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Novel: [Night Without Borders]
Chapter 76: [The Truth Is Just Another Curtain]
Author: [Chen Dong]
Translator: [Shadow Knight AK]
Editor: [Shadow Knight AK]
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As evening deepened, Chi Xia City gradually faded from a hazy glow into the true darkness of night.
The Sunstone in Qin Ming's room flickered, nearly extinguished.
He sat motionless, his face obscured in shadow, only his eyes retaining a faint glimmer.
He gazed once more at his fourteen-year-old self, a boy who valued emotions deeply, cared for those around him, and found it impossible to let go of loved ones in life-and-death situations.
At that moment, the young Qin Ming trembled slightly, longing for one last glimpse of his parents and younger brother, knowing he likely wouldn't survive his journey.
When he turned back, he saw only the retreating figures of his parents.
The fourteen-year-old Qin Ming's eyes reddened as he struggled to maintain his composure.
He quickly turned away and set off with the elderly members of his family.
As expected, they were ambushed.
Though they fled relentlessly, they were always tracked down.
The Cui Family's group of frail, aged elders, their lives nearing their end, displayed terrifying combat prowess. Their fearless determination even frightened the Li Family at times.
"Some of these old geezers are formidable figures from the Cui Family's main branch. They truly grow more formidable with age. Hmm, I saw Cui Chonghe among them. He's likely the next generation's leader."
In the darkness, several pairs of eyes from the Li Family camp watched the fleeing Cui Family members.
"Although Cui Chonghe hasn't embarked on the Path of Awakening, he genuinely possesses extraordinary talent. He might even approach immortality in the future. Recent reliable intelligence confirms that his exceptional aptitude for the path of an Outsider was recognized at a very young age."
The Li Family's experts suspected that the Cui Family's desperate actions were a ploy to break through the encirclement and reach the Beyond the Mortal Realm, where they would meet the legendary "Old Senior"—Cui Chonghe's future master.
Qin Ming witnessed a scene of carnage: blood and bones scattered across the battlefield, belonging to both Cui Family elders and Li Family masters.
Eventually, the Cui Family managed to break through the encirclement and flee.
Disguised in tattered clothing, they entered a village that the Cui Family had secretly prepared years ago, where they temporarily lay low.
In truth, after several bloody clashes, the Li Family seemed to realize something and their pursuit became less relentless.
"The Li Family might have discovered the group of Cui Family members who escaped through another route."
"There's another possibility: our Ancestor, who vanished over two centuries ago, has resurfaced."
In the village, the Cui Family elders whispered among themselves.
By now, they were all critically wounded and on the verge of death, lacking the strength for further combat.
A group of elderly men, their lifespans dwindling, had fought to the bitter end, leaving only a handful standing, the rest fallen along the way.
It was precisely their mad, fearless desperation that finally unnerved the Li Family.
They hesitated to press their advantage, failing to realize that one final push would have annihilated their opponents.
Fourteen-year-old Qin Ming remained silent, remembering the elders' own words: they had burned their remaining life force to the fullest.
One elder, his white hair matted with blood, his wrinkled face twisted into a chilling smile in the darkness, looked at Qin Ming and sighed, "Your innate talent is extraordinary, perfectly suited for the Path of Awakening. It's a pity you wasted time learning the Silk Book's Techniques—they're beyond your reach now."
Another elder gazed at Qin Ming with a complex expression.
"Just wait a little longer," he said. "Xiao Qi (Little Seven) will come to rescue you as soon as he hears the news."
In the inn, Qin Ming watched the scene unfold with rapt attention.
Clearly, everyone in the Cui Family knew that Seventh Uncle Cui Hao was the kindest to him—even these elders spoke of it.
"Are you Seventh Uncle's... grandfather?" the fourteen-year-old Qin Ming asked, his voice tinged with dawning realization.
The things he had seen and heard on this journey, combined with his lingering memories, left him deeply disillusioned.
"Yes, Xiao Qi (Little Seven) is my favorite grandson. He has a fatal flaw: he's too sentimental. Come, sit beside me. No one will touch you while I'm alive." The old man patted the spot beside him.
