Shang Che’s gaze was slightly cold, "I’ve told you before, if..."
Shangguan Yi said, "Then the next Family Head will inevitably be my child with Wan’er..."
Shang Che sneered, "She might not be willing..."
"I will wait until she changes her mind..."
Shangguan Yi, with his head lowered and body bowed, spoke with a resolute tone that brooked no doubt.
Shang Che’s brow twitched slightly, but in the end, he said nothing, only speaking indifferently, "I understand..."
The atmosphere in the study was somewhat stiff.
Shangguan Yi did not wish to stay long, so he stood up to leave.
"Yi’er..."
Shang Che called out to Shangguan Yi, hesitated for a moment, and his tone softened a little.
"You must understand, it’s not easy being the Family Head..."
"In a Tao Cultivation Noble Clan, one bases on the clan, must understand pros and cons, calculating losses and gains. Being indecisive and overly sentimental will not do."
"A Cultivator’s life is very long, no matter how deep the fondness, over time, love will fade, and people’s hearts will change..."
"As the Family Head, you must know what is the most enduring, what is the most advantageous."
"You must also be resolute, make tough decisions, only then can I convince the ancestors to entrust the millennia-old Shangguan aristocratic family into your hands..."
Shangguan Yi said silently, "Father, I understand."
Shang Che glanced once and knew his son didn’t understand it at all.
He felt somewhat irritable, but, deeply cunning as he was, he only suppressed his feelings, sighing:
"Think about it more. Yu Er is your child, a legitimate descendant, but he is also just one among the many disciples of the Shangguan Family. You need to weigh what is more important."
Shangguan Yi’s face showed pain, but he said nothing, performed a respectful salute, and withdrew respectfully.
Shang Che looked down at the Jade Slip and after a long time, raised his head, gazing at the spot where Shangguan Yi had stood, reflecting on his troubled expression, feeling a mix of anger and frustration at his lack of competitive spirit:
"All my life I’ve been a ladies’ man, passing through a sea of flowers without a single leaf touching my heart, yet the son I produced... how could he be... such a lovesick fool..."
"He looks like a talent, but he’s so lacking in ambition, thinking only of his wife and child every day..."
Shang Che’s brows were deeply furrowed, filled with dissatisfaction.
After a long time, he sighed and spread out a Map.
On the Map was the entire Qian State.
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Now a series of routes had been outlined, after Calculation with the Compass, they turned into profound Heavenly secret Patterns, yet they had no beginning or end, unknowable where they started or where they led to.
Only a trace of savage, ancient aura remained.
This was the handiwork of those who had taken Yu Er away.
Shang Che’s gaze turned solemn, his expression as still as water, muttering to himself:
"From arranged marriage, birth, to death... all calculated, eh..."
"Who has such a grand strategy?"
"To deceive our ancestors, to use the only legitimate heirs of the two great Noble Clans, Shangguan and Wenren, as a sacrifice..."
"What... do they want to offer sacrifice to, what life and death do they want to defy?"
Shang Che felt a chill deep in his bones...
...
In the Gu Family compound.
Dressed in palace attire, Wenren Wan was preoccupied with thoughts of Yu Er, but once she stepped out of the door, she was again lost.
"Search... how to search, where to search?"
Yu Er had been abducted, and it was very likely that he was no longer in this state boundary, perhaps not even in Qian State...
Hopelessness grasped her heart, along with profound powerlessness.
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The Cultivation World is vast and boundless.
She didn’t know how to perform Calculations, nor understood the Heavenly Secrets. Finding Yu Er was like looking for a needle in the ocean.
She also deeply despised herself, regretting why she hadn’t pleaded with the old ancestors to learn the complex and abstruse spell points of Tao Cultivation.
If that were the case, she might now be able to calculate Yu Er’s fate on her own...
Even if her Divine Sense exhausted, even if her Sea of Consciousness ran dry, even if...
Wenren Wan stood silently for a long while before coming back to her senses. She looked around disconsolately, pondered for a moment, then called the Wenren Family’s guards and asked them to drive a carriage and take her out of the city.
No matter what, she would talk after leaving Qingzhou City...
Outside the city, she might be able to find some traces of Yu Er...
Wenren Wan silently made up her mind.
