Chapter 234

The sword-bearing man couldn't help but snort coldly at the sight, knowing without needing to be told that this was what everyone was thinking.

What a bunch of scoundrels, not even sparing innocent children!

"Alright, alright, Sword Saint, no need to take it to heart. Everyone was just speaking without thinking. After all, those are things of the past, why dwell on them?"

At this moment, Yuwen Hui, who came from a top-tier family, stepped forward to mediate. He looked down on Tang Yi, but they dared not underestimate this Sword Saint. Not only was he strong, but his swordsmanship was unparalleled in its killing power. More importantly, he had a reclusive master whose strength was even greater than his own. These aristocratic families were unwilling to offend him easily.

The young sword cultivator in Green Shirt simply flicked his sleeves and ignored them.

In the scene, time passed for a very, very long time, and the screams outside had stopped for a very, very long time.

After a long time, the boy cautiously peeked out from the flowers. Seeing that the Taoist figure was gone, he hugged the sleeping baby girl and crawled out of the flowers.

At this moment, what was once red-walled brick and tile was now a scene of broken walls and ruins, with bloody and mangled corpses everywhere. The pale faces, drained of blood, were filled with deep fear, clearly indicating that they had suffered considerable torment before death.

The child stood in the ruins, his eyes filled with tears and disbelief, muttering to himself.

"Why? Why?"

"We never harmed anyone, why kill us? Why?"

The child felt as if his world had collapsed. What his father and uncle had taught him now seemed so absurd and ridiculous.

This made the child recall his past questions and answers with his father and uncle.

"Father, can't we not eat?"

"Haha, we can't, but some people can."

"Who are those people? They must be the benevolent people you talk about, right? They can't bear to kill other living beings."

"Those people, they are called cultivators. It is said that those with profound cultivation can even live forever!"

"Uncle Yan, what are cultivators? Are they very powerful?"

"Of course, they are powerful. Cultivators are all enlightened people. Ming'er is so clever, he will definitely become a cultivator in the future. When that time comes, Ming'er must help all the wronged people in the world to clear their names. This was your father's grand wish, but unfortunately..."

"..."

"Why? Aren't cultivators all enlightened people? Why can they slaughter mortals at will?"

The child was very puzzled. Wasn't it said that cultivators were all benevolent people?

"Wah!! Wah!!"

Just then, a cry interrupted the child's thoughts. The child looked down and saw the baby girl in his arms wrinkling her face and crying incessantly.

The child quickly reached out to wipe away his tears, pursed his lips, blinked his eyes several times, and then awkwardly patted the swaddling clothes, softly comforting her.

"Oh! Oh oh... QiongYu, don't cry, QiongYu, be good, don't cry, brother... brother will take you to play, to play, okay?"

As he spoke, the child's voice couldn't help but choke up, but he still wiped away his tears while coaxing the baby girl in the swaddling clothes.

However, no matter how the child coaxed her, the baby girl in the swaddling clothes kept crying, making the child flustered.

It wasn't until the child was tired from holding her and switched hands, accidentally touching the baby girl's mouth with his finger, which she then sucked on, that the child realized that the baby girl hadn't had milk for a while and was hungry.

"QiongYu..."

The child murmured in a low voice, his eyes scanning his surroundings. Their so-called small village was actually just a few estates, the residences built by several disillusioned people who had retreated into seclusion here. Apart from a few families and their servants, there was no one else. The nearest place was a small town dozens of miles away.

Dozens of miles would take one or two hours by carriage, and now, only he and his younger sister were left. If they had to walk there on foot, how long would it take? By then, his sister might have already starved to death.

After hesitating for a moment, a ruthless look flashed across the face of the child, who had never killed any living creature before.

"This Demon Emperor is truly heartless, actually wanting to directly kill the newly born QiongYu Fairy, truly hateful!"

"Hmph, no wonder he was so ruthless later on, it was just that he never cared."

"I'm afraid that his previous favor was just using QiongYu Fairy."