"Is being sentimental really a fatal flaw?" Fourteen-year-old Qin Ming thought as he sat down. "I'm exactly that kind of person."
"You old geezers, stay away from me!" Seventh Uncle's grandfather glared at the other blood-soaked elders.
One of the elders replied, "We're all going to die here. There's no regret left, not after killing so many from the Li Family. If they want to rise by clashing with our Cui Family, showing their strength, and gaining prestige to become a millennium-old clan, they'll pay a heavy price. This time, they're destined to shed a lot of blood. Whether they're being pushed forward by someone else or not, they won't be the ultimate victors."
"This child is still young," Seventh Uncle's grandfather said. "He still has regrets. He shouldn't die here. You elders, move over there."
The elders rose and distanced themselves from them.
Back at the inn, Qin Ming pondered, his gaze shifting to the other elders.
Seventh Uncle's grandfather led Qin Ming to a dilapidated house in the village.
"Knowing Xiao Qi's temperament, he'll try to rescue you," the old man said. "But he'll likely be stopped. The clan won't allow anything to happen to him—after all, his talent most closely resembles mine, making him one of the Cui Family's future top combatants."
"I suspect Xiao Qi won't give up easily, so someone will send skilled warriors to save you. I just hope they arrive soon, before the opportunity is lost."
"Don't worry, the Li Family isn't foolish. By now, they understand what's happening, and their experts have shifted their focus elsewhere. Moreover..."
The old man began coughing violently, blood gushing from his mouth.
Qin Ming rushed forward, but he didn't know how to help.
The old man waved him off.
"My body is failing. Let me finish. I believe the Ancestor has already appeared, and both sides are likely retreating now. There won't be any major battles. You might survive."
The old man glanced outside and spoke in a secret method, his words audible only to Qin Ming: "I'm about to die. Don't leave this room. Tell them I'm healing and mustn't be disturbed."
Fourteen-year-old Qin Ming nodded through his tears, watching as the old man closed his eyes and fell still.
In the inn, the Sunstone had completely dimmed.
Qin Ming sat there, murmuring softly, "Before losing my memories, the me from back then... I already knew so much."
In the dilapidated room, the fourteen-year-old Qin Ming had written only the character "abandon" before falling silent, refusing to speak.
Now that his memories had returned, Qin Ming relived that moment's anguish.
The pain was unbearable, far worse than having his skull shattered later, more agonizing than having his heart and lungs slowly sliced open.
As he sat there then, the torment nearly suffocated him.
In the inn, Qin Ming shook his head violently, finally shaking off the oppressive emotion.
He turned his gaze back to the past, as if addressing his younger self from over two years ago, saying, "You thought you'd uncovered the truth based on what you'd seen and heard, and by reflecting on the past? But that was still just another layer of the curtain."
The slightly yellowed pages of the Book of Memories turned again, dust scattering as Qin Ming looked back to that time.
He saw the Feather-Robed Youth, Li Qingxu, approaching with ethereal grace, and then striking directly at him.
Cui Hao's grandfather hadn't been wrong.
The Li Family hadn't dispatched a massive force to hunt them down, but a small group of experts leading local followers was more than enough to annihilate the village.
In the inn, Qin Ming didn't skip this memory.
He relived the agony of his broken arm and shattered skull, quietly reviewing every detail of the past.
He needed to completely tear down the curtain woven from so-called truths.
Uncle Cui the Seventh failed to appear, just as the old man had predicted.
Instead, Cui Hong, a man with unusually long arms, and a woman with a red mole above her right eyebrow arrived and whisked him away into the night.
They bypassed Luoyue City, choosing instead to travel far afield.
"It doesn't matter where we go, as long as it's a remote place," Qin Ming murmured to himself in the inn, watching Cui Hong and the woman in her early thirties.
He understood why they had taken him to Black White Mountain.
Over two years ago, a beam of Heavenly Light pierced the night sky from Beyond the Mortal Realm, streaking across the land.
