Yu Lingxi (玉凌夕)

History

There were many things that Lingxi did not remember. When he had tried to remember, he would remember a grand hall veiled in layers upon layers of red drapery. He would remember running through the labyrinth of muslin, remember the light that had illuminated the sheer fabrics and the silhouette it had revealed. Then he would remember falling into a lotus pond as the world shook itself apart and his soul—

And then he woke up. He woke up to a pristinely preserved palace. He woke up to a man named Wangxiao.

Wangxiao told him: "I'll take care of you. Trust me. I won't let this happen ever again."

The fervent look in his eyes had made Lingxi want to believe him.

But Lingxi wanted to leave this place. He had searched the palace high and low for the grand hall of red muslin, but there was no hall nor lotus pond nor the silhouette he could remember every time he closed his eyes. In fact, there were no people apart from Wangxiao and himself. There were no people even outside of the palace when he left it, not in the long stretches of meadow or in the eerily empty towns.

How peculiar, a whole world of only remnants of people, echos resounding through every absence where someone should be. He felt like he was going crazy every time he started thinking about it too much. Wangxiao finally took pity on him and brought him to a different world.

"This is the mortal world," Wangxiao said. "Don't get attached. They die very quickly."

And the funny thing was, Lingxi honestly thought he wouldn't get attached.

He didn't think he'd get attached when he wandered into a bordertown and saw a battalion of soldiers march through.

He didn't think he'd get attached when he saw the commander riding out in front on his stallion, cutting a striking silhouette. He only truly felt the danger when the man turned around and caught his gaze; and he was caught.

Ten thousand years in a single glance, captured for ten thousand years more.

The commander turned out to be a prince with high aspirations for the throne and for the kingdom. Lingxi discovered that he was quite good at killing in order to build military achievements for his prince. He was infamous for his Soul Scattering Technique where he could end an entire enemy army without suffering any losses on their side.

His prince once asked him if he was a cultivator, and Lingxi could only answer that he couldn't remember.

Later his prince became the Crown Prince and then the Emperor when his Imperial father died, and Lingxi was made Imperial tutor.

But the haze of this beautiful dream had to end when one of the other princes rebelled, and Lingxi was sent to eliminate the rebellion army.

He scattered the rebellion army easily enough but the price paid was a seal put over him. Later he would understand, this seal was called 'Ten Thousand Lives Debt'. In exchange for the sacrifice of ten thousand lives, the seal would force the killer to bend to the Will of the Sealer and of Heaven.

The Sealer was the other prince, whose first order was to go kill the Emperor.

And so Lingxi went. He went and killed his prince, his Emperor, his ten thousand years.

Wangxiao was right. They did die very quickly.

But despite dying very quickly, there was always another Emperor to take his place. And so Lingxi spent a few hundred years locked up in the Imperial Palace, acting as a personal bodyguard for Emperor after Emperor, killing any opposition that might arise.

After all, no matter how benevolent an Emperor might seem, having a Qilin in the Palace was too much of a status symbol of power and righteousness for the Qilin to be allowed to leave captivity.

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