Chapter 127: Wolf Head's Memories

Lu Jue’s clear pupils contracted. He looked at Yang Guang, then frowned, his eyes narrowing slightly as he asked in a voice tinged with confusion, "Thank me?"

Yang Guang, whose personality had undergone a drastic transformation, curled his lips into a grin. He raised a hand to wipe the blood from his cheek, licking his fingers gently. The salty, metallic tang of the blood only seemed to excite him further.

"Come then, let me experience the true power of a Grandmaster!"

Yang Guang swung his long blade and lunged directly at Lu Jue, the whistling of the wind creating a low, buzzing drone. Lu Jue hurriedly channeled his inner energy, raising his sword to deflect the blow. Yang Guang’s swordsmanship had changed entirely; it was as if he had become a different person. He struck at Lu Jue’s vital points with a series of cunning, sinister angles, his movements growing faster and his strength increasing with every strike.

A fierce clash of steel erupted, sending shockwaves through the air. The space around them shattered, and dust and debris swirled through the air.

*Bang!*

A thunderous sound exploded between the two, whose movements had become almost too fast for the naked eye to track.

"What? Are you holding back?"

As the two separated, Yang Guang sneered, mocking Lu Jue. During the exchange, Lu Jue had focused entirely on defense, showing no intention to counterattack—a fact that clearly displeased Yang Guang.

"Stop!"

Just as Lu Jue began to pant and was about to speak, a shout rang out from the distance. Chen Pingwu arrived, followed by a large contingent of soldiers, his expression hurried. In the center of the group, Feng Yewu and others also arrived. The soldiers and the Divine Strategy Battalion quickly formed ranks, surrounding Lu Jue and Yang Guang.

"Your Majesty!"

Seeing Feng Yewu step forward, flanked by her entourage, Lu Jue hurriedly sheathed his sword and bowed. Yang Guang, however, stood still, a faint smile on his lips as he surveyed the newcomers with indifference.

"How bold of you, Yang Guang! Why do you not bow before Her Majesty?" Wei Nanqi, standing beside Feng Yewu, saw Yang Guang’s arrogant demeanor and reprimanded him loudly.

"No need."

Feng Yewu raised a hand, cutting off Wei Nanqi, and then scrutinized both Lu Jue and Yang Guang. Although Lu Jue appeared somewhat disheveled, he was uninjured, whereas Yang Guang was covered in blood, looking rather desolate. Seeing that Lu Jue was unharmed, Feng Yewu felt a sense of relief and paid no further mind to Yang Guang’s attitude.

...

"Oh no, it’s the Emperor and her men!"

Upon seeing the soldiers and Feng Yewu, Zhao Xiyan gasped in a low voice and moved to pull Wolf-Head deeper into the cave. Wolf-Head, however, was unbothered by her panic and said indifferently, "What are you afraid of? At this distance, unless there is a Saint among them, they cannot detect us."

Having said this, he leaned back against the stone wall. Though he remained unconcerned, he lost interest in watching. "How tedious. Now that the Empress has arrived, this should be the end of the show."

Hearing this, Zhao Xiyan paused, realizing he was right. With Lu Jue having successfully ascended to the rank of Grandmaster and so many soldiers present, Yang Guang would find it difficult to act, regardless of his intentions.

"By the way, Senior, how do you know about the 'Twin-Bodied'?"

Zhao Xiyan, concluding that nothing more would happen between Lu Jue and Yang Guang, retreated into the cave and asked about the term Wolf-Head had mentioned earlier. Wolf-Head remained silent, his presence merging with the darkness of the night.

"Get some rest, then," Zhao Xiyan said, shaking her head with a resigned sigh as she leaned against the wall to rest. After everything that had transpired in a single night, even someone made of iron would be exhausted. With the King of Pingyi fallen, her path ahead was uncertain; she would have to wait for Feng Yewu and the others to leave before she could reconnect with the Penglai Pavilion.

An unknown amount of time passed in the darkness before Wolf-Head’s raspy voice, sounding like insects scraping against a mountain wall, drifted softly through the air.

"I, too, am a Twin-Bodied."

Zhao Xiyan turned her head, her eyes wide with surprise as she peered into the darkness at him. Outside the Wolf-Tooth Mountain, Feng Yewu’s party had already departed. Aside from the whistling wind, only Wolf-Head’s voice echoed in the depths of the cave.

"My mother was from the Ye Dynasty; my father was the chieftain of a small tribe of the Tidi people."

As he reminisced, he turned his gaze toward the moon setting outside the cave, his heterochromatic eyes shining with an unnatural brightness. Zhao Xiyan remained silent, listening quietly. As a legend in the world of assassins, she was deeply curious about his past.

"My mother was from a village on the northern border of the Ye Dynasty. She was abducted by my father during a Tidi raid, and that was how I came to be."

Wolf-Head’s tone held a hint of self-mockery. Every Twin-Bodied individual was viewed as an inferior being, a mongrel, by any race. "The Tidi value physical strength above all else. Since I was born looking like a Ye Dynasty person, I was constantly bullied. I had seven or eight Tidi half-brothers above me, so my father cared nothing for my suffering."

"You and your mother must have had a very difficult life," Zhao Xiyan said, looking at him with pity.

"My mother?" Wolf-Head repeated. He pulled his gaze from the moonlight and looked at Zhao Xiyan’s delicate face, a strange, eerie smile playing on his lips. "My father forced himself upon her, and then I was born. In my mother’s eyes, I was a lifelong shame. To this day, I remember the look in her eyes—there was no affection, only hatred and coldness."

Zhao Xiyan was stunned; she had not expected his mother to be this way. "Then why did she keep you?"

"For survival," Wolf-Head said softly. He lowered his eyelids, looking at the ground, hiding his expression in the shadows. "Only by giving birth to me could she avoid being eaten by my father’s kin."

Indeed, Zhao Xiyan recalled intelligence from the Penglai Pavilion suggesting that the Tidi often consumed their Ye Dynasty captives. It seemed the reports were true.

"Because I carried the blood of the Tidi, they would not eat her while she was pregnant with me. But she had not realized that she would end up on the platter eventually."

Zhao Xiyan gasped in horror. "Your mother was eaten anyway!"

Wolf-Head’s body trembled slightly, and a strange sound—part laugh, part sob—emerged from his raspy throat. He suddenly looked up. Zhao Xiyan saw an eerie light flashing in his mismatched eyes, and two tears, barely visible, traced paths down his wrinkled cheeks.

"It wasn't just her," he said quietly, smiling as he delivered the answer. "Everyone in that tribe was eaten."