Even Yan QiongYu felt a pang in her heart at the ruthless look in the child's eyes, and she staggered, almost losing her balance. Fortunately, the Sea Race Empress next to her reached out in time to support her, preventing Yan QiongYu from falling.

"I thought that at least back then, brother was sincere to me, but I never imagined..."

Yan QiongYu's eyes dimmed instantly. No matter how cruel her brother was, she was always grateful for his kindness in raising her back then, but now...

However, the next moment, Yan QiongYu's dim eyes widened suddenly, and she looked at the scene in disbelief.

The child gently placed the baby on the ground, then pulled out a golden hairpin from the head of a female corpse. The next moment, he closed his eyes tightly and stabbed down hard.

Contrary to what one might expect, the baby did not cry out miserably. Although the sound of crying was incessant and blood spurted out, the blood was spurting from the child's forearm.

The intense pain caused the tears that had been wiped away to flow out again uncontrollably. His tender face was twisted together in pain, but the child clenched his teeth tightly, bringing his arm to the baby's mouth, sobbing as he coaxed the baby.

"QiongYu... QiongYu be good, don't cry, don't cry... oh!"

While saying "don't cry," the child kept wiping away his tears, his lips turning pale because of the rapid blood loss.

Looking at those hazy, tearful eyes, Yan QiongYu only felt that the scene was beginning to blur.

This was a scene she had never had any memory of, but at this moment, it was being engraved in the depths of her heart, inch by inch.

Under the round moon, the once quiet and elegant place had now become ruins with broken walls and corpses scattered everywhere. In the ruins, a pale-faced child held the baby tightly in his arms, enduring the pain, shedding tears, and feeding the ignorant baby with his constantly bleeding arm.

So, in this world, there really are people who would give up their lives for others.

"Father, why do we have to kill rabbits?"

"Because we want to eat meat? Besides, rabbits will destroy the rice fields, which is harmful to us."

"Then isn't eating rabbits also harmful to rabbits?"

"..."

"Father, why are they cutting rice?"

"Because they want to harvest rice. With rice, we have rice to eat, so we won't starve to death."

"Father, why do we always have to hurt other things?"

"Silly child, because we need to survive. Everything needs something to survive, just like wolves need to eat rabbits to survive. This isn't intentional harm, but we have no choice."

"Child, we must respect the right to survival that all living beings should have. Of course, we cannot allow them to wantonly harm the innocent. We eat meat, but we will spare the young. We cut rice, but we will leave seeds."

"Life has a beginning and an end. From the moment we are born, we embark on the path of death, but we are never afraid of death, because we revere life and respect life."

"Since human life has its destiny, who can determine separation and reunion?"

Outside the Profound Heaven Hall, many younger generation powerhouses, watching the gradually maturing young Confucian scholar in the image, and listening to his words, all had solemn expressions. Some powerhouses couldn't help but sigh.

"This one is truly a noble person, it's just a pity that his painstaking teaching ultimately resulted in a generation of Demon Emperor."

"Some people, from the moment they are born, have seeds of evil hidden in their bones, destined to be a Demon Lord."

Wenren Zhi, hearing this, couldn't help but curl his lips and said, his eyes full of disdain. A mere mortal, and a noble person? How laughable!

Hearing Wenren Zhi's words, Tang Yi, who was beside him, quickly nodded in agreement, and said with a light smile.

"That's right, someone like the Demon Emperor is born with a Demonic Heart, how could he be..."

However, before Tang Yi could finish speaking, he was interrupted by a cold gaze. Turning his head to look, he met Yan QiongYu's icy eyes.

"Forget it, give QiongYu Fairy some face, everyone, please be careful with your words."

Tang Yi gave an awkward smile. For some reason, he felt that Yan QiongYu's attitude towards the Profound Heaven Saint Emperor showed some signs of turning around.

In the image, time flowed, and in the blink of an eye, the former baby boy had grown for eight years. When the boy was seven years old, Yan Mother also became pregnant with Yan QiongYu. Because of the close relationship between the Yan and Xuan families, Yan Father also asked Xuan Ming's father to help with the naming.

