Chapter 153

Chapter 153: The Strange Bronze Mirror

“Anyway, we’re in the mortal world, and we’ve already discovered evil cultivators’ plot. It’s the perfect time to gather evidence. We might even find something new,” Yu Qing Cheng said.

Yu Qing Cheng was full of confidence now. Their small team had a Golden Core Master. Senior Brother Liu could break through at any time. She and Xia You were at mid Foundation Establishment, and maybe after this trial, they could advance to late stage. Of course she would not let this opportunity go.

Liu Hao Tian also agreed. He felt his chance to form a Golden Core was in the mortal world, so he said, “Junior Sister Yu is right. If we hadn’t noticed, that would be one thing. But since we’ve already found something, it’s best to investigate it thoroughly.”

With their plan set, the four of them were not in a hurry to return to the Cultivation World. Yun Xi took out the carriage the bandits at Luo Zi Ridge had prepared before. They sat in the carriage and swayed along toward their destination.

The evil cultivators hiding in the mortal world all tucked their tails between their legs. They had sensed that powerful divine sense earlier, and each one was terrified. They worried it was a Soul Transformation big shot from the Cultivation World who had wandered into the mortal world to?? on a whim. So they hid as deep as they could, afraid of being found.

So even though Yun Xi and the others traveled with loose faces but tight hearts, they did not run into another place like the corpse-nurturing ground along the way. They did not even see the shadow of an evil cultivator.

Seven days later, they reached a place called Chun Tao City. It looked fairly prosperous. The four of them used a simple disguise spell to hide their faces, then entered the city.

A mortal city was always full of everyday??. From what people around them were talking about, there would be a lantern festival for the next three days, so the four of them decided to join in.

“I wonder what a mortal lantern festival is like,” Xia You said, curious.

“We’ll know once we see it,” someone replied.

The four of them casually walked into a small inn with a sign that read “Dragon Gate Inn.” The proprietress warmly welcomed them.

“Are the four of you staying the night, or just stopping for a meal?” she asked.

“Staying the night. We want to stay and watch the lantern festival,” they said.

The proprietress smiled at once. “You made the right choice staying. Our Chun Tao City lantern festival is the liveliest. How many best rooms do you want?”

“Two rooms.”

“All right, two best rooms.” The proprietress took their silver and had a waiter lead them upstairs.

When Yun Xi and the others saw the waiter leading the way, they exchanged looks with each other.

After the waiter brought them into the room, Yu Qing Cheng tossed a few copper coins to him. “Friend, we’re new here. We want to ask you about a few things.”

The waiter accepted the coins with a smile and asked respectfully, “What do you honored guests want to ask about?”

“Tell us about your lantern festival.”

Hearing they were asking about the lantern festival, the waiter immediately began describing the origin of Chun Tao City’s lantern festival in vivid detail.

When he was almost finished, Yun Xi spoke up. “Then has anything interesting happened nearby?”

“Interesting?” The waiter looked confused for a moment, not reacting right away.

“Something strange and eerie,” Yun Xi clarified.

As soon as Yun Xi said that, the waiter’s expression changed. He shook his head and said, “I have a family to support. I rarely leave Chun Tao City, and I don’t go out of the inn much. I don’t know much about outside matters, so I probably can’t help you honored guests.”

Liu Hao Tian spoke slowly and evenly. “You’re all alone. What family are you supporting? Your family ties have already been cut off.”

The waiter’s face went white at those words. He turned to withdraw from the room. Xia You flicked her sleeve first, and the door slammed shut.

The waiter’s legs went soft. He fell to his knees and begged, “Spare me, Immortal Lord! I don’t have any wishes. I won’t go back to Peach Source Village for the rest of my life. Please let me go!”

The four of them looked at each other. They felt there was a lot of information hidden in his words.

This time, Liu Hao Tian swept his sleeve and lifted the man up, then said in a gentle tone, “We’re not the immortals you’re talking about, and we don’t have the?? to be immortals. We’re just cultivators. We saw that your glabella is dark and there’s a dead aura on your face, so we asked a couple more questions. You should tell us everything you know. Maybe you still have a way out. Otherwise, no matter where you hide, you’ll only have a dead end.”

When the waiter heard that, he collapsed to the ground, then cried as he told them about Peach Source Village.

The waiter’s name was Yin Yong. He was born in Peach Source Village, an ordinary farm family. His only strength was that he could read and write. That was thanks to his ancestors, because Peach Source Village had its own private school built by the Yin family’s ancestors. So any Yin descendants could study for a year without paying tuition.

A year was enough for the teacher to tell whether a child had talent for studying, and Yin Yong clearly did not. After he learned some common characters and basic arithmetic, he went back home to farm. The Yin family did not force it. Their home did not only have one son.

In the second year after he returned to farming, Yin Yong was catching fish in the river when his net snagged a bronze mirror. The mirror’s surface was cracked, but the exquisite patterns on its back still stood out, so he happily brought the bronze mirror home.

Yin Yong’s younger sister fell in love with the bronze mirror at first sight and asked Yin Yong for it.

In the days after, Yin Yong noticed that his sister, Yin Hua Er, looked into the mirror more and more often, even getting obsessed with it. He found it very strange. One time, he heard his sister speaking while looking into the mirror.

“Immortal Lord, I’ve fallen for Scholar Xin in town. I want to marry him.”

A moment later, her delighted laughter rang out. “Really? Can I really? Then I’m willing.”

After that, his sister carefully covered the mirror with a red cloth and went to sleep.

Yin Yong scratched his head. He thought his sister was just confiding a young girl’s feelings to the bronze mirror, so he didn’t pay it much attention.

But three days later, Scholar Xin in town actually sent a matchmaker to the Yin house to ask to marry Yin Hua Er. Yin Yong was truly shocked.

The Yin family was overjoyed. Their daughter could marry up, and that was a good thing they couldn’t ask for. The whole family happily married Yin Hua Er off. On the third day after the wedding, when she returned to her parents’ home, Yin Hua Er said she was doing very well, and she took the cracked bronze mirror from her room with her.

Half a month later, Yin Yong’s parents died in their sleep. The entire Yin family was heartbroken.

His parents had been healthy and had hardly ever been sick. How could they have quietly passed away without a sound? But the family couldn’t find any wounds on their bodies, so they could only hold the funeral.

On the day of the funeral procession, Yin Hua Er returned to Peach Source Village and brought the bronze mirror back home. She privately found Yin Yong, crying as she told him, “Third Brother, Father and Mother died because of me!”

“What? What do you mean?” Yin Yong said. The unease in his heart was growing.

With tears all over her face, Yin Hua Er said, “I made a wish to this bronze mirror. I wanted to marry Scholar Xin, and the price was our parents’ lives!”

Yin Yong asked in disbelief, “You… you used Father and Mother’s lives to trade for marrying up? How could you do that? And how did this mirror even do it?”

Yin Hua Er sobbed. “There’s an immortal living inside the mirror. He said he could fulfill any wish of mine, but I had to pay a price. I thought I just needed to offer incense and worship the immortal in the mirror, but… but… he took Father and Mother’s lives…”

Yin Yong was stunned. He immediately snatched the bronze mirror and threw it back into the river that very night. He thought that would end everything, but their conversation was fully overheard by his second brother, Yin Chuan. After Yin Yong threw the mirror away, Yin Chuan jumped into the river and fished the bronze mirror back out.