I want to just drift through life in Type-Moon.

Page 124

Upon seeing Lingling suddenly open the door, the other person paused for a moment, then reached out to greet her: "Oh, hello~"

Lingling didn't know how to react for a moment, so she could only imitate the other person by raising her hand and saying, "Hello."

The air suddenly became quiet.

After a long while, the person inside frowned slightly on their delicate, flawless face and said, "Is there anything else you need? If not, please close the door."

Lingling didn't know how to answer. Not only did she not know who the girl was, but the presence inside, who looked exactly like her even though her eyes were closed, already confused her. So, she subconsciously obeyed the other person's instructions and closed the wooden door again.

Lingling didn't know what she had done wrong. According to the inherited memories, the succession ritual for this [vessel] was to open the chamber in front of her that housed the previous generation's [vessel], remove the other person's body and the item representing the other person's deepest obsession from inside.

However, she is not qualified to inherit the [vessel] yet, so why is she already sitting inside? And who is the other girl singing?

Chapter 275 Listening to Things I Don't Know - Part 9

Listening to the puzzled look on He Xian's face made He Xian, who couldn't see what was inside the cage, feel very strange.

Logically speaking, inside should be Ji Qiaoqiao's physical body and the items she considers most important. Since Lingling has already seen what Qiaoqiao looks like, why is Lingling so surprised?

—The only one among them who knows the answer is probably Ji Qiaoqiao.

Thinking this, He Xian looked at the woman standing atop another pillar. She seemed to sense his presence and looked over as well, but she didn't speak, only giving He Xian a cold glance.

"Who are you? No, who is she? Why does she look exactly like me?" Lingling finally couldn't resist her curiosity and asked first.

"What's it to you! Close the door! Close the door!" However, the person inside looked impatient, pouting and angrily waving their little fist.

At this moment, Lingling realized that the other party was not a physical entity, because when she swung her fist, the arm became very blurry.

Upon realizing this, Lingling suddenly had a guess, so she tentatively called out, "Fate?"

Hearing this conversation from afar, Chord's expression became extremely excited. She rushed to the edge of the pillar, leaning her body, trying to see the people inside the divine cage.

Lingling didn't notice He Xian's side; she held her breath, waiting for his reply.

The girl inside paused for a moment, then tilted her head and asked with an innocent look, "Do you know me?"

This rhetorical question was actually an affirmative answer. Lingling nodded gently and then said to her, "My name is Ji Lingling, and I'm here to take over the position of [Weapon]."

"I didn't hear it! I didn't see it! I don't know!" Before Lingling could finish speaking, the girl inside covered her ears, closed her eyes, and kept shaking her head.

Not understanding why the other party refused, Lingling was at a loss for what to do. Just then, a woman claiming to be her mother appeared beside her, saying, "Since she, as [Heaven's Will], has refused, then this matter ends here. You and [Boundary Ring] leave this place immediately."

"Is it you?" Lingling looked at Ji Qiaoqiao with a complicated expression. The real meaning behind her question was: "Are you the one who caused fate to reject me?"

Ji Qiaoqiao didn't answer, but quietly looked at Ji Lingling, while He Xian on the other side was trying to find a way to get to the two of them.

"I don't know what a mother is, because in my world there is only my grandfather. If you get in my way, I will destroy you; if fate doesn't cooperate, I will use Sister Chord to imprison her, and even if it means destroying more worlds, I will still fulfill my wish."

Since her grandfather died, Lingling seemed to have grown up overnight. Although her world is small, it doesn't mean she doesn't understand anything.

She originally wanted to grow up properly, then use all means to investigate the secrets hidden within herself and avenge her grandfather.

However, the appearance of Chord directly told her the answers and expanded her world, letting her know that there was something called "mystery" in this world, something that could fulfill her wishes, and something that could create a world centered on her.

She wanted to live happily with her grandfather, and for this small wish, she was willing to pay any price! She would personally eliminate any obstacle in her path, even the one who should have been her mother!

