Chapter 188
13.17 - You will forget me in the next world
translator: xiin
editors: BlueBug & Macabre
Xue Ling gritted his teeth and grabbed Yin Jia's, or rather, Su Xuanyan's collar. He was dissatisfied as he leaned forward and demanded, "You can come out now? What were you doing before? Was it fun to watch me tossing about like this?"
Su Xuanyan helplessly soothed his ruffled feathers. "Not so."
Xue Ling sneered coldly. He did not speak further, but his appearance clearly said that if Su Xuanyan did not explain things clearly today, he would never let it go.
Su Xuanyan suppressed a smile and gave him a kiss. "You're really angry?"
Xue Ling turned his head away and refused to look at him.
Su Xuanyan somewhat helplessly pulled Xue Ling into his arms, bowed his head and gave him another kiss. "I'm sorry, that was not my intention. We are already at the last step, and I can liberate my memory for a limited time in this world's settings. Seeing that you were truly feeling aggrieved, I couldn't help but come out."
Xue Ling was stunned. "You're always aware of what's happening?"
Su Xuanyan held him and slowly petted his head, one stroke after another as though stroking along his fur. It made Xue Ling feel comfortable, and he casually rubbed his head against him, his eyes blinking slowly. "That's not quite it. I can still feel what is happening after my memories are sealed. The rules of each world will exaggerate whatever personality traits I already have that fits with the world's role's setting in order not push the role off-track."
It was Xue Ling's first time hearing Su Xuanyan talk about his state when he enters these worlds.
"Every time you leave the worlds, I will follow soon after and leave with you. The love that I feel for you in each world will fade away and then accumulate in my original body, so when you ask me what I think…" Su Xuanyan spoke helplessly, "What else can I think? I can only be a madman who loves you."
Xue Ling complained, "Hearing you say it like that makes me unhappy. It's as though I forced you to like me."
"Yes, yes, yes. It's naturally not your fault. Liking you or loving you is my pleasure." Su Xuanyan looked at the person in his arms, and his thoughts soared. He finally understood why someone would tell him that something was more precious when it was lost and then recovered. Su Xuanyan couldn't help but laugh as he once again touched his head and spoke softly, "Meeting you, and falling in love with you, should be the luckiest event of my life."
Xue Ling was silent for a moment before asking, "Then, can you now tell me about exactly what kind of relationship there is between us?"
Su Xuanyan said, "Are you so anxious to know? Right at this moment?"
Xue Ling pursed his lips and did not speak.
Su Xuanyan looked down at him and saw the determination in his eyes. He could not help laughing again, and said, "Will you throw a tantrum if I don't tell you now?"
Xue Ling harrumphed, then wrapped his arms around his neck and leaned up to exchange a kiss. This kiss did not carry any traces of lust, and held more nostalgia and love. These ambiguous feelings stretched between them for a while before Xue Ling pecked lightly at Su Xuanyan's lips, closed his eyes, and whispered, "I want to know exactly who you are… want to know exactly what our relationship is… I want to know how we came to this point… want to know if we have a past… I want to know so, so much…"
Su Xuanyan could feel that his heart was uneasy. He bowed his head to smile gently and comfort him. It was clearly the same face, but on Yin Jia it was serious, almost cruel, discouraging others from getting close. When it was Su Xuanyan, it seemed gentle to the bone. Xue Ling nested in his arms and was reluctant to leave; the amount of time they could spend together like this was pitifully limited, and he really cherished it. "You don't already know who I am?" Asking Xue Ling this question in this particular way confirmed his previous speculation right then and there.
"It turns out that you're really a Boundary Master…" Xue Ling found this a little unbelievable as he spoke, "That world… so it really held a Boundary Master… I thought that the fragments of my memory were deceiving me…"
Su Xuanyan nodded and said, "The Su Family is a Boundary Master family. A new Boundary Master will emerge every five hundred years, and the bloodline of the Su Family will become scarce. Since ancient times, the Su Family's line of inheritance has almost broken down several times because of the appearance of the Boundary Masters. In my generation, I am the Su Family's Boundary Master."
