Chenying's Secret

"This Spirit Seed should be called Nirvana Flame — a high-grade fire used in crafting Enchanted Gear. Any Forgemaster worth their anvil would pay handsomely for it," Lingling said, her face glowing with satisfaction.

"Honestly, I still can't quite believe it's real. A Spirit Seed — an actual Spirit Seed — you can't buy something like this for any price in the world..." Zhang Xiaohou stared at it with blank, stupefied eyes.

Mo Fan gazed at the pale yellow Spirit Seed resting in the container. He remembered vividly what it had cost him to obtain his Rose Flame — always the mantis with a predator lurking behind, and he had nearly lost his life to that deranged killer in the bargain. Compared to that ordeal, acquiring this Nirvana Flame had been almost embarrassingly painless. He wasn't quite sure what to make of his luck.

"I think we're letting ourselves get too fixated on the Spirit Seed," Chenying said. She was barely interested in the Nirvana Flame at all — she had the restless look of someone already hunting for the next prize. "The Blazing Plains are famous for fire, yes, but there are certain rare natural treasures here that can only bloom when the flames reach a sufficient intensity. In a way, the Fire Calamity gave them a thorough watering. We should be looking at what grew."

Mo Fan watched her. The more he observed Chenying, the more convinced he became that her reasons for being here were far less simple than she'd first let on.

"Chenying," Xinxia said gently, "we're all in the same party — people who've faced life and death side by side. Whatever you know, you might as well just say it."

"I... I... what would I know? I just... I just think we should set our sights a little higher. It's that simple." Chenying was clearly not built for deception. No one had even pressed her hard, and she was already stumbling over her own words.

Her reaction only deepened everyone's suspicions — especially Zhao Manyan's, since he was the one who had brought her along. They were family, and it was out of absolute trust that he'd let her join.

Zhao Manyan looked at her steadily and decided she had no business keeping secrets from people like these. "I told you before we left — these are people you can trust completely. And it's obvious to everyone here that you know the Blazing Plains far better than anyone who merely prepared in advance. You've also been quietly steering us toward something specific."

"I... I haven't been." With every pair of eyes on her, Chenying's voice shrank to barely a whisper.

She wasn't a dazzling beauty, but there was a quiet self-assurance in her features that was impossible to dislike — and she carried none of the haughtiness typical of Noble Clan children. Everyone had a good impression of her. Which made her current behavior all the more baffling. Whatever she knew, why couldn't she simply say it outright? Why resort to oblique nudging and sideways hints — especially when her attempts at concealment were this transparent?

Xinxia saw that Chenying still had no intention of opening up. Her gaze drifted to meet Mo Fan's.

"She's very anxious. There's definitely something she hasn't told us." Xinxia's voice rippled softly inside Mo Fan's mind — clear and distant at once, like sound carried across still water.

Mo Fan stared at her in surprise.

She hadn't moved her lips at all. So why had he heard her voice?

"I practice the Mind Element. When I concentrate fully, I can perceive the emotions and general thoughts of those around me. I can feel that Chenying is desperate — frantic for us to keep pressing forward. There's something ahead that she needs badly." The voice drifted into his awareness again, weightless and unhurried.

*Right, so Mind Element mages can read people's thoughts...* Mo Fan thought — and then a cold jolt shot straight through him.

Which meant that if he'd been entertaining *certain* kinds of thoughts, Xinxia would already know about them. And tonight, as a matter of fact, he had been very concretely scheming to pitch a separate tent and lure Xinxia inside for activities considerably less innocent than sleep. The last time they'd managed something sneaky like that, he'd found it equal parts intoxicating and electrifying...

"Can you pull her secrets out of her mind directly?" Mo Fan sidled up beside Xinxia and murmured in her ear.

Xinxia shook her head. "I can only sense emotions and a general shape of someone's thoughts. When a person is actively thinking, their mind is too scattered. If I wanted anything more specific, I'd need to cast a Mind Control first — force them to focus on a single subject. Only then can I read them clearly. Otherwise the Mind Element mage risks losing her own grip on reality."

"Hold off for now," Mo Fan said. "Chenying is Zhao Manyan's sister, after all. Let's see if he can talk some sense into her first."

As they spoke, Zhao Manyan had already pulled Chenying aside.

It wasn't long before she came back, head half-bowed.

She offered a quiet apology to the group, then finally began to share what she knew about the North Corner of the Blazing Plains.

Everyone leaned in and listened. This could be the lead to something even more valuable than a Spirit Seed — no mage in their right mind would walk away from a chance like that.

"There is someone in my family," Chenying began, her voice slow and measured. "Her entire body is covered in burn scars. Her face was destroyed. There isn't a single patch of undamaged skin anywhere on her. No matter how many renowned Healing Element masters we've brought in, none of them have ever been able to restore her to what she once was."

"Are you talking about the man with a different surname — Lu Jianli?" Zhao Manyan asked, a face surfacing in his mind at once: a figure swathed head to toe in white bandaging, day after day without fail.

His room wasn't far from this person's. Sometimes, sitting on the balcony in Meditation, he would catch a glimpse of that white-wrapped figure tending to flowers and plants in the rear courtyard.

He'd never been close to him. He'd only ever heard the stories the clan passed around — whispers and mockery, people saying this person had committed endless wrongs throughout his life and was now paying for it, burned beyond recognition as heaven's punishment.

Zhao Manyan had believed that story as a child. It seemed plausible enough. Burn injuries this severe simply defied reason — ordinary burns could be treated with Healing Element magic or specialized medicines. Something this extreme shouldn't have been beyond recovery.

"Yes." Chenying's voice was barely a breath. "She... she is my mother."

"What?!" Zhao Manyan nearly leaped to his feet.

The rest of the group fell into stunned silence. Even those who had never given the matter a second thought knew perfectly well that an "uncle" was supposed to be male — how had he turned into someone's mother? Their collective reasoning stalled completely.

"Have any of you ever actually seen her face?" Chenying asked quietly.

"Well... no. I heard from — actually, I..." Zhao Manyan caught himself and gave a rueful, slightly mortified smile. "None of us ever did, I suppose."

In all honesty, it had never once occurred to him that the figure perpetually wrapped in white cloth could be a woman. The clan had spun far too many stories about this person. But the thing that shook Zhao Manyan most was learning that this was Chenying's mother — and his eldest uncle, Zhao Yulin, had never once breathed a word of it...

"If she's your mother, then who is the woman we've all been calling 'Auntie' all this time?" Zhao Manyan asked.

Chenying said nothing. She simply bit her lip — it was plain this was something she had no desire to revisit.

The implication struck Zhao Manyan all at once. He didn't dare press any further.