Chapter 597: The Fourth Doll Is Lost and Won't Come Back

Xu Qing hesitated, gazing at that fruit, then glanced at the peerlessly elegant woman before him. From the figure of the Crown Prince standing nearby and the purpose of their arrival, he could naturally guess who she was, yet he still could not reconcile her with the appearance she had when they first met in the northern ice plains; the difference was too great.

And just a moment ago, he had been prepared to engage in a great battle with that Spirit Repository cultivator.

But now, Xu Qing looked at that tree, lost all interest, and respectfully accepted the fruit, saying, "Many thanks, Senior."

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He felt that this was also quite good.

The Crown Prince felt helpless; he had wanted to temper Xu Qing, but now that his Third Sister had taken the initiative to give it to him, he could only smile.

"Then, shall we go?" The Crown Prince looked toward his Third Sister. Princess Mingmei swept a glance at the Crown Prince's aged appearance and sighed inwardly, knowing this was merely his outward manifestation, yet from the expression in his eyes, she could feel that her brother truly identified with his current state from the bottom of his heart.

The once dashing and world-renowned Sovereign Crown Prince. Now, we are all old.

"Our best years were sealed away in a place that never sees the light of day."

Princess Mingmei shook her head, her own appearance also altered into that of a kind-faced old woman, and said calmly, "You seem very comfortable in that medicine shop."

The Crown Prince smiled upon hearing this and spoke softly, "That little medicine shop is very warm."

Princess Mingmei was lost in thought.

Xu Qing blinked, looking at the old man and old woman before him. He had a vague feeling that in his medicine shop, there would soon be another old shopkeeper.

At the thought that there would be two Divine Repository cultivators in his ordinary medicine shop...

Xu Qing felt a bit dazed.

Princess Mingmei spoke calmly and walked forward.

The Crown Prince beckoned to Xu Qing, and as he stepped forward to follow, Xu Qing's expression was strange; he felt his previous calculations were wrong—in the future, his medicine shop might not have two Divine Repository cultivators, but four.

"Perhaps, as the Crown Prince's brothers and sisters are unsealed, will it be renamed?"

As Xu Qing thought of this, even with his composure, his mind shook, and he could not help but look in the direction of his small medicine shop.

When he first opened the medicine shop here, he had never imagined that one day it would be like this.

And so, the three of them went off into the distance, the old man and old woman in the sky, and Xu Qing on the ground.

They strode across the firmament, while Xu Qing walked through the desert.

The softness of the roaring desert meant that after Xu Qing withdrew his Purple Moon power, every step he took required extreme effort; if he were the slightest bit careless, he would sink to the bottom of the sand.

Especially with certain patches of sand; once they caved in, a massive suction would emerge within, making the process of Xu Qing climbing out difficult.

In front of his sister, the Crown Prince seemed to shed some of his aged demeanor, watching with the tireless enthusiasm of an old urchin.

After watching for several days, Princess Mingmei waved her hand and plucked Xu Qing out of a patch of sand.

Xu Qing was somewhat embarrassed; he had been climbing there for two hours.

"Such a fine child, look at what you've tortured him into!" Princess Mingmei swept a dissatisfied glance at the Crown Prince, who was just about to speak.

"Are you thinking of the punishments Father gave you when you were young? This iron ball looks familiar; it's the one Father used to tether to you back then, isn't it!"

Xu Qing looked up at the Crown Prince. He had also noticed that these past few days, every time he struggled to climb, the look the Crown Prince gave him held both reminiscence and amusement.

The Crown Prince laughed heartily and changed the subject.

"Third Sister, the place where Fifth Sister is sealed has some peculiarities, different from ours. I went to sense it before."

Princess Mingmei carried the iron ball and walked toward the seal, and Xu Qing nodded slightly.

"How is it? Fifth Sister is not sealed in reality." The Crown Prince's expression grew grave, his eyes flashing with an unusual light, and his voice turned hoarse.

"She is sealed inside a nursery rhyme!"

"Beneath the Black Centipede Mountain in the south, there is a small mountain village."

"This village has existed for a long time; even when it encounters disaster and becomes a dead village, it often reappears after some time."

"A nursery rhyme circulates in the village." The Crown Prince's voice carried the weight of ages as he walked forward, his words echoing.

"Fifth Sister is sealed within this nursery rhyme. When no one in the world remembers this rhyme, Fifth Sister will die completely."

