When Xu Jing rushed forward and pulled Xu Ying into an embrace, it still felt as if he were holding a child.
There were two Xu Yings in his memory. One was the Xu Ying who had fled Kunlun: still a young boy, terrified and helpless, running out from the blazing fire, fleeing toward the unknown as gods and immortals pursued him.
The other was the Xu Ying who had descended from the Immortal Realm to the mortal world to seek him out: a young man, confident, formidable, radiating an extraordinary charm.
Yet now, holding Xu Ying in his arms, he realized this Xu Ying was neither the child nor the grown man, but a youth.
This youthful Xu Ying had a broad frame, but he was somewhat thin. Before escaping Kunlun, Xu Ying had been a well-fed child, not chubby, but certainly not gaunt.
The young adult Xu Ying had been a handsome man, also not thin, his build perfectly proportioned.
Only the youthful Xu Ying in his arms looked noticeably thin.
Xu Jing felt a pang of sorrow in his heart. The hardships Xu Ying had suffered had all taken place during this youth.
Holding his son by the shoulders, he gently pushed Xu Ying back a little to take him in. What he saw was a somewhat bashful youth with sun-browned skin, large eyes that darted away with a hint of evasion, tinged with bewilderment and joy.
This was Xu Ying—not the ruthless titan among immortals, nor the child fleeing for his life.
To Xu Jing, the great fire that had destroyed Xujiaping remained vivid, the visages of each god and immortal seemingly right before his eyes, as fresh as if it had happened only yesterday.
To Xu Ying, however, that blaze was hazy, and the emerging faces of those gods and immortals appeared blurred and ferocious, like a nightmare from his childhood.
In this nightmare, everything of his childhood had collapsed into ruin amid the flames, buried beneath the Imperial Monarch's sixteen-character seal, leaving only this fire still blazing furiously—a fire that even the Imperial Monarch's seal could not suppress.
For over forty thousand years, this nightmare had surfaced time and again, haunting him.
Xu Ying yearned for family—yearned for it with an aching intensity, dreaming of returning to his father's side, returning to his mother's side.
Yet suddenly, one day, his father Xu Jing appeared before him and gathered him into his arms, and Xu Ying felt an unexpected estrangement, even hesitation to accept him as his kin.
He even felt an impulse to flee.
He was like an adopted child who had finally returned to his parents one day, only to have an uncle point at an unfamiliar middle-aged man and say, "Look, that's your real father."
Perhaps it was the unfamiliarity, or perhaps happiness had arrived too abruptly for his mind to process.
In a daze, Xu Ying called out, "Father," and then simply listened as the excited Xu Jing rambled on and on about this and that.
In his memory, Xu Jing's features gradually grew clearer. Many recollections of his father resurfaced, yet it still felt as if a thin film stood between them, separating him from Xu Jing. Even Xu Jing's voice sounded distant and dreamlike.
It was not until he drifted like a sleepwalker to a bed in Hunyuan Palace, lay down, and fell into a deep slumber that Xu Ying finally shook himself free of this state the next morning.
A profound warmth of kinship enveloped his heart, brimming with unprecedented joy. The emotions of a long-awaited reunion between father and son surged like a tide, nourishing his parched soul.
He walked over to Xu Jing.
Xu Jing still felt a bit crestfallen. Yesterday, Xu Ying's reaction had been somewhat distant—treating him almost like a stranger, merely addressing him as "Father" out of politeness.
He had sensed the resistance and awkwardness.
This time, however, Xu Ying walked up to him and threw his arms around him tightly, clutching his neck and shoulders. Xu Jing felt hot tears wet his neck. A fierce wave of paternal love and filial devotion crashed over him, blurring his vision in an instant as tears spilled helplessly down his cheeks.
Only now did he truly feel that the son holding him so tightly was neither the terrified, crying child nor the shrewd titan with everything in his grasp.
The childhood Xu Ying had needed to sit at a desk, receiving his father's earnest instruction. The young adult Xu Ying had devised master plans and calculated every variable, arranging everything for his father without a flaw.
Yet the son in his arms right now was simply a youth who had weathered untold tribulations—grown, but not yet fully grown.
His frame was broad, yet lacked mature strength; his feelings were rich, yet not yet tempered and robust; his intellect was brilliant, yet still lacked depth and worldly weight.
Xu Jing could not stop his tears from flowing. He had always felt he had missed out on his son's growing years, yet the appearance of this youthful Xu Ying seemed to restore that lost piece of the puzzle.
But in the meantime, how much suffering had Xu Ying endured?
After all, forty-eight thousand years had passed.
The Undying Immortal, living and dying, placed into one family after another, injected with false memory after false memory, like a puppet on strings manipulated through lifetime after lifetime.
What he had gone through in those forty-eight thousand years was an agony etched so deeply into his bones that only Xu Ying himself could fathom it as the memories returned.
After a long time, having finally vented the joy and sorrow pent up in his chest, Xu Ying released Xu Jing. Both father and son had drenched each other's shoulders.
Xu Ying wiped away his tears and smiled. "Father, I found a message left behind by Mother."
