Cherry Blossoms

Chapter 4 (Part 2)

At the age of 12 Wei Ying had mastered all the six arts: rites, music, archery, charioteering, literacy, and numeracy. At the age of 15, he had also been appointed as the Head Disciple of Jiang Clan. He also had a hobby of inventing different types of talismans, just like his mother, Cangse. Jiang Tong and Jiang Yulong were more than proud of him. But he would only create talismans in his room secretly, bcs he was afraid that if Madam Yu would get to know this, she would either destroy all of his talismans or take away all his equipments, or worse throw him out of the clan, or both. Who knows? And he loved his shidi and shijie very much to take any risk. Jiang Tong and Jiang Yulong were a little afraid that if Yu Ziyuan got to know about Wei Ying's cultivations, she would do anything to destroy him, bcs of her jealousy.

And even though both Jiang Yulong and Jiang Tong (especially Jiang Yulong) wanted everyone to know about their precious prodigy, and boost about his inventions, they couldn't do so.

Sometimes it would go on days, when he would lock himself in his small room, going on and on, thinking, drawing, stretching, planning, putting his every single great effort in it, eventually skipping sleep and meals. Jiang Yulong had to break through his door (he was surprised as to how the door has still not broken off, considering how many time he had obnoxiously, kicked it open, but off course it's not that much of a surprise considering Wei Ying had specially made a talisman for his poor door, bcs of his Yu-gege's nature of breaking his doors) get him bathed, cleaned, force him to take his meals, threaten him with to take rest, all through gaurding him, till he his not completely in an ultimate deep slumber.

There were times Wei Ying's room would be filled with talismans all around his rooms and shelfs, bcs he made many copies of his talismans. So Jiang Yulong suggested Wei Ying to sell those in markets, as those would help many people, and also help him to make money for his further expenses. So Wei Ying would make many copies of his talismans, and Jiang Yulong would sell them in the markets, shipping even some to other clans.

The demand of his talismans eventually rose to great height, that he would sometimes use so much spiritual energy that he would drain out completely and would go unconscious. When Jiang Yulong would find him in this state, he would scold him for hours, so he made a talisman, which when entered a certain number would produce that much copies of a particular talismans (similar to a Xerox machine). Truly a prodigy.

It was once at that time when Wei Ying was 13 years old and was on a night hunt in Yilling (off course secretly, bcs if Madam Yu, got to know about him going to night hunts before Jiang Cheng at such a young age, the consequences would not be great). After completing his night hunt he returned to his room in the inn, he had initially booked in. He decided to take rest for a while, and then go out to either search in the forests of Yilling or shop for the medicinal herbs his Yu-gege had told him to.

During his nighthunt, he would always feel a constant pull at his demonic core, so he decided to follow this pull, after his shopping.

~~~Evening 5pm~~~

After completing his shopping he decided to follow the pull, which eventually lead him to the infamous Burial Mounds. The whole mountain was covered in thick foggy tendrils of dark energy. At first he was a little scared, but when he went further he felt like the thick fog around him was welcoming him, slowly dissipating and making way for him.

At some point he had reached the centre of Burial Mounds. The heart of the Burial Mounds had  comparatively less fog, than the outside. Just when he was looking around his surroundings, he heard a voice, "finally you came my sweet A-Ying".

Wei Ying abruptly turned around, and a beautiful and pretty lady wearing long flowy red robes with golden intrigues on it, major heavy yet clear work of golden was done it's sleeves.