In the blink of an eye, it was Yan QiongYu's full moon banquet.

"Brother Youren, what do you think?"

Yan Father looked proud, causing many of his friends to laugh heartily.

"Haha, Brother Yan, Brother Youren, your two families are close friends, and you have a boy and a girl. Why not just become in-laws?"

"Hahaha, I have no objections, I personally named that girl QiongYu."

"As long as Ming'er agrees to be my good son-in-law, I will personally talk to my wife!"

While a group of people were raising their glasses and laughing, in the garden beside them, the little boy was carefully holding a swaddled baby, sitting in the gazebo.

Looking at the little person in the swaddling clothes, the little boy teased the baby girl like an adult.

"QiongYu sister, look, your mother and father don't want you anymore. In the future, will big brother protect you?"

However, facing the boy's teasing, the baby girl, who couldn't understand at all, just giggled, not afraid of strangers, and her chubby little hands kept grabbing upwards, as if trying to grab the person in front of her.

"You smiled, smiling means you agree, okay? In the future, will you go with big brother? Big brother will definitely protect you!"

Looking at the young Saint Emperor's mature appearance, many people subconsciously revealed a smile. Before, on the Saint Emperor's face, they mostly saw a child who liked to think, a child who was more mature than his peers, but at this moment, they saw from the young Saint Emperor the innocence and childishness that a child of this age should have.

Seeing that Yan QiongYu's face involuntarily revealed a trace of a smile, Tang Yi's brow furrowed, and he couldn't help but speak out.

"The Demon Emperor is indeed the Demon Emperor, at such a young age, he already knows how to deceive and swindle, truly hateful. No wonder QiongYu Fairy was deceived by him for so many years."

Yan QiongYu, who originally had some warmth lingering in her heart, couldn't help but darken her face after hearing Tang Yi's words. Childhood innocence is naturally not to be taken seriously, but what about later...

People will eventually change, the big brother from back then will never return!

However, at this moment, Xuan Ming in the picture suddenly raised his head to look at the sky, and then, his pupils couldn't help but widen.

In the next instant, everyone outside the Profound Heaven Hall saw a massive palm descend from the sky, crashing down upon the brightly lit inner hall.

In an instant, the inner hall, which had been filled with laughter and lively conversation, was reduced to rubble, and all sounds of mirth vanished.

"Hmph, noisy. You dare disturb my ears? You truly deserve to die!"

A voice, icy and filled with rage, echoed above the Yan Mansion. Inside a pavilion, Xuan Ming, who had been playing with Yan QiongYu, trembled, but he did not cry out. Instead, he gritted his teeth, scooped up Yan QiongYu from the horizontal chair in the pavilion, and crawled into the garden, using the flower bushes to conceal himself.

The next moment, screams rose and fell, lasting for nearly the time it takes to drink a teacup. During this time, the child hid in the flower bushes, his eyes tightly shut, his face pale with fear.

Even in such fear, the boy still reached out to gently pat the infant in the swaddling clothes, as if imitating an adult, coaxing the baby to sleep.

Seeing this scene, some cultivators couldn't help but feel sorry for them. A joyous full moon celebration had led to a massacre, truly pitiful and lamentable.

However, some people seemed unwilling to accept it and sighed.

"It's a pity that the cultivator didn't kill the Demon Emperor back then, otherwise, the world wouldn't have so many unwarranted disasters!"

Among the group of experts, a handsome man with a Three Feet Long Sword on his back frowned and couldn't help but snort coldly, rebuking,

"Hmph, indulging in personal anger and wantonly slaughtering the innocent, is this person worthy of being called a cultivator? He is nothing more than a demon. Moreover, how innocent is a child? Can one condemn an innocent child to a heavy crime because of their future transgressions?"

As he spoke, the sword-bearing man's cold, sharp gaze swept to the side, causing many experts to avert their eyes, not daring to meet his gaze.