Editor: Sahloknir
In his previous life, Gong Wei had called out to Xu Bai many times. It was a very proper name, but when it was pronounced slowly and in a drawn-out tone between his white teeth, it sounded laidback and harboured a tinge of ill intent.
Ying Kai once criticised him for being so disrespectful, even if Gong Wei didn’t address him as ‘Lord Xu’, he should have at least called him Senior Xu. Gong Wei always cheekily agreed, however once Ying Kai turned around, he would sneakily revert to his old ways. As time passed, Ying Kai no longer bothered with correcting him.
Xu Shuangtze didn’t care how Gong Wei addressed him, because no matter what came out of Gong Wei’s mouth, it would always sound crafty. There was only once when Gong Wei seemed to seek death by sneaking up behind Xu Shuangtze and jumping out with a cry, “General Bai!”— That was shortly after Xu Shuangtze had returned to reality from the Thousand Dimension Mirror Realm. Later on, Gong Wei always felt that if he hadn’t escaped so quickly, he would have been chopped up and fed to the dogs on the spot by the furious Xu Shuangtze.
In any case, Gong Wei would never have heard what the ghost cultivator said incorrectly. The ‘Xu Bai’ which came from the ghost cultivator was exactly the same as how he would have said it in his previous life. And he knew that Xu Shuangtze could not have heard it wrong either.
“…”
Xu Shuangtze’s back was facing them, so Gong Wei couldn’t see his expression. Time passed so slowly that every second seemed endless, and it took an unknown amount of minutes before Xu Shuangtze let out a cold laugh.
—The sound was so low that it was impossible to hear what emotion it carried.
Then, without hesitation, he ripped the ‘heart’ out of the ghost cultivator’s chest!
This movement was so swift and cruel that Gong Wei subconsciously felt his own heart ache, and then his pupils dilated at the sight.
A bronze fragment was resting in Xu Shuangtze’s hand. It was about half the size of his palm, densely engraved with inscriptions never seen before in the world, and with just one glance, Gong Wei recognised what it was.
Thousand Dimension Mirror Realm!
The ghost cultivator leaned back abruptly, even without a face, one could almost see its expression of excruciating pain. Then, its whole body turned into a cloud of blood-red smoke and dust, and the glass-like chains which were binding it melted into a puddle on the ground.
The large clouds of smoke and dust converged into a blurred human form in mid-air, and then plunged into the fragments of the Thousand Dimension Mirror Realm held in Xu Shuangtze’s hand. The movement generated such a great force that the whole building shook, with bricks and wood splinters falling down from all around!
Gong Wei tilted his head to avoid the debris, suddenly realising what was going on, he hoarsely cried out, “Be careful…”
He had no time to reach out and snatch the piece out of Xu Shuangtze’s hand. The greenish-bronze surface of the fragment, after devouring the ghost cultivator, shimmered and shone. Then, transformed into a tiny mirror that steadily reflected Xu Shuangtze’s eyes.
The Mirror Art!
Rb bcf lc atf kbgiv kjr wbgf rxlioei ja liierlbc afmtcldefr atjc Xbcu Qfl. Lf lwwfvljafis aegcfv jgbecv jcv gertfv bea, qeiilcu Zfcu Tecofl klat bcf tjcv jcv Temtl Wljb klat atf batfg. Lf tjafv atja cbcf bo atfw kfgf ybgc klat fluta ilwyr ab vgju atf ijra qfgrbc bea. Dea atf ijra wlggbg jga ifoa yftlcv ys atf utbra meialnjabg kjr jmalnjafv klat remt rqffv atja yfobgf Xbcu Qfl mbeiv ajxf j ofk rafqr jkjs ogbw atf akb iljylilalfr, tf ofia j teuf obgmf qeiilcu tlw yjmx ogbw yftlcv, jcv raewyifv jr lo tf tjv ojiifc boo j miloo.
At the same time, Xu Shuangtze closed his eyes and opened them again.
The scene around him was like a bucket of spilt paint—light and shadows were staggering and shifting, pulling him downwards as the mirror art was rapidly building a vast, new illusionary world.
“Trying to recreate my most fearful memories?” Xu Shuangtze whispered.
He looked straight at the half of the Thousand Dimension Mirror Realm fragment in his hand, and said coldly, “But I no longer have such a thing as fear.”
