That gold foil mask originally belonged to Emperor Wu of Yan. The gold was refined from a substance from beyond the heavens. As for the twin-dragon totem…
“You’re a twin?” Yun Yi was stunned and released Xiao Zhi’s hand.
“That’s right, a twin. The person you saw was my imperial brother.”
Yun Guoqiang studied Xiao Zhi seriously: “Royal twins have always been considered an ill omen, liable to trigger succession struggles. After Emperor Wu of Yan rebelled and declared himself king, when you were born…”
“Teacher Yun is right.” Xiao Zhi picked up Yun Guoqiang’s words. “When I was born, my father was still a general of the previous dynasty.”
Twins in a general’s family would one day be reserve generals inheriting their father’s profession. There was no such thing as twin ill omens.
Two sons—one clever, one steady.
To the Xiao family, this was a tremendous joy.
General Xiao happened to obtain gold from beyond the heavens. He forged it with his own hands. His two young sons gathered beside him, quietly watching him hammer the gold into a thin sheet.
Their father, seeing his two obedient sons, softened. He took his elder son’s small hand, and father and son carved together on the mask.
“Dad, why did you leave me out? I want to draw too.”
“Alright, alright. This time it’s Zhi’er’s turn.”
Xiao Zhi imitated his brother and carved earnestly.
On the gold foil mask appeared two small snakes.
“So ugly, like snakes.”
He was dissatisfied. He wanted to draw the Azure Dragon of the nine heavens.
His father suddenly came back to himself, staring at the mask in disbelief.
How were these snakes? They were clearly two coiled, intertwined dragons.
Such a treasonous thing laid his ambition bare.
In the instant he was about to destroy the gold foil, a child’s voice, soft and young, rang out:
“Dad, are these two dragons? Are they Big Brother and me?”
His father narrowed his eyes and looked at his second son thoughtfully.
In the end, the gold foil mask was not destroyed but hidden away in a secret chamber.
Only after he became emperor did the gold foil mask see the light of day again.
“So that’s how it was!” Yun Guoqiang rubbed his sore eyes. “Old Yu lost! He insisted they were snakes.”
Yun Yi was somewhat uncertain now. She had seen Xiao Qian several times but had never noticed the difference between the two.
“So when you transmigrated here, it let your big brother sit on the dragon throne.”
As she spoke, Xiao Qian’s raised-eyebrow look appeared in her mind.
Her eyes closed and blinked, and Xiao Qian’s brow-cut wound appeared.
The scene shifted. Around her were bright yellow curtains, soft brocade quilts, fragrant pillows, a rising and falling chest.
Whose chest was that?
She couldn’t tell which was Xiao Qian and which was Xiao Zhi.
She unconsciously bit her cheek. Her sleeping posture was so poor. After transmigrating to Yan, she had slept on the dragon bed several times, mistaking the emperor for a body pillow.
Then who exactly had she been hugging…
“He sat on it himself.” Xiao Zhi corrected. “At first, I didn’t know the flow of time differed between the two places.”
He watched her expression shift red and white, her thoughts clearly flown elsewhere.
Yun Guoqiang didn’t know what the two were doing.
Though they had released hands, they still leaned close before the display case holding the gold foil.
Two young faces, very close together, whispering about who knew what.
“You’re thinking about Xiao Qian?”
Yun Yi vehemently denied it.
“No use thinking about it.” Xiao Zhi’s expression didn’t change, but his words were a bit urgent. “He made Lady Yue empress and took so many concubines, yet had no heirs—”
This sentence Yun Guoqiang heard clearly. He joined the discussion: “Your big brother—he has azoospermia, right.”
Yun Yi found it absurd: “Azoospermia?!”
Xiao Zhi: “?”
Yun Guoqiang stared at Xiao Zhi from top to bottom, his gaze stopping at one spot.
“Hiss, could this disease be hereditary?” He mused.