Lingling waved to Hexian, trying to summon her over. After all, in her inherited memories, beings like Hexian could overcome all obstacles to come to their owners. However, just as she was about to call out the other person's name, Ji Qiaoqiao suddenly spoke.

Do you feel unhappy?

Lingling was stumped by her question, even stopping her chord-summoning motion. Looking at Ji Qiaoqiao waiting for her answer, Lingling couldn't help but reflect.

She asked herself honestly, and realized that she had always been very happy. The days she spent with her grandfather were warm and cozy, and she had been very happy from the time she could remember until her grandfather passed away.

Seeing her stunned expression, Ji Qiaoqiao said, "Your father must have always protected you well, keeping you from the storms of the outside world. The fact that you've grown up so well is the best proof of that." Ji Qiaoqiao looked at the other Lingling in the cage, a hint of pain appearing in her normally emotionless eyes. "You came here not because of misfortune, but because of dissatisfaction. Am I right?"

Lingling suddenly felt a little scared, because it seemed that her heart really was as this person said. She didn't come here to change the world because of misfortune, but because she was dissatisfied that her grandfather, who no longer cared for her, was no longer in this world.

"Have you ever considered that the reason you feel so unhappy is simply because you've been living in happiness from the beginning, and when that happiness suddenly collapses, you feel a sense of unease and think that your life is a huge misfortune, thus giving rise to these inappropriate thoughts?"

Lingling remained silent. Yes, as the other person said, after her grandfather died, she felt that her life had become bleak. That's why, when He Xian appeared and told her everything, she suddenly had the idea of ​​changing everything.

Ultimately, she was just a fourteen-year-old girl. In this era, with limited access to information, there were many things she couldn't do independently, which is why she became despondent after her grandfather's death.

Now, after being asked this question by Ji Qiaoqiao, she started to think in the direction the other party knew, and as she thought about it, she suddenly became afraid.

Does she truly love her grandfather, or is it simply that she doesn't want to lose the stable environment he created for her, which is why she wants to resurrect him?

Children at this age are prone to getting stuck on trivial matters, and given that she doesn't really have a sense of reality about what's happening to her, her thinking is completely confused.

Seeing this, He Xian became even more anxious. She placed all her hopes on Lingling, and although she was using Lingling, she also hoped that Lingling would get the happiness she wanted. That's why she led Lingling here.

In her view, even if Lingling inherited the position of [Vessel], her soul would suffer immense pain, but compared to what she would gain, it would all be worthwhile—

That is a world that belongs only to the "vessels," a dream born entirely around the "vessels" as its center, a world destined never to be recycled, judged, or cut off!

Feeling wavering about her original intentions, Lingling's scattered gaze unconsciously fell on the divine cage. When she saw the person who looked exactly like her again, she suddenly came to her senses.

She suddenly raised her head and glared at Ji Qiaoqiao, "You actually don't want me to inherit the [Weapon], do you?"

"Yes." Ji Qiaoqiao had no intention of lying to her, so she readily nodded.

"What is the reason?" Lingling noticed something amiss with Ji Qiaoqiao. Logically speaking, the body of the [vessel] should be placed in the Divine Cage, something that should exist no matter what, while the object representing the [vessel's] obsession could not exist.

But what's inside the Kamigaku now?

A person who looks exactly like oneself, and a projection of an event that seems to be "Heaven's Will"—leaving aside why the projection of "Heaven's Will" would appear in the Divine Cage, the existence of a body that is not a "vessel" in this space is already extremely inappropriate.

So what secret is hidden here, and why does the other party keep trying to make me give up, intentionally or unintentionally? The key to the answer lies in that being who looks just like me.

"I want my child to be happy." Ji Qiaoqiao looked at Lingling, her eyes filled with pain and struggle. He Xian was startled by this scene. The other person should be an emotionless being, so why did she suddenly turn into this?

But just then, Lingling stretched out her hand in her direction and called out loudly, "Boundary Ring - Chord, come here immediately!"

Chord's body vanished instantly, transforming into a streak of light that landed in Lingling's hand. When the light disappeared, a circular pendant lay in Lingling's palm.

