Family Cultivation: My entire family are Villains-Chapter 738 - 328, Hou Yuxiao was touched_2
Once the whole army was packed up, Hou Yuxiao, holding Zhao Qingxue, got onto the carriage. Just as he was about to set her down, he noticed Zhao Qingxue's small hand tugging at his sleeve, not letting go, seemingly wanting to keep him in the carriage.
"Don't leave, I have something to tell you!"
Hou Yuxiao had a rough idea of what Zhao Qingxue wanted to say. He nodded to the Gao brothers outside the carriage, signaling them to set off, while he himself stayed inside, sitting beside Zhao Qingxue. He didn't ask anything, just quietly waited for her to speak.
"Zhao Yulong is my great-grandfather, my mother Zhao Yuling is his granddaughter..."
As Hou Yuxiao expected, Zhao Qingxue indeed spoke of her own background.
Zhao Qingxue was not yet thirty years old, yet Zhao Yulong was her great-grandfather, who was from the earlier Great Yu Dynasty.
The Great Yu Dynasty had been gone for over thirteen hundred years; that would make Zhao Yulong at least two thousand years old, if not more. Martial Artists do not reproduce in their twenties or thirties like ordinary people, but even if you count fifty years per generation, Qinjian Villa had been around for almost forty generations to this day.
Zhao Qingxue, as Zhao Yulong's great-granddaughter, evidently didn't make sense!
But Hou Yuxiao quickly understood as Zhao Qingxue continued her story.
The story of Lin Xuangan and Zhao Yuling dates back to over a thousand years ago, at the end of the Wuzong era, a period of great chaos in the world.
The story wasn't complicated. Lin Xuangan came from humble beginnings, but he had excellent cultivation talents, bravery, and strategic vision. Skilled in military texts, he was a natural at leading troops in battle. As a young man, he was much appreciated by Yu Shenzong and gained prominence early in the Divine Dynasty, favored by nearly everyone at that time, including the then Grand Marshal of Soldiers and Horses, Zhao Yulong.
A young man of achievement and bright prospects, radiant with youthful vigor, would be welcomed anywhere. Let alone the fact that his own grandfather, Zhao Yulong, admired this young man so much, Zhao Yuling felt her heart stir the first time she met Lin Xuangan at the Zhao Residence and afterwards decided to take the initiative.
Lin Xuangan was not a blockhead, and Zhao Yuling's beauty and background were matchless in their time. The two of them naturally fell in love without any surprise.
But afterward, things began to change.
The Divine Dynasty came to an abrupt end, Wuzong had just ascended the throne, lacking experience and strength, and his methods were ineffective, unable to control the imperial court. Many ministers from the Divine Dynasty era who used to be subservient began to nurture their ambitions and rebelled against the court in various ways, including Zhao Yulong.
Zhao Yulong, wanting to win over Lin Xuangan, offered a marriage alliance.
Lin Xuangan's loyalty to Great Yu was as clear as the sun and the moon. Even by that time, his relationship with Zhao Yuling had grown quite deep, but to demonstrate his allegiance to the Great Yu Dynasty, he refused Zhao Yulong's marriage offer and turned down Zhao Yuling as well.
What followed was somewhat dramatic.
Great Yu ultimately failed to maintain the rule of the Divine Dynasty. The thirteen provinces of the world began to disintegrate. Zhao Yulong took the Zhao Clan north to Jizhou, whereas Lin Xuangan persisted and remained with Great Yu, never entertaining the thought of leaving even as Great Yu turned into a Holy Land.
The dramatic part was that Zhao Yuling never gave up on Lin Xuangan, not from the beginning to the end.
From the First Year of the New Yu Calendar when the Zhao Clan moved north until the New Yu Era, a period of over a thousand years, Zhao Yuling never married. She was always waiting for Lin Xuangan.
Such sincerity would probably move even a stone.
Yet Lin Xuangan remained unmoved.
Until the year 1296 of the New Yu Era, a major event occurred in Jizhou.
Qinjian Villa experienced a severe internal conflict, creating a huge uproar. The exact details were unknown, but rumors had it that the entire villa fell victim to a treacherous plot, with no news for over a month.
The entire world was shocked, and Lin Xuangan in Zhongzhou was informed of this incident.
Lin Xuangan's heart still held a place for Zhao Yuling.
That year, he went to Qinjian Villa, and it was also the year that Zhao Qingxue was born.
In Zhao Qingxue's memory, there was no father. She began remembering around the age of two, living in a remote area of Jizhou with her mother Zhao Yuling, who told her of her origins. She knew she was from Qinjian Villa and that her father was Lin Xuangan. At a young age, she too looked forward every day to her father Lin Xuangan coming to fetch them, hoping for a reunion.
In front of her, Zhao Yuling never spoke ill of Lin Xuangan, often telling her that her father Lin Xuangan was an upright hero, so she had high hopes.
Alas, Lin Xuangan never appeared. She waited from two to five years old, which was the year 1301 of the New Yu Calendar, when the people of Qinjian Villa came to take mother and daughter back.
She and her mother returned to Qinjian Villa, and it wasn't long before she saw her father Lin Xuangan, whom she had yearned for many years. Unfortunately, the warm reunion she had longed for did not materialize.
On the contrary, that meeting left a lifelong, indelible trauma in her heart and made her hate Lin Xuangan to the bone, deciding never to take the Lin surname again but to follow her mother's surname Zhao.
Lin Xuangan killed her mother, Zhao Yuling, right in front of her eyes.
"Lin Xuan... didn't he explain why he had to kill your mother?"
Hou Yuxiao sensed Zhao Qingxue's emotions fluctuating and quickly moved to hold her in his arms. The father she'd pined for years, murdering the mother she lived with day and night right before her eyes—such an experience could become a lifelong nightmare for even those with the strongest mental fortitude.
