TLchecked – Zaki, Edited – Animeart

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  He held the little hand.

  The temperature of the little hand was very strange, as if it would never be warm.

  Lin Shu didn’t try to warm them up. He took him back to his residence and asked him, “Do you want to sleep with me?”

  In fact, he was actually a very responsible father.

  He had accompanied Fruit and Yingying to sleep. He was quite familiar with the task.

  Guiltless, looked up at him. His thoughts could not be discerned from his evil, cold, blood-red eyes.

  Lin Shu reached out his hand to touch his head.

  At this point, Yingying emerged from behind the pillar and gave a coy cry “Daddy”.

  Guiltless shook his head slowly, released his hand and walked away.

  Yingying walked up to Lin Shu, reached out for a hug, and was picked up by him.

  “Daddy, you sleep with me.” Yingying leant her head against his shoulder.

  Lin Shu said, “Okay.”

  Then he walked towards the bedroom. From his peripheral vision, he caught a dark shadow at the end of the garden path. It seemed that Guiltless was watching them from the darkness.

  He washed up, and changed Yingying into a loose robe, he blew out the candles, and then prepared to sleep with his daughter in his arms.

  Just as Yingying’s head leaned against his chest, she suddenly asked: “Daddy, where is Daddy Xiao Shao?”

  She didn’t know yet.

  Fruit was already big, and perceptive of the world. He already knew what Xiao Shao did, but Yingying was different. No one told her.

  Lin Shu thought about it and said, “He has gone to Nirvana.”

  Yingying asked, “Is it the Phoenix Nirvana?”

  “En,” Lin Shu gently patted the back of her shoulder: “It is the Phoenix Nirvana.”

  Yingying asked, “Then, when will he come back?”

  After a while, Lin Shu gently said, “Ancient divine beasts have a long life span. A hundred years for mortals might be only like a day in their life. So maybe it will be a long, long time before he returns.”

  “I see.” Yingying really believed it. She then sullenly asked, “That time, he didn’t look back at me. Does he dislike me?”

  “No.” Lin Shu hugged her. “He knew he was going to be gone for a long time. He was afraid to make you more sad. He…… has always liked you very much.”

  Yingying finally smiled, and after a while, she asked, “Is Daddy really the Great Phoenix?”

  Lin Shu didn’t know how to answer.

  The so-called Nirvana was just something he had made up to reassure Yingying. Xiao Shao could not even count as a human being in the end, and had abandoned his Phoenix bloodline because of the incident with the Empress, so how could he have a Phoenix Nirvana?

  But he had to coax Yingying, then he remembered the bird feather he had found on the Altar that day.

  He took it out. The golden red Phoenix feather faintly shimmering with golden light, and at the same time, it exuded some heat but not hot enough to burn people.

  Maybe it’s some kind of treasure from the Phoenix Mountain Villa, he thought.

  “He is a Phoenix,” Lin Shu gave the feather to Yingying: “I plucked it from him.”

  Yingying was obviously very happy. After studying it for a long time, she finally pressed the precious feather under their pillows and went to sleep.

  Lin Shu looked at her for a long time by the moonlight outside the window.

  His heart was empty. He thought about the long nights like this. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to sleep again in the future.

  As he thought this, the letter left by Xiao Shao came to his mind, asking him not to sleep late.

  He has always been obedient.

  So he closed his eyes, did not think about anything. And slowly, steadily, he fell asleep.

  He had a strange dream. He was in a vast white world. Unable to distinguish between up and down, left and right, East and West, North and South.

  In the distance, there was a clear and rhythmic “knocking” sound, as if something was being repeatedly hit.

  He had nowhere to go, so he followed the sound and walked towards it.

  Finally, a round egg appeared in front of him.

  Although it was much bigger than an ordinary egg, it was so big that a small child could put its arms around it, but from the shape, it was undoubtedly an egg — Lin Shu had also fed chickens in Peach Blossoms Springs in those years.

  The crisp knocking sound was coming from the egg.

  Lin Shu thought that maybe there was a chick inside that was breaking its shell.

  However, the chick may not have strength and was of poor physique. It might have been pecking for such a long time without getting any results.

  After Lin Shu had abolished his Heartless Dao, and was forced by Xiao Shao to say “I like myself” many times, his personality has become much calmer, and now he was raising three children. He could not help but feel compassion for these young things — such as the chick in the egg.

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  He walked over to the egg.

  The chick inside “knocked” a few more times, and then, it seemed to have no more strength.

