Author: 易修罗 / Yi Xiu Luo

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

---

Chapter 112

Year after year, as winter left and spring arrived, nature may use scorching heat to stop streams from flowing into the sea, drought to prevent bountiful harvests, and bitter cold to halt the melting of ice and snow. But it couldn’t prevent the march of spring, when the creatures of the natural world love and mate, reproducing and thriving.

Even the new Tianxiu people, not of this natural realm, couldn’t escape such a fate.

Love always happened unexpectedly, arising from emotion but not confined by propriety. When those in love were together, instinct made them yearn to draw close, to touch each other, to make the other a part of their body, allowing their souls to blend seamlessly. Yet, the sword hanging over their heads was always ready to strike, delivering the deadliest blow at the cruelest moment.

Ye Zheng’s mind cleared in an instant, and he forcefully pushed away the person in front of him. They were just a moment away from kissing, a deadly act of love. For some, love was forbidden fruit, but for them, it was poison; a mere touch meant death.

Ling Qi, pushed away, fell hard to the ground, nearly losing his senses as well. The pain brought him back to reality, and his body’s chemical levels slowly decreased.

“We can’t,” Ye Zheng, normally confident, stuttered. “We mustn’t…”

Ling Qi, looking at the person who pushed him away, not only lacked the intention to help him up but also strained to turn his head away, only able to let out a long sigh after a while.

This sigh contained all the helplessness of the Tianxiu people, who overthrew the rule of the original Tianxiu but still could not master their own lives.

Laughter sounded from above, and Ye Zheng immediately looked up alertly. “Who’s there?!”

A person jumped down from the tree, a strange figure with the height of an adult but the distinctive gray eyes of a fledgling.

An alien? An extraterrestrial? Various possibilities flashed through Ye Zheng’s mind as he quietly reached behind him.

“Wait!”

Ling Qi stopped him, and Ye Zheng realized that he had already stood up from the ground.

After bypassing Ye Zheng, Ling Qi approached the uninvited guest, examining him closely before softly exclaiming, “You are me.”

“Exactly,” Ling Xiao grinned. “We both carry the royal genes, and we have an instinctual intuition for souls. Even separated by many generations, we can recognize each other.”

As he spoke, his voice was in non-standard Tianxiu language. Although understandable, the pronunciation was a bit strange.

“Your pronunciation is odd.”

“I’m trying hard to learn, okay? The pronunciation of ancient Tianxiu language is really tough, and you guys don’t even have a language chip.”

After all, for Ling Xiao, who woke up with an inherent knowledge of a language and could understand and speak it just by inserting a chip, learning a new language from scratch was an unprecedented experience.

“You’re not from here, so where are you from?” Ling Qi asked curiously.

“From four thousand years in the future. Some bad guy time-traveled and dragged me along.”

“Where is he?”

“He lost his soul halfway through the journey, leaving unlucky me bouncing around in time, out of control, never knowing when I might disappear. Don’t be surprised if I vanish in the next second,” Ling Xiao warned him in advance.

“For you, isn’t what’s happening now history from the era you lived in?”

“I’ve said before that I wanted to come back and see for myself, and unexpectedly, here I am.”

“So what have you seen?”

“Over the years, I’ve watched you go from Ling Yi Ling Er to Ling Qi, and in each life, you’ve been killed by this guy.” Ye Zheng shook when he heard Ling Xiao say this while looking at him.

Ling Xiao had a belly full of complaints, and he had to let them out or he would burst. “Except for the first time, in every life, it was him who accidentally killed you; then he would regret it immensely and commit suicide the next day. I’m tired of the same old story. Can’t you just buck up and beat him for once? Maybe our energy pod is located in a spot with bad feng shui. Next time, try a different one. Surely the Ling family’s energy pods must be cursed.”