In fact, when Lingling shouted out the true form of the chord, Tianyi, who had been watching the show from inside the divine cage, suddenly sharpened his gaze.

When she saw that, just as she had imagined, the thing she feared most, hated most, and was most curious about was in Lingling's hands, she couldn't help but let out a super high-pitched scream: "Ahhhhhh!!!"

The sharp sound, enough to shatter glass, startled Lingling, who was completely unprepared. Her mind went blank, and she couldn't help but throw what she was holding in the direction of the sound.

"No!" Ji Qiaoqiao exclaimed in alarm as she watched the [Boundary Ring] fly towards the Divine Cage, leaping forward to intercept it.

However, Lingling was too close to the Divine Cage, and she couldn't stop it at all. She could only watch helplessly as the Boundary Ring passed through the screaming Heavenly Will and struck the forehead of the person in the Divine Cage with a "smack," leaving a red mark that landed between the person's legs.

Tianyi, who was still screaming, quickly left the person's embrace, saying in a tearful voice, "Waaah! You bully me the moment we meet! You're still the most annoying one!!"

Ji Qiaoqiao tried to put her hand into the divine cage, but as soon as she did, her hand was thrown back. Lingling, who was covering her ears and shaking her head, saw this and suddenly felt sorry for her.

The soul and body of the [vessel] are separated. The body is protected in the divine cage, while the soul must guard the Mingtang. Every day, the soul suffers the pain of "soul-piercing". The divine cage contains one's own body and most important things, but one can only look at them. Even the right to touch them is taken away. This is a portrayal of being so close yet so far apart.

The thought that she might end up like that herself made Lingling realize she had no right to pity others. She reached out to take the boundary ring back, but before she could even touch it, Tianyi and Ji Qiaoqiao said at the same time, "Wait! Don't touch it!"

Lingling stopped moving and looked at Ji Lingling with a questioning gaze. Now she finally realized that the other party was not as the inheritance said, that her emotions were sealed and would only be briefly revived when she suffered the pain of "soul piercing".

"Lingling, I beg you, please don't touch him," Ji Qiaoqiao pleaded with Lingling.

This was the first time Lingling had heard someone call her name in such an emotional way. Her heart stirred slightly, and her eyes welled up with tears, because in the past, her grandfather had also called her in this tone.

"—Why? Who exactly is this person?" Lingling asked for the third time about the identity of the person in the Divine Cage.

The one who answered her wasn't Ji Qiaoqiao, but He Xian, who had transformed back into her original form. She became a semi-transparent body like Ji Qiaoqiao and looked at Ji Qiaoqiao with an incredulous gaze: "Are you crazy? You're insane to do something like this!"

The moment the chord appeared, Tianyi was already in a corner of the divine cage. The space, which was not large to begin with, was made large enough for two more people. While looking at the chord with unease, she muttered something to herself.

"Sister He Xian, who is this person?" Lingling didn't ask Ji Qiaoqiao anymore, but directly asked He Xian, who seemed to already know something. She believed that compared to Ji Qiaoqiao, who didn't want to speak, He Xian would definitely tell her the truth.

Unexpectedly, Chord avoided his gaze and remained silent.

"Sister Chord!" Feeling betrayed, Lingling unconsciously raised her voice, her tone filled with hostility. She felt she had been fooled. It was Chord who had encouraged her to come and find a way to revive, and now that she was here, she had concealed it from her. What was this if not betrayal?

"This is your upper body."

"This is the child I couldn't give birth to."

As a result, after Lingling shouted loudly, He Xian and Ji Qiaoqiao spoke at the same time.

Upon hearing these two answers, Lingling frowned, then remembered that her grandfather's diary seemed to have mentioned this matter—the unborn child who died in place of her grandfather, who had recklessly disrupted his destiny.

No wonder this person looks exactly like me, because we are twins!

So here's the question: if this was supposed to be a stillborn fetus, why did it grow? And where did the body of the "vessel" that was supposed to be enshrined in the sacred cage go? What's the connection between all of this?