  Lin Shu stretched out his hand, bent his knuckles and knocked on the eggshell several times at the same frequency.

  Sure enough, there was another movement in the eggshell — the chick knocked a few more times.

  Lin Shu also knocked.

  In this way, it should encourage the chick inside.

  Sure enough, the chick inside pecked at its shell much faster.

  Lin Shu continued to encourage the chick.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  Knock, knock, knock, knock.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  So just like this, he kept knocking on it tirelessly.

  Finally……

  ‘Click.’

  A crack appeared on the eggshell.

  Lin Shu continued to knock.

  After the first crack appeared, what followed was much simpler. As the chick knocked from inside, the crack gradually expanded, and then at a certain moment, it split into two with a click.

  Lin Shu and the chick looked at each other.

  A large chick, a real one and similar to what he had seen before.

  Fluffy soft fur, pale yellow, round body, a pair of small wings that had not yet grown proper feathers, but giving it a very fluffy look.

  The little chick tilted its head to survey him: “Chirp.”

  Lin Shu took the chick out of its shell and put it on the ground.

  The chick raised its claws and tried to walk. However, its claws were still tender and it could not walk. It flapped its wings anxiously, but to no avail, and finally fell to the ground with a “chirp”.

  Lin Shu smiled, stroked its head affectionately, picked it up, pinched its pale pink claws, continued to put it down and encouraged it to walk.

  It seemed afraid of falling and didn’t want to walk. It just tilted its head and looked at Lin Shu.

  Lin Shu held it in his arms.

  The chick nestled in his arms and closed its eyes: “Chirp.”

  The fluffy, round and rolling mass emitted warmth. Lin Shu didn’t know what to do with it. He silently touched its hair, looked around and thought that his dream was really strange.

  There was a vast expanse of white all around. Lin Shu didn’t feel that this was appropriate. This was not the type of environment for chicks to grow. There should be grassland.

  With this thought in his mind, the surrounding scenery suddenly changed into an endless green grassland.

  All right.

  He held the chick and wandered around in the grassland.

  Newborn babies were usually very sleepy, and so was the chick, it snuggled in its arms as if it was ready to sleep forever.

  It was not until Lin Shu’s understanding was a little vague that he realized that he should wake up, he put the chick back in his shell.

  The chick seemed to wake up and looked at him. The smooth and delicate beak rubbed his fingers.

  Lin Shu opened his eyes. The sky was already bright. There was an unspeakable exhaustion in his soul.

  He got up, put on his clothes and tied his hair up casually. He then found a copy of “Interpretation of Dreams by Marquis Zhou” on the bookshelf. He looked up the content related to chickens, but it was full of nonsense about “promotion”, “wealth” and “great joy”, which was meaningless, so he didn’t think about it anymore.

  He closed the book. Yingying was not in the room. He asked the palace staff. The palace staff said that she went down to the garden to play.

  Having nothing to do, he went to the garden.

  In the palace garden, the pear blossom petals were like snow. When the east wind blew, they fell to the ground one petal after another.

  He suddenly heard a short cry of alarm.

  It was Yingying’s voice.

  Lin Shu frowned, his heart suddenly sank and flew towards the sound.

  In a single sweep, he reached and saw Yingying was being strangled by Guiltless by the side of the pond and was struggling against the hold.

  Looking at the strength of the hold, it was deadly.

  Lin Shu immediately hit Guiltless back.

  Yingying rushed into his arms, coughed and choked with tears: “I…… Just want……to give, Guiltless, say hello……”

  Lin Shu held her and comforted her a few times. He put her into Qingming cave, and asked the Senior Martial brother to look after her, then looked back at Guiltless.

  Guiltless looked directly into his eyes as if he wasn’t just hit.

  Lin Shu: “What are you doing?”

  Guiltless did not speak.

  Lin Shu frowned, “Do you want to kill her?”

  Guiltless then smiled at him, put out his red tongue, slid it against the tip of his tiger-like teeth and licked it maliciously.

  The evil atmosphere almost solidified into an entity.

  It was indeed true that he wanted to kill her. Lin Shu had no doubt.

  Yingying was the transformation of the blade Identical Sorrow. When it first transformed, it was in the Yuan Ying realm. While Guiltless on the other hand was an ancient demonic blade. Guiltless was already at the realm of Crossing the Tribulation just after his transformation– if Yingying still could not speak and was not able to cry out, or if he had arrived a little late to the garden, Yingying would have really died in his hands.

  Lin Shu took a deep breath and asked, “Why?”