If she couldn’t find him in a month, she would search for a month.
If not in a year, then for a year.
If a year wasn’t enough, she would search for ten years, a hundred years, until her lifespan was exhausted.
"I must find Yu Er, alive and well..."
The last four words she dared not even consider, she was afraid of seeing Yu Er’s cold, lifeless little face, afraid to know that the child she cherished was no more...
This was even more unbearable than suffering death herself as a mother.
Wenren Wan only felt a piercing pain in her chest.
The carriage left the Gu Family, passed through the main streets, went by the market town, and after two hours, it neared the city gate.
Wenren Wan was so intent on heading out of the city that she didn’t notice, by the city gate, at a noodle stall, two little Cultivators were slurping noodles with gusto.
And Mo Hua and Yu Er, who had waited for several days, hungry and tired, busy eating their noodles, also didn’t notice that a low-key yet luxurious carriage was silently making its way towards the city gate...
Noise at the city gate was ceaseless, with an endless stream of carriages and horses.
As they crossed paths and each went their separate ways, Wenren Wan suddenly felt a jolt.
For an instant, as if connected by mother and child, she felt that her son was near, even very close to her...
But she knew that Yu Er was no longer by her side...
Her sensible, well-behaved son, now in the hands of who knew whom, his fate between life and death unknown, and it was uncertain whether he suffered mistreatment and torment.
Wenren Wan’s heart ached even more.
The carriage continued towards the outskirts of the city.
But as the carriage moved further away, Wenren Wan’s heart grew increasingly uneasy, and at times, she had a premonition.
It was as if with every passing moment she was getting further away from Yu Er, and once she passed through this city gate...
She would be eternally separated from her son.
She might never see him again in this lifetime!
A Cultivator’s premonitions do not arise without reason.
Wenren Wan’s heart was seized with panic.
She immediately said, "Stop the carriage!"
The carriage halted, and she quickly got out, looking around in confusion. After a long while, her peripheral vision caught a glimpse of a noodle stall in the distance...
Wenren Wan felt as if she had been struck by lightning.
At the noodle stall, there were two little Cultivators.
One was a bit older, with eyebrows like paintings, his demeanor pure and gentle.
The other was very young, about four or five years old, bearing a strong resemblance to her own Yu Er...
Wenren Wan’s heart trembled, and she almost couldn’t catch her breath.
She wanted to speak, but she was so overwhelmed with emotion that she could not find her voice...
Mo Hua, who was eating noodles, suddenly felt a shift in his Divine Sense and realized he was being watched. He looked up and saw a beautiful and elegant woman in the distance, her face streaked with tears, looking at him incredulously.
This woman was both strange and somehow familiar to him.
Mo Hua had never met her but had some vague impressions in the recesses of karma.
Mo Hua had a sudden realization, then patted Yu Er, who sat beside him.
Yu Er, mimicking Mo Hua, was burying his head in noodles when Mo Hua’s gesture caught his attention. Looking into the distance, his little face froze, and his chopsticks clattered to the ground.
Yu Er’s eyes also filled with tears in an instant.
"Mother..."
The surroundings were noisy, but that call of "Mother" was clearly heard by Wenren Wan.
The immense joy of regaining what was lost made it hard for her to breathe.
Her tears blurred her vision, preventing her from seeing Yu Er clearly, but she still ran towards Yu Er without a second thought.
She seemed to forget she was a Golden Core Realm Cultivator, that she possessed cultivation. She only remembered that she was the mother of a child.
Yu Er, with tears streaming down his face, moved his short legs towards her...
The two embraced each other.
Even though her eyes were filled with tears and she couldn’t see Yu Er’s face clearly, Wenren Wan still held Yu Er tightly in her arms without reservation.
She was afraid to let go.
She feared that once she let go, her child would vanish again.
Even in a dream, she wished it could last longer so that her child could stay in her embrace a little more...
...
Yu Er and his mother embraced each other, both crying.
Mo Hua nodded contentedly.
Although it was a combination of luck and calculated guesses, it seems his "calculations" were quite accurate.
Now that Yu Er had found his mother, he should be safe.
Mo Hua felt at ease.
Next, he could head to the Qian Learning State Boundary to pay his respects at the Qian Taoist Sect!