Ling Qi turned back to look at Ye Zheng, who was equally astonished, shocked, and at a loss. He thought he had fallen in love with Ling Qi uncontrollably, knowing that love meant sacrifice for one of them. Unexpectedly, there was such a perennial bond between them. No wonder the moment he saw him, it felt like he saw the partner destined by fate.

Ling Xiao looked at Ye Zheng and also felt a rush of emotions. Whether it was the Jun Lin of the first generation or him in this life, they were all so emotionally rich that they could fight against instinct and fate. How did he become so icy by the time it got to Ying Feng? Or was it because the emotions were too abundant, so they were consumed early? If that was the case, then his previous selves were too excessive, not leaving anything for him.

“What does four thousand years later look like?” Ling Qi seemed to be talking to himself. “Have they overcome the coming-of-age ceremony, so they no longer kill each other… or is it like today, where for survival, only one of the loving pair can live.”

“Well,” Ling Xiao looked up at the sky, “although tragedies don’t completely disappear, at least solutions have been found that the vast majority can accept.”

“What about Ye Zheng and me?”

Seeing Ye Zheng reminded Ling Xiao of Ying Feng and the words he had said, and he couldn’t help but smile knowingly. “Our legacy has been carried on through us.”

“That sounds pretty good.” Ling Qi’s curiosity was piqued by his words. “Can you tell me more?”

……

“…So, our principal actually waited for him for a hundred years, and just as they met, both of them died. How tragic is that?” Ling Xiao hadn’t spoken to anyone in a long time, and once he started, he recounted a bunch of stories—his own and others’—almost recounting the deeds of everyone he knew.

“It is quite pitiful.” Ling Qi watched him search the ground, puzzled. “What are you looking for?”

“Stones.” Ling Xiao finally found one with a nice shape and stretched out his hand. “Lend me your dagger.”

Ling Qi handed him the dagger. “Have people in the future given up using daggers?”

“Not really. I lost my dagger shortly after I arrived here, and by now it’s probably become an antique, and in a few more years it will be a cultural relic,” he said as he focused on carving into the stone with Ling Qi’s dagger.

“What are you carving?” Ling Qi asked out of curiosity.

“A stone of remembrance.” Ling Xiao blew the dust off the surface of the stone and stood it up for him to see. “How’s the carving?”

“Oh sami suka,” Ling Qi read it out. “Who are you missing?”

Before Ling Xiao could answer, Ling Qi continued, “It must be Ye Zheng’s ‘legacy’, right? Knowing that we’re still together after four thousand years, you’d be willing to die in the coming-of-age ceremony at the hands of each other.”

“Well, even so, you don’t always have to lose. Winning occasionally wouldn’t be too bad.”

Ling Qi examined Ling Xiao’s carving closely. “Your Tianxiu language is written much more standardly than spoken.”

“Of course,” Ling Xiao said proudly. “I’ve practiced.”

“But I don’t understand.” Ling Qi asked, “What are you carving this for?”

“I’m leaving some assets for Ying Feng. You may not see it now, but in four thousand years, this will be a cultural relic of immense value. If I keep carving like this all the way, I’ll be rich when I get back.”

“If it’s meant for him, why don’t you use your language? So he could understand it, right?”

“Don’t be silly. If I used modern… future language to carve, the first person who digs it up would just throw it away, okay? Who would think it’s an ancient relic?”

Ling Qi was also amused. “I didn’t consider that. But are you sure your sentiment will withstand the test of time and successfully be received by that person?”

“I’m sure.” Ling Xiao looked at the stone in his hand and his eyes involuntarily softened. “Because I’ve seen them with my own eyes, neatly displayed in a museum, row upon row, linking the entire history of Tianxiu.”

That was his future footprint. He would step on these stones one by one, wade through the river of history, and return to the person he longed for.

And these worthless stones, precisely because they carried his sentiment, from now on were endowed with a new name—the Stones of Remembrance.

They would become a way for Tianxiu lovers to express their love, allowing one’s feelings to be delivered to their other half in three years, five years, ten years, or even four thousand years. It symbolized not just fervent love but also enduring longing—when the initial fervor cooled down yet could settle into the perpetual flow of eternal time.

