Time flowed backward, memories reversed.
Under the blue-purple night sky, the sea breeze blew and the moonlight was bright.
“So this is what the lighthouse looks like when it’s operating…”
Zhong Yi gazed at the brilliant light atop the lighthouse, cutting through the mist over the sea, muttering to himself.
In all the memories to come, this lighthouse would be abandoned, the strong-light stone at its peak never lit again.
At that moment, Gu Yun and Lin Xi were on a date on the bench beneath the lighthouse.
“So that’s why you approached me back then?”
“Yes.”
“And now?”
“Uh… it’s just a very small part of it now.”
“…”
The light in Lin Xi’s eyes dimmed again, and she remained silent for a long time.
Gu Yun quickly explained, “That was… a long, long time ago! I didn’t know anything back then… I don’t think that way anymore.”
He looked at Lin Xi, his gaze sincere.
“Zhang Peng and Wang Qiao said I should be honest with you about this too… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made our first meeting so trivial…”
When Gu Yun said “first,” Lin Xi suddenly lifted her head as if jolted by electricity, also looking at him.
Her gaze grew deep and unfathomable once more.
A brief silence hung in the air.
“Damn! Too late again?!”
Zhong Yi held his forehead, letting out a long sigh.
He was used to it by now—picking out clues from broken words in stories full of riddles.
Not long ago, in the memory from the tavern, Zhang Peng had asked Gu Yun, “Did you tell her about that thing?”
Clearly, “that thing” was the reason Gu Yun had first approached Lin Xi.
But they were too late. They still didn’t know what that reason was.
Zhong Yi shot a pleading look at Qin Li’en, who shook his head and said, “This is the earliest point in this memory.”
Zhong Yi had to let it go.
The brief silence ended.
Lin Xi pulled a patched little sandbag from her clothes and asked Gu Yun if he could toss it over to the lighthouse.
Long accustomed to Lin Xi’s inexplicable requests, Gu Yun took the sandbag without a second thought and hurled it with all his might toward the opposite cliff.
As expected, it didn’t make it—the little sandbag fell off the cliff into the void, gone without a trace.
What no one expected was that,
the moment Lin Xi saw the sandbag leave his hand, she rushed excitedly toward the cliff. If Gu Yun hadn’t held her back, it seemed she might have jumped.
The memory ended, and the space froze.
Before Zhong Yi could speak, the live-stream barrage erupted:
[Didn’t she ask Old Master Gu to throw it?!]
[Now it’s gone and she’s upset…]
[This Lin Xi is way too weird! It’s amazing that Old Master Gu could put up with her!]
[I really don’t get what Old Demon Lu was thinking, designing a character like that.]
[Even if she’s meant to set off the Senior Sister, this is too much, right?]
…
“I know you have a lot of questions… but that’s not our concern.”
Qin Li’en glanced at Zhong Yi, speaking first.
“What we need to do now is get to Old Master Gu’s childhood memories quickly and plant the cause for him to join the Nine Heavens Sect.”
“Alright…”
Caught off guard, Zhong Yi rubbed his nose sheepishly and began searching for memory fragments on the cliff.
This time, the memory fragment was a traveling pouch Lin Xi used.
As they left, Zhong Yi looked back at the couple and noticed for the first time that Lin Xi had waist-long hair.
In the years to come, Lin Xi would always wear her hair short, just above her shoulders.
“Long hair looked nice, didn’t it? Why did she cut it…”
Zhong Yi shook his head and didn’t dwell on the question.
After all, in the whole recollection, there were plenty more baffling mysteries than Lin Xi cutting her hair short.
…
…
Time reversed again.
“This place is novel… a library stitched together with a tea house? Huh, it’s actually quite practical!”
Zhong Yi looked around.
Gu Yun was chatting idly with Zhang Peng and Wang Qiao at a tea table.
Lin Xi was reading books alone in the adjacent library area.
