Chapter 8: I don't know what to name this

"You sitting here won't do you any good, you know"

I stared at Ling, not saying anything. I didn't know what to say nor did I have anything to say. I just wanted to lay down and not do anything.

This is the second time I lost my family, but this one somehow made me feel even worse than the last time. My parents in my old life died in a car accident when they were coming back home from a friend's wedding, a drunk driver crashed into them.

This time around though, I could have helped if I had taken cultivation seriously instead of just playing around.

*Bonk*

"Ow!" I glared at Ling, "What was that for?"

"I can see what you're thinking and I'm here to stop you from going down a path that I went down before"

Path? She couldn't mean- "Yes, the path of just searching for power, thinking you'll use it to protect your loved ones only to hurt them in the end" I looked into her eyes for the first time since I came here and I saw something I haven't seen before, hurt. Ling was hurting and I was probably the reason for it.

I looked away, again I was doing something stupid instead of actually helping those around me.

*Bonk* "Ow!"

"Hmph, I don't need your pity" She gave me her hand, "I think it's time for you to experience the unfairness of the world to really open your eyes"

The harshness of the world? Have I really been living in a comfort bubble this whole time? Well, I guess it's true since I never really experienced anything terrible in this new life until now. The only bad thing I can think of is Aunt Dongxue and even that wasn't the worst thing that can happen to a person.

I took her hand and felt myself being dragged into something, I closed my eyes for a second before the feeling was gone. Opening them again, I saw a place I wasn't familiar with. It was a small village, people were going and coming but otherwise I couldn't see what was so special about it.

"This place was my starting point," Ling suddenly appeared beside me, "This little village was my home before a sect took me in." I gave her a glance before continuing looking at the village.

"Why are you showing me this?"

"Because I wanted to show you the person I became when I was craving power when my mother died"

I didn't know what to say. Ling was showing me what not to become and trusting me enough to show me her past, the past that she would never talk about and only gave some vague hints about it.

The world suddenly began moving faster and I saw a young Ling being taken in with a few other kids into a sect. The sect itself didn't seem to be a huge one, judging by its size and what I knew from the 3 or 4 Manhua's that I've read in my past life.

Soon, a young Ling started cultivating and becoming stronger at a faster rate than usual, gathering the attention of the disciples and a few elders. I could see how a few clichés began forming around her, the male disciples simping for her and the girls being jealous.

I had a few laughs at that, but soon things began to turn for the worse when Ling's village was raised to the ground by beasts from that world.

It was a sad spectacle to see, especially when Ling returned to only find corpses instead of the people she had known. It was a familiar site to how I found my father, only this probably hurt more for her.

"This was the turning point for me, when I began to crave power, power to not lose anything to anyone or anything I cared about." She gave me a small, sad smile before looking forward towards her younger self, "After this, I became obsessed with learning until I found out I had a talent for the dark arts and began studying them"

The world began moving again, this time showing Ling in her sect's library studying hard before moving to another place where she was fighting beasts. This cycle began repeating until a teenaged Ling was found out by her sect to be studying the dark arts.

"This was truly when my true journey began, I had used everything the sect had given me and spit on it, all for the power I became so obsessed with." The world suddenly fell apart and I found myself back in my mindscape.

I looked at Ling for a while before finally speaking, "Is the point of you showing me your memories to not become power obsessed?"

She patted my head and I'd forever deny that it felt good, "That was one of the points I wanted you to get. The other point is to still treasure your loved ones. I didn't have that in my life and maybe it was part of why I became so power obsessed. I just hope that you don't push people who love you away, otherwise you might regret it for the rest of your life."

She began walking away to a corner before sitting in a lotus position, "I'll be meditating for a while, I'll need to recover before trying anything crazy" I nodded my head before going out of my mindscape.

I have plenty to think about.

—

POV: Xia Hongyi

Again, once again he lost someone dear to him. First it was his wife and now it was his brother all but in blood.

With his wife, he at least knew she was alive somewhere out there in the world but he now lost his brother forever. He couldn't even say goodbye to him. But he couldn't mourn yet, not with all the problems that came with that Profound beast, he needed to help with the public panic and the backlash that is happening because someone had leaked the story of their hero dying as a result of the Xiao Clan not willing to get help from their main clan.

If he was being frank? It was a shit storm.

The only silver lining in this whole situation is that they managed to retrieve Guang's and everyone else's body so they could bury them. Though even that had its own set of problems, the first of them being that Yun had gone into the forest and something had happened to make him break through into the True Profound Realm.

It was unheard off!