One of these beams crashed into Black White Mountain.
The pair had already planned to investigate the phenomenon, and the mountain's remoteness made it the perfect destination for Qin Ming's exile.
"Even back then, I was already quite perceptive, sensing something was amiss," Qin Ming whispered. "But I was too sentimental. Was that truly a weakness?"
"Perhaps it was."
He continued to himself, "I was still too young then, and I lacked the understanding of the truth that I possess now."
The most crucial point was that Qin Ming had successfully cultivated the Silk Book through his own efforts.
This foundation had allowed his body to undergo a complete awakening, marking his first steps on the Path of Awakening and granting him a glimpse of the truth hidden in the past.
The Silk Book was truly miraculous. Since his awakening, it had awakened his subconscious to an extraordinary degree.
In a liminal state between dream and wakefulness, he had glimpsed himself as a toddler, around three years old.
These weren't memories lost when the Feather-Robed Youth shattered his skull!
Instead, they were childhood memories that had naturally faded with time.
Most adults struggle to recall events from before their third birthday.
"Silk Book," Qin Ming murmured, "my years of cultivation haven't been in vain. In my moment of crisis, you showed me my earliest self. Perhaps it was precisely my decade-long dedication to you that ultimately saved my life."
Qin Ming suspected that his cultivation of the Silk Book hadn't been without effect.
Perhaps it had been accumulating something all along.
After all, when the Feather-Robed Youth Li Qingxu shattered three places in his skull, he should have died.
Under normal circumstances, no one could have survived such injuries.
"My childhood wasn't easy," he continued. "I wore patched clothes and shoes with holes, perhaps even worse off than children from ordinary families. The old man who taught me to read and showed me the Silk Book was just an ordinary man himself, his hands rough and calloused, his clothes as worn as mine."
At the Cui Family, Fifth Uncle and Seventh Uncle claimed that the grandfather Qin Ming remembered had "severed all ties" to forge his own path and had already journeyed far away to the Imperial Capital of the Great Yu Kingdom.
The old man who had been Qin Ming's sole companion was clearly just an ordinary person. Yet they had deceived him, claiming he was a great master. If he were truly extraordinary, why had the two of them lived in such poverty?
Qin Ming felt a pang of sympathy for his younger self.
Through the yellowed pages of the Book of Memories, his gaze drifted back to those bygone days, reliving the emotions of that time.
As Qin Ming grew up within the Cui Family, the memories of his childhood naturally faded.
Yet he retained a vague impression that he had once had a very close grandfather.
"I miss him... I miss that grandfather," he had said, his eyes rimmed with red, desperate to reclaim the Silk Book that belonged to him.
But the Cui Family elders refused, claiming the Silk Book was an ancient artifact, easily damaged.
They insisted he master the Awakening Techniques at the beginning of the book before attempting to study the subsequent techniques.
From that day forward, the young Qin Ming practiced relentlessly, rain or shine, for years without a single break.
It all stemmed from his desire to reclaim the Silk Book, to remember the grandfather he held dear in his heart—the deepest emotion within him.
Although time had eroded his memories of that grandfather, until they eventually faded into oblivion, practicing the Silk Book had become an instinct.
An inexplicable obsession drove him to persist.
Clearly, during the Cui Family's early days, someone had deliberately guided him, suggesting that mastering the Silk Book was the key to seeing his grandfather again.
Now, looking back, Qin Ming could trace the threads of manipulation.
Had the Second Master truly blurted out secrets in his drunken stupor?
Had Fifth Uncle's timely guidance been too calculated?
And what about the countless other suspicious details?
"How could a child possibly stand against such machinations?" Qin Ming muttered to himself in the dimly lit room, reviewing the events with meticulous care. "This feels like bullying."
He realized there were still inconsistencies, illogical gaps in the narrative.
"If just one more person had been involved, everything would align perfectly, become comprehensible."
He pushed open the window and gazed into the dark night sky.
If this were true, his situation was truly pathetic and lamentable.
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END OF CHAPTER
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