TL-checked: Zaki, Edited: Animeart

  Ela — Sorry for the delay! Enjoy the chap!

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  The air was still between heaven and earth.

  It’s not autumn yet, but at this moment, the day quickly cooled down.

  Thousands of ghosts cried, the sound of their wailing was full of madness and despair. In the lingering blood mist, the cold penetrated inward from the surface of the skin until it chilled the bones.

  Looking at Xiao Shao, the Empress instinctively retreated a few steps.

  Her eyes widened as she muttered, “Where is Feng’er …… my Feng’er?”

  Her plump face seemed to turn very pale at that moment, her lips trembled slightly, and she stared at Xiao Shao incredulously.

  If he hadn’t seen this scene, Lin Shu would have never believed in the phrase ‘growing old in a blink of an eye’.

  Xiao Shao didn’t speak. He just stood there silently. The blood mist surged, but not close to his body. The sky was dark and gloomy. And because he was standing alone, he seemed to be the High King of Asura hell.

  A sense of heavy oppression pressed on everyone, as if there was something in the air pushing everyone down.

  The Empress’ eyes widened suddenly and she said to Xiao Shao: “You are not Feng’er ……!”

  Feng’er……

  The remnant soul of the Phoenix that was with the Empress.

  Lin Shu heard the Phoenix Villa Headmistress beside him say, “Sister Jin, you actually ……”

  He asked the Phoenix Villa Headmistress, “What have you done?”

  The Phoenix Villa Headmistress said, “Things have come to this, and there is no point of hiding anymore.”

  Lin Shu only listened; listened to the Phoenix Villa Headmistress talk about a pile of past events.

  It was one story, but it was a long story.

  The Empress was the daughter of the Phoenix Mountain Villa’s direct line. The Phoenix bloodline had more daughters, and rarely had male children, this fact was very well known.

  Therefore, the Queens of past dynasties had not giving birth to a Prince, had never aroused anyone’s doubt.

  The Phoenix Villa Headmistress said that Sister Jin had always been gentle and considerate since she was a child. Since she was born, she was already determined to be future Empress of the dynasty so she only practiced the villa’s mental skills, the Phoenix Heart Technique and did not pay attention to Martial Arts.

  In fact, she wasn’t able to focus on Martial Arts because the Royal family wanted its future Empress to be gentle and virtuous and did not want the Martial Arts skills to be very high. Therefore, Sister Jin would secretly watch her practice Martial Arts.

  She didn’t practice Martial Arts, but instead she practiced zither, Qi, calligraphy and painting. Womanly virtues, etiquettes and needlework were a bit out of place in the Villa that mainly focused on cultivation of Martial Arts. Phoenix Villa Headmistress spent most of her time practicing swords and spears and didn’t have too much time to accompany the young Empress. So she didn’t have any playmates and was all alone. She would play with the remnant of the Phoenix soul all day and named it ‘Feng’er’.

  At the same time, because she knew that she would eventually be the Emperor’s wife, she always had a girl’s affection for the Emperor since she was a child. When she got married at the age of seventeen, she was very affectionate with the Emperor and very much in love.

  Two years later, she was pregnant with a child. It was worth mentioning that one day she had dreamed of a Phoenix flying &#k2014; she thought that the child must have something to do with her Feng’er. She took special care of herself and loved the child more than any treasure. When the child was born, it was a boy and the firstborn of the Emperor.

  She did not have any friends and playmates when she was young. So all her tenderness and care — First she gave it all to the Emperor, and then later all to the child.

  And then, when he was less than a year old, the child died.

  The Phoenix Villa Headmistress said, “When I heard the news, I thought to myself, Sister Jin protected the child and he was the apple of her eyes, never far away from her. How could something go wrong?”

  Immediately, the Empress became very ill.

  The disease was strange. There was no medicine or healing methods to cure it. All the genius physicians who were called from various parts of the world were at their wit’s end. The Empress was in a coma for three months. The Emperor’s heart was burning with anxiety, but he didn’t know what to do. Finally, the Phoenix Villa Headmistress was so distressed, that she left the affairs of the Villa without even taking any spare clothes and went to take care of the Empress. She talked to the Empress everyday, regardless of whether she could hear it or not.

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  Talking about the interesting stories of childhood, the beauty of the world, the affairs of the Mountain Villa, and about Feng’er.

  Day after day everyday. Then one late night, the Empress suddenly broke into cold sweat and called out, “Feng’er!”. She looked very frightened and pulled at her sister saying a lot of nonsensical things.

