Chapter 2 "Mysterious black cauldron"
The moment the cauldron entered her body, Ye Ling Yu's hand felt like it had been bitten by a small snake.
By the time she came back to her senses again, the strand of cauldron had completely disappeared by then. In its place, a mark of a small cauldron could be seen on her hand.
The mark was only the size of a fingernail, but it looked exactly like the same large cauldron that was placed in the middle of the hall. It was like a birth mark, no matter how she tries to wipe it off, it won't come clean.
There were too many questions plaguing her and she herself couldn't deal with it yet. For now, she decides to return to her residence.
After leaving the ancestral hall, Ling Yue relied on the body's reflexive habits and headed towards the courtyard behind the ancestral hall.
The northern manor of the Ye family consisted of the ancestral hall and a back courtyard.
Ye Ling Yue and her mother, as well as an old servant who has been serving them for a long time, lived in the back courtyard, relying on the meager allowances handed to them each month to survive.
Some low and short buildings soon appeared in the direction ahead. Looking at the appearance of the structures, they looked like it had been converted from storage sheds.
Some chickens and a bright green vegetable garden were at the front of the building. Aside from these, there was nothing else. This was the place where Ye Ling Yue lived.
"Little Young Miss, you're back." An old woman with a face full of wrinkles came out from within the small cabin. She was coughing incessantly, but after seeing Ye Ling Yue, she happily came up to greet her.
This old woman was her mother's loyal servant, Granny Liu.
For all these years, it was always Granny Liu whom took care of this daughter and mother pair.
"Granny Liu, you still haven't completely recovered yet, why did you get up already?" Ye Ling Yue remembered it was usually Granny Liu who's responsible for cleaning up the ancestral hall.
But recently, this old woman fell sick and "retarded girl Ye Ling Yue" didn't want her to overwork herself, so she insisted on going in Granny Liu’s stead of cleaning the ancestral hall. That's why she encountered Wang Gui and those people, which led to her death eventually.
Her question was a very casual one, but when Granny Liu heard this it was like a sudden clap of thunder had struck down onto the ground, her eyes were filled with disbelief.
"Little Young Miss, you've recovered?" Granny Liu excitedly grabbed onto Ye Ling Yue's hand and thoroughly inspected her.
There was a bright clarity in Ye Ling Yue's eye, no different from any other normal person.
Granny Liu was so happy that she began to cry, hugging the young girl ceaselessly.
"Granny Liu, don't cry. The wind out here is strong, let's go inside first." Ling Yue's heart was filled with ruefulness. A retarded girl has a retarded girl's advantages; at the very least no one would suspect anything when she acts like she had lost her memories.
After going back inside the room, Granny Liu noticed Ye Ling Yue's body was covered in filth. Hurrying to bring some hot water over, she had Ling Yue wash up and get changed first, then promptly went off to prepare something for her to eat.
Taking advantage of Granny Liu's absence, Ling Yue began assessing her surroundings.
The cabin the three of them stayed in wasn't very large. There were only a few crude furnishings placed inside, a dining table, some long benches, and a mirror beside the table.
Walking over to the mirror, the reflection illustrated "Ye Ling Yue's" appearance.
It was a face which still possessed the innocent look of a child. Although a bit malnourished and sickly, her eyes however were like crescent moons in the night sky. With long eyelashes rising upwards, her facial features were all very exquisite, a natural born beauty.
After putting down the mirror, Ling Yue caught sight of two books used as wobble-stoppers under the table. Casually picking them up, the words written on the cover of these books were (Record of Da Xia) and (Introduction to Martialist).
(Martialist is a made up word, but it's still better than using "warrior")
Both books hadn't been read in a long time for a thick layer of dust had gathered on the surface.
Flipping through the pages, Ye Ling Yue now got a rough understanding of the world she lives in.
She was reborn into a country named Da Xia. In Da Xia, there were many different administrative areas, and Autumn Maple Town, the settlement where the Ye family resides, was located in the northern most area of Da Xia.
The topography inside Da Xia's borders was very complicated. There were mountain ranges which were difficult to get to, and populating the deep valleys were wild and ferocious beasts.
