Empress slowly closed her eyes, "Even if you really have returned, the Human Clan here is hell for you, perhaps it's better if you stay with the Demon Clan... So I've always been thinking, who was truly at fault?"
"Your Dao Heart..." Lin Yue slightly frowned.
Empress opened her eyes, her eyes slightly red as she glanced at him, then suddenly stepped forward and embraced him, resting her cheek against his chest.
Lin Yue couldn't help but be taken aback.
This woman... What is she thinking?
Just now, she was resisting so much, and suddenly she took the initiative to hug him?
Empress leaned into his embrace, saying softly, "No matter what, the Divine Emperor chose you, the Crown Prince and the Prince didn't kill you either, which means they accepted you. Perhaps... things are truly different now, I'm different, and you're different too. This might just be a new beginning..."
She suddenly pulled down her veil, slightly raised her head, revealing a visage unchanged in over a thousand years, so real before his eyes.
Those eyes, akin to pools of clear water, seemed to reflect the thawing ice and snow of early spring, staring at him unblinkingly, as if trying to commit his current appearance to memory.
Lin Yue met her gaze calmly.
After a long while, she suddenly embraced him more tightly, their cheeks practically brushing against each other.
Then, he heard Princess Xing Lian whisper softly in his ear, "Welcome back, junior brother..."
Lin Yue stayed silent for a moment, then released her, taking a step back, looked into her eyes, and said with a smile, "Empress, I am a Direct Disciple while you're an Inner Sect Disciple. You should call me senior brother, junior sister."
Empress paused, remained silent for a moment, then suddenly laughed, a laughter that seemed to outshine the world.
"It truly is different now," she sighed as if in lamentation.
Lin Yue slightly raised an eyebrow and asked, "Does Empress think the current Lin Yue is better, or was the naive Xiahou Shou from back then better?"
"I don't know," Empress said, "Though you've become unfamiliar, just seeing you return on this day is enough no matter what you've become."
Lin Yue didn't say more, he turned his head to look at the depths of Sacred Heart Road, and said, "Let's continue walking."
He didn't reach for Empress's hand, but she took his instead, just as before, interlocking fingers with him and staying close by his side.
Lin Yue glanced at her.
She whispered, "Once outside, you and I are the Empress and the Prince, who have never met. During this time... at least let us interact like we used to."
Having never even kissed, and here was an over-a-thousand-year-old lady playing pure romance... Lin Yue thought secretly.
He didn't mind, immediately taking her hand and continuing deeper into Sacred Heart Road, casually asking, "You've been Empress for over a thousand years, why haven't you had any offspring?"
The Crown Prince was born more than a hundred years before the Divine Emperor founded Great Yong, and no one knew who his birth mother was.
And among the Princes and Princesses that followed, none were offspring of the Empress.
"I was the Holy Daughter of the Human Clan at the time, carrying the fate of the Human Clan, also related to our clan's treasure, the 'Heavenly Martial Divine Cauldron.'"
Empress slowly explained, "When the Divine Emperor established Great Yong, he made me Empress to borrow my power and that of the Heavenly Martial Divine Cauldron to suppress Great Yong's fortune. I have only seen him once during his enthronement. Even for news of his death, it was the Second Prince who told me."
Lin Yue couldn't help but look at her, surprised, and asked, "Wasn't the Empress known as the most beautiful of the Human Clan at that time? Didn't the Divine Emperor invite you to his chamber?"
Empress slightly frowned, then shook her head, "The Divine Emperor wasn't like a normal person. Even for the mothers of the Princes and Princesses, they only saw him once and conceived with him just that once."
"Oh?" Lin Yue raised an eyebrow.
He now somewhat understood what the Second Prince meant by "Your Majesty became a person, but also wasn't one."
"What about the Crown Prince's birth mother?" Lin Yue asked, "Have you met her?"
Empress shook her head, "The Crown Prince appeared before the Divine Emperor, originally an oddity in martial arts, also a Direct Disciple of the Master. For some reason, he stayed at the Four Symbols Heaven Barrier for a hundred years. Until when the Demon Clan nearly annihilated the Human Clan, the Crown Prince broke through and swept the world, and then Your Majesty emerged to establish Great Yong."
Lin Yue grew more puzzled.
He had long known that the Crown Prince was the Direct Disciple of the Main Hall Master and had heard about the Crown Prince's legend.
A man who was initially unable to walk, after just watching a blade move by one of the Elders from Ancestor Hall, within ten years rose from a complete mortal to grasp the Martial Arts True Self realm!
Such an unbelievable thing always seemed preposterous to him.
As a cultivator himself, with guidance from the Human Ancestor, fighting and cultivating within the Eternal Night Illusion Realm for years, he had only then grasped the Martial Arts True Self, yet the Crown Prince, a mortal, grasped it after watching that Elder's blade?
Moreover, the Divine Emperor also emerged from nowhere, as if he had never existed before.
Surely, some major undisclosed event happened over a thousand years ago.
Even Princess Xing Lian, now the Empress and formerly the Human Clan's Holy Daughter, was completely in the dark about it; only the Crown Prince and Second Prince likely know the truth.
Lin Yue stopped in his tracks.
Empress also halted, looked down, and softly said, "You still remember, huh..."
This was the 5,200th bluestone tile.
Which corresponds to the 520th zhang of Sacred Heart Road.