No demons in all realms

Chapter 30 The Truth

The journey back was much faster than the journey out. When he came out, Su Yang walked and pondered, stopping and starting, and it took him two years to travel to so many places.

When I returned, my mind was at ease, and my pace quickened. I arrived at Qingniu Village in less than a month.

The sun was shining brightly that day, warming me comfortably. The old locust tree at the village entrance was still there, even thicker than it had been two years ago, its canopy shading half the road.

Su Yang walked into the village with his bamboo cane. Before he even reached the academy, he heard the sound of children reading aloud. It wasn't just a few children reading; it was dozens, even hundreds.

The sound came from the direction of the academy, clear and orderly, like a clear river flowing through the fields.

Su Yang slowed his pace. He stood there, listening to the sound of reading, and the expression on his face finally relaxed a little.

"Mr. Big is back!"

I don't know who shouted it first.

The sound of reading stopped, followed by the sound of footsteps, a dense chorus of footsteps pouring out from the academy.

"Master! It really is Master!"

"Mr. Big is back!"

"Go quickly and tell Senior Brother Zhang that Xian Dasheng is back!"

Su Yang was surrounded by the crowd. He couldn't see their faces, but he could sense their emotions: some were happy, some were excited, some were laughing, some were crying, and some were standing there with their mouths open, unable to speak.

He recognized several voices.

"Xiao Zhang."

"Sir, it's me!" came a young man's voice, trembling.

"Xiao Liu."

"Yes, sir," a girl replied, her voice choked with sobs.

"Xiao Wang."

"Sir, I'm here." A man with a gruff voice chuckled twice.

Su Yang pointed to each person one by one, and recognized each one of them. Some of the people standing in front of him had grown into adults, while others looked just like when he left. But no matter what they looked like, he could still recognize them.

Because those people were taught by him, word by word.

Xiao Zhang stepped forward and took Su Yang's arm. "Sir, you've been gone for two years. We've been looking forward to your return every day."

"How's the academy doing?" Su Yang asked his disciples.

"Excellent!" Xiao Zhang said with a hint of pride. "When you left, the academy had more than 300 students, and now it has more than 1,200. People from several nearby states are sending their children here, saying that our Guanghan Academy teaches well and doesn't charge tuition."

Su Yang nodded.

"Where are the gentlemen?"

"The dozen or so senior students you left behind are now all teachers. Each of them teaches dozens of students in shifts. The academy you built is so big that it doesn't feel crowded even with so many people."

Su Yang hummed in agreement and said nothing more.

He was surrounded by people as he entered the academy.

When he left, the academy hadn't changed much; it was still the same large courtyard with stone walls and gray tiles, and the same plaque that read "Guanghan Academy" still hung above the gate.

Several new trees have been planted in the courtyard, and several rows of newly made benches have been added under the eaves, but the smell remains the same: the smell of ink, the smell of paper, and the faint smell of sweat on the young man.

Ye Qing followed behind him, her eyes looking around. She had always thought that the "Guanghan Academy" Su Yang mentioned was just a small school, but she didn't expect it to be so big and impressive.

Students coming and going in the courtyard would stop and bow to Su Yang, addressing him respectfully as "Teacher".

She secretly glanced at Su Yang's profile. This man looked like a down-on-his-luck beggar on the road, leaning on a bamboo cane, wearing tattered clothes, and unable to even afford a hotel.

But once he arrived at this place, he seemed like a completely different person. He stood up straight, walked with a steady gait, and exuded an indescribable aura.

"Is this your master's wife?" Zhang Lin leaned closer and asked Su Yang in a low voice.

Su Yang's face stiffened for a moment.

"no."

"And who is this young lady...?"

"Friend," Su Yang said, "arrange a place for her to stay."

Xiao Zhang glanced at Su Yang, then at Ye Qing, chuckled twice, and didn't ask any more questions.

Ye Qing stood to the side, her face expressionless, but the tips of her ears turned slightly red.

Ye Qing was assigned to a side room in the backyard of the academy. The room was small but very clean, with a south-facing window that let in sunlight, making the whole room bright.

