Novels2Search

Chapter 2

Another chapter, I tried my best to correct the grammer and added more content . Hope you enjoy reading it.

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As the fire went rampant, smell of burnt sandalwoods mixed with the smell of burnt coral was giving a deadly pungent smell in the surroundings of the palace. Bits and pieces of charred wood architraves were falling down on the surface below. Once the tall and high ceilings caved in and now barely managed to stay high. The surface below what once was a stunningly beautiful handcrafted wooden floor, now turned into lumps of white charcoal on the scorched blackened mud. All porches and gazebos inside the palace were now burnt down to the ground. The trees planted into the garden which were just recently giving a feeling of paradise on earth, now turned into a forest of death. All the originally beautiful gold crafted wall hanging decorations melted in this heat and became hideous to look at. The fire burned down almost every nice thing remained with the Crescent Moon's Peak palace's outer area and now was trying to swallow the rest of the inner palace under it's unstoppable hunger.

"The ceilings of the inner palace were not maintained properly in recent years, so when the wood ceilings caught the fire, they started to fall like leaves in the autumn. As the prince's room was a bit bigger than others so the damages were not severe yet. The ceiling was still hanging above, though the supporting beams would not hold it up for long. However, that was not helping prince much. He tried and tried, but he could not even lift his leg. His whole body was like made of stone. Beads of sweat were glistening his face

"Cough, cough."

Smoke in the room was getting denser and denser by every passing moment. The brunt fishy smell from corals in my room was making me nauseated. I inhaled a lot of smoke and now I could not even breathe properly. This must be what they called choked to death. The fire must have spread everywhere, Ah, I hope big sister Xu and Mei and Uncle Fu are alright. They must get away from this place.

"Is this how, my, Shen Yu's life going to end?" I suddenly felt extreme sadness for my mother in the nunnery. She would not even know how I died. I have not seen her for a long, long time now. When she left me, I was little over three. So I do not know much about her, but she was a very gentle mother when she was with me. Her sweet voice when she talked to me still lingered in my ears. Unfortunately, I do not remember the face of my parent. Actually, I did not even want to recall any of my childhood memories. Every time I tried, I could only see a very blurry image of a talking old person then my head started to hurt and occasionally random images appeared in my head if I did not faint before that. As for my father, the only things I knew about him that he was the emperor and he did not care about me much. I think after hearing that I completely stopped asking about him. I did not want to get a headache because of a person who did not care for my life. I always hoped to see my mother once again beside me. Little prince clenched his little fists and promised to himself.

"If I get to see tomorrow, I will definitely bring my mother back to my side. No matter what."

Sometime time I tried to ask big sister Xu about my mother, but I did not think she understood me, as every time she brought food after that. As time passed by I realized she could not understand me because I did not speak like a normal person. However, even then she treated me like an affectionate older sister. I once heard she came with my mother as dowry maid and she had taken care of me since my birth till now. Her personality was very gentle. She fed me, bathed me, told me stories at night, stayed beside me when I was sick. Big sister Xu was almost a mother figure to me. On the other hand Uncle Fu and big sister Mei have a very indifferent attitude towards me. Uncle Fu rarely visited my room, a few times when he came, he came to give a money bag and received a thumb print from me. He was a very grumpy looking man. Big sister Mei had a very cold attitude towards me, I did not know who appointed her here, but she was not very happy to work for me. She often ate and drank the fruits and drinks that were made for me. Also, she often used the curse words like cripple and retard towards me. Still, I did not mind her as she often shared many interesting outside world news with big sister Xu in front of me.

" I really hope they escaped from this palace." Prince sighed.

My eyes started to get moist as I thought about my puny life. In the past, I remembered there was a very pretty nice woman who used to visit me, but the frequency of her visits started to decline then suddenly stopped. She said she was my great grandmother who defended me from kicked out of royal clan and helped me to retain my prince title. In that time I did not think much over it anyway, but now I believed she saved me from being homeless that time.

Some people from other royal households often came to visit me every month. They all tried to steal the our household items, but they could not get away from being caught red handed by Big sister Mei. They usually yelled and cursed at Big sister Xu and me for occupying this big palace shamelessly while their mistresses were living in much smaller palaces. Few of them even brought white silk for me to commit suicide. Some bold guests even tried to use force to kick us out from this palace, but big sister Xu managed to send them back with livid bruises all over their bodies. Big sister Xu was awesome that time. Big sister Xu often told me to ignore the nonsense talks.

Most of the people who suffered the beating gave me a title of Fake prince. Some even dared to file complain to remove me from imperial register. They all hated the fact that I was still the current second in line to the throne of Yu Empire and no one dare to change it because of my great grandmother. Though I was allowed a handsome amount of money as monthly allowance, but as I was a stain to the imperial blood and a good for nothing, my allowance was reduced to 20 silver leaves per month. Which was a basic monthly income of any common household in Yu Empire. No one objected this other than my great grandmother, but it was futile as I heard from the gossips of sister Mei. It seemed I had a powerful maternal family, but no one ever visited me from them. I heard they even announced that they had no relationship with me. People often criticized and mocked me being a dead weight in Imperial family and it would have been better if I died in childbirth. It was firmly believed that educating me will be a waste so I was restrained from study and writing. Children took their inner talent test at the age of six, however I did not even get a chance to apply. Big sister Xu went and bought a form for me, but one of the examiners saw it and tore it by snatching it from her hand. I still could not understand till this day where all those hatred were coming from. I did not harm anyone in my entire life. So why just people could not leave me alone.