Gu Yun was troubled by Lin Xi’s “Iceheart Bloodline.”
From the snippets of conversation, it was clear that Lin Xi’s quietness and strange behavior were caused by this “Iceheart Bloodline.”
Coincidentally, Zhang Peng’s wife, Wang Qiao, was also a rare possessor of the same bloodline.
Gu Yun was asking Wang Qiao many questions about the “Iceheart Bloodline.”
“Oh… so that’s why Wang Qiao spoke up for Lin Xi earlier and got along so well with her—they’re in the same boat?”
Another puzzle solved, Zhong Yi exclaimed in sudden understanding.
Every step back into memory untangled another knot.
At this moment, Zhong Yi eagerly looked forward to returning to where Gu Yun and Lin Xi had first met.
He felt that, once there, all the doubts would be resolved.
Just then, Gu Yun got up and walked over to Lin Xi, who was absorbed in a book.
“What are you reading?”
“Journey to the West… I loved this story when I was little.”
“You still love it now, right?”
“Of course…”
Lin Xi put the book back on the shelf, turned around, and her eyes grew a shade deeper.
“…But for a different reason.”
Perhaps remembering that Wang Qiao had just advised him to open up more to Lin Xi,
Gu Yun thought for a moment and said with a smile:
“When I was little, my favorite story was Battle Through the Heavens.”
“I know. Your mother gave you a copy of Battle Through the Heavens as a wedding gift on our wedding day.”
Lin Xi’s gaze flickered as she looked at Gu Yun.
“Yeah…” Gu Yun touched his head, sighing. “What a strange gift. How much must I have loved reading that book as a kid? Haha…”
“Then you…” Lin Xi hesitated. “Why did you stop reading it later? That copy of Battle Through the Heavens was in the storage room. When I saw it, it was covered in dust.”
“Maybe because…” Gu Yun frowned. “I grew up. I outgrew reading those kinds of stories.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“…”
Lin Xi said nothing more. She picked up Journey to the West and walked to the counter to pay.
Gu Yun followed, considerately settling the bill for the book.
Just then, Lin Xi looked at him quietly and suddenly asked:
“Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river… what’s the next line?”
Gu Yun was startled: “Huh? What is it?”
“Nothing.”
As if she had learned something, Lin Xi lowered her head, hiding all her thoughts deep in her eyes.
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
ine. During your journey, you save an abandoned baby girl and become her elder brother】 【You rely on each other, becoming each other's support】 【At the end of the simulation, you shield the now-grown girl with your life, sacrificing yourself to block numerous demonic cultivators. You die, and the light in the girl's eyes fades】 …… 【Second Simulation: You are transported to a world where steam and magic coexist】 【You immerse yourself in the study of magic, obsessed with its research. One day, while out, you encounter a half-blooded demon girl wandering the streets. You take her in as your student】 【You teach the demoness what it means to be human, show her the beauty of the world, and nurture her into a miracle that surpasses even the gods】 【At the end of the simulation, you die of old age in front of the nearly immortal demoness due to your mortal lifespan】 …… One simulation after another, one encounter after another. Xu Xi suddenly felt something was off: "Wait, you said you're coming to the real world to find me?"
with countless casualties. As a top-tier gamer, Liu Xuan volunteered to join the fight, intending to dominate with his skills, but instead he obtained the hidden class: [Pacifist]. Unable to attack. Unable to use active skills. Fortunately, with each level gained, he acquired a new passive skill. And so, armed with a body full of passives, Liu Xuan slaughtered his way through the battlefield of ten thousand races! [You attacked Liu Xuan] [You gained the debuffs: 'Poison', 'Fear', 'Burning', 'Bleeding', 'Freeze', 'Silence', etc.] [Your attack speed has been reduced by 99%] [Your armor and magic resistance have been reduced by 99%] Warriors of the Ten Thousand Races: How the hell am I supposed to fight this?!
