Chapter 8 — The Abyssal King Returns

The morning mist still covered the entrance to the forbidden forest when the three people left Vân Khê Trấn, each step stepping on the damp layer of rotting leaves as if they were crossing an invisible boundary between the familiar world and a secret that had been dormant for hundreds of years.

Three days after the trip to meet the old hermit, Bách Uyên, Thục Di and Chung Diệu Nga prepared enough food, medicine and other necessary items for the journey to the ancient temple located deep in the northern forbidden forest. Tiểu Yên was left in the care of a trusted older disciple in the dojo. Although she pouted and did not want to leave her father, she eventually understood that this was an important trip to find a way to save herself.

"Dad, you must come home soon." Tiểu Yên advised, tightly holding onto the hem of her father's shirt before leaving.

"I promise." Bách Uyên bent down and kissed his child's forehead, his eyes filled with determination. "I will find a way to save you, even if it means going to the ends of the earth."

The forbidden forest in the north is completely different from the normal forests that Thục Di had passed through in her heroic life. The air here is thick with a strange gloomy feeling, the trees grow twisted together in strange shapes, and the sounds of birds are sparse, as if animals also know to stay away from this area.

"Do you feel anything?" Thục Di asked softly, clutching the hilt of her sword as they walked deeper into the forest.

"Have," Bách Uyên replied, his voice low. "This place is imbued with an aura similar to the aura of the Underworld, even though it has faded over many years. Perhaps this temple is truly related to the world I once belonged to."

Chung Diệu Nga, despite her old age, was still as steady in her steps as the two young people, walking behind, meticulously observing every tree, every stone along the road, the eyes of a person with many years of experience in wandering, not missing any unusual signs.

After nearly half a day of weaving through dense thorn bushes and crossing a dry stream with water forming into a black puddle, they finally saw the ancient temple appear in the middle of an empty space, covered with vines and moss, almost swallowing the original architecture. The temple gate is dilapidated, leaving only two stone pillars engraved with strange patterns, unlike any typeface or pattern Thục Di has ever seen in the human world.

"Here..." Bách Uyên slowed down, his eyes were stunned when he clearly saw the patterns engraved on the stone pillars. "This is the ancient writing of the Underworld, the type of writing used only in the most important sacrificial rituals, which was lost long before my reign."

They carefully walked through the ruined temple gate and entered inside. The space inside is dark, with only dim light filtering through the gaps in the partially collapsed tile roof, illuminating a dusty stone altar in the middle, above which is a statue that has faded over time, depicting the figure of a god wearing a robe, holding something like a seal.

"This statue..." Bách Uyên approached, his trembling hands touching the stone pedestal. "There is a strange similarity with the image of the first Founding Lords of U Minh Giới, those who laid the foundation for the entire system of magic power and law of the world. But according to history books, they stayed in Nether World until they passed away, there has never been any record of establishing a shrine in the human world."

Thục Di followed the wall and discovered a row of small stone niches engraved with ancient texts. She carefully brushed off the thick layer of dust to reveal partially readable words. "Bách Uyên, come here and see, there's something carved here."

Bách Uyên quickly stepped forward, attentively reading each ancient character that only the most profound scholars of the Underworld could understand. His face gradually changed color the more he read, the more he realized the meaning hidden within those words.

"This is a record of an ancient tribe that served the founding fathers of the country, called Tịnh Linh tribe." He read slowly, his voice shaking with emotion. "This tribe possesses a special bloodline, capable of purifying all dark magic, and was once considered a living treasure of the whole world. But because too many ambitious forces wanted to usurp that bloodline for personal gain, a cruel purge occurred many generations ago, causing the tribe to almost become extinct. A few survivors are said to have escaped from Netherworld, bringing that bloodline to live in the human world, and this temple was built by their descendants in memory of their lost origins."

"So that means..." Thục Di said softly, not daring to believe what she just heard. "There is still hope, if we can find the descendants of that tribe?"