  What could one say? Her child was the most precious treasure in the world for her. She didn’t want him to suffer even a momentary trouble. Palace maids and servants were all rough and clumsy and the child was very delicate. Everytime she gave the child in the hands of others, she was frightened that something untoward might happen.

  She trembled again and said that due to this reason, she had placed shadow beads in all the hidden places of the Palace .

  The Phoenix Villa Headmistress listened to her nonsense and thought that the child that Sister Jin had deeply loved had an untimely death. And she was sad to the degree that it felt as if a knife was piercing her heart.

  She could only comfort the Empress saying, ‘You wake up well, you have to get well, and then you can give birth to an heir, the next year with His Majesty.

  At that moment, it was as if the Empress had heard some horrifying words. Her whole person trembled violently and she said, “I saw it. He killed my Feng’er! He killed my Feng’er!”

  She also laughed wildly and said that the world was originally so dirty, so why did he have to be so cruel to his own son?

  The Phoenix Villa Headmistress was terrified.

  After talking nonsense for a while, the Empress fainted again. This time with a high fever. When the fever subsided, she woke up fully at ease. She had no recollection of the nonsense she had talked about before. She gradually returned to normal. She was gentle and dignified, but she was much quieter.

  This was the previous situation. The Phoenix Villa Headmistress sighed and said, I think she may have been crazy since then.

  And then?

  What did this matter have to do with the Yi Ri Divine Arrow?

  The Phoenix Villa Headmistress said that she has been depressed since that incident. The Empress often mentioned to her, saying when would the daughters of Phoenix Mountain Villa not be governed by the dynasty.

  At that time, the Phoenix Villa Headmistress had said that with the marriage alliance between the Phoenix Mountain Villa and the Royal family, each had their gain. This was the ancestral custom.

  The Empress said in a trance, when will the Villa have the absolute power in the world?

  That being said, the Phoenix Villa Headmistress still remembered the words spoken by the Empress in her coma.

  Later, the Empress became pregnant again.

  This time she dreamed of the blazing sun in the sky, and had a hunch that it would be a boy again.

  After that there was no need to elaborate any more. Once the child, Ling Fengxiao was born, they immediately disguised him as a girl and placed him in the Phoenix Mountain Villa to be raised.

  The Empress was a bit obstinate with this child. She asked the Phoenix Villa Headmistress to teach the child to be the most perfect and flawless person in the world and to have a cultivation unique for the child only.

  The Headmistress knew her sister very well. With what little the Empress had said, she guessed her meaning immediately. The scholarly knowledge of literature and Martial Arts, reading and swordsmanship, whatever knowledge the Headmistress knew, she imparted them all to the child. If she couldn’t teach something by herself, she would invite someone to teach. If Ling Fengxiao had any trouble, she forced him to learn.

  Two years ago, the Empress told her about the Yi Ri Divine Arrow.

  It was said that a text from an ancient book that was recovered in a shipwreck from the depths of the South China Sea has recorded a method on how to revive the ancient Phoenix Blood. She said that Ling Fengxiao should inherit this Qi and blood and he should become the one and only Phoenix King who rules the world.

  The Phoenix Villa Headmistress naturally knew how talented Ling Fengxiao was. She had raised Ling Fengxiao and had high hopes for him. Naturally, she was willing for this plan.

  And Ling Fengxiao, as they had wished and hoped for, easily overcame Northern Xia and defeated them. The opportune time and the place were ready and all that was missing was the harmony of people. But whether Ling Fengxiao wanted it or not, the plan would work.

  For this reason, she even tacitly allowed the Empress to personally push the girls of Phoenix Mountain Villa into the sacrificial altar and activate the array formation so that the blazing Yang Qi and Lihou Qi in their bodies could be used as the trigger to awaken the Phoenix Blood.

  But until today – she didn’t know that it was not just her and the Empress who had concealed everything from the world, but the Empress hid everything from everyone, including her.

  She didn’t want Ling Fengxiao to be the Mortal Emperor, she wanted her Feng’er to be the true divine beast Phoenix.

  She wanted Ling Fengxiao to become such an outstanding person, first, so that he could unify the world, gain the Mortal Emperor’s Fortune Luck, and pave the way for the Phoenix’s resurrection. And the second was to make his spirit strong and pure, so that he could bear the remnant soul of the Phoenix.

  As for Ling Fengxiao’s heart’s desires, and even Ling Fengxiao’s life, was not even in her consideration.

  The Phoenix Villa Headmistress loves Ling Fengxiao, but the Empress did not.