They didn't know what happened and Yun also refused to talk to anyone, even his own children. Of course in a normal situation the Clan's in Floating Cloud City would never let this go but they had other problems, problems that might kill them off.

While he also wanted to know what happened in the forest to make Yun jump 2 whole cultivation stages, it was mostly out of curiosity and to see if he can replicate it because he had his own children who also started cultivating.

His daughter has been obsessed with the Realm of Gods ever since she heard that's where her mother is and while he was also looking for all the information he could get, there was barely anything about that place. Qingyue thought it was a good idea to start cultivating, to get strong enough to find her mother.

Of course, he didn't mind her cultivating, it was just that she was sometimes too focused on her goal and lost all her time reasoning, it was usually Yun who would make her take a break. He would have loved to also help but most of the time he would be busy with his own work.

That's not to mention that Yuanba was also following in his sister's footsteps.

He said it before and he'd say it again, it was a shitshow.

Sighing, he began standing up, he needed to make sure that everything for the funeral was set in place. He could mourn when everything was done and he had a bit of time to rest.

—

POV: Xiao Lie

Xiao Lie sat in his room meditating but he couldn't concentrate. Things have gone horribly wrong, they were all prepared to die but it was still wrong.

His fellow Elders were all cowards who looked for nothing but glory so when the chance to actually kill a Spirit Profound Beats came into play, they wouldn't want the help of the main clan.

Why? Because they were fools who were overconfident in their strength. Fools who had eyes but couldn't see Mt. Tai.

Now they had to deal with the backlash of having basically killed the hero of the city. He was of course also involved even if he had tried to contact the main clan, but worse is the feeling of having basically taken away a child's only family away from him.

Lie considered Yun as a grandson, just like Che'er, but he had failed where it truly mattered, again.

First his own son and now a close friend of his, both lost because he wasn't strong enough to put his foot down and speak his mind. Now he had lost both his son and friend while at the same time orphaning a child the same age as his daughter.

It hurt, it truly did. It was eating him from the inside and he couldn't do anything to stop the feeling. And with the Xiao Clan's reputation in the city now he didn't have the capability to help Yun.

Maybe this was better, as Xia Hongyi would take him in, this way he could have people around him that didn't scheme around him all day. People that actually cared about his health.

*Knock Knock*

Opening his eyes, he looked at the door that had just been knocked. He took a deep breath to prepare himself for what is to come. "Come in"

The front door opened and with it came the sight of his daughter and grandson, both wearing black. He stood up too and told them to walk in, today was the funeral of everyone who sacrificed themselves fighting that bear.

"Dad, are you ready to go?"

Lie could only nod, he didn't have the heart to say anything else. This was largely his own fault as well so he would take responsibility and the first step was to show up at the funeral of Song Guang.

Making sure everything was ready didn't take long, he had prepared the gifts and offerings that he would make and making sure the children had the appropriate clothes also didn't take long because they had done a good job with dressing up.

Walking there was harder than he would have liked it to be, with him feeling more guilty the closer they got and the people giving them looks and talking in hushed voices. It was really taking a toll on him.

By the time they arrived at the Song's house, Lie had felt himself age by 10 years. He had truly lost his edge and now was just sweeping in sorrow. The truly sad thing is that he couldn't see anyone from the Xiao Clan other than himself, daughter and grandson.

How the Xiao Clan has truly fallen from grace, not even coming to the funeral of the man who saved their lives after just a little bit of a reputation hit, truly they have fallen.

Going inside, he saw a lot of people and if he was right about this then they might target the children with their talk. He knows that people already try to bully Che'er but he mostly fights them off and with the help of Yun who really puts people on the spot for trying to bully his grandson.

Continuing walking inside, he made sure to hold both of their shoulders in case they walked in another direction. They continued on until they got to the center of the house where the coffin of Song Guang was.

The coffin itself wasn't anything grand which honestly didn't surprise him, Guang wasn't a man of flaunting.

Getting closer to the coffin, he mostly ignored the people's hushing about him and his family, he was here to pay his respects. Everything else didn't matter right now, not the people talking, not his own heart ready to burst out of the guilt, not the responsibilities that will be waiting for him.

He burned an incense for his fallen friend, making sure the children were doing the same thing, before continuing on into the room of Yun. Just before making it in, he came across Hongyi who was looking tired.

He hasn't slept in a while

That was the immediate thought that came to him when he saw him, he knew that Hongyi was only an ordinary human who didn't cultivate so he couldn't handle much of just staying up for a long while.

Even he needed to sleep about once a month.