Upon realizing this, Lingling felt a chill run down her spine. "Could this be your obsession—"

Lingling looked at her "self" in the cage with a fearful expression. Whether it was psychological or not, the other "self" who had been keeping her eyes closed seemed to open a crack in her eyes. Her black pupils, different from her own, seemed to have an eerie glow, whether it was a reflection or something else.

Ji Qiaoqiao's pain deepened. She took a deep breath, knowing that doing so was pointless, but it seemed to be the only way to calm herself down. Then she turned around, her back to Lingling, and said, "Lingling, from the moment you were born, I hoped that your life would end as Lezheng Lingling. When your father took you away, I struggled, cried, and cursed, but in the end, in order not to let you bear that too heavy a fate, I compromised."

These words became a starting point, slowly bringing out a long-forgotten past.

Chapter 276 Listening to Things You Don't Know - Part 10

Ji and Yuezheng were essentially the difference between the main family and the branch family. From the fall of the Western Zhou Dynasty to the present day, they have remained hidden in the flow of history, silently guarding the Mingtang.

The so-called Mingtang was actually the place where the Zhou emperor of Ji Zhou performed the Fengshan ceremony. Here, the Fengshan ceremony did not refer to political needs, but rather to a ritual in a mysterious sense.

The sealing of the vessel was for "offering sacrifices to Heaven," and the sealing of the vessel was for "offering sacrifices to Earth." The purpose of sealing the vessel in the Mingtang was to stabilize Heaven and Earth and the primordial energy.

After the Investiture of the Gods, the world became extremely fragile, and the vital energy needed by cultivators was drastically reduced. Under the guidance of the Heavenly Dao, Emperor Ji established the Mingtang, which required a new vessel every three hundred years to maintain its existence.

The reign of Emperor Ji disappeared with the changes of history. Although the new rulers knew of the existence of the Mingtang, they did not care. As a result, after one generation, the vitality became even weaker, and in the end, immortals and Buddhas disappeared, and dragons and snakes returned to the land.

However, after the First Emperor collected the classics of the six states and had his scribes translate them, he discovered the secret of the strange changes in the heavens and earth. Then, through the trap set by the Duke of Zhou, he found the family of Yue Zheng.

Nightmare, or rather, the innate responsibility, fell upon them once again.

The emperor, who sought immortality, learned of the existence of the Mingtang and the "divine will" that could change everything if left inside. However, the brilliant strategist did not kill the Lezheng family to eliminate all potential threats. Instead, he used this information to gather the last remnants of the six kingdoms and annihilate them in one fell swoop.

Afterwards, he personally witnessed the birth of the "vessel" and questioned the so-called "divine will".

Later, when the Qin Dynasty was destroyed, the new ruler of the world obtained the handwritten letter from the First Emperor from the historian. It read that no matter how dynasties changed, the [Ji] dynasty would not perish, and the [Fengshan] ceremony would not cease, for the sake of the world.

Having understood the origin of the matter, Emperor Gaozu of Han secretly protected the bloodline of the Yue family and separated one branch, changing their surname back to Ji.

When the Han Dynasty came to Emperor Wu, he also performed the Fengshan ceremony at Tianchi on the day of the Fengshan ceremony at Mount Tai. The head of the Ji family, who was a witness at the time, went mad after coming out.

In his final moments, the head of the Ji family, in a brief moment of lucidity, recounted the events that had occurred in the Mingtang Hall to his eldest son and grandson who were guarding his bedside before passing away in anguish.

That conversation was recorded in the clan genealogy, plunging the entire Ji family and the Lezheng family into a great panic.

Upon learning of this, Emperor Wu of Han issued an edict forcing the Ji family to replace their "vessels" every hundred years in order to prevent major upheavals every three hundred years.

Contrary to expectations, after the fall of the Han Dynasty, the chaos of war led to the loss of the inheritance, and the Ji family and the Yue family also intended to avoid the fate of being forced to be chosen as "vessels". In the end, the "Fengshan" ceremony exceeded the time limit, causing the mystery of the land to gradually disappear.

