Inside the Blacksmith Shop, the dim oil lamp flickered.
Tang Hao sat at the table, the six sheets Tang San had written from memory spread before him, and remained silent for a long time.
Tang San crouched in a corner, his face still burning with pain, not daring to make a sound.
At last, Tang Hao spoke.
"Xiao San, come here."
Tang San walked over cautiously and stood beside the table.
Tang Hao did not look at him, his gaze resting on the stack of papers. "Are you sure you wrote everything correctly?"
Tang San nodded, his tone certain, even somewhat self-righteous. "Yes. Every single word."
Tang Hao gave him a long look, his voice hoarse. "Xiao San, it's time I told you a few things. Your mother's name was Ah Yin."
Tang San froze. Throughout his childhood, Tang Hao had never mentioned his mother.
He had asked a few times, but Tang Hao had either stayed silent or flown into a rage. Over time, he had stopped asking.
"Sit." Tang Hao pointed to the stool opposite him.
Tang San obediently sat down.
Tang Hao fell silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts, then dropped a bombshell the moment he spoke. "Your mother wasn't human. She was a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast, the Blue Silver Emperor."
Tang San's eyes widened. At that moment, he finally understood why one of his martial souls was Blue Silver Grass. He had inherited it from his mother, Ah Yin.
The room fell quiet for a moment.
"Sixteen years ago, your mother began cultivating anew, taking human form, and traveled the continent. At the time, your eldest uncle Tang Xiao and I were out gaining experience. By chance, we met her."
Tang Hao's voice was low, carrying beautiful memories that were distant but never forgotten. "Your mother was very gentle, and very beautiful."
Tang San saw a light in his eyes that he had never seen before.
"The three of us traveled together, visiting almost every corner of the continent. Your eldest uncle and I both fell in love with her."
"Later, the three of us became sworn siblings."
"Your mother gave the youngest age, so she ranked third. Your eldest uncle and I both had feelings for her, but neither of us ever said it openly."
"Three years later, your eldest uncle chose to step aside."
Tang Hao paused.
"An eldest brother is like a father. He quietly returned to the Clear Sky Sect and left Ah Yin to me."
"That very night..." Tang Hao's gaze softened, yet held an indescribable pain. "Ah Yin told me her true identity: the Hundred-Thousand-Year Blue Silver Emperor."
"Was I shocked? Very." Tang Hao looked at Tang San. "But I loved her. Whether she was human or beast made no difference to me."
"Later, I wanted to bring Ah Yin back to the sect to meet my father. But along the way, we were attacked by Spirit Hall."
Tang Hao's tone abruptly turned cold.
"I drove back Spirit Hall's Titled Douluo, but the Pope of Spirit Hall issued a decree denouncing the Clear Sky Sect. My father died of anger because of it."
"Your eldest uncle Tang Xiao succeeded him as sect master, while Ah Yin and I married and began a life of hiding."
"Nine years. Nine whole years, we hid everywhere like stray dogs. But those nine years were the happiest of my life."
His voice trembled slightly. "Later, Ah Yin became pregnant. On the day she gave birth, she finally entered the mature stage after taking human form, and I broke through to Level 90 at the same time."
Something stirred faintly in Tang San's heart, and a terrifying thought flashed through his mind.
At Level 90, one needed to add a ninth soul ring, and the one his mother Ah Yin had sacrificed was precisely a Hundred Thousand Year Soul Ring.
The timing was perfect.
But the thought passed in a flash, and Tang San immediately suppressed it. His father loved his mother so much. It was impossible.
"But fortune and disaster go hand in hand." Tang Hao clenched his fists. "Qian Xunji, Spirit Hall's Pope at the time, surrounded our home with two Titled Douluo and a large number of experts."
Tang San shuddered. He already had a premonition of how tragic the outcome would be.
"I fought desperately to stop them and was severely wounded. Ah Yin had just given birth to you and was badly weakened. She..."
At this point, Tang Hao's voice choked. He closed his eyes, seemingly unable to bear recalling those days again.
"At the cost of her hundred thousand years of cultivation, she killed herself in sacrifice and poured her soul ring into my body."
"I became the youngest Titled Douluo on the continent at the time. My body healed, and my strength soared."
"I fought Spirit Hall's experts for three days and three nights, killing one Titled Douluo and severely wounding Qian Xunji and the other Titled Douluo."
Tang Hao opened his eyes, which were bloodshot.
"After the battle, I left with you, along with the grass seed and soul bone Ah Yin had left behind."
Tang Hao paused, hope in his eyes.
"Although Ah Yin sacrificed herself, she wasn't completely dead. That grass seed was our last hope."
"I planted her in a cave in the hills behind Holy Soul Village. With water and light, she could keep living.
"As long as her original body remained, Ah Yin would have a slim hope of recovering.
"Perhaps one day, she could develop intelligence again and take human form once more.
"Although that hope was very faint, as long as she remained, it was still possible."
Tang San's pupils contracted. Mother could still recover?
In other words, what that "Tang Sect" had taken wasn't just a blade of grass, but the slim hope of Mother's resurrection!
"Afterward, the Clear Sky Sect announced my expulsion and sealed itself off. As for me, I brought you to this village to live in seclusion as an ordinary blacksmith, scraping by for six years."
Another trace of confusion rose in Tang San's heart.
His father had lived in Holy Soul Village for six years, a few li from the cave where his mother had been planted.
In six years, had Father never thought of moving Mother somewhere better suited for her growth, where he could look after her whenever he wanted? Even our yard would be better than a cave, wouldn't it?
But that thought was soon replaced by another. Perhaps his father had been too severely wounded at the time to manage it.
The room remained silent for a long time.
Tang San sat on the stool without a word.
It felt as though something had exploded in his mind.
In his previous life, he had been an orphan who grew up in the Tang Sect, knowing neither who his parents were nor where warmth or cold came from.
He had thought this life would be the same, that he would walk alone to the end.
But in this life, he had parents.
His mother was the Hundred-Thousand-Year Blue Silver Emperor, who had sacrificed her life to protect him and his father.
For his mother's sake, his father had been expelled from his sect, becoming an outcast disciple, and had raised him alone in this shabby village for six years.
He remembered asking his father where his mother had gone when he was little.
Tang Hao had always remained silent, then turned away to forge iron, the hammering ringing out all night.
So all those silences had been filled with pain he could not put into words.
Tang San's eyes reddened.
Tang Hao's voice was trembling too. "Xiao San, Ah Yin said she felt she owed you the most. She said she brought you into this world but failed to fulfill her responsibilities as a mother, and she was sorry. Before she died, she asked me to tell you that Mommy loves you."
Tang San could no longer hold back. Tears slipped silently to the floor. A fire had already ignited deep in his heart.
First, Qian Xunji of Spirit Hall had led men to surround and attack them, driving his mother to her death. Now someone was using his mother's original body to threaten them.
Whether it was Spirit Hall or that so-called Tang Sect, they had already given him reason to kill them!
Tang Hao had been silently watching his son's reactions all along, and the doubts in his heart wavered.
Those tears, that look-they didn't seem fake.
An Evil Soul Master wouldn't get this angry over a biological father and mother, would he?
If this child really had been possessed, his acting was far too good.
"Xiao San." Tang Hao's voice became calm again. "Check the cultivation technique you wrote from memory one more time. Your mother's hope of resurrection is at stake. There can be no mistakes!"
Tang San stiffened, a sheen of cold sweat breaking out on his back.
"Xiao San?"
"I... seem to have remembered a few parts wrong."
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