"Then I…"
Su Xuanyan stretched out his hand to block his lips, lowering his head to rest it against Xue Ling's neck. He continued quietly, "Every Boundary Master will have a spiritual artifact bound to them. It is an existence that is bound to them from birth, which enables them to have better control when they use their abilities as Boundary Masters… But my spiritual artifact was not an object…"
Xue Ling was shocked silly for a good while. He could understand what the man meant, and pointed a finger at himself.
Su Xuanyan kissed him on the forehead and said, "Yes, you are my spiritual artifact. You can understand the relationship between us as master and spiritual artifact, but the best interpretation is that we are bound together for life. Perhaps we won't be separated even in the next life."
Xue Ling shocked for a very long time, unable to gather his wits. He had never thought that he had been twisted up about this for so long, but ultimately their relationship was so… weird?
Su Xuanyan petted his back as he helped him recover. "Truly cute. Your expression was also like this when you learned about it the first time. Silly and shocked, and after you recovered, you were unwilling to be bound to me, and wanted to dissolve our relationship…"
Xue Ling: "…" What was he laughing at? That was a very normal reaction, okay? Who would be willing to be tied to a stranger! "That's not right…" He suddenly reacted. "Since we're bound together, why… did I grow up without you?"
"You don't remember?" Su Xuanyan's mood turned somewhat depressed when they reached this point. "You were too fragile when you were born. Because your existence violated the natural law, you almost couldn't survive. The elders in the family had no experience regarding a spiritual artifact being a spiritual animal, and after a long discussion, they came to the conclusion that our mutual existence in the same world was threatening the will of the world's heavenly order, which is why it wanted to kill you… There was no other way. They could only send you to another world."
Xue Ling's memory and the man's story merged together flawlessly, and his childhood memories became more distinct.
"I was also a child at the time, and my health was not good because the will of the world was against us…"
Xue Ling nodded and said, "What happened then?"
"You will remember what happened after that when you return to the system space." Su Xuanyan also nodded, then said, "In fact, I also appeared now because of something related to the next world."
Xue Ling blinked. He wasn't clear about what the next world would be like. Sometimes, when he asked the system, it would rather die than surrender. But now, it seemed that the next world had quite a lot to do with the man. "The next world?"
"Yes. In the next world, you will forget me." Su Xuanyan appeared to be very calm when he said these words, as though he was talking about something very ordinary. "But, don't worry. I believe that even if we forget each other, we will still meet again."
Xue Ling didn't really understand what the connection was and why they had come to this point, but the man wouldn't let him ask, and merely pressed against his forehead as he told him, "Don't rush. We'll first enjoy another world of love."
Even as his voice fell, Xue Ling could clearly sense that Yin Jia's eyes were gradually changing. He also removed the surprised expression from his face, frowned, and went over to sit on the other side of the sofa.
Yin Jia rubbed at his head in a trance and looked over at Xue Ling. Xue Ling's mood was rather uneasy at the moment, looking at him with his lips pressed together, appearing quite distant.
Yin Jia also did not know exactly what had just occurred. He rubbed Xue Ling's head, and no longer continued tonight's topic. Instead, he had Xue Ling go back.
Their conversation that night had been rather unpleasant and fragmented. Xue Ling did not obey the man's words, and pulled out the system after he returned to his room, questioning him about the next world.
The system did not know who had leaked the secret. It trembled for a long time but did not say a word. No matter what Xue Ling said, it still insisted that it would not tell him about it until they returned to the system space. Xue Ling used every means he had at his disposal, and even threatened to give up on this world and return straight to the system space, but the system was still unwilling to speak. It only said that as long as Xue Ling returned, he would remember everything, and would naturally know what was going on.
Xue Ling ultimately failed to make the system talk. This made him extremely unhappy, and he took it out on Yin Jia by acting coldly towards him for a very long time. In fact, Yin Jia had a vague memory of that night, and knew that he had provoked Xue Ling, so he also did not dare to approach him.
Two years later, the youngest national treasure-level Sculptor in the Empire, Helan Jiuyun, officially reached adulthood. While countless families were sending letters to the Marshal's Palace asking to marry the young man, the Marshal's Palace directly sent out wedding invitations. The Royal Family announced news of the Marshal's wedding, and everyone suddenly exploded in surprise.
