The charm of reverse chronological storytelling is that, as memories are traced backward, many earlier questions are answered one after another.
Zhong Yi had just been wondering why Lin Xi and Gu Yun were riding horses on the grassland.
Then, in the very next memory, the question was resolved.
This memory was located at the Spirit Medicine Sect.
It was in this memory that Gu Yun learned Lin Xi bore the Ice Heart Bloodline.
Riding horses was one of the ways to alleviate Lin Xi’s heart-devouring symptoms.
That explained why the previous memory had them galloping across the prairie.
“So it seems Old Master Gu really does cherish Lin Xi… If riding helps, he just takes her straight to the grasslands,” Zhong Yi remarked with emotion.
The visit to the Spirit Medicine Sect also answered another question that had puzzled Zhong Yi for a long time.
Lin Xi’s reticence and unusual behavior all stemmed from her Ice Heart Bloodline.
In the ancient era, when spiritual energy was abundant, the Ice Heart Bloodline was a top-tier cultivation physique, characterized by emotional detachment and single-minded pursuit of the Dao.
But now, with spiritual energy so scarce, not only had the bloodline's cultivation advantages vanished, but the lack of any compatible inherited techniques had caused all sorts of problems.
The biggest problem was this:
Lin Xi could not express her inner thoughts.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to—it was that she couldn’t.
Even attempting to express herself would cause her to suffer excruciating heart-devouring pain.
…
…
The memory moved further back.
This time, the memory was set in a dim, shadowy theater.
On a huge white screen, a shadow play of Havoc in Heaven was being performed.
The theater seats were scattered, not fully occupied.
Zhong Yi immediately spotted a young Gu Yun, still just a boy.
The boy sat alone in the back row on the right side, looking around as if expecting someone.
After a long wait, he walked out of the theater dejectedly, slumping to the ground in disappointment.
What Zhong Yi didn't expect was that, shortly after Gu Yun rushed out, a long-haired girl slipped out from another back door of the theater.
Her slightly melancholy aura was distinctive—it was clearly a young Lin Xi.
Before the young Gu Yun could speak, Lin Xi beat him to it and demanded to know why, since they had agreed to watch the play together, he had left early.
This left Zhong Yi stunned.
At that moment, the saying "the guilty party files the lawsuit first" became all too real.
"We weren’t watching it together at all… I never even saw you! If you knew I was here, why didn’t you come find me?"
"What difference does it make? We were in the same theater, watching the same play… Isn’t that just like watching a movie together?"
Hearing this answer, Zhong Yi was momentarily taken aback.
But then, thinking of Lin Xi’s constitution, he understood.
It seemed she was destined to be such a strange girl.
"Hahaha…"
Instead of getting angry, Gu Yun burst into laughter.
"What are you laughing at?" the girl asked, confused.
"You’re so strange… You really are, very special!"
Gu Yun laughed until tears welled up in his eyes.
Perplexed, she pressed a hand to her chest: "Then… would you still be willing to watch it with me?"
Gu Yun nodded eagerly: "Yes!"
…
…
The memory skipped forward again.
Still in their youth.
On the campus full of youthful energy.
A shy Gu Yun, spurred on by his good friend Zhang Peng, mustered the courage to invite Lin Xi out.
Lin Xi sat by the stairs, quietly reading a book about lighthouses, with a neatly washed platypus plushie beside her.
"This plushie must mean a lot to her? It’s been with her for so long…" Zhong Yi mused.
Throughout the memory river spanning seventy years, the platypus plushie had appeared as a memory fragment more than once, showing how important it was to the two of them.
"Shhh—"
Qin Li'en shot Zhong Yi a glare and made a hushing gesture.
The youthful romance, tender and innocent, was the most endearing to witness.
Even Qin Li'en took pleasure in seeing these scenes.
"May I… ask you to watch a shadow play with me?"
The boy’s blush spoke louder than words.
Lin Xi put down her book, glanced at him, then quickly covered her face with the book again.
"I don’t know."
"Don’t worry, I can wait for you to think it over."
"I can’t go."
"Why?"
The boy’s face was full of disappointment.
"Because you didn’t say the time, nor the place."
The girl kept her head down, reading, and stated it as if it were the most natural thing.
This meant she agreed.
"Huh??"
Gu Yun was stunned for a moment, then quickly realized and said:
"Three days from now, at ten in the morning, at Wanfeng Theater—does that work?"
Gu Yun looked at her with hopeful anticipation.
She looked back at him with equal depth.
They gazed at each other in silence, as if time itself had frozen.
"Senior Sister, did you secretly freeze the memory space…"
Just as Zhong Yi was about to ask, the girl’s answer came:
"Okay."
One word, but it was enough to make the boy overjoyed.
The entire campus echoed with Gu Yun’s ecstatic shouts.
…
Elsewhere.
In the cafeteria.
Zhang Peng and Gu Yun were talking about Lin Xi.
Zhang Peng couldn't understand why Gu Yun would like a girl who was so reclusive, peculiar, and completely outside the social circle.
Gu Yun said he thought she was special.
"Special? Special in being boring?"
Zhang Peng laughed in exasperation.
"Look, I think you just want to use her to show you’re different, that you’re the only sober one while everyone else is drunk—right?"