The backlash also caused premature deaths and untimely demise in the Ji and Yue families, with short lifespans becoming the greatest curse for both clans. Later, the Jiang clan concealed the secrets of heaven for them and then selected a marriage partner between the two clans to give birth to a bloodline, which would then bear the curse.

More than two thousand years have passed, and the Fengshan ceremony has been held 32 times. Some of these were forced, occurring roughly once per generation during that period, while others were spontaneous, delayed until the very last minute.

In modern times, nearly three hundred years have passed since the last Fengshan ceremony. Yue Zheng and Ji must choose a successor for the vessel from the next generation or the generation after that.

As a result, the choice fell to a young man named Ji Tu. His next generation must be sealed into the Mingtang as the "vessel" because Ji Tu had fallen in love with a girl from the Yuezheng family. The family elders felt that since there was a possibility of giving birth to a cursed child, it would be better to choose him as the "vessel" as well.

The boy named Ji Tu was naturally unwilling to accept this fate, and he was a close friend of Jiang Xuanji, the next head of the Jiang family. In the end, he sought help from him, and the two rebellious teenagers began a very crazy plan.

Having calculated that this country was about to enter the greatest period of historical change in a century, Jiang Xuanji told Ji Tu that this was his golden opportunity. This period of historical change would destroy the last mystery of this country, and the world would enter the end of the Dharma era.

As long as Ji Tu can collect the corpse dragon's energy from the old dragon's death and the breath of the young dragon born in the new dynasty, then his descendants can defy fate.

However, this plan can be considered both a success and a failure, as the newborn Ji Qiaoqiao escaped the fate of becoming a "vessel".

Ji Tu collected the dragon energy that had spilled out from the great changes in the land and combined it with the dynamism of the new generation to forcefully seal off the Mingtang. However, because of this, Ji Tu was expelled from the family.

Eighteen years later, the karma from the past came back to haunt him. His daughter fell in love with the son of the Ji family by a twist of fate and became pregnant. His friend Jiang Xuanji reappeared and told him that the twins he was carrying were entangled with two dragon energies. Those two dragon energies were the remnants of dragon energy collected by Ji Tu back then.

Dragon energy is not something that mortals can bear. If Ji Qiaoqiao and her husband had not both been of the Ji family bloodline and their ancestors were from the imperial family, the fetus would have been miscarried long ago.

Even if the morning dragon's energy is harmless, the evening dragon's energy is a sign of death, and its birth will inevitably bring disaster to the family, making the situation extremely serious.

The fetus shrouded in the aura of the Twilight Dragon in Ji Qiaoqiao's womb is destined to be stillborn. In addition, due to the twists and turns of her fate with the Ji family's son, the live fetus she gives birth to will also be cursed by the Ji family's destiny. Jiang Xuanji has come to advise Ji Tu to make preparations as soon as possible.

Ji Tu silently watched his daughter, whose face was streaked with tears after hearing the news. Finally, he returned to the family with his son-in-law, took something away, and made a promise.

Ji Qiaoqiao was sent back to her family. Using the Fate Transfer Technique, she transferred the dragon energy of the morning dragon to the fetus that had already been tainted by the dragon energy of the evening dragon. By reducing the two, she wanted to remove the curse that had brought disaster to her family. However, she still could not completely remove it.

The stillbirth is inevitable, and for the next sixty years, the Ji and Yue families will suffer constant minor calamities. The other living fetus will be chosen as the "vessel" and undergo the "Fengshan" ceremony again.

"Cause and effect are cyclical, fate is predetermined. Human effort delayed things for eighteen years, but fate launched an even more brutal counterattack. So, Lingling, I ask you, do you feel unfortunate?"

Ji Qiaoqiao only told the story up to this point before asking another question.

Lingling looked at Ji Qiaoqiao with a complicated expression. Before, she thought that her so-called mother was an insignificant existence, but now, after hearing the story she told, Lingling realized that her survival was not solely due to her grandfather.