Situ Ping could not understand. "Why would telling my parents mean your mother couldn't live? Explain yourself!"
Ziling choked through her tears. "I'm not actually an ordinary human. My father is a Sword Immortal of the Emei Sect, and my mother is a Heavenly Fox.
"After her Corpse-Release Ascension all those years ago, her nascent soul flew to Turtle-Fishing Rock in the Eastern Sea to cultivate in seclusion. Now she's about to face her heavenly tribulation, and only you can save her..."
"How could I possibly save her? I'm just a scholar who couldn't even truss a chicken."
"You were born in a yang year, yang month, yang day, and yang hour. My grandmaster said only someone like you, born at the four orthodox hours, can help my mother survive her heavenly tribulation."
"So anyone born at these four orthodox hours can save your mother, even if he's bedridden?"
The question left Ziling bewildered. After thinking it over, she nodded slightly. "Presumably, different destinies correspond to the principles of yin and yang generating and overcoming one another, counterbalancing the changes of heaven and earth. In any case, that's what my grandmaster said,
"so it must be right. If you really were crippled, or if we couldn't find you at all, that would simply mean my mother was destined to be beyond saving. There would be nothing else we could do."
As she spoke, pearly tears gathered in her eyes. The thought that her mother would be reduced to dust and ashes if she failed her tribulation filled her with worry.
Seeing her weep so bitterly, Situ Ping could not bear it and softened his voice. "Then why did you say this wouldn't work if I went home and told my parents?"
Ziling said, "I heard from my father that he's