"That's right." Bách Uyên nodded, his eyes flashing with a strong hope that had never been seen in the past seven years. "If I find a person with the Pure Spirit bloodline, perhaps that is the key to completely resolving the U Minh Tuyệt Mệnh Khế contract that is clinging to my daughter."

Chung Diệu Nga stood still and looked at that scene. A vague memory suddenly arose in her heart about the old stories she had heard from her adoptive mother Thục Di before the girl was orphaned, but she did not dare to say it yet, afraid that it was just a coincidence, not wanting to give the two young people an unrealistic hope and then be disappointed.

They continued to search throughout the temple, finding a few more pieces of ancient pottery engraved with similar motifs, along with a small stone box hidden carefully under the altar, inside containing a worn piece of jade, engraved with the image of a lotus flower blooming in the mist, a symbol that is said to be a characteristic of the Tịnh Linh clan according to what ancient texts describe.

"We should bring these back and study them more closely," Bách Uyên said, carefully packing the piece of jade pendant and copying all the inscriptions on the cliff into a notebook he brought with him.

On the way back, the afternoon sunlight through the forest foliage shone on Thục Di's face as she pondered what she had just witnessed. A slight numbness ran down her spine when her fingertips passed over that piece of jade pendant engraved with a lotus flower, as if someone had softly called her name in a language she had never learned but understood, even though she could not remember clearly where and when she had seen this image.

She gently touched the old stone necklace that she had been wearing since childhood, the only thing left from her biological parents that Master Chung Diệu Nga kept for her after they passed away, and on it was also engraved a faint pattern that she had never bothered to study carefully.

Without any of the three realizing it, at that moment, they had accidentally reached the most important answer for the entire journey ahead, even though it would take a while longer to fully piece together all the pieces that were gradually being revealed.

That night, when they stopped to rest temporarily at a small cave on the edge of the forest before continuing their journey back to Vân Khê Trấn the next morning, Bách Uyên spread out his notebook under the campfire, reading and re-reading the lines of ancient texts he had copied, trying to find more clues that he might have missed. Thục Di sat next to him, curiously looking at each strange handwriting. Although Thục Di did not understand the meaning, Bách Uyên still felt the sacred solemnity emanating from them.

"If the Pure Spirit Clan fled to the human world many generations ago, perhaps their descendants are still living somewhere, without even knowing their true origin," Thục Di said, looking distantly at the dark forest outside the cave.

"Yes, that's what makes me both hopeful and worried," Bách Uyên replied, closing the notebook. "Hopeful because maybe that bloodline still exists somewhere, but worried because if even the person carrying that bloodline doesn't know who they are, finding them in this vast human world is like finding a needle in a haystack."

Chung Diệu Nga sat with her back against the cave wall, quietly observing the two young people. In her heart, thoughts about Thục Di's past kept rising but she still did not want to say them yet. She remembered the first day she met Thục Di, when she was still crying next to her parents' two newly built graves, clutching an old stone necklace in her hand. No one in the village knew where the family's origins came from, only that they moved to live in an area on the outskirts of Vân Khê Town for a few years before a strange epidemic struck and took their lives.

"I remember, a long time ago, there was a rumor in the village that your parents were not native people, but moved from a far away place, carrying a wooden chest that was always locked so no one could see it," Chung Diệu Nga suddenly spoke, causing Thục Di to turn and look at her in surprise.

"Master never told me this story," Thục Di said, her voice a bit disappointed.

"Because you were still too young at that time, I didn't want you to have to worry anymore about a past that even I didn't know was true." The old woman replied, her eyes gently looking at the student she had raised as her own child for the past sixteen years. "But now hearing what you guys just told me from that ancient temple, I suddenly remembered the old story, and wondered if it was a coincidence or not."

Bách Uyên and Thục Di looked at each other, a strong premonition arose in their hearts but neither dared to say it out loud, afraid that if they put too much hope in a possibility that was still too fragile, the disappointment later would be even more severe. That night, all three of them struggled to sleep, each pursuing their own thoughts about the mysteries that had just been revealed, while the campfire's light gradually faded, giving way to the quiet night that enveloped the ancient forest that still hid so many undiscovered things.