The following day, Yu Di first did his job. For the glory of very watered down congee and a rat infested bed to sleep on, he swept as much of the fortress as he could before the end of the day.

  He had already angered Elder Li. He didn’t want to anger Head Servant Cui Ying either. Although it probably wouldn’t matter. Elder Li was plotting something against him.

  Yu Di knew the type. The one who sought power and revenge for slights to their face.

  When he finished, he went to Bai Feng’s home. It was inappropriate for a man like him to continue visiting her like this and he was certain he heard of a few rumors already, but this was too important.

  Bai Feng had a modest meal waiting for him this time. Much of it was leftovers from the previous night, but the new vegetables brought beautiful greens to the table. She prepared a large pot of tea.

  This reminded Yu Di of his mother when she would have prepared meals for him when he came home. That was over a hundred years ago. He missed her.

  Yu Lin sat at the table with her legs crossed, eating from a large bowl of rice. Her hair was finally pulled back into a ponytail, topped with a large red bow. She would never let Yu Di touch her hair no matter what, allowing it to grow wild. She looked like a little cultivator, ready to take on the world.

  Yu Di sat down and Bai Feng handed him a cup of tea. He never understood the idea of marriage and having a wife, but now he was seeing the benefits. Of course, he could never view Bai Feng like that.

  Even now, he only saw her as a friend. His only focus was on Yu Lin and his curse.

  “Did you get the paper and ink?” Yu Di asked.

  “Of course. I wouldn’t delay any chance for you to explain your curse,” Bai Feng said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Baba, could you tell us about the curse now?” Yu Lin asked. Despite having the bowl of rice near her face, she had stopped eating. She stared at her father with wonder.

  Yu Di smiled as he drank his tea. He had a lot of time today while sweeping to think about this. It wasn’t fair to not tell her daughter, no matter how young she was, because he might die tomorrow. How did he live this kind of life before having Yu Lin?

  “Okay little Lin, I’ll tell you,” Yu Di said.

  Yu Lin smiled.

  “First, I must tell you how I got cursed.” Yu Di picked up his chopsticks and began eating. “Before I ever met you, your Baba was a… bad man.”

  “No. My Baba is not a bad man.” Yu Lin slammed her bowl down onto the table.

  “No, your Baba stole things from other people and caused others to be hurt by his actions. And these are all things you shouldn’t do because these are bad actions.”

  “So Baba learned and is now a good man.” Yu Lin’s eyes were so big and bright. Yu Di almost couldn’t continue the story.

  “You’re right. I did learn, but Baba is far from being a good man. I was addicted to cultivating. I would do anything to get to the next level. And when you reach the highest levels of demigod, leveling up becomes almost impossible. I was cursed while fighting a goddess. She protected a city out in the west where people have fair skin and elegant clothes.”

  “Baba, why were you fighting her?” Yu Lin asked.

  Yu Di looked down at his half-eaten bowl of rice. He chewed his lower lip. He took a deep breath before he continued.

  “I wanted the goddess’ secret but her priests protected it, deep within the city. All the people there loved their goddess and would protect her secret as it gave her power. To obtain the secret, I threatened to burn their city unless they complied with my demand. I didn’t care how I got it. Which was probably why I was cursed.”

  Yu Di smiled ruefully at his daughter.

  Yu Lin frowned, looking like she was on the verge of crying.

  “I’m sorry little Lin,” Yu Di said. “You must hate me. I know I hate myself for doing it. I almost became a very bad man and I would have hurt so many people.”

  “But you would not burn it down, right?” Bai Feng asked.

  Yu Di remembered that day so vividly. He had used his Qi to form a sword of fire so bright that it cast a shadow on the sun. The goddess floated in front of him, her pure white robes still intact, but her Qi was boiling. All he had to do was distract her for one second, burn the city, and find the secret in its ruins.

  Yu Di had felt his actions were justified then. These weak mortals standing in his way using borrowed power from their goddess. She wasn’t even a true demigod. Without her secret, without her city, she would be nothing to him.

  “I want to say that I wouldn’t,” Yu Di said. He couldn’t look at Yu Lin’s eyes. “But I didn’t get the chance, anyway. The sky opened up and a storm of heavenly lightning came crashing down on me. It struck me nine times, sending me crashing down into the desert, far away from the city.”

  Yu Lin punched Yu Di in the chest. It was a soft punch.

  “Baba, you won’t do that anymore, right?”

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  Yu Di nodded.

  “I can’t. But even if I could, I promise my little Lin that I would never hurt others for power again. It’s not worth it.”

  “You better Baba. Or else I will stand up to you like momma taught me.”

  Yu Di chuckled. Hearing her tiny voice being so stern toward him was just too cute. Yet his promise wasn’t only to his daughter, but to all the sons and daughters. If there was one thing he learned from his curse was that power was not worth the tragedy.

  “But that means you reached the mythical heights of Demigod,” Bai Feng whispered. “You were as strong as the Emperor. Could he have been the one to curse you?”

  “I’ve visited the Emperor before as he invited me to the Imperial Palace,” Yu Di said. He gulped down his tea. “He is too old to actually fight, but his sons could easily match me or any other living demigod. And being as old as he was, he had many sons. But no, he doesn’t care about wayward cultivators or any of the sects for that matter. One word from him could crush everyone with his imperial might.”

  Bai Feng’s mouth hung open.