As his last word came out, a whirlwind rose from all directions. A mist wrapped around him, like a poisonous miasma which was too dense to be dispersed, but then it suddenly cleared up in an instant!
The surrounding landscape was completely transformed. Xu Shuangtze was now standing on fertile and soft land. In the distance, there was a deep and peaceful valley with smoke rising from a backyard.
—This is the secluded Taoyuan Village.
Thud!
Gong Wei fell to the ground and landed on his butt. As if falling off a cliff of eight hundred feet, he almost fainted from the pain.
He took a deep inhalation of cold air, touched his butt, which felt like it had been split into eight pieces, then got up and looked around. In the distance, he saw rolling green hills, a clear river meandering through the valley, peach blossoms were in full bloom on the riverbank, and chickens and dogs could be heard. This was a village as beautiful as one depicted in ink paintings.
He vaguely felt that the scene looked familiar, and after taking two steps, he was suddenly struck by lightning.
This was the village where ‘General Bai’ recuperated from his wounds twenty years ago in the Thousand Dimension Mirror Realm!
This was Xu Shuangtze’s memory!
The mirror art will send each person to a different illusionary realm. Theoretically, Gong Wei should be seeing his own most fearful and painful visions… But Xu Shuangtze’s primordial spirit was so powerful that neither he nor Yuchi Xiao or Meng Yunfei could resist, so Gong Wei was probably pulled into the same realm as him.
“…”
The bluish-green veins on Gong Wei’s forehead were throbbing as he rolled up his two sleeves and placed one hand on his waist and the other pressing on his forehead. He let out a long, dreary sigh and felt something indescribable.
Xu Shuangtze spent his life neutralising natural disasters, quelling wars, purging the demonic realm, and even descended into Hell to cause destruction to the innocent Twelve Provinces of the Ghost Wall. Yet, his most fearful memory was not of facing apocalyptic natural disasters by himself, nor the tens of thousands of hungry ghosts of the Underworld, it was this seemingly peaceful and serene mountain village before him.
Xu Shuangtze stayed half a year here, living as a mortal, spending time with the kind-hearted ‘peasant girl’ who saved him from the battlefield. He recovered from his wounds and then headed for the Capital to treat his blind eyes. Before his departure, he left a gold bracelet as a token of his love, asking to marry her when he returned to the village.
‘The peasant girl’ found it particularly novel and interesting, so she didn’t take it seriously and smilingly agreed. To her surprise, a year later, General Bai, who had regained his sight, returned to the village to fulfil his promise. He came with a full ceremonial wedding entourage and asked for her hand in marriage—to spend the rest of her life with him.
There was no reason imaginable for anyone to object to this perfect wedding, and indeed it went ahead as planned. But what General Bai didn’t expect was that the ceremony would go terribly wrong and his bride would die on the spot, before he could even lift her veil.
The illusionary realm collapsed at that moment.
The grief and anger awakened the dormant true soul of General Bai which could breach the limits and could not be contained by the spiritual power of the Thousand Dimension Mirror Realm. The entire illusionary world collapsed before Gong Wei could save it, and the corpse of the ‘bride’ was reduced to dust. As the nine-fold thunder tribulation struck down, Xu Shuangtze’s soul forced itself out of the illusionary realm and returned to its rightful body.
Then the next thing Xu Shuangtze did was to grab No Way Out and go all the way from the Cang Yang Sect to Dai Mountain and smash the door of the Immortal Alliance’s Correctional Palace…
“Gong Wei!”
“You killed my wife, I’ll make you pay for it today, Gong Wei…!”
With the roar still ringing in his ears, Gong Wei blinked his eyes repeatedly and shivered uncontrollably. He suddenly felt that the wind on this hillside was terribly cold.
Now that he was here, it was useless to shed tears. He couldn’t get out of the Realm if he didn’t find a way to break the illusionary world constructed by the subconscious mind of the realm master, and even then, dangerous or bizarre situations could easily arise at any moment.
What was worse was to be in the subconscious mind of an Immortal Sovereign like Xu Shuangtze, who had experienced many life-and-death situations. Who knew what was going on in that mind? Perhaps a hellish volcano will descend from the air the next minute, spewing out billions of evil spirits and vengeful ghosts to tear the whole world apart. It was hard to say for sure.
Gong Wei suddenly looked up, and to his horror, he saw that a gap had actually opened up in the sky. It was black, bottomless, a seemingly widening gap, and something seemed to be falling out of it…
Thud!