"But our Divine Prince brother, in order to torture Fifth Sister, how could he let her die? So, besides remembering it himself, he also began arranging for others to remember it."

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"At the same time, he uses the power of the Red Mother so that every time this rhyme is recited, it inflicts massive damage on Fifth Sister, like the pain of devouring flesh and blood. The reason he chose that small village is because there..."

"It is the place where Fifth Sister's bloodline remains; the people living there are all her descendants."

Xu Qing was moved.

Princess Mingmei fell silent, her eyes filled with anger and sorrow, for she understood what the Crown Prince had left unsaid.

By means of the nursery rhyme, it was unknowingly devouring Fifth Sister, and then the flesh and blood were sent to them by the Divine Prince, becoming the food they had eaten over these past years.

The Crown Prince also fell silent.

If it weren't for the need to consider Xu Qing's capacity to endure, it might have taken only an instant.

This destination was a vast, continuous forest, permeated with rot, giving one a sense of withered death.

In its depths, Xu Qing saw a peculiar mountain peak, about eight hundred zhang high, resembling a giant centipede rearing its body and baring its fangs to the sky.

The centipede's antennae were clearly visible, lifelike.

A sense of ferocity pierced into Xu Qing's heart the moment his gaze touched it.

He felt an aura of malevolence and a thick, concentrated resentment that seemed to have accumulated for countless years.

This place was exactly the Black Centipede Mountain the Crown Prince had spoken of.

The sky here was pitch black, with black mist vaguely visible; it was formed from resentment and never dissipated throughout the year.

Only streaks of lightning flashed incessantly, and bursts of thunder rolled across the surroundings, like the sorrowful roars of all living things, venting their unwillingness.

And at the foot of the mountain, there was a village surrounded by a withered fence. The village was small, built against the mountain; the houses inside were all grayish-black, exuding an ominous air, and the ground was filthy and chaotic.

It seemed that because this place was isolated from the world and the roaring heavens blocked the footsteps of outsiders, numbness was the norm for the residents here.

And because of the harsh environment, desolation had become the main theme.

And as all this blended together, it became the decay of passing time.

Only the nature of children allowed them to seem free of so many worries, treating the thunder formed by resentment as fireworks; thus, amidst the constant flashes in the firmament, they hopped and skipped, singing the nursery rhyme.

Although there were only five or six of them, their voices carried strangely far.

"The fourth doll is lost and won't come back..."

The nursery rhyme drifted, seemingly possessing a strange power that even the sound of thunder could not suppress, spreading outside the village and falling into the ears of Xu Qing and the others who had just appeared at the village entrance.

Princess Mingmei's expression was complex, and the Crown Prince closed his eyes, pain in his gaze.

Xu Qing sighed inwardly.

The Sovereign had five daughters and ten sons; according to imperial custom, boys were ranked with boys, and girls with girls.

As for the eldest doll, it was the Crown Prince.

From the Crown Prince's expression, Xu Qing guessed that back then, he might have truly been ill. As for the cause, Xu Qing did not know, but he felt it might be related to the Red Moon and the Red Mother.

"To ask why the fourth doll is lost, the eldest doll knows best, knows best..."

Xu Qing was silent.

The Crown Prince opened his eyes, gazed at the village, and spoke softly, "Fifth Sister's divine soul has awakened. The method to unseal the seal is for you, Third Sister, to use your authority to manifest the traces of everyone who has appeared here from ancient times to the present, and to let the nursery rhyme that has echoed here for countless years drift continuously."

"Xu Qing, this process requires the use of your Purple Moon power; this is the key to opening the sealed land."

"And I will go all out to change the world's perception and hide all fluctuations. Within ten breaths, I am confident that even if the Red Moon Temple is watching closely, they will be unable to sense it. But there are only ten breaths." The Crown Prince turned his head to look at Princess Mingmei.

A river of time suddenly manifested, flowing through the village. The river water surged, waves churned, splashing countless droplets that drifted into the heavens and transformed into countless figures.

Everyone who had been born here—their time was suddenly fished out by Princess Mingmei in this instant, filling the village with more and more of them.

The Crown Prince watched the dense, countless figures, and all the residents within the village also walked out of their houses in a daze.

At this moment, the living and the souls gathered, the heavens roared, the void trembled, and as the river of time flowed with a rushing sound, the chanting of life and death, the praise of the present and the past, echoed in all directions.

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"Once there was an eldest doll, with a row of little dolls behind, until suddenly one day..."