Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know

Old Scars

Wenren È rode a horse, carrying six-year-old little Yin Hanjiang in his lap, heading slowly toward the border with travel documents in hand.

Little Yin Hanjiang lifted a hand and touched the bandages on Wenren È's face.

"Do I look scary?" Wenren È asked.

His hands and face were covered with burn wounds, which young Wenren Wu had inflicted himself.

After the Wenren clan's extermination, Wenren Wu rushed back to the capital with the help of Marshal Wenren's old subordinates, but didn't manage to do anything other than recover his family's corpses.

His father's friends couldn't help him much, only prepared a false identity for him and told him to travel as far away as possible. Before the Wenren clan was exonerated, he must not return.

Since Wenren Wu was a fugitive, in order to protect himself and not bring anyone else trouble, he threw himself into a bonfire, burning his face. Before his burns healed, he sped away from the capital, running into a checkpoint on the way where a disbelieving officer ripped off his bandages, revealing crimson and bloody flesh.

"No." Little Yin Hanjiang curled up in his lap, thinking about how the young Wenren Wu had spent these years.

His whole family was dedicated to the country, yet only he now remained. He wasn't more than a fifteen-year-old boy, having not long ago been a mischievous troublemaker who caused chaos wherever he went, but now he needed to hide his name and identity, crushing down his willful and carefree nature, destroying his own uncommonly handsome face and facing a world filled with malice, alone.

A cultivator could heal any sort of injury. By the time Yin Hanjiang met Wenren È, he had already been cultivating for two hundred years and was powerful as to resemble a deity. He knew no match in the cultivation world, an embodiment of strength itself. No one would be able to imagine he once had such a past. Even though Yin Hanjiang had occasionally heard Wenren È bring up the past, he was unable to connect what he heard with the man he knew.

Only now did Yin Hanjiang realize, more clearly than ever, that his Venerable wasn't a deity. He was a flesh-and-blood mortal, who understood better than anyone what pain was.

Little Yin Hanjiang climbed up, wrapping his arms around Wenren È's neck and raising his head to kiss his bandages. "Hurts," he said softly.

"What are you thinking?" Wenren È poked Yin Hanjiang in the head. "Three hundred and fifty years have passed, so how could it still hurt?"

In his memories, certain special points couldn't be changed. After all, the events had all already happened. At points when Wenren Wu's emotions were most intense, Wenren È would be forced down the same actions. But during this blank space which he had no particular impression of, he could stay levelheaded.

Yin Hanjiang didn't say anything, just buried his head in Wenren È's shoulder.

They traveled for half a year before arriving at the border. It was no longer the border they had left, after nine cities had been ceded to the enemy forces.

"Back then, I knew I couldn't kill the worthless emperor, so I fled back to the border and infiltrated the occupied cities in order to assassinate as many of the enemy leaders as possible," Wenren È said to Yin Hanjiang. "The halberd I always used was in the family manor, so my only wish was to return home and take back my weapon."

Yin Hanjiang's heart clenched.

He watched as young Wenren Wu, instead of becoming an official with his recommendations, relied on his martial arts skills and leapt the city wall at midnight. He ran the rest of the way, avoiding enemy soldiers for several days and nights, until he arrived at the town where he had lived.