Chapter 4049 — The Deputy Island Master Who Practiced the Dao on Heaven's Behalf
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
Tracing the lineage back, Di Xingdao and Tian Chan actually sprang from the same bloodline; only, as early as a thousand years ago, Di Xingdao's branch had, through a special method and by a stroke of rare fortune, migrated to Cloud Terrace Island.
Yet they had always dwelt among the cultivator tribes, and no outstanding cultivator had ever arisen in the family; the clansmen's lifespans were much the same as ordinary folk's, so reckoning the generational ranks had become all but impossible.
By Di Xingdao's own account, it was entirely possible that Tian Chan's generation rank was in fact higher than his; but his years spoke for themselves, and it was only natural that Tian Chan should address him as a senior.
Di Xingdao and Zhang Lifeng were the closest of friends. After his qi deviation all those years ago, he had been recuperating here at the Pill Hall, though to little effect. The meridians within his body had long since shattered into hundreds upon hundreds of fragments; that he lived at all was nothing short of a miracle, and to rejoin those fragments was beyond even Zhang Lifeng's wondrous medical skill.
"I am no deputy island master. Do you think a madman like me could pass for one? There's no need to go clinging to the powerful and well-connected—no need to cling to me as kin, either. It won't do you any good, and it carries less prestige than being called Zheng Dongjue's granddaughter-in-law. Enough. Leave the medicine there and be on your way!" As ever, Di Xingdao did not open the door, and dismissed her out of hand.
Di Xingdao had once been the Deputy Island Master of Cloud Terrace Island, a peak figure who looked down upon all living things—true enough, but that was all in the past. Now he was nothing but a ruined man who could not even see to his own daily needs, and with that foul, mad temper of his, no one was willing to wait on him; people could not even be bothered to spare him a glance.
Tian Chan, however, showed not the slightest displeasure at this; she only shook her head helplessly and, setting the medicine down by the door, bowed respectfully. "Very well, then. Chan'er will come to visit you again in a few days. Chan'er takes her leave."
Inside the room, the disheveled Di Xingdao heard these words, and a strange, helpless light showed through his muddled eyes.
However mad he might be, a heart is still flesh and blood—and especially now, at the lowest, most wretched ebb of his fortunes. True feeling shows itself in adversity. Did he truly fail to see whether Tian Chan's care for him was sincere or feigned?
But what use was seeing it? He was a ruined man with every meridian severed, a wreck thrown out onto the street would rank below a beggar—what could he possibly do?
The room fell silent for a long while, and then suddenly Di Xingdao's nearly demented laughter rang out once more...
Emerging from Di Xingdao's room, Tian Chan could not help but feel heavy at heart. To come to Cloud Terrace Island and meet an elder of her own blood—what a blessing that should have been; yet Di Xingdao's present state left her no cause for joy at all.
She had not gone two steps when a young man in white suddenly came down the corridor ahead. His eyes lit up at the sight of Tian Chan, and with a beaming smile he greeted her: "Sister-in-law, you've been to see Old Tian again!"
At the sight of him, Tian Chan's gaze turned cold. A flicker of revulsion, forcibly suppressed, flashed across her face as she answered in an icy tone: "Yes."
This young man in white was named Zheng Tianshuo, a younger cousin of Zheng Tianjie. By rank, Tian Chan was obligated to call him brother-in-law.
Zheng Tianjie, once the object of such high hopes, had met a wretched death halfway through his prime, and rumor had it that Zheng Dongjue had begun to turn his eyes toward Zheng Tianshuo, intending to groom him to take Zheng Tianjie's place and become the future head of the Zheng family.