Thud!
Two familiar figures fell, one after the other, down the hillside in quick succession, sending up a cloud of smoke and dust.
Gong Wei: “…”
Just great, everyone is present now.
Gong Wei brushed his sleeves and placed his hands behind his back. He leaped lightly down the steep mountain slope, alternating his footsteps on the edges of raised rocks and the top of shrubs all the way, then descended to the foot of the slope like a nimble fox. He saw that Yuchi Xiao was struggling to get up from the ground, holding his back, in the exact same position as Gong Wei had just done.
“My…my lower back…”
Meng Yunfei also gritted his teeth and pressed his hand forcefully onto his back. He choked and coughed as he asked, “What is this place?”
…You two are too shameless, we obviously fell in the same position. Can’t we be honest with each other?
Gong Wei gazed helplessly at the two and as he was about to greet them, saying, ‘I’m here’, Yuchi Xiao turned around, and as his eyes met Gong Wei, he froze for a moment.
The next thing he knew, Yuchi Xiao’s expression changed drastically as he tugged Meng Yunfei backwards by two steps, then unsheathed Gou Chen with a clang!
“?”
Gong Wei still did not understand what was going on, only to see Yuchi Xiao look at him like facing a great enemy, incredulously saying, “Lo-Lotus Immortal!”
“…”
Gong Wei blinked twice more, before slowly looking down, and he finally noticed the anomaly.
Xiang Xiaoyuan was still young, undersized, with a lean and thin physique. Whereas now Gong Wei’s line of vision was slightly higher than usual, and the ten fingers of his hands exposed under the cuffs were longer and more slender. His skin was a translucent white, which was unlike any human’s skin tone.
The clothes on his body had changed too at some point. He was now in a rouge-red robe lined with satin, which was embroidered with maple leaves in gold thread. His waistband was embroidered with delicate patterns of clouds and cranes and adorned with two small, bright gold coins.
A mirror can reveal a person’s truest form and a soul which cannot be disguised in the mirror’s illusionary realm.
That is why in Xu Shuangtze’s illusion, Gong Wei was now transformed back into the Lotus Immortal of his previous life.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Editor: Sahloknir
In his previous life, Gong Wei had called out to Xu Bai many times. It was a very proper name, but when it was pronounced slowly and in a drawn-out tone between his white teeth, it sounded laidback and harboured a tinge of ill intent.
Ying Kai once criticised him for being so disrespectful, even if Gong Wei didn’t address him as ‘Lord Xu’, he should have at least called him Senior Xu. Gong Wei always cheekily agreed, however once Ying Kai turned around, he would sneakily revert to his old ways. As time passed, Ying Kai no longer bothered with correcting him.
Xu Shuangtze didn’t care how Gong Wei addressed him, because no matter what came out of Gong Wei’s mouth, it would always sound crafty. There was only once when Gong Wei seemed to seek death by sneaking up behind Xu Shuangtze and jumping out with a cry, “General Bai!”— That was shortly after Xu Shuangtze had returned to reality from the Thousand Dimension Mirror Realm. Later on, Gong Wei always felt that if he hadn’t escaped so quickly, he would have been chopped up and fed to the dogs on the spot by the furious Xu Shuangtze.
In any case, Gong Wei would never have heard what the ghost cultivator said incorrectly. The ‘Xu Bai’ which came from the ghost cultivator was exactly the same as how he would have said it in his previous life. And he knew that Xu Shuangtze could not have heard it wrong either.
“…”
Xu Shuangtze’s back was facing them, so Gong Wei couldn’t see his expression. Time passed so slowly that every second seemed endless, and it took an unknown amount of minutes before Xu Shuangtze let out a cold laugh.
—The sound was so low that it was impossible to hear what emotion it carried.
Then, without hesitation, he ripped the ‘heart’ out of the ghost cultivator’s chest!
This movement was so swift and cruel that Gong Wei subconsciously felt his own heart ache, and then his pupils dilated at the sight.
A bronze fragment was resting in Xu Shuangtze’s hand. It was about half the size of his palm, densely engraved with inscriptions never seen before in the world, and with just one glance, Gong Wei recognised what it was.
Thousand Dimension Mirror Realm!
The ghost cultivator leaned back abruptly, even without a face, one could almost see its expression of excruciating pain. Then, its whole body turned into a cloud of blood-red smoke and dust, and the glass-like chains which were binding it melted into a puddle on the ground.
