Chapter 8: Daddy Tells a Story of the Heavenly Emperor
Following the memories in his head, Xu Fan arrived at a villa located in the middle of the Star of Zhonghai residential area.
Xu Fan stretched out his finger and pressed it on the high-end fingerprint lock.
The lock flashed a successful fingerprint verification prompt, then "click," the door opened.
Holding the soundly sleeping little princess in his arms, Xu Fan slowly walked into his own villa.
Advanced automatic sensing lights lit up as soon as the door was unlocked; Xu Fan hadn't returned for three years, yet the villa still maintained the same appearance as in his memories, with every piece of furniture and the floors spotlessly clean. It seemed that during the years he was away, the household cleaning staff arranged by the community had not been slacking off.
When Xu Fan had initially bought the house, he had paid fifty years of property maintenance fees in one go, so even if he didn't come back for fifty years, there would still be someone to take care of the house.
Xu Fan took a pair of slippers from the shoe rack at the entrance and put them on. Since there were no small slippers, Xu Fan simply changed Tongtong's small, delicate shoes, then carried Tongtong upstairs.
Each floor of Xu Fan's villa had two hundred square meters. On the second floor, there were two bedrooms, each forty square meters in size. Xu Fan walked straight into the bedroom on the left and then gently placed the still soundly sleeping Tongtong on the bed.
Looking at his daughter on the bed, adorable as a little princess, Xu Fan couldn't help but bend down and gently kiss Tongtong's forehead.
"Daddy?"
With bleary eyes, Tongtong surprisingly began to wake up slowly.
"Good Tongtong, why are you awake?" Xu Fan was a bit surprised. She hadn't woken up the whole way when he was carrying her, but now that he had laid her on the comfortable bed, she awoke in the blink of an eye.
"Tongtong can't feel the warmth of Daddy's chest anymore and suddenly couldn't sleep," Tongtong said with pouted lips, snuggling up to Xu Fan.
"Tongtong can't always sleep on Daddy's chest, can she? That would make her a koala," Xu Fan winked and dramatically mimicked a clumsy bear's pose for his daughter, making Tongtong laugh out loud in the bed.
"Daddy woke Tongtong up, so Daddy has to compensate Tongtong," Tongtong said with a cunning twinkle in her little eyes, shaking her little head and speaking in a childish tone to Xu Fan.
Tickling her cute little feet, Xu Fan indulged her and asked, "Then what compensation does Tongtong want? Just say it. Even if it's the stars in the sky, Daddy will pluck them for you."
"Daddy, tell me a story. You have to tell me a hundred stories before it's okay!" Tongtong said assertively, showing the potential of a little shrewd merchant at such a young age—an outrageous demand.
"A hundred stories..." Xu Fan was sweating. As the Five-Direction Heavenly Emperor, he was proficient in pill forging, healing, killing, arson, but when it came to storytelling, he really had little to offer.
"Daddy is a bit clumsy and not very good at telling stories. Be a good girl and give Daddy another condition," Xu Fan pleaded, hugging Tongtong and giving her a kiss.
"No, when Mommy was around, she would tell Tongtong stories every night. Tongtong can't sleep without a story. Daddy is lying to Tongtong. You promised to always be nice to me, yet you won't even tell Tongtong a story." As Tongtong said this, tears began to well up in her eyes, and her pitiful expression genuinely tugged at Xu Fan's heartstrings.
"Okay, Daddy will tell you a story, Daddy will tell," Xu Fan racked his brains, searching through the memories of two lifetimes for a fairy tale.
Telling her a hundred stories would be more exhausting than taking down a hundred universal powerhouses.
After some thought, Xu Fan said, "Then I'll tell Tongtong the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."
"I don't want to hear it, I don't want to hear it, Mommy has already told me the story of Snow White," Tongtong protested, waving her little hands.
"Then how about the story of how Cinderella became a princess?" Xu Fan raised his eyebrows, thinking of another story.
"I don't want to hear it, I don't want to hear it, Mommy has also told the story of Cinderella and the glass slipper," Tongtong pouted, flailing her hands in protest.
"Dammit, why does Xu Yixue always have to tell Tongtong so many stories? It's left me with no stories to tell," Xu Fan grumbled to himself, then his eyes lit up with an idea.
"Tongtong, this time Daddy will tell you a story about the Five-Direction Heavenly Emperor, I guarantee Mommy hasn't told you this one," Xu Fan laughed and decided to share his own story.
If this story isn't new, then I must be seeing things.
Sure enough, when Tongtong heard about the story of the Five-Direction Heavenly Emperor, her curious eyes sparkled with interest.
"Daddy, please tell me, Tongtong wants to hear."
Xu Fan smiled slightly, sorted through his memories of the past few thousand years in his mind, and then began to speak, narrating smoothly.
"In the Huaxia Country of the distant Water Blue Star, there was a young man named Xu Fan. At the age of twenty-three, his family faced a calamity, his limbs were broken by his enemies, and then he was thrown off a cliff."
"Ah, they are so mean, they are all big bad guys," Tongtong said, waving her arms indignantly upon hearing the story.
Seeing his daughter siding with him, Xu Fan couldn't help feeling a bit comforted.
The person in the story whose limbs were broken and was thrown off the cliff was none other than himself in his previous life on Earth.
Fortunately, fate was kind. Xu Fan, who fell off the cliff, not only survived, but was also taken in by an old Taoist who had just come out of a nine-hundred-year retreat at the bottom of the mountain. He inadvertently became the old Taoist's last disciple.
Thus, Xu Fan inherited the Taoist tradition and embarked on the path of immortal cultivation.
As it happened, Xu Fan had a rare talent for cultivation, a prodigy seen only once in tens of thousands.
In less than a hundred years, he surpassed his master's level of cultivation, and then following his ascended master, he ventured into the vast universe. He killed gods when he encountered them and Buddhas when he encountered them, relying on tremendous fortune and his resolute Dao heart. He finally became the Five-Direction Immortal Emperor, who could shake a star system with a mere stomp, in the Ten-Direction Heaven Domain.
It was during the final Divine Realm advancement, in the last Heavenly Tribulation, that the Five-Direction Immortal Emperor, due to deep obsessions from his past life, was infiltrated by a heart demon and did not withstand the ferocious power of the Heavenly Tribulation. In the end, he perished under the devastating power of the tribulation that was 'Destroy Heaven and Earth'."
Xu Fan's deep voice conveyed his experiences, and by the time the last word fell, he realized that Tongtong had already fallen asleep at some unknown time.
Watching the little princess's long eyelashes quiver with her breaths, Xu Fan calmed his emotions, picked up a pink blanket, and gently covered Tongtong with it.
"Sleep, my good baby, in this life, you are Daddy's darling girl, the daughter of the Five-Direction Heavenly Emperor, and you're going to be the happiest person on this planet," he murmured, making a silent promise, and then quietly left Tongtong's room, closing the door behind him.
Having finally put his daughter to sleep, it was time to start cultivation. Xu Fan reminded himself that only with true strength could he give his daughter a good life.
Casually taking out the Body-Forging Pill that emitted a strange glow, Xu Fan stepped into the adjacent bedroom.