Chapter 171: Someone Loves Me
by Xiao Ying You

Her hands and feet were ice-cold, and a chill brushed across her face.

Lian Mu frowned slightly and slowly opened her eyes, only to find herself standing in a world of snow and ice. But the surroundings didn’t resemble the Returning Immortal Sect at all.

Snow was falling heavily, melting into droplets as it landed on her face. She seemed to have been standing there for quite some time—her shoulders were already dusted with snow.

The biting cold felt startlingly real, and for a moment, Lian Mu was confused: Where was she?

She looked down at the sword in her arms—it was still Wealth Bringer. She was wearing the sect robes of the Returning Immortal Sect, the exact same outfit she had on when entering the Penglai Illusion Realm.

But Azure Dragon East never snowed.

Lian Mu glanced around and found herself in a courtyard, one that looked like it belonged to a wealthy mortal family. Perhaps because of the snow outside, the courtyard was eerily quiet.

Before long, angry voices rang out nearby:

“Why is he here again? In the dead of winter, letting a sickly child show up at our door—what a curse! Get him out of here!”

“Don’t let him into the master’s room. What if he brings in some disease? That’d be a disaster.”

Lian Mu followed the voices and saw a group of people gathered at the main gate, forming a circle. Two of them were holding brooms, as if trying to drive something away.

They didn’t seem to see her. Lian Mu walked right up behind them, but none of them reacted.

Peering through the gaps in the crowd, she saw a ragged little boy curled up on the ground. He was skin and bones, trembling in the snow, clutching a hairpin in his hand, trying to offer it with shaking fingers.

“My mother said… she wants to return to the Prime Minister’s Manor…”

“Your mother stopped being a lady of the Prime Minister’s Manor the day she ran off with that shady Taoist. She killed the old madam with her disgrace, and now she wants to come back? Get lost!”

“Sending a sickly kid like you to plead her case—don’t you dare die on our doorstep! No one’s going to clean up your corpse!”

The men, dressed like servant boys, struck the child with their brooms, forcing him out the gate.

Lian Mu followed. Though she could feel the chill in the air, nothing could block her path. When the gate slammed shut behind the boy, she simply passed through the wall.

That’s when it hit her—she must have entered someone else’s memory. Thinking back to the peculiar nature of this Illusion Realm, Lian Mu understood:

She was inside someone’s Heart Realm Trial.

But… was it even possible to enter someone else’s Heart Realm Trial?

She’d heard that the Crimson Sky Sect’s modified Illusion Realm was notoriously unpredictable each year, but this time it seemed downright chaotic.

She immediately recalled what Sect Master Shen had said. Could this be the “opportunity” he mentioned?

Before she passed out, the only one beside her had been Fengyun Yi. That meant this was very likely Fengyun Yi’s Heart Realm Trial.

Lian Mu looked at the small, shivering child curled on the ground and crouched down to study him. His face was purplish-red from the cold, streaked with dirt—she couldn’t make out his features clearly.

If this really was Fengyun Yi’s Heart Realm Trial, then the rumors she’d heard didn’t match at all.

According to outsiders, Fengyun Yi’s biological mother was the current head of the Feng Clan. When he was cast out, it was with his father. The Feng Clan had long since joined the ranks of the Immortal Sects’ noble families—what did they have to do with the Prime Minister’s Manor?

Could Xu Xianxing and Wen Yun have gotten their information wrong?

Lian Mu decided to wait and see what would happen next.

After huddling in the snow for a while, the child stretched out his frostbitten, cracked hands and brushed the snow off his clothes, then struggled to stand.

He barely reached Lian Mu’s waist, thin as a sheet of paper, as if the wind could blow him away. Barefoot, he trudged through the thick snow, leaving a crooked trail of footprints. Starved and weak, his eyes fluttered open and shut as he staggered forward, nearly falling with every step.

Lian Mu walked beside him, silently watching as he limped from the city to the outskirts. Along the way, countless passersby cast sidelong glances at him.

From their murmurs, she pieced together his story: he was the son of the former young lady of the Prime Minister’s Manor.

Six years ago, the young lady had met a man claiming to be a cultivator from the Immortal Sects. Mortals revered cultivators, and after he saved her life, she fell in love and offered herself to him. Her family opposed the match, so she eloped with him, enraging the old madam of the Prime Minister’s Manor to death.

After giving birth to the boy, the man vanished without a word. Later, someone exposed him as a fraud—not a cultivator at all, just a con artist. The young lady was devastated by the truth and fell into a state of madness, half-lucid at best. She often sent her son with a hairpin to the Prime Minister’s Manor, hoping to reclaim her place.

But noble families are ruthless. To the head of the household, children are nothing more than pawns. And with such a scandal, the Prime Minister’s Manor would never allow a stain like that to return. So every time, they drove him away.

The half-grown child walked the long road every day, only to be beaten at the Manor’s gates, then walked barefoot all the way back. He’d been doing this for over three months.

He was born frail—barely alive at birth, though he had no specific illness. A fortune-teller once said he had no fate to survive in this world. Born with a rare bone but into a mortal body, he couldn’t bear the burden and wouldn’t live long.

