Immortal of the Ages

Chapter 509: A Mother's Love

At the entrance to the Lu Immortal Manor, several armored guards stood, their prowess akin to that of the Yang Immortals.

Such individuals, if young, still had hope. But the older ones, within the vast expanse of the Great Dao Celestial Realm, were considered the lowest of the low.

As Yun Xiao and Lian Xi approached the gate, the guards exchanged glances. Finally, an older guard stepped forward and asked, "May I know who you are, sir?"

Yun Xiao replied calmly, "I am of Lu Immortal Manor, Lu Yao."

"Lu Yao?" The younger guards did not recognize the name, but the older guard's eyes widened with a mix of shock and recognition. "I remember you, lad. Haven't you been missing for years? Everyone thought you were dead!"

Yun Xiao just shook his head and smiled, offering no further explanation.

"Hard to believe, after all these years, you still look so young," the older guard remarked with a raised eyebrow and a chuckle. "Do you remember me?"

"I don't," Yun Xiao said simply.

There was nothing much to say to a guard.

The older guard laughed heartily and clapped him on the shoulder, his expression odd. "It seems your memory has worsened along with your absence from the Celestial Court, eh? Looks like you've been up to quite a bit."

He was just a guard, and Lu Yao was a member of the Lu Immortal Manor's family. There should have been a clear master-servant divide, yet this older guard showed no awareness of such distinctions.

Yun Xiao, uninterested in further banter, passed by with Lian Xi, stepping into the spirit-filled environs of the Lu Immortal Manor.

"Shouldn't we tease him a bit?" Another guard chuckled, looking after them.

"Tease him? Did you not see that it was Arbiter Liu who escorted him back? Arbiter Liu is a Rank 8 Heavenly Officer of the Celestial Court. Who dares to mess with her people?" The older guard rolled his eyes.

"Right... And his brother is a Rank 9 Arbiter."

With that, the guards could only smirk sheepishly and return to their posts, idly passing the time.

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Inside the Lu Immortal Manor, Yun Xiao led Lian Xi through the vast grounds of the estate.

The estate was nourished by a Celestial Sourcecore, enchanting every plant and tree with celestial energy. Even the stone pillars and tiles, long infused with celestial essence, shimmered with a magical glow, suggesting that with a mere touch, they might turn into sacred artifacts.

The entirety of the Lu Immortal Manor radiated an air of lofty elegance and opulent grandeur, resembling the celestial palaces mortals dreamed of. Yet, in the heavens, it was but an ordinary abode.

"Yun Xiao, do you know where Arbiter Lu's home is?" Lian Xi asked quietly as she followed behind.

To avoid exposing their identities, they certainly couldn't just ask for directions.

"In Lu Yao's paintings, he depicted his home and its surroundings. I recognize the place," Yun Xiao replied, glancing around. The occasional Immortal and their servant passed by, paying no attention to them—a testament to the fact that this was a grand family estate where unfamiliar faces were not unusual.

"Oh." Lian Xi tugged at his sleeve, her eyes wide with curiosity as she looked around.

Suddenly, she remembered something. "Did Arbiter Liu realize you were an imposter?"

Yun Xiao stopped and nodded. "Yes, she did."

"But she didn't expose you. She even said you could go to her for cultivation... Why is that?" Lian Xi was puzzled.

"I'm not sure either," Yun Xiao said, his gaze sharpening. "Anyway, as stowaways from the mortal realm, if we're exposed and caught, we'd surely be executed. Lu Yao's identity has many flaws, but we don’t have other options. We might as well try."

"Mhm." Lian Xi understood; they had just ascended to the Celestial Court and were utterly lost.

If someone kindly offered to guide them on the path of immortality, their inherent talents would allow them to rise swiftly.

"The Immortal Asylum, Divine Dawn, and the scourge of parasitic Gu—all tie into the dark secrets at the core of the Great Dao Celestial Realm, far beyond our reach. For now, our priority must be to acquire the Boundary Stabilizing Divine Needle from Sky Soaring City to prevent the destruction of the myriad worlds." Yun Xiao's goals were clear, his eyes alight with resolve.

Lian Xi gazed at him admiringly. She realized then that Yun Xiao, filled with idealism and a righteous fury, seemed even more enchanting. Perhaps luck was on their side, for it wasn’t long before Yun Xiao found a secluded courtyard on the edge of the Lu Immortal Manor.

"This is their home," Yun Xiao said, comparing the scene before him with the painting and nodding in confirmation.

"There's also the mother of Arbiter Lu..." Lian Xi mentioned.

Yun Xiao steeled himself and said, "We have no choice but to play along. As long as she recognizes me as her son, no one will suspect."

"That's true. After all, who would mistake their own son?" Lian Xi said with a naive chuckle.

But she knew in her heart that deceiving a mother was perhaps the hardest thing in the world. So, she felt quite uncertain about the test that lay ahead.

While she was still pondering how to deceive Arbiter Lu's mother, Yun Xiao, without a second word, pushed open the gate and stepped into the courtyard.