In Da Xia, no matter if you were an ordinary citizen or a member of a noble family, eight to nine out of ten people would learn martial art. According to the different cultivation level of each martialist, there are nine ranks within the constitutional cultivation domain, and are differed between lower celestial, and upper celestial.
The difference between a normal person and a martialist lies in the dantian of a martialist's body – they can condense their inner force together. This so called inner force was actually their Yuan energy.
Yuan energy?
Ling Yue was slightly taken aback. She could feel in her dantian there was a faint but weak energy currently moving about.
Could it be, was this little retard girl also a martialist? Having Yuan energy in the dantian was exactly what the book had described a rank-one constitution cultivator to be like.
"Little Young Miss, what did you take the books used as wobble-stoppers for?" Just as she was thinking, Granny Liu's voice filled with curiosity interrupted Ling Yue's train of thought.
"Granny Liu, have I ever trained in martial combat before?" She places the book down.
She can be positive that although the energy in her dantian was weak, it was exactly the Yuan energy aforementioned in the (Introduction to Martialists).
"When you were young, you learned a few moves from the Young Miss." Granny Liu sets the bowl and chopsticks in place.
Just a few moves and she could already cultivate Yuan energy, could it be that this body of her predecessor wasn't a retarded girl, but actually a martialist genius?
Puzzled, she then looked at the top of the table. There was a bowl of brown rice and a dish of dry dull vegetables.
"This is what we usually eat?" No wonder Ye Ling Yue's body was so skinny and small.
"Little Young Miss, we don't have any more money. Housekeeper Wang and his son embezzled more of the north manor's monthly allowance." Granny Liu sighed.
Housekeeper Wang was precisely Wang Gui's father, he's in charge of managing the north manor's affair in the Ye family.
The mother and daughter pair are not favored at all in the Ye family, even servants could bully them and deduct their monthly allowances.
"Mother doesn't care about the situation with the monthly allowance?" Ye Ling Yue's mother was the third daughter of the Ye family's current house head. As the dignified Third Miss of the Ye family, how did she fall into such a decrepit state?
Bang ——-
The door was kicked open; a youth clustered around by some servants had strutted in.
"So what if she did try to take care of it. A retarded girl is a retarded girl, you still think that your mother is the Ye family's genius who everyone respected back then? She's only a good-for-nothing now, who would care about a good-for-nothing's life and death." The youth with fancy clothes raised his head high, his nose facing the sky. He had the appearance of a calf with an indescribable arrogance to him.
This overbearing youth who burst in was Ling Yue's older cousin, Ye Qing.
After Wang Gui and his crew had beat Ye Ling Yue to "death", they developed fear only after the event and hurriedly went back to look for their master to deal with the aftermath.
Ye Qing had looked around the ancestral hall, but after not finding Ye Ling Yue's corpse, he knew she hadn't died yet.
By the time Ye Qing came to the back courtyard, he just so happens to overhear Ye Ling Yue and Granny Liu talking. In his wildest dreams he would never have expected the retard girl to be with such fortune. Not only did she escape death, she also became clever after bumping that head of hers.
"Sixth Young Master, how can you say that about Third Miss, she is your blood-related paternal aunt."
"What paternal aunt, you think she's fit to be my aunt? She's only a good-for-nothing who was divorced and sent back home, losing all of our Ye family's face in the process." Ye Qing spat with disdain in his mouth.
"What did you say, say it one more time!" Ye Ling Yue's eye turned cold like iron. Inside her body, the newly developed Yuan energy began to wriggle around because of anger.
"I can repeat it a hundred times if I want. Retard girl, let me tell you, because of another woman, your mother was kicked out by your father and was even critically injured, losing all of our Ye family's face. You two are both bitches who no one wants, shamelessly lazing around in the Ye family while leeching free meals and not paying rent." Ye Qing and the group of servants all started to laugh loudly.
Ye Qing and his crew of people would say these words every time he bullied "Ye Ling Yue".
During those times, after "Ye Ling Yue" heard them, she would only cry while begging for forgiveness, but everything was different today.
From the bottom of Ye Ling Yue's heart, hatred rushed out like a volcanic eruption – this hatred has been deeply hidden underneath her for thirteen years and was now about to blow.
Ye Ling Yue pushed aside Granny Liu and violently lunged towards Ye Qing after stamping her foot backwards to get momentum.