Xiao Zhi: “…”
The Yan dynasty emperor quietly changing hands—no one had anticipated this turn.
A light ignited in Yun Guoqiang’s eyes: “Xiao Xiao, work a few more days of overtime and tell us things not in the historical records? You’re the man himself.”
Yun Yi protested solemnly: “Dad!”
Making the Emperor work 996—her dad was the first.
“I’ll pay wages.” Yun Guoqiang’s face was full of expectation. “Room and board included!”
Yun Yi was angered into laughter by her father’s shamelessness: “Sleeping in a tent counts as room and board?”
Xiao Zhi’s palm warmed. The hand he had held all along was clasped back into his.
“Hey, Xiao Xiao…” Yun Guoqiang fought and scrambled. “Uncle will specially approve double wages for you? Stay one more night? Just one night, hm?”
Before Yun Yi dragged him away, Xiao Zhi tilted his head and said regretfully to Yun Guoqiang: “Someone won’t let me earn this money. Goodbye, Teacher Yun.”
Their two hands were blatantly clasped together, fingers interlocked, particularly eye-catching.
Yun Guoqiang felt a faint bitterness in his heart. Back when he and Cheng Su were dating, it was exactly like this—sticky and inseparable…
.
The sun pushed aside the thick clouds. The consecutive days of bad weather finally ended.
The small-statured girl dragged the tall man along, but the one behind refused to cooperate, deliberately shuffling his feet.
Her arm was almost pulled straight. Her palm grew heavier and heavier. Yun Yi turned her head angrily: “You’re the one who said we should leave.”
Xiao Zhi held her hand and stood still.
Yun Yi shook her hand but couldn’t break free. She had no choice but to pull him forward like a tug-of-war.
And he, for his part, was like a white poplar deeply rooted in the earth—not moving an inch.
“How are you standing so firm?!”
“Daily standing meditation.”
“…”
In the Yun family backyard, there was still a camphor tree stump Yun Yi had picked up from the neighborhood greenery, specifically for his martial arts practice.
Xiao Zhi used skillful leverage and gently pulled. Like a kite, she returned to stand before him.
He lowered his voice, carrying a note of grievance: “You believe me now? I did not establish an empress.”
He had come to her clean and pure, yet not only had she falsely accused him of having three palaces and six courtyards, even his fertility had been questioned by Yun’s father.
There was truly no place to redress his grievances.
“I tried every method, searched every way,” Xiao Zhi said with forbearance. “It took me great effort to find you.”
Fragrance curled around her nose in threads. Yun Yi looked up and found herself facing the small mole on his neck.
Her heart suddenly pounded twice.
She froze before him, her fingertip against Xiao Zhi’s suit front.
He wasn’t much better off.
His heartbeat was like a drum, beating through the not-thick fabric, each thud striking her palm.
Thinking of his long five years—seeking the Celestial Master, using ritual arts… years of hardship, finally succeeding in transmigrating.
Yun Yi felt this was harder than the eighty-one trials. Who knew how much suffering he had endured.
Her throat tightened slightly: “What method did you use?”
Xiao Zhi’s expression was serious, afraid she couldn’t bear to hear it.
Yun Yi suddenly pushed up his sleeve. Both wrists were intact, without any cuts.
Xiao Zhi didn’t understand her meaning. He stood still, letting her push his sleeve up, checking his wrists inch by inch.
A tingling itch came from his forearm. The words “separation between men and women” flashed through Xiao Zhi’s mind.
When Yun Yi looked up again, she saw his face had reddened.
“Thank goodness.” She let out a breath of relief. “I thought you’d used bloodletting or some kind of witchcraft.”
“I summoned the Celestial Master back. According to the Heavenly Revelation Star Chart, the star gate has opened. One need only reverse its course and take the elixirs he refined to travel to the place from which the alien star came.”
The elixirs sounded very unreliable. Yun Yi asked hesitantly: “How much silver did you give the Celestial Master?”