"How are you doing Hongyi?" He knew how he was doing but sometimes just asking a question was enough to help someone get through things.

Hongyi sighed for a second, "I'm trying my best but it has been a hard time." Lie nodded his head, it was hopefully going to get easier with time. As they say, time heals wounds.

"How is Yun? Can we see him?" The mention of Yun got the two children's attention more than anything. Hongyi looked at them for a moment before giving a tired small smile.

"Please, he's inside the room. I just left my own children with him, he needs all the support he can get now" With a nod, he let the children go into the room with Yun, he would follow soon.

Seeing them walk into the room and only leaving him and Hongyi, Lie got serious "How is Yun's cultivation? Has anything changed?" He was worried that some kind of backlash would happen with Yun's cultivation rising so much in such a little time.

"No, nothing of the sort has happened yet but we're still monitoring him carefully, if something were to happen we have Dr Seto on standby" Hongyi explained the situation and he felt a lot better knowing that nothing has happened to Yun because of his rise in cultivation.

While it would remain a mystery how it happened, unless Yun was willing to share, they could hopefully prevent any backlash from happening. Yun was too young to be crippled from cultivation.

"I shall go see how Yun is doing now" Hongyi nodded his head before continuing on his way outside the room while Lie headed inside himself.

It was time to meet Yun and give him his condolences.

—

POV: Song Yun

Today was the day of my dad's funeral, nothing much would happen today, just people coming and giving their condolences and saying their own farewell to the man.

I had already said my own farewells, thankfully no one was there to see my tears. I knew I wasn't someone emotionless, I actually gave a fuck and it was hard saying goodbye to someone you loved. I knew that feeling already from having my old parents die in a car accident but I seemed to have forgotten that feeling when I reincarnated here.

It seemed that I had also forgotten what type of world this was, this was a cultivation world not some fairy tale world where everyone lives happily. Thousands if not millions died every day to Profound beasts, my dad was just another victim.

I didn't get it before but now I do, this is a death world. I hadn't realized this fact for the simple reason that I didn't experience it. Stories from Ling and my dad didn't really settle in until now that is.

I was just playing around when I could have taken my studies seriously and actually helped my father, I could have delved into Runes and Formations more and given them to my dad to help him. I could have taken my cultivation seriously and maybe be of help there. Instead, I had just done some surface stuff and left it there.

Looking at Yuanba and Qingyue, I knew that this type of situation could happen again and now that both of them have begun cultivating too, they would be on the front lines to battle such a threat.

I didn't want them to die too, especially not when they are basically my only family left.

I needed to get strong, that was a given if I wanted to protect my family but I knew that I had to be careful, I didn't want to become the thing that I hate the most on my journey to power.

I snapped out of my thoughts when I saw Xiao Che and Lingxi come inside my room.

Huh, I didn't think they would come today actually, I knew that Elder Lie had nothing to do with my dad's death Uncle Hongyi has made sure to explain that. But everyone else doesn't know that, they think the whole Xiao Clan was at fault for not getting help from their main clan.

Still, I'm happy to see them come here today, I could even sense Elder Lie here too. I gave them a wave with a small smile, "Hey guys, glad to see you could come today."

Xiao Che was the first one to wave back, also giving me a smile in return. Lingxi on the other hand walked until she was in front of me before she tackled me into a hug. I froze not having expected that and her momentum made us both fall backwards to the floor.

It didn't hurt but I was sure surprised by her action, "You okay?" I slowly got up with her still on me. I looked down towards her when I sat up but she didn't say anything, just holding onto me.

I looked up to everyone else in the room and they seemed to be just as confused as me, "Lingxi, can you please tell me what's going on?"

Her head stayed on my chest for a little while longer before I felt something wet there soon followed by a sniff. Oh, crap, I panicked, I didn't know what to do. Quickly, I picked her off my chest to see what was going on and I saw a face full of tears and snot, not the best thing to see but I didn't care right now.

"Lingxi, please tell me what's going on. Are you hurt somewhere? Do you need something?"

"Y-Your dad died and, and now you'll be alone" As soon as she finished saying that, she went back to crying and I felt my heart ache, she was crying for my sake. I hugged her while slowly patting her head.

"Don't worry, I still have you guys. I won't be alone any time soon"

I knew what I had to protect, now I just need to become strong.

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AN: Sorry for being away for so long. I had a lot of crap to do irl, like moving and collage projects. I finally finished this chapter so yay.

Another thing to note is that the next chapter will be the final chapter in this arc, after that we will finally move to a more interesting arc.