"I don’t know."
Gu Yun shook his head.
He wasn’t even sure himself what exactly he liked about Lin Xi.
"Maybe you’re right, but she…"
Gu Yun gazed tenderly at the solitary girl sitting a few tables away, having lunch with her platypus plushie.
"…she’s just special."
The memory stopped abruptly.
The space froze.
"So that’s it! So that’s what ‘that thing’ they mentioned is all about!"
Zhong Yi suddenly understood.
Having gone through so many memories, many of the earlier puzzles were finally unraveling one by one.
Lin Xi’s drastic change in temperament occurred after Gu Yun confessed his reason for approaching her at the lighthouse.
In the beginning, Gu Yun got close to Lin Xi because being with her made him feel different from others.
Clearly, this shallow and naive reason had hurt Lin Xi.
So she increasingly closed herself off, growing more reclusive day by day, and her relationship with Gu Yun was no longer as close.
After listening to Zhong Yi’s explanation, the barrage comments immediately erupted into debate.
[So that’s the reason… No wonder things got so weird afterwards]
[Looking at it this way, Lin Xi finally let someone in, and his original intention hurt her?]
[But what about the paper rabbits, the sandbag, and the platypus plushie? How do you explain those?]
[And the lighthouse! Why is the lighthouse so important? I don’t see anything special about it]
…
Seeing the conflicting comments, Zhong Yi frowned.
Indeed.
Even though the reasoning seemed so logical, there were still too many doubts that couldn’t be explained.
For example…
Why did Lin Xi cut off her own hair?
Why did she keep folding paper rabbits?
Why was that platypus plushie always with her?
Why was the lighthouse so important?
…
"What a mess—is this a love illusion or a mystery illusion…"
Zhong Yi shook his head with a wry smile.
Full of anticipation, he entered the next memory.
I couldn't wait to unravel all the mysteries.
...
...
Time flew backward rapidly.
Zhong Yi and Qin Li'en appeared in front of a house they had never seen before.
"Where is this?"
Zhong Yi was curious, but an answer came quickly.
A young-faced Gu Yun was cheerfully pushing open the door and walking inside.
This time, he looked only about seven or eight years old.
Obviously, this was his childhood home.
"It seems we're close to completing the mission,"
Qin Li'en murmured.
"But we're also getting further from the truth..."
Zhong Yi shook his head regretfully.
He had hoped to see more clues about Lin Xi.
"Let's go,"
Qin Li'en said, following little Gu Yun inside.
Just as Zhong Yi was about to enter, he suddenly noticed an item emitting a faint glow.
It was a massive animal skull placed in the courtyard of Gu's home, with a giant horn on top.
Beneath the horn's base, there were three inconspicuous holes.
"What is this?"
Zhong Yi approached curiously and received a piece of information.
[Earth Dragon Skull: The remains of a dead earth dragon.]
It had no dream power generated, nor was it a memory fragment—just an object with a descriptive note.
"Well, just a decoration..."
Zhong Yi shrugged dismissively and followed Qin Li'en into the house.
This memory was nothing special.
Little Gu Yun came home, greeted his mother, and she cooked him dinner.
That was all.
Before long, Zhong Yi and Qin Li'en gathered enough dream power.
This time, the memory fragment was a cuju ball.
"It looks like our mission is finally complete,"
Zhong Yi muttered to himself.
With the injection of dream power, the two traveled through time and space again.
This time, what appeared before them was a pitch-black, fragmented memory space that couldn't be entered.
Qin Li'en gave Zhong Yi a sidelong glare:
"Junior Brother Zhong, care to tell me which one of us is really the jinx?"
[Three consecutive days of bonus chapters, language has been streamlined as much as possible; only content with key information remains.]
[The flashback section is finally finished; tomorrow begins the twist. After the original plot concludes, a new major twist will be added!]
for mindless slaughter, this isn't for you.] My name is Ye Shu, and I'm a transmigrator. It seems I'm supposed to be the protagonist, but that feels pretty unlikely. This world has been invaded by a system. The antagonists on the other side have suddenly become pure, flawless saints. The female leads have been force-fed the so-called "original plot," making them think they've been reborn. Now, everyone thinks I'm scum. Including the old lady in my ring. And here I am, in the Monster Beast Mountain Range, braising pork. To put my situation in perspective— It's as if, the moment Xiao Yan stepped into the Monster Beast Mountain Range, the Soul Emperor already knew he would become the Flame Emperor, and Yao Lao had been turned to the enemy's side. I have nothing right now. Oh wait, that's not true. I do have a white-haired loli child-bride who's the Heavenly Dao, and her only skill is acting cute. So, tell me guys... what are my chances of making it to the end?
grated, and just when he finally managed to get into an elite academy, he discovered that he actually had a system, and the way to earn rewards was extremely ridiculous. So for the sake of rewards, he had no choice but to start acting ridiculous as well. Su Cheng: "It's nothing but system quests after all." But later, what confused Su Cheng was that while he was already quite ridiculous, he never expected those serious characters to gradually become ridiculous too. And the way they looked at him became increasingly strange... (This synopsis doesn't do it justice, please read the full story)
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