He produced the hairpin and placed it in Xu Jing's hand.
The aged hairpin awakened a memory in Xu Jing. Xu Ying had gathered immortal metal and gemstones in the mountains during his spare time, hammering and crafting this hairpin with his own hands. His wife had even teased Xu Jing over it back then, saying he was nowhere near as thoughtful as their son.
Holding the hairpin, Xu Jing felt a wave of memories wash over him, tingeing his thoughts with melancholy.
A family of three, separated for nearly fifty thousand years. When would they ever be reunited?
Xu Ying activated the ancient method of the six secret depositories within the hairpin. The ruby revolved, and passages of text materialized around them. Clearing his mind of stray thoughts, Xu Jing examined these six texts of the six secrets ancestral method and let out a surprised gasp.
"This isn't the ancestral method I passed down to you!"
Xu Jing's expression turned grave. He said in a deep voice, "This technique is far older. The wording is extraordinarily refined and carries an ancient rhythm. It must hail from a much earlier era."
Scanning them one by one, he said to Xu Ying, "This isn't your mother's handwriting; it's yours. Where did you obtain these six ancient texts?"
Then sudden realization struck him, and he added, "Ah, of course. You still haven't broken the seal and haven't recovered the memories of your first life, so you naturally wouldn't remember this. You brought out these ancient texts because you wanted to ask where our Xu family's ancestral method came from."
Xu Jing had not been idle during his days in the Ancestral Court; he was constantly asking around about Xu Ying's past.
He felt that he owed this son of his far too much. First, on Penglai Immortal Mountain, he had talked at length with Divine Mother, Fairy Gushe, and the others. Later, guided by Divine Mother, he had sought out Little Celestial Venerable and spoken with him for a long time.
He had also met Zhu Chanchan and discussed Xu Ying's past with her, and just as Foolish Ah Fu returned from Yuanshou, he inquired about Xu Ying from Foolish Ah Fu as well.
The stories each person told him were different, but pieced together, they formed a mosaic of Xu Ying's experiences across these forty-odd thousand years.
He had wept countless times over Xu Ying's tragic ordeals, yet felt immense gratification at his son's ability to rise once more. He had also heard about the love story between Xu Ying and Yuan Weiyang, which filled him with great curiosity about the young woman, leaving him eager to fly straight to Kunlun just to see her.
Though his appearance was not old, he was every bit the devoted, aging father at heart.
"The ancestral method of Kunlun is ancient indeed," Xu Jing recounted the history of the six secrets ancestral method. "Its origins can be traced back to the ancient era when people migrated from the Ancestral Court and spread across the myriad worlds of the heavens."
Xu Jing explained, "I once heard the clan elders speak of it. An elder once said that our ancestral method was actually adapted from the immortal arts of the Ancestral Court."
Xu Ying was stirred. "Immortal arts of the Ancestral Court?"
An absurd feeling arose in his heart. The origin of the Nuo methods actually stemmed from the immortal arts of the Ancestral Court. What would those who rejected and despised the Nuo methods think of that?
Xu Jing nodded. "I once wanted to explore the origins of the ancestral method as well, but Kunlun is a critical juncture connecting the myriad worlds, and I could never make the journey. The six secrets ancestral method already existed roughly six hundred thousand years ago, though back then it was brief and crude. I once browsed an ancient volume preserved in the clan from a hundred thousand years ago, and its records on harvesting the qi of the six secret depositories and refining it into immortal medicine were already an obsolete version."
The ancestral method had evolved continuously rather than resting on its laurels. By the time it was passed down to Xu Jing's generation, it had taken the form of gathering the qi of the six great other shores, refining it into immortal medicine within cave-heavens, channeling it into the body, and assimilating it internally.
This ancestral method was exceedingly complex, requiring a dedicated cultivation technique to coordinate with it before the immortal medicine could be refined. That technique was the Taiyi Inborn Technique.
Without cultivating the Taiyi Inborn Technique, one could never hope to master it!
Nevertheless, many simplified versions of the Nuo methods had spread outward, taught by the Xu family to the Undying People of Kunlun.
When the ancestral method reached Xu Ying's generation, Xu Ying had drastically revolutionized it, forging six palaces—such as Doushuai and Mud Pill—upon the six other shores, channeling the qi of the six shores directly into immortal crucibles to transform into immortal medicine. In this way, anyone could cultivate the Nuo methods.
Yet it had also stirred up no small amount of trouble.
Xu Jing said, "The ancient method in the hairpin must be even older—older than the volume from a hundred thousand years ago. In other words, there might be an important figure in the Immortal Realm who is well-versed in the Nuo methods and holds a towering status..."
He was a sharp man as well, and quickly grasped the crux of the matter.
Back then, the reason Xu Ying had been able to gain a firm footing in the Immortal Realm so quickly, rising within three hundred years to become the foremost True Monarch among the Three Realized Ones of the Dou Department, was likely due to this great figure pulling strings behind the scenes!
"If this great figure hails from between one hundred thousand and six hundred thousand years ago, then his surname must be Xu, an ancestor of our family."
