Gu Changge glanced at her and said, "Since that's the case, I'll trust you this once. But are you really sure you want to help me retrieve what I'm after?"
Ling Yuxian always felt that when he said this, there seemed to be a faint hint of amusement at the corners of his mouth.
She frowned slightly, feeling that Gu Changge was underestimating her and the current power of the Imperial Immortal Palace.
The matter of the Gate of Eternal Life could be discussed later. The top priority now was to stabilize Gu Changge.
"Don't worry. Since I've said I'll help you, I naturally won't go back on my word," she said directly.
Gu Changge smiled and said no more.
It seemed Ling Yuxian had misunderstood his purpose and intentions, but that was fine. Since she was kind enough to want to help him, why not let her?
For Gu Changge, this was no loss.
As for Ling Yuxian trying to use this to stabilize him, she was overthinking it. If Gu Changge wanted to deal with the Imperial Immortal Palace, he would have already started. There was no need to wait until now.
It was just that the current situation wasn't worth him taking such action.
"Remember what we discussed tonight. From now on, you must not approach Jing Xiao again. Also, you must not harm Elder Xianyun or the others."
Seeing that Gu Changge was about to leave, Ling Yuxian called out to him again, reminding him.
"Don't worry. I'm not as bad as you think. I'm not interested in Junior Sister Jing Xiao."
Gu Changge didn't turn around but chuckled lightly. "It's just that suddenly distancing myself from her might hurt her feelings."
Hearing this, Ling Yuxian felt annoyed. If he knew it would hurt her, why did he approach her in the first place?
But at this moment, there was nothing she could say.
"A quick pain is better than prolonged suffering. You just need to tell her the truth," she said coldly.
Although Gu Changge appeared refined and elegant, the way he toyed with people's sincerity filled her with disgust.
What was worse, Gu Changge seemed completely indifferent, as if he was used to it.
Gu Changge let out a light laugh and didn't respond to her. His figure gradually merged into the night and soon disappeared.
Ling Yuxian gritted her teeth again, watching Gu Changge leave coldly. Then she transformed into a streak of light and left in another direction.
The top priority now was to rescue her sister.
Although Jing Xiao might resent her afterward, Ling Yuxian didn't care. As long as Jing Xiao stayed away from Gu Changge, she wouldn't encounter any danger.
A Few Days Later
Over the next few days, Ling Yuxian kept an eye on Gu Changge's movements. She noticed that he seemed to stay within the island, adhering to their agreement and not showing himself. Even when Jing Xiao went to see him, she couldn't find him and had to wait outside the island for half a day before leaving in silence.
This slightly reassured Ling Yuxian, allowing her to focus more on the preparations to rescue her sister.
A few more days passed, and the palaces deep within the Imperial Immortal Palace were breached. Then, one by one, space-time passages were opened.
At the same time, ancient Void-breaking Warships, carrying numerous blurry figures draped in radiant light and chaotic energy, soared into the sky and quickly disappeared.
Shengyang Ancient Domain, Xiyan Province, Jing Kingdom's Capital
"Sister Ling, has the heir been staring at the sky like this for almost three hours?"
In a refined courtyard in the northwest corner, a beautiful maid with a bun leaned over to another maid and asked in a hushed voice, looking at the young man not far away.
The young man, dressed in luxurious robes, seemed to be staring at the sky in a daze.
His complexion was pale from long periods without sun exposure, but his features were handsome and refined, giving off a scholarly air.
The maid named Ling also looked over with concern and whispered, "The heir's recent behavior has been strange. Should we report this to the king?"
The sun was high and blazing. Even cultivators with enhanced vision wouldn't dare to look directly at the sun at noon. Yet, the young man seemed completely unaffected by the sun's glare, staring at the sky for a full three hours. No matter how much the two maids called out to him, he didn't respond.
"Can't you really hear that voice?" The young man's previously dull gaze seemed to regain some liveliness as he heard the maids' hushed conversation.
He twisted his stiff neck slightly and asked the two maids beside him.
"Heir, what voice are you talking about?"
Seeing that the heir had finally snapped out of it, the two maids showed relief.
The young man sighed almost imperceptibly and shook his head when he saw that they couldn't hear it. "It's nothing."
At first, he thought it was just a hallucination.
But for several days in a row, at exactly noon, he heard someone calling his name.
The voice initially had no source, but later he gradually realized it seemed to be coming from the blazing sun high above.
"Why is someone calling my name from within the sun? What's going on?"
The young man ignored the maids' confused and worried expressions, shaking his head and muttering to himself.
His name was Jing Xiang, the son of Jing Kingdom's Northern Suppression King. The current king of Jing Kingdom was his uncle.
The fact that the entire Kingdom was named after his family's surname showed just how prestigious his status was in Jing Kingdom.
Of course, a small Kingdom like Jing Kingdom was a dime a dozen in Xiyan Province.
Jing Xiang's status wasn't particularly remarkable in Xiyan Province.
He used to think so too, but in recent months, he began to notice something was off.
His family wasn't as simple as he had imagined. Since childhood, his dantian had been shattered, preventing him from cultivating. Even after his dantian was repaired, it became a flawless void, cutting him off from cultivation entirely.
But recently, that sudden voice told him that he wasn't incapable of cultivation. Instead, he was under a curse—a curse that had afflicted his ancestors and now manifested in him.
However, the curse on him wasn't irreversible.
The ancestors of the Jing family definitely had a way to help him break the curse.
At first, Jing Xiang ignored such words, thinking he was too obsessed and had started hallucinating.
But the words didn't disappear despite his denial and indifference. Instead, they became more frequent.
Finally, every day at noon, Jing Xiang could hear those words.
Just now, he had actually been conversing with that voice, but the two maids beside him couldn't hear it and didn't know, so they thought he was just spacing out.
"If that voice isn't lying to me, then why didn't the ancestors help me break the curse back then?"
"If I could cultivate, maybe Yuxian wouldn't have said those things to me, right?"
"Would I have the right to stand before her with dignity?"
Thinking of this, Jing Xiang couldn't help but show a bitter and self-mocking smile.
Although that incident had happened many years ago, it often resurfaced in his mind like a dream, impossible to erase.