Oh sami suka.

I miss you.

“Ling Qi!” Ye Zheng returned, shouting Ling Qi’s name.

“What’s wrong?” Ling Qi took back his dagger and jumped down from the high platform.

“Did you see the news? The Genetic Center has developed a new way to activate the coming-of-age ceremony. It can be triggered as long as there is a subjective wish.”

“But the previous conditions haven’t been canceled, have they?”

“That’s right, but…”

“So, it means both of us can find someone else irrelevant to complete the coming-of-age ceremony. This way, we can both live on without worrying about our souls dispersing.”

“Exactly!” Ye Zheng seemed somewhat excited.

“But have you ever considered that even if I don’t die by your hand, I might die at the hands of someone else, and the person you kill could also be the beloved of another?” Ling Qi’s gaze drifted into the distance. “You might find my hopes naive, but I wish for a coming-of-age ceremony where no one dies as a result. Are our lives doomed to be built on the sacrifice of a fellow being?”

“If that’s really the case, rather than living with the life of an unrelated person on my conscience or risking death at the hands of a stranger, I’d rather die by your hand—at least that would feel like a worthy end.”

He turned to Ling Xiao. “You say you jump around uncontrollably, but there must be some pattern, right? Your presence here isn’t a coincidence; it’s because I am here, and it’s very likely that I’m about to die.”

Ling Xiao hesitated to speak. “Uh…”

Through his recent experiences, he indeed had been jumping continuously to significant nodes in his soul’s cycle of reincarnation, many of which were the moments of rebirth, hence he had witnessed his own death in every lifetime without fail.

It was easy to deceive others but hard to deceive oneself. A fleeting look in Ling Xiao’s eyes was enough for Ling Qi to be almost certain of his guess.

“So, you will follow me, but I trust you won’t obstruct what history has to unfold, right?”

When you watch Ye Zheng kill me once again, just like in every past life, you’ll only quietly observe without intervening, right?

Ling Xiao lowered his eyes and shook his head.

Ling Qi smiled. “Then I’m relieved.”

The night sky was brilliantly starry, the perfect weather for reincarnation. Ling Qi and Ye Zheng sat side by side under a tree, gazing up at the stars, neither speaking.

In the cool night, Ye Zheng felt the warmth beside him drawing closer, and as he instinctively thought to shy away, Ling Qi hooked his neck.

“We’ve been together so long without even a first kiss. Don’t you think that’s regrettable?”

Ye Zheng was frozen, unsure whether to pull away or not.

“Since this day is inevitable, at least let me leave this life with no regrets.”

He leaned in proactively and touched Ye Zheng’s lips lightly, like a dragonfly skimming water. It was laughable that this was their first intimate contact after being in love for so long. In this era, this was the most extravagant action they could take—an extravagance that required life as a price.

Through the darkness, Ye Zheng looked at him, his eyes almost brimming with sorrow. What did it matter if they knew they would be together for lifetimes to come? For each other, this was the last moment memories could be kept.

Imitating Ling Qi’s action, Ye Zheng returned the kiss lightly. The two continued to explore, gradually deepening their kiss until they were lost in a passionate embrace, a once-in-a-lifetime indulgence, finally letting go of all reservations to follow their instincts.

This was their first kiss, and also their last. When this kiss ended, one of them would soon end their life.

Hearing the rustle below, Ling Xiao, lying on a tree branch, sighed. Resting his arms under his head, he turned to look at the starry sky.

Soon, a soul would rise and become a shooting star in the night, but it wouldn’t be lonely for long, as another would soon join it.

Ling Xiao had witnessed this scene six times already, watching his own and his lover’s souls reincarnate over and over. Even though his heart was filled with sorrow, it would eventually run dry.

When would the day come for the kind of coming-of-age ceremony Ling Qi envisioned, where both could survive?

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>