The bedding on the bed was newly changed, a pot of tea and two cups were on the table, and sandalwood incense was burning in the incense burner in the corner, with thin smoke drifting upwards.

Ye Qing walked around the room, opened the window to look at the courtyard outside, and then closed it again.

She sat on the edge of the bed, lost in thought for a while.

Zhang Lin's words "Master's wife" were still echoing in her mind. She had been with Su Yang for two years and had never thought about this issue.

Su Yang is blind, and she is a girl. It's normal for people to misunderstand each other when they walk together, but when the word "teacher's wife" came out of other people's mouths, her heart still skipped a beat.

He couldn't quite describe the feeling; it was like being gently bumped by something, leaving him a little dazed.

Ye Qing shook his head, shaking off these chaotic thoughts, and began to look around the room.

She has a quirk: when she arrives in an unfamiliar place, she always needs to examine her surroundings thoroughly before she feels at ease. This habit is something she developed from childhood and can't break.

There was nothing special in the room: a bed, a table, a chair, a wardrobe, and a calligraphy scroll hanging on the wall that read "厚德载物" (hou de zai wu), written with heavy strokes, as if by Su Yang.

She walked around the room but didn't find anything. Just as she was about to sit down and have some tea, her gaze was suddenly drawn to something peeking out from under the pillow on the bedside table.

It was a cloth bag, about the size of a palm, bulging as if it contained something. Ye Qing hesitated for a moment, then reached out and took the bag out.

The cloth bag was made of very fine material, smooth to the touch, unlike anything an ordinary person would use. She opened the bag, and inside was a small wooden box with intricately carved patterns; it looked very expensive.

Ye Qing's heart suddenly started racing. She didn't know what she was nervous about, but she was just nervous.

She opened the box, her heart skipped a beat, she was utterly shocked.

A ring, a bracelet, and a necklace. All three items were silver-white, emitting a faint fluorescent glow, clearly not ordinary items.

Ye Qing picked up the ring and examined it from all angles. There were a few small characters engraved on the inside of the ring. The characters were small, but deeply engraved, and you could feel the strokes by touch.

"The Demon... Realm..."

Ye Qing's hand stopped.

She looked at the bracelet again; the clasp was also engraved with a pattern—a three-legged phoenix, the symbol of the Demon Emperor.

Demon Court!

Ye Qing's hands began to tremble.

She took a deep breath, put the items back in the box, closed the lid, and put them back in their place. Then she sat on the edge of the bed, her hands on her knees, and remained motionless.

She remembered something.

Two years ago, at Wanjian Manor, Chen Luoluo grabbed Su Yang's arm and called him "Junior Brother".

Su Yang said she had mistaken her for someone else.

But just now at Wanjian Manor, she clearly heard Chen Luoluo call her "Junior Brother".

She also remembered something.

Su Yang said that his righteous spirit was not innate, but a blessing from the God of Literature.

But her father had said that the blessing of the God of Literature would only be bestowed upon those with great fortune, and such people were one in ten thousand, each one a rare find in heaven and earth.

And those spatial artifacts.

What she had just seen were top-grade storage artifacts from the Upper Realm, each one priceless. How could an ordinary schoolteacher possibly possess items from the Demon Court?

Unless, he is not an ordinary schoolteacher at all.

Suddenly, a thought flashed through Ye Qing's mind, a thought that, like a bolt of lightning, cleaved through all the fog in her heart.

An arranged marriage, Wanjian Manor, fiancé, Su Yang... Youyang... everything is connected.

She suddenly stood up. It turned out that her fiancé had been by her side the whole time. Ye Qing sat in the room for a long time, until it got dark.

During that time, students brought her food, but she didn't eat it. Someone asked her if she needed anything, and she said no.

She sat there motionless, like someone who had been acupunctured, her mind replaying the same thing over and over again.

She wanted to find Su Yang and ask him for clarification, but then felt it would be pointless. That man never told the truth; whatever she asked him, he would just say "I don't know," "I'm not sure," or "You've mistaken me for someone else."

But she couldn't not ask; the matter was too big for her to pretend she didn't know.