  The look in Guiltless’ eyes was still so evil. There seemed to be blood dripping in his eyes. He spoke slowly. Perhaps because he had just gained human form, he was not proficient in speaking, and his tone was very stiff and strange: “Because I’m bad.”

  “There are so many people in the Palace. Why did you want to kill her?”

  Guiltless tilted his head and simply said: “I don’t like her.”

  Lin Shu: “Why?”

  Guiltless seemed to think about it and said, “A person can’t have two swords.”

  Then said, “Also a person can only have one child.”

  Having said this, he licked his lips again, not hiding his malicious gaze: “I wanted to kill her when I was still a blade.”

  Since he was still a blade…… That is to say, both Guiltless and Identical Sorrow were Xiao Shao’s blades. From that time, Guiltless had already some grudges.

  Lin Shu knew that according to common logic, this was the time to get angry, or get mad.

  But he had no experience dealing with common people, he didn’t know how to say those kinds of things, and he didn’t know how to be mean to people.

  He finally said, “You need to change.”

  Guiltless: “I was born this bad.”

  He tugged at the corner of Lin Shu’s coat and looked up at him with a threatening meaning: “You just leave me alone.”

  Lin Shu just wanted to restrain him, but Guiltless turned into a puff of light smoke and scattered.

  This was Xiao Shao’s blade. And it had learned a hundred percent of Xiao Shao’s methods.

  Lin Shu had to go back to the Qingming Cave first, he comforted Yingying, and let her stay inside first. Then he took his sword and looked for the Guiltless blade everywhere. On the one hand, he wanted to get him back, on the other hand, he felt it was dangerous to let Guiltless move freely.

  Finally, in the corner of a pavilion in Wutong Court, he saw Guiltless curled up in a corner.

  He was hugging an ink-black feather cloak, burying his face in it, which Lin Shu recognized as Xiao Shao’s old belongings.

  Hearing his footsteps, Guiltless slowly lifted his face from the feather cloak and there were two bloodstains hanging under his eyes.

  He seemed to be crying, as if he had been wronged.

  It’s just that he had a special physique — different swords, each with unusual qualities, there were no tears, instead blood flowed from his eyes.

  Lin Shu had come to give him punishment, but he saw this scene — a scene wherein Guiltless was curled up in a corner hugging Xiao Shao’s old things. He had no other choice, he became very soft-hearted.

  He pulled Guiltless from out of the corner and wiped the blood off his face.

  Guiltless let him do as he pleased, he only smiled strangely.

  After doing all this, Lin Shu ignored him again.

  He also ignored Lin Shu.

  It was impossible to go on like this.

  Lin Shu even wanted to send the problem child to get an electric shock.

  He finally made a decision. He took him to live in Jiangnan for some time, not for anything else, but so that he would no longer have a chance to cause trouble, and then get to know himself more, at least to be able to communicate.

  There was a lovely spring scene south of the Yangtze River during the third lunar month.

  In the Peach Blossom Valley left by Xiao Shao, peach blossoms were in full bloom.

  Peach blossoms, like clouds, were falling one after another with the wind all over the mountain forest, and all over Lin Shu.

  He went up the mountain with Guiltless, where the peach blossoms were most abundant and the bamboo house stood in place.

  He did not know what kind of mood he was in after seeing the interior and exterior of the bamboo house. Finally, at the back of the bamboo house where the peach blossoms had fallen and scattered, he found a half-open empty mound without a name.

  He knew what this was.

  It was the tomb Xiao Shao had left for himself.

  Xiao Shao had left this Peach Blossom Valley for him three years ago.

  At that time, he was in the Sword Pavilion and Xiao Shao was in the world of mortals. It also coincided with the troubled times. Xiao Shao knew that he might die in battle at any time.

  He did not want to be buried in the Villa, did not want to sleep in the Royal Mausoleum, and could not have a place in the Sword Pavilion’s Sword Mound –so he left an empty mound for himself here. One day when he finally would lay down his life in battlefields, he would be buried in this mound, and would be intended to be given to Lin Shu. And when by chance, Lin Shu happened to come by this place, he would see the Peach Blossoms scattered in the wind in the mountains and this also counted as an earthly reunion.

  But…… He had dissipated with not even ashes left and there was no body to bury.

  Peach blossoms rolled all over and blew into the grave. If Guiltless had not transformed into a human shape, Lin Shu would have buried it here.

  ——But he was a living person and couldn’t be buried.

  He thought about it, took out the Phoenix feather and intended to put it in the mound.

  The moment he put it in, a voice suddenly came from his divine soul.

  “Chii —!”