But his life was stubborn. Starving, freezing, dragging his sickly body, he’d still managed to survive for six years. It was astonishing. He was also an odd child—never played with others, and often talked to the weapons at the blacksmith’s shop. After being caught doing it a few times, people started calling him a demon child, and no one wanted anything to do with him.

This didn’t match Fengyun Yi’s background at all. Lian Mu suddenly felt like she might’ve entered the wrong trial.

But with no way out for now, she had no choice but to follow the boy.

Just as the rumors said, he walked a long way each day—from the city to a small village on the outskirts. It took Lian Mu about two hours to follow him there.

Of course, the distance was nothing to her—she could have flown there in moments. But the boy was so slow, practically dragging himself forward. Lian Mu could cover ten of his steps in one of her own.

She watched as the boy entered a thatched hut, his hands trembling as he placed the hairpin on the table.

He stood in the corner, facing the person lying on the bed, and rasped out, “I… I’m back.”

“What are you doing back here? Get out!” The person on the bed grabbed the scissors by the pillow and hurled them at him.

The sharp tip of the scissors grazed his cheek, slicing the skin above his ear. A few strands of hair fell to the ground, and then blood began to flow, staining his entire neck crimson.

He acted as if he didn’t feel a thing. He picked up the scissors and placed them neatly beside the hairpin, then took the wooden bucket by the door and walked out.

Lian Mu: “…”

Whose tragic past had she stumbled into? If she remembered correctly, most of the Chief Disciples from the Four Great Sects were sons and daughters of noble families. Their childhoods shouldn’t have been this miserable.

Wait… she vaguely recalled Xu Xianxing mentioning that a few Chief Disciples came from ordinary mortal families, but she couldn’t remember who. She never really paid attention to the rumors Xu Xianxing shared—she’d hear them and forget them just as quickly, never having the time to remember such things.

Lian Mu thought for a moment and decided to follow him. She traced his footsteps to a riverbank where laundry was done and saw him squatting by the water with a basin full of clothes.

In the dead of winter, he was the only one there doing laundry. He seemed completely unaffected by the cold, brushing snow off the stone slab and scooping up a handful of water to wash his face.

After cleaning off the grime, the surface of the river reflected a delicate, pale face—somewhat thin, but handsome.

Lian Mu looked closely and noticed that the boy’s eyes resembled Ying You’s. But compared to him, Ying You’s gaze held a gentler light.

She frowned, now certain that she had entered the wrong person’s Heart Realm Trial. And Ying You’s Heart Realm Trial didn’t seem to have any connection to Fengyun Yi at all.

But… was Ying You’s childhood really this harsh? She had always assumed that a genius like him would have been pampered from a young age.

Judging by this, it seemed other people’s Heart Realm Trials were different from hers. The others had forgotten they were in the Illusion Realm and had become their former selves within the trial.

As Lian Mu pondered this, a group of children in thick winter jackets arrived at the riverbank. They squatted down, looking at the young Ying You below, and giggled.

“Hey, has your mom given you a name yet? I had a name the moment I was born. You’re already six and still don’t have one?”

“I have a name,” he replied.

“What is it?”

Expressionless, he said, “My name… I can’t let you know.”

“Quit pretending. You don’t have a name because you’re a monster. My dad says you’re a weapon spirit monster—you can talk to iron lumps!”

“You’re a monster. You don’t feel pain when you bleed, and you’re not afraid of the cold. No wonder your mom doesn’t like you. Weapons are made to kill. No one likes a weapon monster.”

Little Ying You stood up, back straight, and said firmly, “Someone likes me. More than any of you could ever imagine.”

“Oh yeah? What do they look like? What village are they from?”

Little Ying You lowered his gaze. “I… don’t remember.”

That person had only ever appeared in his dreams. Every dream he’d had since he was little was filled with fragments of memories about that person.

“The person you’re talking about isn’t one of those snowmen by your feet, is it?” The group of children burst into laughter, pointing at the snowmen on the stone slab. “You keep lying to yourself. No one in this world cares about you. You don’t even have a name.”

Lian Mu followed their gaze and paused when she saw the two snowmen.

Then she looked back at little Ying You. His eyes were wide with anger, but his rims were red, tears brimming as he stood trembling in the cold wind.

After their fun, the children ran off. One of them even kicked over the laundry basin before leaving, making a face at him. “Monster! We’re not playing with you!”

Lian Mu: “…”

So the Azure Profound Sect’s Chief Sword Cultivator had such a stifling childhood? That was… eye-opening.

Was this the heart-knot Ying You carried?

With a past like this, the fact that he hadn’t grown up twisted was honestly impressive.

As Lian Mu was reflecting on this, she saw little Ying You crouch down and start fiddling with the two snowmen at his feet.

His sculpting skills were terrible—the snowmen were lopsided and misshapen. Lian Mu couldn’t help but recall the first Illusion Realm, when she saw two ugly snowmen near the bamboo hut. So they were his handiwork after all. She’d thought Shen Wuxie had made them.

She watched as he earnestly pinched a nose and eyes onto the snowmen’s faces, but the result was still a disaster. Amused, she reached out and gently patted his head.

The moment her fingers touched him, Wealth Bringer suddenly reacted violently. The sword trembled even more fiercely than Ying You himself, as if it were rejecting his presence.

“What’s going on?”