'Changshou, the chanting-method I taught you yesterday—do you still remember it? Recite it for me.' 'Li Changshou! How can a qi-refiner be this afraid of death and loss? If you never fight for a chance, how will you ever obtain any fortune!'
Tsk, why had the master's face changed so quickly. Those two memories seemed decades apart. When he'd first joined the sect, the master had been so warm and kind; yet the master of decades later... fierce beyond measure.
Li Changshou laughed wordlessly, then realized his body seemed to be asleep, and the fatigue from the long stretch of intense cultivation was still upon him. Was this... a dream? It had been a long while since he'd dreamed. As his cultivation grew higher, the number of times he slept dropped markedly, and each sleep was like this—after accumulating too much exhaustion from long, high-intensity cultivation, even if his magic stayed full, he still needed to sleep to ease the strain on his soul.
'Old Tian! Old Tian! Stop pretending to sleep, damn it! Get up for me, old Tian!' Again he heard that ragged shout, and the distant approaching wail of a police siren, still as clear as ever... Li Changshou smiled bitterly, as if turning over once in the darkness, facing head-on the memories that came flooding in. He reviewed one picture after another like flowers passing before his eyes, as if watching the life story of another person. In this story there were no cultivators who soared through the sky and hid within the earth, no loftily exalted gods.—Or perhaps there were gods, only that they had never been known to others. The protagonist of the story was called Tian Zuguang, and it took place on an azure star called Earth. Tian Zuguang—you could tell from the name that whoever named him had placed heavy expectations on him, hoping he would bring glory to his ancestors. He had worked hard, too, sailing smoothly through life until he was twenty-eight; but at twenty-eight he was suddenly found to have an incurable ailment... In the last moment of his life, leaning in a wheelchair, he let out a soft breath, felt the last bit of strength being drawn from his body, and his consciousness seemed ready to plunge into a bottomless abyss. Suddenly a fierce unwillingness surged in his heart, like the final flickering of a life-flame. Gripping the armrests of the wheelchair, he used every ounce of strength to stand—but before he could take a single step forward, he pitched straight toward the ground... And that was the source of the shout from his closest brother of his past life: 'Old Tian! Old Tian! Stop pretending to sleep, damn it! Get up for me, old Tian!'
The memory came to an abrupt halt, with a small gap in it; that gap lasted some three years, after which the pictures that followed grew clearer yet. A little boy, wearing open-crotch pants and two little braided horns, went running across the grass, then grew up rapidly, until the year he turned seven or eight, when he was met by an old immortal and accepted as a disciple... This must have been a tangled fate, a tangled fate. Li Changshou let out a faint sigh, sealed these memories away, and placed them in the deepest part of his heart-sea. No matter what, these were the things he treasured most, even though time was slowly wearing away their traces. He must not slacken, must not loosen his guard—the environment around him was not as safe as it seemed. The thought barely passed when Li Changshou turned around in the darkness, felt his body, which had already lost its weariness, spread his immortal awareness around himself, and found nothing out of the ordinary, so for a moment he was reluctant to wake. The laziness he hadn't seen in so long had finally shown itself. Though being able to live a second life was fine, and he was grateful to that 'great one'—who might or might not truly exist—for opening a back door for him, still... couldn't they have given him a modern life? Even if the modern world was out of reach, some grand ancient era like the prosperous Tang or the mighty Ming would have done as well, so he could drift through his days in peace, live out his life happily, and enjoy three wives and four concubines into the bargain. Instead, in a single stroke, he'd been exiled to a cultivation world—and the coldest, most ruthless, most unreasoning of them all: the ancient Primordial! Fifteen years after becoming a disciple, through the records kept within the Immortal Crossing Sect and all sorts of stories his master told him, Li Changshou finally understood the grand environment he dwelt in. And it was from that day that he pressed the green button of his 'self-isolation key'. That's right, he had come to what later generations called the ancient era, the Primordial of myth and legend, born into a small age between the two great tribulations of the Primordial. Gazing out along the forward road of the Primordial's history, the influence of the Witch-Demon War was still ongoing. Though the human race was flourishing, the dregs of the demon-beasts' power remained quite formidable, and with the Human Mother Nüwa, one of the Six Sages, as their protector, the demon-beasts stubbornly clung to the borders of the Five Divisions, nursing dreams of a resurgence and waging war year after year against human qi-refiners. The Six Sages had long since taken their seats, scheming against one another, able to send countless living beings to their deaths over a mere shred of face. The two great figures of the Western Teaching, Jieyin and Zhunti, actually controlled the spirit-poor Western Bullhead Continent, propagating the doctrines of their Western Teaching far and wide while ceaselessly poaching from the Daoist ranks. The three Daoist teachings—Human, Chan, and Jie—had risen long ago. The Twelve Golden Immortals of the Chan Teaching had only recently made a great name for themselves, becoming the hottest topic of discussion among qi-refiners these past few thousand years. The Jie Teaching had already put out the imposing posture of ten thousand immortals answering its call, gathering mighty experts of every stripe beneath the seat of the Grand Pure One, Lord Tongtian, bickering day in and day out with the Chan camp—though fortunately, they hadn't yet broken into open conflict. This was the best of times for the Daoist teachings: great prosperity for all three, and the human race they protected prospering alongside, with Daoist mountain gates strewn everywhere across Central Shenzhou, and traces of sect disciples throughout all Three Thousand Great Worlds; the inheritance of the Daoist teachings spread throughout the Three Realms, and the path of the primordial spirits and the human qi-refiners became the mainstream of the Primordial. This was also the worst of times for ordinary qi-refiners. The competition for upward paths was exceedingly fierce. The Heavenly Court had only recently been founded and was entirely beholden to the whims of the immortals of the Three Teachings; across the Five Divisions and the Three Thousand Worlds there was practically no order, and any qi-refiner who wished to grow strong had to rely entirely on their own struggle and luck. And luck counted for a huge share!