  “We even played Go,” Yu Di said. “I only beat him one game out of ten, but I had to cheat. He invited me to make sure I understood the rules and that I was still under his jurisdiction as a citizen of the empire. And then he sent me off with his personal cultivation manual, as he knew that was all I wanted.”

  “What was in the manual?” Bai Feng asked.

  “I would try to explain it to you, but you’re not at that level yet. It would do you more harm than good. But it gave me a major boost. For that favor alone, I helped the Emperor resolve a few complicated issues. I have an open invitation to visit him any time. Of course that was before I was cursed.”

  “Baba, can you take me there?” Yu Lin said.

  “Me too?” Bai Feng asked.

  “I don’t think the Emperor is going to let in a nobody like me now,” Yu Di said.

  “Unless you break the curse. How did you survive the tribulation lightning? It can destroy most cultivators.”

  Yu Di leaned back and grinned.

  “When you become a true demigod, not even heaven’s tribulation can do anything to you. The problem was that this wasn’t simply heaven’s tribulation. That goddess must have done something with her secret inheritance and called a curse to hit me.”

  “At first, nothing happened but I felt something wrong with my body. I couldn’t cultivate normally, like there was a blockage. It wasn’t until a little later on did I get a jade profiling tablet I realized I was cursed.”

  Yu Di took out his jade tablet from his storage ring and showed it to them.

  Current Power: Realm 1, Stage 1, Level 1.5 (Qi condensation)

  Remaining Lifespan: 17 years, 10 months.

  Current Status: Cursed (1% lifted)

  Overall Power: Fourth Realm, End Stage, Peak level

  Bai Feng gasped.

  “Baba, what do these words mean?”

  “Now this, you’ll have to wait until you're a little older before I tell you,” Yu Di said. “Just know that Baba is not feeling well.”

  “You’ve reached higher in cultivation than most legends,” Bai Feng said.

  “Actually, that was probably thanks to the stone stele. That allowed me to level up the other day.”

  Bai Feng looked distant for a moment.

  “Same thing that I told you before,” Yu Di said. “Don’t think about it now. It will do you more harm than good until you’ve reached that level.”

  “Is the other part about lifespan accurate?” Bai Feng asked.

  Yu Di nodded.

  “Which is why I hoped that when the time comes, you’ll take care of Yu Lin for me. Be her godmother.”

  “What do you mean, Baba?” Yu Lin asked. “Aren’t you going to stay with me? You promised.”

  The little girl put down all her food and climbed into Yu Di’s lap. She held onto his chest.

  Yu Di hugged her against his chest. He would have laughed at how something so powerful could be so tiny.

  “I’m not going anywhere, soon,” Yu Di said. “I’m just making sure that someone else also loves you and takes care of you. Can I count on you, Senior Bai?”

  Bai Feng cupped her hands and bowed her head.

  “Nothing else would bring me more pleasure than to care for your daughter.”

  “Well, if everything goes right you won't have to worry about that. I have tried everything to break this curse and only until recently did I stumble onto a possible way to do so. I’m glad that I have someone else I can depend on to help me figure it out.”

  “Not sure how much I can help a demigod.” Bai Feng shrugged.

  “Oh, you’d be surprised how helpful someone with a different perspective can be. I think that might be one reason why the curse began lifting recently.”

  “I’ll help too!” Yu Lin bounced off Yu Di’s lap in an instant and went back to eating her dinner.

  Yu Di pulled out a clean sheet of paper and poured a little tea into the inkwell. He began making ink with the ink block.

  “Let’s start with what we know and move onto what we don’t,” Yu Di said. “This reminds me of my first sect when I discussed the many ideas of cultivation with my fellow disciples.”

  “Where are they now?” Bai Feng asked.

  “Everyone ascended with me to the next realm and branched out. Some of them joined stronger sects, others went off to work on alchemy. Others carved their own paths in the history of Immortals. I don’t think I saw them again after we all left our sect.”

  “Weren’t you lonely?”

  “I didn’t care for any of that. I was addicted by then. To rise in cultivation faster than most of the sects in the region…” Yu Di closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He had to remind himself that life was over. He focused on the smells of the food with each breath.

  “Baba, the ink is broken,” Yu Lin said.

  Yu Di opened his eyes and saw the ink block came down to a nub. He placed it down and added a little more water to get the ink to the right consistency.

  “Yu Lin, I want you to remember this,” Yu Di said. “Power is addictive. You should only seek it for a purpose.”

  Yu Lin looked from Yu Di to Bai Feng.

  “What your father means is that you should use your power for good,” Bai Feng said.

  “Okay!” Yu Lin did a backwards cartwheel away from the two adults.

  “She’s still too young to understand any of that,” Bai Feng said. “As her parent, give her direction until she can choose it herself.”

  Yu Di laughed.

  “That’s why you’re a better teacher than me. I couldn’t really get to my fellow disciples too when I was in a sect. It took them teaching each other for all of us to ascend.”

  “Come on, Baba, let’s get back to the curse already. I’m bored.” Yu Lin did a cartwheel back to the table.

  “Okay, let’s write them down. You’re going to help, little Lin.”

  “Where’s my brush?” Yu Lin looked up as she stood on her head.

  Yu Di picked one up and gave it to her along with a fresh piece of paper. This was going to be a long night, but at least he’ll finally have a better idea of how to break this curse.