LILY STOPPED WALKING and looked behind. The man who suddenly announced his plan was looking at her with seriousness. Somehow, she could see sadness and longing. She could understand, though. After all, he would be leaving the place he was used to.
In her three previous lives, Hugo also went back to his maternal family this year. And it took him five years to finally come back. But at that time, she was already dead. And when she could roam around the area as a ghost, she saw the man shave his head, entered the temple, and never came out. Or maybe he got out, but she would never know.
Lily sighed. "Be careful in your journey, fifth imperial uncle," she said sincerely. "Who knows? Maybe we will see each other in the Earth realm in the future."
"I won't take long. I will come back as soon as possible," he promised.
Lily didn't understand why he was promising her these words, but she still nodded her head.
Hugo sighed. His hands raised unconsciously but put them down in a second. He wanted to touch her, hug her, and integrate her into his soul. But he didn't have the status to do so. And he didn't even have the time to further deepen their relationship.
"Keep safe and be vigilant. The Medicine Sect's practice has long been changed. They are no longer the same sect whose purpose was to serve the common people. The only thing that matters to them now is power. If they see someone that can obstruct them from achieving what they want, they will certainly obliterate him," Hugo seriously explained, worry visible on his face.
"Fifth imperial need not worry. My grandfather and I are not people who are easy to be trifled with." Seeing Hugo still looking worried, Lily added, "Our Pei family's millions of armies are real. It's not a bluff. With just a wave of our hands, they would appear in just a second."
How could those words extinguish Hugo's worry? How could millions of armies help them? The Medicine Sect uses magic. It was enough to annihilate a single nation, what more of such armies?
"How about this?" Lily said after thinking of something. She rested her right hand on her left chest, emitted light, and before Hugo could utter his surprise, she presented him with a red crystallized ball. "I think you know what this is right?"
"Life crystal," Hugo murmured. His eyes were complicated as his gaze looked back and forth from Lily to the ball the size of a quail egg. He had already assessed Lily's body. The result was, Lily was not compatible with using magic. Yet, here he was and had just watched the girl take out a life crystal.
Life crystals were spirit balls that came from the soul of a magic user. If its light dimmed, then the magic user was on the verge of dying. And once it broke into pieces, it only meant that the magic user was already dead.
"If we came across each other in the future, I will magnanimously tell you our origin," Lily said. She took Hugo's hand and put the ball in his palm.
Hugo stared at it for a moment before putting it into his consciousness.
"It's a promise, then," Hugo smiled.
Hugo accompanied Lily until the latter reached home. When the man finally left, Lily's expression turned ugly. She couldn't help but reprimand herself for being foolish. Just because the man served her while eating, she began to feel soft. She even gave him her life crystal. Who was so simple-minded as her? She bet, no one!
How embarrassing!
—
"You stay here and take care of Young Miss Pei," Hugo ordered coldly. He had just reached his prince's estate and quickly gave out an order.
"This servant understood," Shadow Guard Loid bowed. He just returned from the Spirit Spring Mountain and he knew that his master would be leaving back to the Earth realm. This order, Shadow Guard Loid, somehow expected it.
Hugo turned his back and gazed at the bright full moon. He really didn't want to leave his girl. But in order to give Lily a good life in the future, he had to take care of the matters in his maternal family. Once everything was taken care of, he would take Lily to live with him there. That place was better than the secular world, after all.
—
A week has passed since the birthday celebration of the emperor, and it has been five days since Hugo left without even bidding goodbye.
Duke Pei sighed as he suddenly felt lonely. Hugo would accompany him most of the time, and those days were never boring. Now, however, he could only sit quietly in his study room as his granddaughter accompanied him in drinking tea.
Looking at his granddaughter, she was frowning again. Duke Pei suddenly wanted to run away from home. Who the heck made his granddaughter in a bad mood? Because of this, he couldn't even have a peaceful day!
"Why do you keep sighing? Do you have any problems?" asked Lily. She couldn't help but think that her grandfather was keeping something from her. There was not a time in these past few days that the old man didn't sigh. She would even catch him looking far away, deep in thought.
"Other than you, who else here would give me headaches and leave me sighing?" Duke Pei sighed again. "What are you frowning about now?"
"The Gate of the Earth Realm will open several months from now, and the five greatest empires are currently preparing themselves for the upcoming competition," Lily replied, "I am wondering if I should join."
Duke Pei stiffened, his eyes wide in surprise. "You want to enter the Earth Realm?" he exclaimed. "If you want, I can give you access. What's the point of wasting your energy there?"
Every decade, the sects in Earth Realm would conduct a competition to take a number of disciples. But before that, every empire would hold its own competition, and whoever the top 3 would fight, representing their empires. Remembering that rule, Duke Pei asked, "Did the emperor already give his order? Is he preparing for the competition?"
Lily tsked, "You're expecting too much from that guy. I bet he forgot about it. And even if he remembered, it would be thanks to that elder from the Medicine Sect."
Last time, the emperor did forget. So, the empire could only choose whoever was pleasing to the emperor's eyes as representative. The result was an utter and humiliating defeat. However, since the elder of the medicine Sect was here, he would never compromise his dignity and pride. He would surely choose the best among the best and show off his right decision to back the Immortal Dragon Empire.