Another Past Life?

Jing Yi observed Yu Jin's face and couldn't help but feel guilty. Now that Yu Jin had said that he had been searching for this herb he felt like just casually plucking it and absorbing its spiritual energy was even worse. He shouldn't have done that. He should have shown it to him first.

Maybe five leaves would still be alright if he hadn't absorbed part of the spiritual energy in it. After all, that was better than nothing, right? He could have remembered at least part of his past life and maybe found the person he was searching for. Most likely he was feeling very dispirited right now.

"I'm sorry."

Leng Jin Yu looked up in surprise without knowing what to say for a moment. In the end, he smiled. "It's alright. I guess it just wasn't the time for me to remember yet. Let's talk about you instead. Why don't you want to know about your past life? Is it really only because you're happy with your current life? Or does it have to do with what you saw just now? You seemed a little … out of sorts after waking up."

Jing Yi lowered his head. He really didn't know what to say. "It's … a little complicated."

"We're trapped in a secret realm without knowing how to get out. There's really nothing we have more of than time."

Jing Yi laughed. It was obvious Yu Jin was trying to cheer him up. He had been doing that the whole time since they were forced to enter the secret realm. He really was an unexpectedly nice person despite how unapproachable he had looked in the beginning. "The thing I remembered just now actually wasn't … that bad. It hurt but … it's something I can live with."

"It hurt?" Leng Jin Yu wasn't really surprised. With just one look at how Jing Yi had curled up and how pale his face had become, it was obvious that he had been suffering a lot. He was a little astonished that Jing Yi could just say that it was alright though.

Jing Yi nodded. "Yes. I'm actually not sure what I saw. Everything was dark at first but I was hurting terribly. After that, I woke up in a foreign room, holding a dagger. I placed it on an altar and then left. I don't know what that could be about."

Leng Jin Yu furrowed his brow. A dagger? An altar? That was strange. As far as he knew the Son of Heaven had grown up quite sheltered. When could he have come into contact with a weapon? Maybe in the wake of a ritual? But that couldn't be true either. In that case, he shouldn't have been hurt. Something like that certainly would have created waves in the Nine Heavens. And even though he had only lived about two weeks in the Nine Heavens after his ascension he had heard about a lot of things already. Something like that certainly would have been brought up, too. Just what had Jing Yi remembered?

"The strangest thing was what I felt though. It seemed … so real."

As calm as Jing Yi had been able to stay in the wake of the pain he had suffered, his eyes were suffused with hurt when he spoke about the things he had felt in this memory. Leng Jin Yu frowned. The more he listened, the stranger this seemed to become. The crown prince was said to be a gentle and pleasant person. Someone people easily got along with even though his status was lofty. Everyone in the Nine Heavens looked up to him. Even the servants who had some nasty things to say about other gods couldn't find anything to criticize in regard to their crown prince. He was loved by everyone.

What could this kind of person feel that would make Jing Yi this uncomfortable that even the obvious pain he had felt in that memory paled next to it?

Or maybe … Leng Jin Yu's fingers lightly tapped his leg. There was another possibility but that wouldn't be so easy to verify. Normally, a person wouldn't know about their previous life. Absorbing the spiritual energy of the Fractured Crystal Leaf and then remembering something, it had always been said that what the person remembered was the immediate previous life. So even he had instinctively believed that this had to be a memory from Jing Yi's life as crown prince Jing He.

But a case such as Jing Yi's where there were people around who knew for a fact who he had been before wasn't just rare it was next to impossible to encounter. After all, reincarnation normally took a long time and how many people would live long enough to see an acquaintance reincarnated? Even if they did, who would habitually check the soul of every person he got to know? If there wasn't anything wrong with the soul, people would normally leave it alone.

So in the end, the knowledge passed down about the Fractured Crystal Leaf might just be wrong. It might not necessarily have to be the immediate prior life that would be remembered.

Well, even if that was the case, the Son of Heaven had never died so maybe he wouldn't count as a past life anyway. So this memory of Jing Yi might not be one of the Son of Heaven at all. Instead, he might have remembered something from yet another life of his that he and the gods knew nothing about.

If it wasn't about the crown prince's life, then he could allow him to remember if he wanted to. Not that he expected him to. Leng Jin Yu examined Jing Yi's expression. There was still some of that hurt in his eyes. He obviously had no desire to find out anything about that life.

Whether Jing Yi wanted to or not, he still had to make sure anyway. After all, Jing Yi would still remember some scenes from that life. It might be a problem depending on what life these memories actually were from.

His best shot at finding out about that should be the dagger Jing Yi had mentioned. After all, if the gods had no records of that dagger or of any incident where the Son of Heaven had gotten into contact with a weapon, then they could be certain that this wasn't something from his life as the crown prince.

So, he had to find out more about that first.