“A hundred thousand taels of gold.”
“…”
Xiao Zhi added: “But it still failed. Turns out the Celestial Master was a fraud. He took the gold and ran off in the night.”
“…”
She was speechless. She looked at Xiao Zhi as if looking at an old person who had bought health supplements.
Snap. A thread in her mind suddenly broke.
Yun Yi’s expression changed from worry to fury: “You owe me seventy thousand taels! And you got scammed by the Celestial Master for that much? What are you going to repay me with?”
The security guard wanted to intervene but didn’t dare.
Teacher Yun’s daughter had been scammed out of tens of thousands?
He looked at Xiao Zhi. The guy looked decent enough and had a glib tongue. Wasn’t this just an offline version of a pig-butchering scam?
Xiao Zhi watched her angry expression with a smile: “If I have money to repay you, will you stop being angry?”
Yun Yi was like a bristling kitten: “Where would you get money?”
He’d transmigrated several times and hadn’t even brought a single gold ingot. Could she count on him?
Xiao Zhi: “Come. I’ll take you somewhere.”
The security guard kind of wanted to call the police. This young man wasn’t going to sell the girl, was he?
Yun Yi drove the whole way.
The scenery grew more and more familiar.
She lowered the car window a crack. Light mountain wind poured in, carrying the fresh scent of plants.
Her impulsive mind cleared considerably. Yun Yi asked: “Why did you bring me to Emperor Ridge?”
Xiao Family Village was surrounded by mountains on three sides. According to the village chief, the village nestled against the dragon vein—a feng shui treasure land steeped in dragon qi.
Every household in the village lived well—except the pair of siblings, Daoist Nun Xiao and Daoist Xiao.
Xiao Zhi asked Yun Yi if she remembered the Daoist temple they passed on the way back to the capital after the campaign.
Yun Yi certainly remembered. She had learned to draw peace talismans there with the young Daoist.
“That Daoist temple was Fuyun Temple.” Xiao Zhi pointed into the distance.
The car headed up the mountain. After rounding a bend, a Daoist temple appeared at the end of the forest.
The memories of transmigrating to Yan were still before her eyes. Yun Yi clearly remembered that temple had not been on a mountain.
“Even if it relocated, building a Daoist temple in Yan would take years. By any calculation, there wasn’t enough time.” Yun Yi added.
Moreover, this Fuyun Temple was newly built by Xiao Family Village. How could it be a Yan dynasty relic?
Xiao Zhi: “I left an oral decree for Xiao Qian, telling him to do as I said.”
The sun rose higher, piercing through the sparse branches and illuminating the hanging peace talismans.
A young Daoist was picking up fallen yellow talismans beneath a tree.
The temple was ancient and plain. A fallen leaf drifted onto the door plaque. Bells and drums chimed softly, mixed with faint chanting.
After parking, Yun Yi jingled the car keys: “Let’s get out.”
A thousand years ago, he had also stepped down from his carriage like this, in a dragon robe.
The young Daoist noticed the newcomers and said politely: “A ritual is in progress. The temple gate is closed. We are not receiving worshippers these days. Please come another day, benefactors.”
Yun Yi naturally took Xiao Zhi’s arm: “The gate’s closed. Tourists can’t get in.”
Creak. The tightly shut temple gate suddenly swung open.
A scolding voice came to meet them: “Wuchen, is this how you treat your master’s honored guest?”
The young Daoist’s expression changed drastically: “Master, why have you come out?”
“Kneel.”
The young Daoist knelt in terror.
A thin figure stumbled over.
It was an elderly temple master.
His forehead was deeply lined, his steps unsteady. Only the topknot on his head was still tied meticulously.
Thud. He dropped to his knees.
“This humble Daoist pays respects to the Emper—”
The words stopped abruptly.
He pressed his trembling lips together and reverently changed his words:
“This humble Daoist pays respects to Benefactor Xiao.”
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