I heard him speak of you, Senior."
"What did he say?"
"He talked about the past. His youth. The Jade Capital of those days," Meng Haoran said. "When people get old, they like looking back."