Chapter 367 - 130 [1000 Li Journey (2)] (6400)
Chapter 130: [A Journey of a Thousand Miles (2)] (6400)
Majestic green mountains, with overlapping peaks!
Chen Yan and Gu Qingyi stood shoulder to shoulder on the Great Wall, holding onto the parapet among the crowd, looking at the layers of green mountains in the distance. Chen Yan also felt an indescribable sense of pride in his heart.
Our ancestors were so mighty!
This was also his first time coming to the Great Wall—to be more precise, it was his first time coming to Beijing.
Previously, he was just a poor student, and after graduation, he was even poorer, living in a shared apartment in a village in the city for a few hundred yuan a month, living on an intern’s salary. Where would he get the money to travel?
If you don’t count his previous trips to Port City (which were for business), accompanying Gu Qingyi to the north this time was already the first time in Chen Yan’s life that he had traveled so far for tourism.
The Great Wall is a popular tourist attraction; in fact, any time of the year it is always full of people. From the entrance of the scenic area, the crowd was packed tightly.
The two walked with the flow of people for about half an hour before they stood at a section of the wall next to a beacon tower to enjoy the scenery.
While Chen Yan was marveling at the great deeds of their ancestors, Gu Qingyi looked solemn. After glancing around, she started murmuring calculations under her breath.
If three hundred elite soldiers were hidden here, what would be the outcome? The highest position over there should be set with two hundred long-range crossbowmen, how would that work? This place has the widest terrain, horses could run on the wall, if the enemy invaded, how could messages be relayed from a distance, and how to rescue up close...
What! While the other tourists were taking photos in poses, this woman was seriously calculating the practical uses of the Great Wall for warfare?
Chen Yan twitched his mouth slightly and whispered, "You..."
"When I go back, if nothing goes wrong, I will go to the Three Platforms, Eight Passes, and Sixteen Towns as a Deputy Town General." Gu Qingyi smiled and shook her head, "I got so engrossed for a while that I couldn’t help but think of these things."
Chen Yan nodded and looked at Gu Qingyi.
This girl, only twenty-one... seems to push herself too hard.
At sixteen, she went to the Prison Suppression Platform to kill. When other girls of her age were still chasing their idols, Gu Qingyi was reflecting on how fresh blood sprayed on her face was warm...
In pursuit of strength, she left the Domain Realm to find him, a twenty-one-year-old girl who set up a Nether Marriage for herself!
Most girls in this world have some beautiful expectations for their marriage and love. But Gu Qingyi, at twenty-one, to pursue strength, married herself to a dead man, just to conform to the Heavenly Dao, to shed her shackles, and chase her true path!
"Actually, I’ve never really asked you about some things." Chen Yan hesitated for a moment, then slowly said, "You... why do you do all this?"
"What?"
"All this," Chen Yan frowned, "Going to the Prison Suppression Platform at sixteen to endure the slaughter, five years of hardship. At twenty-one, marrying yourself to a man who had been dead for years..."
As he spoke, Chen Yan turned to look at the woman beside him, "Why?"
"To pursue cultivation and the path of Heavenly Dao."
"And why pursue cultivation and the path of Heavenly Dao?"
This time, Gu Qingyi didn’t speak, her beautiful eyebrows furrowed slightly.
After a long while, Gu Qingyi gently sighed.
"To make myself stronger, stronger, and always stronger!"
Chen Yan looked into Gu Qingyi’s eyes, "And why do you want to be strong?"
Gu Qingyi was silent for a while, "Since I was very young, I started cultivation. My family told me that I am a member of the Gu Family, and bearing the surname Gu meant shouldering a heavy burden equal to the family’s honor and glory.
At first, I didn’t understand all this—well, how could a few-year-old child understand these things.
I remember before I started cultivating, among everyone in the family, my father treated me the best. He indulged me in every way, tolerating all my caprices. Even when I made mistakes and got into trouble, to the point where my mother wanted to punish me out of anger...
As long as I acted cutely or smiled sweetly at my father, he would overlook my mistakes, defending me in front of my mother, and then take me out to play.
I would get anything I wanted, whether reasonable or not, and my father would always do his best to satisfy me.
He was a distinguished Primordial Spirit Realm cultivator, strict with my other elder brothers, but exceptionally doting on me, even getting down on the ground to play ’ride the big horse’ with me, letting me sit on his shoulders, despite being a distinguished Primordial Spirit Realm great cultivator.
But after I started cultivating... amongst the entire family, the strictest with me was my father!!
At that time, neither my tears nor my smiles worked in front of my father.
I remember at the start of my cultivation, it was so difficult that I cried every day. The pain from body technique refining was unbearable, and I knelt before my father crying and begging, even rolling on the ground. My uncles, who were teaching me to practice, would feel soft-hearted, and my mother would stay sleepless with worry the entire night.
But the father who doted on me most, that time, showed not the slightest hint of leniency!
The strictest overseer of my punishment was my father.
Sometimes I even wondered, why did my father, who had doted on me so much, become so hard-hearted after I started cultivating?
It was only later that I realized, my father’s indulgence before was out of pity for me.
My father said, as a direct descendant of the Gu Family, my destiny had already been sealed. My life destined to be one of corpses and blood, full of thorns!