  Perhaps in her heart, she only had Feng’er, only her dead child, her hatred for the Emperor and her hatred for the entire dynasty. Hatred that she was resigned to a fate with no ability to resist, living with the Emperor who killed her child. Perhaps she only trusted her Feng’er since then.

  For this reason, she decided to rebel.

  And Ling Fengxiao, Phoenix Villa Headmistress, Xiao Lingyang and even the Emperor were all the tools she needed.

  In that three-month coma, it seemed she lost more than just a child.

  The context of the matter was now clear.

  Lin Shu and Phoenix Villa Headmistress communicated with each other using their divine thoughts. Although a lot of information was passed on, the transfer of thoughts were almost instantaneous.

  Having said all this, the Phoenix Villa Headmistress seemed dejected. She was seriously injured in the fire. At this time, she vomited a big mouthful of black blood and her complexion was pale, making her look seriously ill.

  On top of the altar, after a brief silence, the Empress took out the Phoenix flute.

  She brought it to her lips and blew it. The song whispered and sounded faintly.

  In the past, when she used this jade flute and blew this song, the remnant soul of the Phoenix would come from the sky and be affectionate with her.

  But now, there was only silence.

  The sound of her song was gradually rushed and fragmented, and finally, after an ear-splitting sound, it was no longer sustainable.

  She was panic-stricken, and the jade flute slipped from her hands to the ground, making a crisp sound, and then it shattered into three pieces.

  She clutched her head and fell to the ground, her voice sounding like a scream and a shriek, “–Feng’er!”

  Her golden hairpin fell to the ground and her gorgeous robes were dishevelled. However, she suddenly raised her head to look at Xiao Shao and she lost all her graceful appearance and laughed wildly: “You Xiao family –Xiao family’s man…… Sure enough……”

  Her eyes looked more and more frenzied, and even seemed to make a move to lunge towards Xiao Shao: “You have the Phoenix Blood in your body, Why…… Why do you……”

  Xiao Shao just looked at her condescendingly with an indifferent expression.

  His pupils were still so dark and lightless, not at all like a living person, and even made it impossible to see whether he was looking at the Empress or not.

  The fact that he could be hurt by Yi Ri Divine Arrow was because he subconsciously felt that he belonged to Phoenix Mountain Villa .

  And now he was unharmed. Did that mean that the actions of the Empress and Phoenix Villa Headmistress and the blood of the girls in the Phoenix Mountain Villa completely disappointed him with all this?

  Lin Shu did not know.

  Only to see, the Empress’ action getting more and more frantic and pouncing on him, “Give me back Feng’er!”

  Where was Feng’er?

  Lin Shu looked at the huge Phoenix shadow behind Xiao Shao.

  The golden image that should have been brilliant and splendid, had now completely and utterly turned into an evil image with pitch-black and deep red intertwined.

  I’m afraid that the remnant soul of the ancient Phoenix had been absorbed by Xiao Shao and had become a part of his strength.

  This ending, among all the endings, was the one that the Empress could not accept the most.

  And she pounced on Xiao Shao.

  Xiao Shao just stood still, did not move, and did not speak.

  The cold and empty eyes showed that in this Azura hell, he had no feelings for his former biological mother.

  Sure enough, before she could even touch a corner of Xiao Shao’s clothes, the Empress seemed to be blocked by something invisible — but this made her even more frenzied and miserably painful: “You shall not die well ——”

  With this spiteful tone and frantic movements, wisps of blood mist seeped out of her body, more and more, thick and viscous, as if it were blood, but the amount of blood was much more than what could flow out of a person — Lin Shu knew that this was her resentment accumulated over the years, which finally burst out on this day……

  Unfortunately, the saddest thing about this situation was that she didn’t realize what kind of existence Xiao Shao’s strength was from beginning to end.

  ——Xiao Shao currently was a cultivator of Immortals and Demons. Even exhausting all possibilities, one could not imagine his realm. Even her grievances and resentment released at this time, could only end up being a part of Xiao Shao’s power.

  The resentment flowed out and became part of the blood mist. It seemed that it also took away the essence of the Empress making her look withered and having no strength. But still she persistently tried to grab Xiao Shao: “Feng’er, my Feng’er ……”

  Xiao Shao frowned slightly.

  Lin Shu knew all of his tiny expressions and felt that Xiao Shao probably didn’t recognize anyone, but the Empress was at his feet and making loud sounds, which made him feel that she was being very noisy.

  The next moment, Xiao Shao extended his hand towards the Empress.