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"I was a dumb, illiterate child, so no one had a slightest bit of hope for me hence I had a lazy and easy-going life till this day. To be honest, I enjoyed it very much, though I was restrained from visiting outside world, I was still very happy within my small household. No one had any reason to assassinate me. Yet someone did it today. Cruel people, not even sparing a crippled kid.

As my death was approaching rapidly I tried to recall my mother's face for the last time, a sudden sensation of pain triggered in my head and I fainted.

A white space out of nowhere numerous transparent balls of light were hovering in the air, all of them were different in colour. White, red, blue, green and many other colours made this place look like a rainbow. These balls of light were called soul and this place was called Eternal soul palace. Each ball of light was giving sparkling aura from them

"Ah, no, no. Not again, I will burn to death this time." A silvery violet ball of light appeared suddenly out of nowhere. The ball was giving a blinding aura from it.

"We met once again" A wise voice spoke out from the space.

A majestic white robed old man appeared right after as the owner of the voice. He looked like he was around sixty years old. Long white strands of hair over his shoulder. A jade hairpin tied the hair into a knot on his head. An aloof smile was on his lips. The aura from old person was very ancient as he knew everything within the whole universe, but strangely this aura was filled with mischief. As soon as the old man appeared all souls scattered towards the corner like they were running away from him.

The silvery violet ball transformed into a human shaped figure, a small and petite boy. This ball was the soul of prince Shen Yu.

"Ai, this old man, this is not a good time for the meeting." the prince hurriedly said.

"If you do not return me right now, even my bones will not remain. Do you wish me to die?"

The old man laughed at the boy as if he was amused. That smile was not a smile.

"Even if I sent you back now, how do you deal with gravity charm on your body, boy?"

Prince was shocked, so that was the reason he could not lift his body. Such vicious method to deal with someone. Prince contorted his face in horror. He had heard about this charm from Big sister Xu. Only medium or higher grade charm master could produce a gravity charm. One of each will cost about 3 gold leaves. At least he will die as rich.

"Do not make that face, boy. You will not die today."

"How? No one was there when I yelled. Do you know what happened to others?"

"Help is on its way. Others are safe as well."

"Thank the heaven." Prince was relieved.

He then asked "Why did you call me here then?"

A creepy smile suddenly bloomed on the old man's face.

When the prince was three years old, he could not even speak properly anymore and his frequent blackouts also started around that time. No one could find the cure so every healer and apothecaries believed prince was suffering from brain disease, but that was not the actual case.

This old man was the main culprit for that incident. This old man was called Lord Mu, keeper of the Eternal Soul palace. It was his duty to look after the reincarnation cycle of the souls. When a person died in the mortal world, their soul will appear here before they go under the judgement of hell. It was Lord Mu's duty to send the soul on their way to palace of hell. He had another duty too, that to check the growth level of the soul after each incarnation and whether or not to let the souls retain their past memories. Every time a soul incarnated it started with a base soul strength, and if they cultivate further they could strengthen it. The strength of the soul depended on the colour of souls. White was the weakest while violet was the strongest. In between them were, yellow, red, orange, green, blue, cyan. Prince Shen's soul was sent to total eleven incarnations cycles before it descended as the mortal body of Shen Yu. So after eleventh cycles of reincarnation, it turned into a violet soul. In each cycle Lord Mu must let his soul retain the all of the memories of his previous incarnations. This process was very crucial and it always took a long time to transmit the memories. This was an important duty given by the heavenly court.

However, in this incarnation due to a minor mistake the soul of prince Shen descended as a newborn soul into the mortal world. Oldman also completely forgot about it, but three years after the reincarnation, heavenly court found out about the problem and wanted to punish Lord Mu.

To avoid the punishment Lord Mu found a loophole in the rules of incarnation and brought back the soul of the prince in the Eternal Soul Palace, but that time the soul strength already reversed back to the yellow colour. That freaked out the old man so much to fix his mistake he forcefully transmitted all of the memories of eleven cycles into a newborn soul. Due to this new born soul's memory could not take the pressure and scattered. However soul strength reached to blue in colour which made Lord Mu extremely happy and he sent the soul back its own body. This made a tremendous impact on little prince's little life and cause of the all problems in this life. However a side effect happened, most of Prince's old memories could not integrate with the new born soul properly so it became a layer covering the new soul which was slowly seeping into the new born soul. Every time prince tried to remember something from his childhood, a past memory entered into the new born soul, thus making the random headaches and blackouts.

This old man in front of him was a sly person who lived for thousands of years, so the figure of the prince was very fidgety and wanted to get away from him as soon as he can.

"When I brought your for the first time, you were here with a little yellow colour body that gave me a fright, now look at you, all violet body, hmm strange. Let me see how much past memories you have recalled during these past years. "

"I refuse." Prince instantly declined.