The only thing Li Changshou felt fortunate about was that, though his master wasn't very strong—more precisely, wasn't strong at all—he at least had some background in the Human Teaching. —Though Li Changshou seriously suspected that the true founding master of the Immortal Crossing Sect might be nothing more than a nominal disciple or two of the Perfect Adept Du'e. Regarding the Perfect Adept Du'e of West Kunlun, the only thing Li Changshou could conjure up was that this immortal had trained disciples during the War of the Investiture of the Gods, one of whom became the 'Heng' general of the Heng-Ha pair; apart from that, there were only some far-fetched rumors. Eight out of ten, the Perfect Adept Du'e was himself a nominal disciple of the Higher Pure Sage, his rank among the heavenly gods not high at all...
Back to himself. No background, no divine powers, no fortune—and he still hoped to make a name in this era? What a joke; it was already good enough to survive. So from that year on, the goal Li Changshou set for himself was to [survive]—to live as long as possible, to strive to avoid all sorts of catastrophes, and to quietly get through his hard-won second life. Rising above the crowd, making a name for himself—those things had nothing to do with him. However hard he trained, could he rival the great figures of the Three Teachings? However recklessly he hunted for fortune, could he match those so-called chosen children of tribulation? The next great tribulation was the Investiture of the Gods, and the farther he stayed from it the better. Rather than becoming a celestial official of the Heavenly Court through the Investiture, he'd far rather cultivate quickly and, when the Heavenly Court declined, throw in his lot with it proactively to become one of its founding elders... A Primordial civil servant? Now that was something he could get behind. Even if he couldn't pluck the fruit of immortality, as long as he lived smoothly through his allotted lifespan, he'd do justice to the life he'd been reborn into! So, from that day on, Li Changshou's ultimate goal was— to live until he died of old age! To that end, he...
"Senior brother?" "Senior brother!" "Senior brother, why are you sleeping here? Everyone on the main peak is gathering—if we don't head over soon, we'll be late!"
A pleasant voice sounded in his ear, and Li Changshou put aside his wild thoughts, slowly opening his eyes. What met his gaze was a delicate young woman's face: bright eyes, willow brows, a graceful nose, dainty ears, and thin pink lips—features already outstanding, and perfectly matched upon her pale-gold complexion; a slight knit of her brows was enough to draw tenderness, and the shift of her gaze was full of spirit...
"Who might you be, beautiful?" "Senior brother!" The young woman reached out and pinched Li Changshou's nose, rubbing it gently. "You've drifted off in a daze again!" "Ah, Ling'e. Look how tall you've grown in the blink of an eye!" Li Changshou brushed it off with a chuckle, his body skimming across the grass and away, coming to stand straight three zhang off. "I've been on the mountain for ten years!" Blue Ling'e stamped her foot, the corners of her mouth puffing up slightly—indescribably lovely. She wasn't merely blessed with a beauty's face; by now her figure had fully matured, slim legs and slender waist perfectly proportioned, the immortal robe setting off the alluring curve of her midsection, her skin white as frost and snow, her black hair softly flowing and intoxicating.
Dong— A bell rang out from among the clouds, and Blue Ling'e urged him on: "Senior brother, hurry and take the cloud! If we don't go over now, we'll truly be late!" Li Changshou frowned. "Aren't you able to fly on your own?" Blue Ling'e puffed out her chest and answered with perfect justification: "I'm just not fast enough!" "Fine then," Li Changshou said with a show of reluctance, summoning a white cloud and hopping onto it first. A hint of shrewdness flickering in her eyes, Blue Ling'e tapped her pink cloth boot on the grass and drifted to her senior brother's side, but just as she reached out to link arms with him, Li Changshou evaded her, imperceptibly. Li Changshou said sternly: "Don't forget our agreement of three rules." "I know, I know! Senior brother, honestly! What a miser!" Blue Ling'e complained and, in a huff, sidled half a step away. "That's more like it. Keep three chi of distance between us in public. You're the rising star of our Immortal Crossing Sect now, the fairy Ling'e beloved of thousands of male disciples—your senior brother has no wish to be cursed to death by their witchcraft." Li Changshou stretched lazily, then glanced back toward his thatched cottage. "Is the old master still in seclusion?" "Mm, the master is in meditative seclusion, ready at any moment to face the tribulation to become an immortal! Who knows, by the time we come back from this outing, the master might already be an immortal!" Blue Ling'e gave a soft laugh, a little expectation in her big eyes, then stared at her senior brother a while, a slight blush on her face, and, pursing her lips, whispered: "Normally, when the sect organizes disciples for a trial outing like this, senior brother, you've never once taken part. This time you were able to come... is it... because... you were worried... about me?"
A large hand suddenly appeared before her, followed by Li Changshou's utterly 'wooden' expression and a rapid-fire reply, spoken clearly and distinctly: "No. Please allow me to decline. You're a good girl. I've always regarded you as my own little sister." "Humph, I didn't say anything! Annoying! I'm not talking to you anymore!" Blue Ling'e's forehead was covered with black lines, her lips puffed into a little bun, and she tossed her head to give her senior brother an enraged back, clenching and unclenching her little fists. Li Changshou smiled serenely, gazing at the white clouds in the distant sky, calculating the time and angle at which he and his junior sister would enter the gathering point. But the calculation was in vain—with such a radiant junior sister by his side, trying to lower one's profile... was growing harder and harder.