The large clouds of smoke and dust converged into a blurred human form in mid-air, and then plunged into the fragments of the Thousand Dimension Mirror Realm held in Xu Shuangtze’s hand. The movement generated such a great force that the whole building shook, with bricks and wood splinters falling down from all around!
Gong Wei tilted his head to avoid the debris, suddenly realising what was going on, he hoarsely cried out, “Be careful…”
He had no time to reach out and snatch the piece out of Xu Shuangtze’s hand. The greenish-bronze surface of the fragment, after devouring the ghost cultivator, shimmered and shone. Then, transformed into a tiny mirror that steadily reflected Xu Shuangtze’s eyes.
The Mirror Art!
Rb bcf lc atf kbgiv kjr wbgf rxlioei ja liierlbc afmtcldefr atjc Xbcu Qfl. Lf lwwfvljafis aegcfv jgbecv jcv gertfv bea, qeiilcu Zfcu Tecofl klat bcf tjcv jcv Temtl Wljb klat atf batfg. Lf tjafv atja cbcf bo atfw kfgf ybgc klat fluta ilwyr ab vgju atf ijra qfgrbc bea. Dea atf ijra wlggbg jga ifoa yftlcv ys atf utbra meialnjabg kjr jmalnjafv klat remt rqffv atja yfobgf Xbcu Qfl mbeiv ajxf j ofk rafqr jkjs ogbw atf akb iljylilalfr, tf ofia j teuf obgmf qeiilcu tlw yjmx ogbw yftlcv, jcv raewyifv jr lo tf tjv ojiifc boo j miloo.
At the same time, Xu Shuangtze closed his eyes and opened them again.
The scene around him was like a bucket of spilt paint—light and shadows were staggering and shifting, pulling him downwards as the mirror art was rapidly building a vast, new illusionary world.
“Trying to recreate my most fearful memories?” Xu Shuangtze whispered.
He looked straight at the half of the Thousand Dimension Mirror Realm fragment in his hand, and said coldly, “But I no longer have such a thing as fear.”
As his last word came out, a whirlwind rose from all directions. A mist wrapped around him, like a poisonous miasma which was too dense to be dispersed, but then it suddenly cleared up in an instant!
The surrounding landscape was completely transformed. Xu Shuangtze was now standing on fertile and soft land. In the distance, there was a deep and peaceful valley with smoke rising from a backyard.
—This is the secluded Taoyuan Village.
Thud!
Gong Wei fell to the ground and landed on his butt. As if falling off a cliff of eight hundred feet, he almost fainted from the pain.
He took a deep inhalation of cold air, touched his butt, which felt like it had been split into eight pieces, then got up and looked around. In the distance, he saw rolling green hills, a clear river meandering through the valley, peach blossoms were in full bloom on the riverbank, and chickens and dogs could be heard. This was a village as beautiful as one depicted in ink paintings.
He vaguely felt that the scene looked familiar, and after taking two steps, he was suddenly struck by lightning.
This was the village where ‘General Bai’ recuperated from his wounds twenty years ago in the Thousand Dimension Mirror Realm!
This was Xu Shuangtze’s memory!
The mirror art will send each person to a different illusionary realm. Theoretically, Gong Wei should be seeing his own most fearful and painful visions… But Xu Shuangtze’s primordial spirit was so powerful that neither he nor Yuchi Xiao or Meng Yunfei could resist, so Gong Wei was probably pulled into the same realm as him.
“…”
The bluish-green veins on Gong Wei’s forehead were throbbing as he rolled up his two sleeves and placed one hand on his waist and the other pressing on his forehead. He let out a long, dreary sigh and felt something indescribable.
Xu Shuangtze spent his life neutralising natural disasters, quelling wars, purging the demonic realm, and even descended into Hell to cause destruction to the innocent Twelve Provinces of the Ghost Wall. Yet, his most fearful memory was not of facing apocalyptic natural disasters by himself, nor the tens of thousands of hungry ghosts of the Underworld, it was this seemingly peaceful and serene mountain village before him.
Xu Shuangtze stayed half a year here, living as a mortal, spending time with the kind-hearted ‘peasant girl’ who saved him from the battlefield. He recovered from his wounds and then headed for the Capital to treat his blind eyes. Before his departure, he left a gold bracelet as a token of his love, asking to marry her when he returned to the village.