There was no other reason for it; the two legends from the Marshal palace that no one could obtain or get close to no matter how much effort they put in had been dealt with internally.
No matter how rapid the response time of the Star Net was, nobody was able to understand what the Marshal's Palace was trying to do for two days straight. Everyone knew that Helan Jiuyun was the Marshal's adopted son. So what was this now? Adopting him into bed?
Although they were all very confused, the wedding that had been set would still happen. Matters would not change simply because they were unable to accept it, so while the entire Star Net was still in a daze, the wedding of the century arrived.
This marriage was highly controversial in the later records. After all, both of them were legends of the Empire, and their respective achievements would not necessarily fit into three books each. Their feelings for each other were excellent, and regardless of whether it was their characters or their deeds, looking back on their lives, there was no big problem with it. They were the pride of the heavens, and could be reckless as they did as they pleased.
But the biggest problem lay in their relationship. Later generations had two separate evaluations on their marriage.
One camp believed that the relationship between them was too abnormal, and that their feelings were of the type that could not be appreciated by the world. This was an extreme viewpoint that very few people adhered to. Most people belonged to the second camp, that believed that the two of them must love each other more than they loved themselves.
After all, based on the records of their lives, their love seemed to start with their grand wedding and continue on for the rest of their lives as they fed everyone dog food with their displays of affection every day. There were also documentaries, novels, films, and TV series that were specifically created about the two of them. Later generations had various guesses about how their relationship began, but nobody could figure out exactly how their relationship built up, step by step.
Xue Ling watched as Yin Jia left ahead of him in this lifetime. He did not know what kind of mood he should use towards this goodbye, but before Yin Jia left, he held him in his arms and told him that they would meet again. Even so, Xue Ling was extremely panic-stricken.
For the first time, he was somewhat afraid of the next world, because he didn't know what he was going to face.
But these feelings all disappeared when he returned to the system space.
When the box filled with his memories opened all of a sudden, the unfamiliar scenes rushed at Xue Ling and he was almost lost in the sea of his own memories. At first, he wondered why these sealed memories would suddenly appear, but by the time he remembered all of them, he was no longer surprised at all.
As Su Xuanyan had said, as long as he returned to the system space, he would understand why he said what he did.
The system did not appear before Xue Ling until he had finished absorbing his memories. "Host, you've recovered all your memories. The Ten Directions World's intention is to send you to the final world immediately if there are no problems."
Xue Ling nodded, then turned his head to look around the system space. He asked, "What about him?"
"That lord has already gone ahead. Based on the agreement between you and the Ten Directions World, you cannot communicate with each other before entering the last world. The main reason is out of fear that you might cheat."
Xue Ling stared at the system for a while, then said, "You won't be there in the next world, right?"
At this point, the system finally put down its high and arrogant appearance, running pitifully towards its host, "Wuwuwu, is host reluctant to part with this system?"
Xue Ling told him very coldly that the world was not so sweet. "Aren't I just losing a little cheat? I only feel a bit of pity."
System: "QAQ The cold leaves float across my face, as host's rebellion hurts my heart."
"Have you arranged my identity yet?"
"Of course~ I personally selected one for lord host. I'm sure host will like it.~"
Xue Ling said nothing else. According to the agreement they had made with the Ten Directions World, he must experience this world, and also had to lose his memories while doing so. His last tail was in this world, and as long as he passed this world's test, the Ten Directions World would help him extricate his tail's energy… Only then would he be able to survive the upcoming ninety-nine lightning tribulations.
Xue Ling closed his eyes for a long time and finally said, "It's time to go. System, send me off."
The system nodded cleverly. Although it was reluctant to give up on its own host, it was the agreement that the Ten Directions World, Xue Ling, and Su Xuanyan had made together. It was nothing but a small system that served to help Xue Ling pass the stages, and as long as the Ten Directions World moved its fingers, it would be able to create many things like the system… Perhaps after this, it would be wiped out and never see its host again…
When it thought to this point, the system felt super aggrieved, and while it sent Xue Ling off, it made some secret adjustments so that it could leave along with him.
Based on the original plan, the system was supposed to stay behind.
we're heading into the final arc! the system redeems itself!
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