Xu Jing continued, "And if he comes from six hundred thousand years ago, then..."
His expression grew solemn. "Ah Ying, he might well be the entity who left behind the ten cave-heavens above Kunlun!"
Xu Ying gasped, "The ten cave-heavens of Kunlun?"
He had once heard the Queen Mother of the West mention that ten cave-heavens above Kunlun connected to the Immortal Realm. These ten cave-heavens were immensely ancient, drawing immortal spiritual qi from afar in the Immortal Realm and transmuting it into ten distinct forms of energy, making Kunlun rival any immortal paradise!
Among them, Kunlun's Jade Pool cave-heaven was sealed by the Immortal Realm. The immortal spiritual qi channeled through that cave-heaven was transformed into Jade Pool immortal water!
Jade Pool immortal water was the key to Xu Ying saving the Four Emperors of the Netherworld!
If the ten cave-heavens of Kunlun were artificially created and left behind, just how powerful must their creator have been?
Xu Jing said, "Regarding the ten cave-heavens of Kunlun, there have always been two opinions within the clan. One holds that they formed naturally, while the other claims they were opened by the person who founded the ancestral method. Those who say they formed naturally believe our ancestral method was inspired by the immortal arts of the Ancestral Court combined with the enlightenment our ancestors drew from the ten cave-heavens. Those who believe they were artificially created maintain that the founder of the ancestral method attained supreme divine powers, pierced through to the Immortal Realm, and opened the ten great cave-heavens of Kunlun."
Either speculation was staggering.
Xu Ying could not help asking, "Father, could the person who pioneered the ancestral method be an ancestor of our Xu family?"
Xu Jing hesitated, then shook his head. "Not necessarily. Our Xu family was ordered to guard Kunlun's Jade Void Peak. Since we were under orders, there must have been someone above us. It's possible the Xu family's ancestral method was passed down from the Ancestral Court six hundred thousand years ago, or it might have been created by our ancestors. But in any case, whoever created the ancestral method is a patriarch of our Xu family."
Too much time had passed. The oldest records surviving in the Xu family dated back only to the ancestral method of a hundred thousand years ago; anything earlier had been lost to history for various reasons.
Xu Jing said, "When I was young, I even saw a plaque enshrined in our ancestral hall, bestowed upon the Xu family by the Immortal Realm, honoring our meritorious service to the state."
Xu Ying reminded him, "Yet we were slaughtered as rebels!"
"I know," Xu Jing said.
He had been a scholar and teacher, and this matter confounded him deeply. "Our Xu family guarded Kunlun's Jade Void Peak under orders, overseeing the junction between the immortal and mortal realms. Whenever emperors of the various worlds came to Kunlun to offer sacrifices to their ancestors or to ascend, they had to pass through Jade Void Peak. That is to say, there were people in the Immortal Realm specifically tasked with receiving ascending sovereigns. The Xu family was effectively an arm of the Immortal Court in the mortal realm. Yet overnight, we were branded rebels. Our family did nothing wrong..."
A bewildered look clouded his face; he simply could not fathom why.
"I know the reason," Xu Ying said, patting his father's shoulder. "The Immortal Realm simply wanted to bring the mortal realms under its control and establish Heavenly Dao worlds.
"Kunlun is a miniature Heavenly Dao world that commands the faith of the common folk, and the Netherworld is much the same. Thus, possessing such a treasure was our crime."
Xu Jing nodded gently, clutching the old hairpin, his voice slightly hoarse. "If that's the case, why didn't the patriarch who founded the ancestral method save our family?"
He was at a complete loss.
Xu Ying stepped out of Hunyuan Palace and breathed in the biting chill of the outside air, purple qi coursing behind him to pierce heaven and earth.
He gazed toward the Ancestral Court and saw colossal heaven-mending divine artifacts rising across heaven and earth. Dao light burst forth from artifacts of every shape and form, lights intertwining and Great Daos interlocking in a magnificent, surging panorama.
Xu Jing came to his side, standing with him to take in the majestic sight.
"Six hundred thousand years ago, the Ancestral Court was destroyed by the flames of war from the Immortal Realm," Xu Ying said, looking into the distance. "Ever since, the Ancestral Court has been treated as a demonic realm, and the ancient people living here branded as demons.
"Six hundred thousand years ago, the people of the Ancestral Court migrated to the myriad worlds of the heavens through Kunlun. Father, there is a serious problem here."
Xu Jing said, "If they all originated from the Ancestral Court, why was the Ancestral Court slandered as demonic?"
In the distance, the winds and clouds began to stir, shifting unpredictably.
A woman in white was walking toward them, clouds and mist billowing around her to form draconic and phoenix patterns that swirled ceaselessly about her figure.
Xu Ying said in surprise, "Lady Qingbi? How did she leave the Yuanzheng World and come to the Ancestral Court?"
Xu Jing beamed with delight. "Is that my daughter-in-law?"
Feeling slightly awkward, Xu Ying shook his head. "No."
Xu Jing looked even more expectant. "Is she my other daughter-in-law?"
Chapter 469