‘The peasant girl’ found it particularly novel and interesting, so she didn’t take it seriously and smilingly agreed. To her surprise, a year later, General Bai, who had regained his sight, returned to the village to fulfil his promise. He came with a full ceremonial wedding entourage and asked for her hand in marriage—to spend the rest of her life with him.
There was no reason imaginable for anyone to object to this perfect wedding, and indeed it went ahead as planned. But what General Bai didn’t expect was that the ceremony would go terribly wrong and his bride would die on the spot, before he could even lift her veil.
The illusionary realm collapsed at that moment.
The grief and anger awakened the dormant true soul of General Bai which could breach the limits and could not be contained by the spiritual power of the Thousand Dimension Mirror Realm. The entire illusionary world collapsed before Gong Wei could save it, and the corpse of the ‘bride’ was reduced to dust. As the nine-fold thunder tribulation struck down, Xu Shuangtze’s soul forced itself out of the illusionary realm and returned to its rightful body.
Then the next thing Xu Shuangtze did was to grab No Way Out and go all the way from the Cang Yang Sect to Dai Mountain and smash the door of the Immortal Alliance’s Correctional Palace…
“Gong Wei!”
“You killed my wife, I’ll make you pay for it today, Gong Wei…!”
With the roar still ringing in his ears, Gong Wei blinked his eyes repeatedly and shivered uncontrollably. He suddenly felt that the wind on this hillside was terribly cold.
Now that he was here, it was useless to shed tears. He couldn’t get out of the Realm if he didn’t find a way to break the illusionary world constructed by the subconscious mind of the realm master, and even then, dangerous or bizarre situations could easily arise at any moment.
What was worse was to be in the subconscious mind of an Immortal Sovereign like Xu Shuangtze, who had experienced many life-and-death situations. Who knew what was going on in that mind? Perhaps a hellish volcano will descend from the air the next minute, spewing out billions of evil spirits and vengeful ghosts to tear the whole world apart. It was hard to say for sure.
Gong Wei suddenly looked up, and to his horror, he saw that a gap had actually opened up in the sky. It was black, bottomless, a seemingly widening gap, and something seemed to be falling out of it…
Thud!
Thud!
Two familiar figures fell, one after the other, down the hillside in quick succession, sending up a cloud of smoke and dust.
Gong Wei: “…”
Just great, everyone is present now.
Gong Wei brushed his sleeves and placed his hands behind his back. He leaped lightly down the steep mountain slope, alternating his footsteps on the edges of raised rocks and the top of shrubs all the way, then descended to the foot of the slope like a nimble fox. He saw that Yuchi Xiao was struggling to get up from the ground, holding his back, in the exact same position as Gong Wei had just done.
“My…my lower back…”
Meng Yunfei also gritted his teeth and pressed his hand forcefully onto his back. He choked and coughed as he asked, “What is this place?”
…You two are too shameless, we obviously fell in the same position. Can’t we be honest with each other?
Gong Wei gazed helplessly at the two and as he was about to greet them, saying, ‘I’m here’, Yuchi Xiao turned around, and as his eyes met Gong Wei, he froze for a moment.
The next thing he knew, Yuchi Xiao’s expression changed drastically as he tugged Meng Yunfei backwards by two steps, then unsheathed Gou Chen with a clang!
“?”
Gong Wei still did not understand what was going on, only to see Yuchi Xiao look at him like facing a great enemy, incredulously saying, “Lo-Lotus Immortal!”
“…”
Gong Wei blinked twice more, before slowly looking down, and he finally noticed the anomaly.
Xiang Xiaoyuan was still young, undersized, with a lean and thin physique. Whereas now Gong Wei’s line of vision was slightly higher than usual, and the ten fingers of his hands exposed under the cuffs were longer and more slender. His skin was a translucent white, which was unlike any human’s skin tone.
The clothes on his body had changed too at some point. He was now in a rouge-red robe lined with satin, which was embroidered with maple leaves in gold thread. His waistband was embroidered with delicate patterns of clouds and cranes and adorned with two small, bright gold coins.
A mirror can reveal a person’s truest form and a soul which cannot be disguised in the mirror’s illusionary realm.
That is why in Xu Shuangtze’s illusion, Gong Wei was now transformed back into the Lotus Immortal of his previous life.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
