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Shen Tang composed herself, her expression calm as she looked directly at the young man. She asked him, "Does xiansheng (sir/mister) have a grudge against the Gong clan?" To her surprise, the young man's answer was unexpected. The young man stood with his hands tucked into his sleeves, leaning against a tree trunk, his eyelids slightly lowered as he said indifferently, "No grudge."
Shen Tang: "..." No grudge, then why are you stirring up trouble? And wanting to kill a male descendant of the Gong clan when you encounter one? Perhaps Shen Tang's gaze was too hard to read, making the young man displeased.
"What kind of look is that?"
Naturally, it's the look one gives a patient's medical record in a mental hospital! Shen Tang grumbled inwardly, but said aloud, "Since there's no grudge, xiansheng, where does such great malice come from?"
The young man sneered, "Since you are a Gong clan member, how could you not know?"
Shen Tang: "..." I told you not to give me strange character settings! She took a long breath and slowly exhaled the stale air from her chest, forcing a "kindly" smile. "For xiansheng's life-saving grace, I am deeply grateful. However, there are a few things I hope xiansheng will know."
"Speak."
"Firstly, I am not a Gong clan member." As she spoke, Shen Tang saw a flicker of surprise in the young man's eyes. Without waiting to see if he believed her, she continued, "Secondly, I truly don't understand xiansheng's malice. Thirdly, I am certainly not any Gong clan male descendant..." She was clearly a genuine female. Although she was still young and her body hadn't begun to develop, showing no obvious secondary sexual characteristics, one wouldn't mistake her gender just by looking at her face!
The young man carefully scrutinized Shen Tang's face, looking into her eyes, seemingly weighing the truthfulness of her words. After a long while, he nodded and said, "I believe the young lord's words."
Shen Tang: "..." You believe what?! (╯‵□′)╯︵┻━┻ I said I'm not a man, why is this guy so stubborn?! Does she have to take off her pants and pull out something for him to believe it?
The young man teased, "Although your skills are decent, such abuse of a Literary Heart, fighting wildly, indeed doesn't seem like proper education." No proper literati would ever go head-to-head with a martial artist. Considering that not only Gong clan members were among the exiled prisoners, he guessed this young lord might be an outsider who, thanks to a masculine-looking feminine appearance, was classified as a female dependent. Only then did her danfu survive, avoiding being abolished.
Shen Tang: "..." For a moment, she didn't know where to begin complaining. She only managed to grasp one key point.
"You said... Literary Heart? I have a Literary Heart?" This body possesses a Literary Heart? She rubbed her hands together excitedly! She finally saw some of the benefits a transmigrator should have.
"You actually don't know?" Seeing her expression seemed genuine, it was the young man's turn to be surprised.
Shen Tang shook her head honestly. She had been in this world for less than twenty-four hours. Not only did she lack the original owner's memories, but her own memory had also been stolen. How was she supposed to know all this? The young man pressed, "Since you don't know you have a Literary Heart, what was that Spirit Language just now?"
"Spirit Language... what's that?"
"It's that phrase, 'A loving mother's sword, to cleave the wandering son.' Your Literary Heart's Spirit Language." As the young man spoke, his brows furrowed, his expression very peculiar. A loving mother who cleaves her son with a sword did not sound like a proper Spirit Language, but the world was vast and full of wonders, perhaps his knowledge was simply too limited.
Shen Tang truthfully said, "...I was thinking of a way to save myself, and it suddenly appeared in my mind."
The young man: "..." That's absurd!
Shen Tang steered the conversation back. "Sir, you still haven't said why you dislike the Gong clan so much." Unresolved questions were like eating melon and not getting the follow-up; that anxious, itching feeling was unpleasant. The young man glanced at Shen Tang, saying expressionlessly, "Though there's no personal vendetta, there is the hatred of a fallen nation." Hearing this, Shen Tang immediately dropped her "melon-eating" attitude. This was no laughing matter; if she inadvertently angered him, he might fight her to the death. She didn't know that in this era of a hundred warring states, nations being conquered and founded were common occurrences. If a generation lived long enough, one could change nationality more than twice on average. The young man had affection for his former country, but it wasn't that deep.
"Then, what about Spirit Language?" Shen Tang was not formal, directly treating the young man as a free "explanation NPC." If she could get answers from him, why bother running around asking others? Freeloading, who doesn't like it?
The young man: "..." He re-confirmed that Shen Tang truly knew nothing, and her questions were very basic, so answering a few wouldn't hurt. However, her questions were so basic that it made him wonder if she was a wild person who had emerged from some remote mountain corner. The young man could only start explaining from the very beginning. His account was far more complete than the fragmented memories that had surfaced in Shen Tang's mind.
Two hundred years ago, the rogue star that fell shattered into pieces, scattering across the Central Plains. People were busy cultivating literary and martial arts to absorb the energy of heaven and earth, refining their bodies. No one paid attention to the star fragments, except for merchants hoping to capitalize on "rare goods." It wasn't until a craftsman carved one of these rogue star fragments into a seal and presented it to a monarch. The moment the monarch obtained the seal, a brilliant purple light erupted, and countless strange characters drifted from the seal, some of which integrated with the danfu of officials. Only then was it understood that certain characters within the seal, when combined with specific Literary Hearts and Martial Courage, could unleash incredible power.
These characters were "Spirit Language." For example, the young man's earlier phrase, "Teeth are hard and fall first, the tongue is soft and endures. The soft can overcome the hard, and the weak can defeat the strong," served to buff and restore one of the opposing sides. The same Spirit Language had different effects in different people's hands. From then on, fragments of the rogue star became standard for national seals of various countries. The Spirit Language contained within a national seal directly influenced the nation's strength. If the monarch activated the national seal, it could even transform into a vital national artifact, guarding the nation's destiny and borders.
Speaking of this, the young man paused, secretly glancing at Shen Tang's expression from the corner of his eye, and then said indifferently, "The capital of Chongtai was breached, and the National Seal was lost. There are rumors that the Gong clan secretly hid and embezzled it. However, after the Gong clan was raided, the whereabouts of the National Seal have still not been found..."
Shen Tang didn't care about the National Seal; instead—
"Chongtai?"
As her words fell, the young man's expression was quite colorful and complex.
"...That was the original Xin Kingdom. There are rumors that it will be renamed 'Chongtai'." He thought Shen Tang asked this because news was cut off on the road of exile, and she didn't know that Chongtai was now Xin Kingdom. He didn't know she simply found the name a bit strange.
"Conquering a nation and then renaming it..." What kind of operation is that?
The young man said, "To humiliate."
"Humiliate?"
"Those who serve a servant are colloquially called chongtai (double platform). For the survivors of Xin Kingdom, it is naturally a great humiliation." What did "those who serve a servant" mean? Roughly translated, it means a servant's servant, the lowest of the low. And as one of the culprits in the fall of the nation, how could the Gong clan not be hated? As long as that National Seal didn't appear, this turmoil wouldn't cease.
These were just interesting tidbits, irrelevant to Shen Tang. She was more concerned about what her Literary Heart was like. The young man suggested, "Why not test it?" The Literary Heart had nine ranks; only by knowing the specific rank could one find suitable Spirit Languages.
Shen Tang: "How do I test it?"