"Going all-in with sincerity, huh?" Lian Xi murmured to herself as she quietly followed him inside.

Upon entering, the young man and woman halted.

The courtyard was small, planted with vegetables that shimmered with celestial energy, their colors vibrant and fragrances sweet. Nearby, several celestial pigs with big eyes stared blankly around. These pigs were adorably pink, exhaling fragrant breaths.

When strangers entered, the celestial pigs sensed danger, grunting as they pressed their front legs down and scraped the earth with their back legs.

"How adorable," Lian Xi said, her eyes sparkling with delight.

But Yun Xiao's gaze drifted to a corner of the courtyard. There stood a small temple with an incense burner inside. The burner held offerings to an emperor clad in a golden dragon robe and a purple-gold crown.

A thin woman in plain clothes kneeled before the temple, whispering devoutly. First, she offered incense to the Celestial Emperor, then bowed deeply with three prostrations and nine kowtows.

"Great Emperor... protect... my eldest and youngest sons..."

Yun Xiao, standing quietly at the doorway, overheard these words. He watched the woman, thoughts of Arbiter Lu crowding his mind, unsure of what to say.

After a while, the kneeling woman, hearing the pigs' commotion, stood up and turned around, asking softly, "Son, have you returned?"

Yun Xiao looked closely. The woman's eyes were devoid of whites, just two charred, rough, and cracked black orbs, like coal that had been burned.

It was hard to imagine these as human eyes.

Indeed, Lu Yao's mother was blind, seeing nothing.

In her youth, at the level of a Yang Immortal, she should not have gone completely blind.

The reason was recorded in Lu Yao's diary!

It seemed that in her youth, she had committed a grave error and was punished by the head of the manor with the Cauldron of Fire punishment, which burnt out her eyes as a lesson for her sightlessness.

As for the details, even Lu Yao did not know; his mother refused to revisit the past.

However, these blind eyes had always been a great regret and source of pain for the brothers, especially for Lu Yao. Since he could remember, his mother had always been like this.

Naturally, she could not see Yun Xiao!

For Yun Xiao, this reduced some of the difficulty and was partly why he was willing to attempt this. He looked at the woman, his emotions a complex mix. He knew that deceiving someone was wrong. Especially deceiving the unfortunate, that was something one ought to despise. But what about a deception meant kindly?

Yun Xiao struggled with this for a while, thinking of the brothers no longer being around, perhaps he could help their mother... So, he finally spoke out, "Mother, it's Lil Yao."

Telling this lie was far harder than facing Arbiter Liu had been.

His voice trembled slightly as he spoke. But this only made it sound more genuine, as if emotions were truly spilling forth.

These words struck like thunder in the ears of the mother.

She stepped back instinctively, pointing in Yun Xiao's direction with a mix of confusion and panic, "Young master, stop joking around, please don't play tricks with Xiao Yao."

Yun Xiao paused. Young master, who? Now that he had started, he was all in, saying, "Mother, do you still have the portrait I drew for you before I went to the Arbiter examination?"

"Portrait, my portrait..." The plain-dressed woman trembled, steadying herself with one hand on a nearby tree and fumbling in her bosom with the other, clutching a piece of drawing paper she carried with her.

"I'm sorry, I've been gone too long." Watching her mix of frantic and suppressed joy, Yun Xiao's voice shook too.

"Lil Yao!" The woman finally managed to shout these words from her throat. For a moment, she seemed to forget she was blind and rushed toward Yun Xiao.

THUD! She stumbled, falling hard to the ground, her face smeared with dirt.

However, as if nothing had happened, she scrambled to her feet, rolling and crawling toward Yun Xiao's direction and embraced him.

CRASH! She collided into Yun Xiao, clutching his arm tightly, her nails digging into his skin and drawing blood, as if terrified that this was all just a dream.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" As she embraced Yun Xiao, tears burst forth, and she wailed, "It's all my fault! I won't force you to become an Arbiter anymore, no more..."

After speaking, she gripped Yun Xiao's arms tightly, pleading desperately, "Don’t leave home again, will you? Please, will you?"

Yun Xiao's memories of his parents had faded over time. So, when he saw a mother clinging to him like a drowning person, saw her tears and pained expression... could the sentiments of the human world really be as trivial as the indifferent cultivators claimed?

He couldn't accept that. At least in this moment, he felt a mother's decade of suppressed regret and love. The tears she shed were black like ink. This was the legacy of the Cauldron of Fire punishment.

According to Lu Yao's diary, each time his mother cried, her eyes would hurt so much they twitched and she screamed in pain.

And so, the brothers had always been exceedingly careful, unwilling to make her cry or disappoint her. This was also why Lu Yao longed to become an Arbiter. They desperately wanted her to be happy. But who knew how many times she had cried during the ten years of Lu Yao's disappearance?

Fortunately, although she cried a lot this time, these were tears of joy, and it seemed she even forgot the pain in her eyes, her heart filled only with the hope grasped in her hands...