Chapter 235: Malevolent Figure
Song Junwan, the eldest of them all, smiled and said,
"You don’t need to apologize for anything, Sister Lan. But I am curious as to what is so important that you hid it from us?"
At the same time, Shen Yu patted the table and said,
"Sit down and tell everyone whatever you want. We are all a family."
Xiao Lan nodded and sat down in her seat. She licked her lips and said, looking at her fellow sisters,
"To be honest with you all, I don’t even know why I kept it a secret. Maybe it was just a subconscious action due to my past, but I did hide it, so I needed to apologize. As for what it is..."
She clenched her fist and continued,
"I am a reincarnated soul who inhabited this body."
"What?"
Ning Xi slammed her fist on the table and stood up, glaring at Xiao Lan.
"How dare you!? Where is our sister then? I am telling you, if even a single hair of hers is harmed..."
"Calm down!"
Ying Yue sighed and appeared behind Ning Xi, pulling her back into her seat as she said,
"There is no way I’ll mistake the Xiao Lan I know. Well, unless she is too powerful for me to notice, but I am sure Master wouldn’t let it slide. Since he knew about it, then he must have accepted the situation, so why don’t you calm down for a second?"
Ning Xi nodded, understanding that she was just acting on impulse. However, she couldn’t help it. She had finally found a family who cared and loved her for who she was. How could she lose even a single one of them?
They had provided her a new life, so she would burn the world down if something happened to them.
Xiao Lan smiled, feeling warmth in her heart. She put her hand on her chest and thought,
"That’s right. I’m not alone now. There are people who will cry for me, people who will get angry for me. I won’t be betrayed again. Never."
Although only Ning Xi acted, Xiao Lan had noticed how her other sisters’ bodies flinched and they were ready to spring into action too.
As she turned to face Shen Yu, her smile grew wider.
"And he is the reason for everything I have today. He gave me a family, love, security, everything. How fortunate I am, really. If I hadn’t been betrayed, I wouldn’t have ended up here and met all of you. Heh, what luck!"
She sighed and said,
"You don’t need to worry, Sister Ning. The Xiao Lan you know is me and has always been me. I reincarnated in this body long ago when I was just a child. The original owner of this body had died a quite tragic death."
Looking down, she continued,
"A group of bandits attacked her village and killed all the males while keeping the women with them for obvious reasons. I don’t quite remember how the previous Xiao Lan was killed, but she did die there."
Ying Yue sat down in her seat after confirming that Ning Xi would remain calm. She looked at Xiao Lan and said,
"And that’s when you reincarnated in her body?"
Xiao Lan nodded.
"Yeah, but my luck wasn’t so good as I encountered bastards from the Slave Organization while running away. They saw my potential and brought me back to their headquarters, where they trained me... properly."
She closed her eyes at the mention of training and continued,
"And as you know, I was going to be sold in Green Silk Town, but Master saved me and we all met."
Ying Yue raised an eyebrow as she remembered the state Xiao Lan was in when they first met. As she mulled over her thoughts, Lan Ming asked,
"What about your previous life?"
This was what everyone was most curious about, including Shen Yu. After all, the most he knew was that Xiao Lan was a Divine Phoenix in her past life. Nothing more.
Xiao Lan’s smile grew stiff as she remembered her past life. Sighing, she said, n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om
"My first life was quite good, if I have to say. My name was Feng Xiulin, and I was the Crown Princess of the Divine Phoenix Empire."
Before she could continue, Song Junwan interrupted her.
"Wait! Wait! That’s too fast. Huh! What? You were a phoenix? And from the Divine Realm at that?"
Others shared her surprise as they all looked at Xiao Lan in a new light. None of them had imagined that they had been living with a Divine being all this time.
The Divine Realm was a place of worship even in the outside world where people could actually ascend to the Divine Realm. But in the Qing Empire, where even reaching the Soul Severing Realm was impossible, the majority of people didn’t even know it existed.
But Song Junwan and others were different, and they knew of such a divine place, much more powerful and grandiose than the Holy Realm existed. However, even for them, it was a mythical place, and they had doubts about its existence.
To think they were sharing the husband of a Divine Being, and not just any random being but a Phoenix. Even though the ladies didn’t know much about them, they knew Phoenixes were the talk of legends.
Xiao Lan nodded and smiled.
"Yes, I was a Divine Phoenix in the Divine Realm. And this led me to be quite arrogant as I was also the Crown Princess. To tone it down, my mother, the Empress, sent me to her friend to take him as my Master."
The ladies listened with full attention as Xiao Lan continued,
"And it worked. My master was a very strict person, and slowly I began to respect him. It was then I met my Senior Brother, who was in seclusion back then."
Her voice trailed off as she turned to look at Shen Yu.
Noticing her hesitation, Shen Yu smiled and reached out his hand to pat her head.
"Don’t worry about anything."
Xiao Lan nodded and continued,
"His name was Duan Ling Tian, and he belonged to one of the major factions of the Divine Realm. As we shared the same master, we interacted a lot, and he fell in love with me. At first, I rejected him, but I eventually succumbed to his advances. Now that I think about it, I was pretty foolish back then."
She sighed but, feeling the warm hand on her head, she continued,
"I was young back then and feeling the new, exciting feeling of love. I became naive and put my full trust in him. We spent years traveling around the Divine Realm, which brought us closer, and we finally decided to marry each other."
A wry smile appeared on her face as she said,
"However, who would have thought my wedding day, the day that was supposed to be my happiest day, would turn into utter despair for me."
She felt Shen Yu’s hand stop for a moment, which made her heart skip a beat. However, Shen Yu resumed his patting, so she continued,
"That day, I was betrayed by everyone. The person I loved the most stabbed a knife through my heart. It was painful, yes, but I wasn’t so weak as to actually feel pained by that. However, what pained me the most was the fact that the dagger was given to him by my own family."
Ying Yue clutched her daggers tightly in her hands as her face darkened, and her presence completely vanished from the world. She asked in a low voice,
"What do you mean?"
Everyone felt a chill as they all turned to look at her but found only a dark, malevolent figure sitting there. Just a single glance at it sent their minds into a spiral of chaos, causing them to clutch their heads except for Xiao Lan and Shen Yu.
"Calm down!"
Just the two words echoed in the atmosphere as Ying Yue snapped out of her state and looked at her hands, which had returned to normal.
Shen Yu gave her a long look and thought,
"I never tried to look into my wives, but they have something in them, huh. Lan’er has reincarnation, and Yue’er... what was that just now?"
[For a moment, I thought it was Chaos Magic of Corruption, but it’s not. But it’s certainly weird. Hmm, Master, she has some relationship with the Hollow Mountains. I got the same feeling when I tried to search those wretched mountains.]
Shen Yu’s face turned somber as he looked at Ying Yue.
"I will check it later. I will!"