"Huang'er, what exactly is this Wanyuan Island, this Eternal Divine Kingdom?" Jiang Chen asked again.
"Wanyuan Island is the true core of the Divine Abyss Continent. Legend has it that during the ancient era, invaders from an alien continent breached the Divine Abyss Continent, triggering a great war. That war reshaped the balance of power across the continent. Of the Divine Abyss Continent's mighty factions, fewer than one in ten survived. Cultivators across the land went into hiding, one after another. Some left behind legacies; others left nothing at all. And the place all these cultivators retreated to… was Wanyuan Island."
"All the ancient powerhouses went to Wanyuan Island? Why?" Jiang Chen was taken aback, suddenly reminded of the ancient Danxiao Sect on Illusory Wave Mountain.
"Wanyuan Island is a boundless abyss sea — vast beyond measure — yet wrapped in the divine might of the abyss itself, sealed away so thoroughly that the outside world can barely detect its existence. It's said that once invaders from other planes set foot on Wanyuan Island, they lose all ability to find it. And as long as it remains undiscovered, the Divine Abyss Continent holds little appeal — perhaps not enough to lure the invasion of a truly powerful foreign plane."
Jiang Chen frowned. "The ancient enemy invaded from beyond the realms, and after a single war, the cultivators of the Divine Abyss Continent lost even their courage and fighting spirit? Hiding away like this can hardly be the best way to preserve oneself."
Huang'er sighed softly. "I've heard Elder Shun mention some of these rumors. Whether the real reason is exactly as I've described, I can't say for certain."
Jiang Chen paused, but said nothing more.
His words had been nothing but a moment of heated emotion. In his previous life, the Myriad Heavens had shattered because the great calamity arrived. But his father, the Heavenly Emperor, had not chosen to cower and hide simply because calamity was at hand.
To think that the ancient cultivators of the Divine Abyss Continent had retreated into Wanyuan Island and refused to come out, all because of an alien invasion — this left Jiang Chen both astonished and at a loss for words.
But then he remembered that Huang'er herself hailed from Wanyuan Island, and his words might have inadvertently made her uncomfortable. He quickly added, somewhat apologetically, "Huang'er, that was just the heat of the moment talking. Please don't take it to heart."
Huang'er smiled gently. "What you said is true enough — why would I take offense? Besides, I have no fond memories of life on Wanyuan Island. On the contrary, since leaving that place, the years I've spent out here have been wonderfully pleasant. It let me escape those troubles and forget the illness that plagued me."
"If you don't like that place, then we'll never go back to Wanyuan Island," Jiang Chen assured her.
A faint shadow of gloom flickered through Huang'er's eyes, as though she'd recalled something unpleasant. A subtle veil of melancholy settled over her delicate features.
"Huang'er?"
Huang'er sighed softly. "Brother Chen, I have absolutely no desire to go back. But Wanyuan Island… the Eternal Divine Kingdom… my fate is bound to that place. I don't know whether I can break free of those chains."
"Fate?" Jiang Chen smiled faintly. In his previous life, he had been the son of the Heavenly Emperor, his vision spanning the whole of the Myriad Heavens. He knew that the Heavenly Dao moved in cycles and carried a certain inertia, but he had never encountered a fate that truly could not be broken.
The Heavenly Dao, in its workings, always left a sliver of opportunity — a way for one to cast off its shackles.
The strong cultivated the martial path, striving to break free of fate's bonds; the weak were enslaved by destiny, sinking forever in its bitter sea.
In his own previous life, despite being the son of the Heavenly Emperor, Jiang Chen had been unable to cultivate — a wretched fate indeed. But his father had twisted that destiny by sheer force of will, allowing him to live for a million years in a mortal body.
That was a textbook example of breaking free from destiny's grip.
So Jiang Chen simply refused to believe that something as insignificant as the Divine Abyss Continent could hold a fate from which one could never escape.
"Huang'er, so-called fate is nothing more than a test the Heavenly Dao sets before you. No fate is eternal and unbreakable. What is Wanyuan Island? What is the Eternal Divine Kingdom? Even the Eternal Divine Kingdom may not be eternal in the eyes of the Heavenly Dao — let alone whatever fate it claims to impose on you. Tell me, then — what is this fate?"
A trace of sorrow shimmered in Huang'er's beautiful eyes.
"Brother Chen, when you diagnosed me with the Hundred Lives Heartbind Curse, you guessed at what happened between my parents' generation. Do you still remember?"
Jiang Chen nodded. The Hundred Lives Heartbind Curse — a curse born of obsessive love. A woman outside his parents' relationship had been desperately in love with Huang'er's father. When her love went unrequited, she burned her soul to cast this curse, ensuring that Huang'er would be born with it already clinging to her from the womb.
"My father once had a betrothal to the woman who cast the curse. But in his youth, he was wild and free-spirited, unwilling to be shackled by an arranged marriage. He left Wanyuan Island, met my mother, and the two of them pledged themselves to each other in secret. When my mother became pregnant and they returned to the clan, every faction was enraged. My parents were thrown into the Boundless Prison of Wanyuan Island, enduring the torments of hell day after day. And as for me — from the moment I was born, I was branded an abomination. To compensate the family my father had been betrothed to, I was promised from childhood to some genius of that clan as a Dual Cultivation Furnace… From a young age, I suffered nothing but discrimination and cold stares within my own family. The only one who ever showed me love and warmth was Elder Shun…"
At this point, even Huang'er — so calm and composed by nature — felt her eyes grow faintly red. The injustice of the fate she'd been dealt was clearly something she still struggled to contain.
All these years, she and Elder Shun had relied on each other, far from Wanyuan Island. It had certainly been to treat her illness, but at its root, hadn't it also been an escape from the shackles of fate?
Wandering outside all these years, despite the constant hardship and travel, Huang'er's spirit had been far more at ease than it ever was on Wanyuan Island.
Yet Huang'er knew, deep down, that this life of escape could not last forever. There would come a day when it shattered — when it all came to an end.
If Wanyuan Island ever sent people to track her down, that would be the moment she had to sever all worldly ties. Every shred of happiness, every hope for a beautiful future — all of it would dissolve like clouds.
For the power of Wanyuan Island was something far beyond the imagination of the human territories.
Even the strongest cultivators of the Upper Eight Domains were nothing before the powerhouses of Wanyuan Island.
Jiang Chen fell silent for a long while after hearing this. He had always suspected that Huang'er must be a young lady of noble birth — the bearing she carried, the way she spoke, could never have been cultivated by an ordinary household.