She apologized, looking thoroughly flustered, "I'm sorry, I didn't realize this was a restricted area. I'll leave now!"
Only then did Juxi get a good look at her face, appearing to be around sixteen years old, with a childish innocence still evident in her cheeks. Whose daughter could she be, of which prince? Juxi shook his head and resumed focusing on his sword practice.
People nowadays, thinking just because they come from noble families they can act recklessly. "A bunch of rule-breakers! It's no wonder that the court is just a name without actual power now. If the emperor continues like this, I fear for the future of the country…" Juxi sighed.
With that, he wiped some dirt off his sword, then swung it, a cold gleam flashing as he effortlessly cut through a row of thick trees in the garden.
"Great swordsmanship!"
Applause came from behind Juxi, who turned to see a magnificently dressed woman emerging from behind the garden.
"I've been looking for you these past few days, trying to find your presence. We have unfinished business, Xiang'er. Shall we sit down and talk?" Juxi expressed impatience, as he had already been disturbed once today.
And this woman who disturbed him was named Ling Yukari… Yukari?! How could the name be exactly the same as my sister's?
In the blink of an eye, the morning had passed, and just as my grandmother arrived, Sister Yukari personally cooked.
"Worrying about this matter, still wondering who that guy surnamed Ye is? Who am I to know!? Why are you staring at me in such surprise? What's so strange?" Ye Juxi, having breakfast, absentmindedly stroked his beard, pretending to be indifferent to the two uncles discussing him nearby.
Isn't it improper to call them uncles, maybe? After all, Juxi himself seemed no different from an uncle.
But those two spoke as if they had seen a ghost, continuing to discuss Juxi's 'past achievements'.
One of them, aware of the inappropriateness, lowered his voice and said, "I heard he's been eliminating dissenters for the court recently, his notoriety is spreading like wildfire among the people!"
Juxi had been sitting behind those two for a while, sipping on the wine in his hand with unwavering concentration.
"You sure can stay calm." Just then, Yuanhui arrived with drinks and dishes, sitting down next to Juxi.
At the same time, Yuanhui glanced at the group behind Juxi, but ultimately fell silent in line with Juxi's mood, sipping quietly from his cup.
Speaking of these matters, it was undoubtedly his father's doing, his father being the renowned Tian Dao Yuan's Mystic Heavenly Master of the Capital. He had single-handedly defeated a large group of pirates attempting to invade the country, a battle that saw most of the pirate ships and thousands of pirates destroyed before they even realized who their attacker was. From then on, Juxi's father's fame within the country soared.
But he was not Juxi's biological father; Juxi had no idea who his birth parents were, or even if they were alive.
"Ah, you've had quite a rough life..." Yuanhui sympathetically shrugged at Juxi's background.
"Truth be told, that doesn't really matter to me. In fact, it's precisely because we're not related by blood that I had a chance to escape execution during the rebellion."
Juxi held onto a sense of gratitude about that, perhaps too optimistically.
Indeed, after that... Juxi underwent a fundamental transformation, becoming known to people as the 'White Nightmare.'
The training of a Tian Dao master is quite brutal; one must learn the basics of handling viruses and herbs daily, and if one fails, they must start over, again and again, until they reach their goal.
Juxi always exceeded the expectations of the elders at the Tian Dao Yuan; the time of his outbreaks was exceptionally short. They believed him to be an unusually resilient individual, selecting him for advanced, more complex, well... not quite training, more accurately described as experiments.
