A day passed swiftly in the Upper World. Time here seemed to flow slowly at moments, yet for some, it passed too quickly to grasp.
Mu Sishan sat quietly in the corner of a small eatery located in the outer floating city surrounding the Holy Land of the Immortal River. Her hand absentmindedly stirred the rice in her bowl with a pair of chopsticks, her gaze distant, lost in thoughts that pulled her away from the world before her.
She still didn't understand...
Yesterday, she had been watching closely the entire time, yet she saw not even a glimpse of Han Ming or any of her senior disciples. None of them appeared, and he hadn't come to see her.
"Was it because I acted differently from my past life? Or… did he simply not like me?" Mu Sishan murmured inwardly.
In her previous life, things had played out differently. She remembered clearly on that very day, she had been ganged up on by a group of servant disciples. They had beaten her until she was barely alive, her limbs bruised and swollen, breath ragged, blood trickling from the corner of her lips and forehead, staining her face. At that moment, she had been on the brink of death. Just as her fading consciousness was about to push her into one last desperate fight, even without a single weapon in hand, she had tried everything biting, flinging dust struggling with whatever she had. But in the end, she couldn't overcome them.
And then, Han Ming had appeared.
He had walked in silently while the servant disciples were still laughing in cruel satisfaction. He didn't show her pity, nor did he scold those tormenting her. He had merely asked her with a calm, indifferent voice:
"Do you wish to become my disciple?"
Even in that blurred, fading state of mind, Mu Sishan remembered it vividly. Hanging at Han Ming's waist had been the insignia of an Inner Elder. She had looked up and asked in a weak but unwavering voice,
"Will you make me stronger?"
Han Ming didn't answer. He had simply tossed her a sword and fed her a healing pill. Then he raised his hand and formed a spiritual formation that sealed off the surrounding area. That alone was enough for her to understand everything.
With that sword, she had coldly slaughtered those servant disciples. It was the first time she had witnessed the darkness within herself, as if another version of her had awakened in that instant. She had killed them all with a cruelty she never thought herself capable of.
And that had been the first encounter between her and Han Ming. It was also the first time she had taken a life with her own hands.
But in this life… everything had unfolded completely differently.
Mu Sishan let out a soft sigh before lifting the cup to take a sip. But just as the rim neared her lips, a conversation from the table beside her made her pause.
"Have you heard the news? Young Master Zhou Luochen was seriously injured during his trip to the Lower World."
Another young woman immediately responded, "Really? I thought it was just a rumor!"
Mu Sishan's hand froze midair the moment she heard that name. She said nothing and showed no reaction outwardly, yet her eyes flickered with confusion.
She didn't rise to ask them anything, nor did she interrupt their conversation. She simply sat in silence, quietly listening with full attention.
Another girl chimed in, "I'm not entirely sure. Someone went to buy the information from the Heavenly Voice Tower, and then the news spread everywhere."
Upon hearing this, Mu Sishan gave a slight nod of understanding.
The Heavenly Voice Tower was the most renowned place for purchasing information in the Upper World. While the news it sold might not always be entirely accurate, if it concerned one of the major factions in the Upper World, its credibility was greater than witnessing the event firsthand.
If that news had come directly from the tower, then it was as good as confirmed. But in Mu Sishan's memory, events should have unfolded differently.
In her previous life, Zhou Luochen had died in the Lower World when that realm exploded. That explosion had crippled half of his cultivation before he returned to the Upper World. In the end, with his foundation shattered, he was forced to destroy his cultivation entirely and start anew.
Not long after, the Zhou Clan and the forces under their control launched an assault against the Ten Thousand Heavens Alliance.
That war had been so fierce and drawn out that almost no one dared approach. It lasted over a decade, leaving countless factions in ruins along the way.
But just as Mu Sishan was retracing the changes in her mind, a voice suddenly rang out from outside the eatery.
"Lady Mu Nansi has returned!"
The voice of the female disciple who made the announcement was filled with excitement. Several inner disciples and servant disciples immediately rose from their seats, turning in unison toward the windows.
Mu Sishan quietly turned her gaze as well. Her eyes were filled with alarm and confusion, for in the past, Zhou Luochen had not died alone in the Lower World Mu Nansi had perished with him. Mu Sishan had later learned from her master that Mu Nansi had not died at the hands of anyone, nor had she perished alongside the Lower World in its explosion. Instead, she had chosen death on her own, erasing all suspicion directed at her before starting anew under Han Ming's cultivation path.
Mu Sishan sat still in place, overwhelmed by uncertainty. Though the surrounding restaurant bustled with noise and people, within her mind everything had gone silent, as if the entire world had slowed its motion.
She closed her eyes, then opened them again to gaze at the shimmering reflection in the cup of water before her. Her heart felt as if it were being tightly squeezed by something intangible.
"Is this... because of me?" she thought to herself in a daze.
Every change Han Ming's disappearance, the altered fates of Zhou Luochen and Mu Nansi was it all the result of her reincarnation?
Or had the world already started to change before she ever awoke?
Could it be that she was no longer just herself from the past life, but someone who now existed in a parallel world? A world that, while similar in outward appearance, was fundamentally different inside. She had no answer. At this moment, everything was a blur. She had thought that by using the knowledge from her previous life, she could make the path of this one easier.
Yet in the stillness, Han Ming's voice suddenly echoed clearly in her mind... as if she had just heard him say it.
"Do not pray for an easy path... instead, become strong enough to crush every thorn beneath your feet."
"Obstacles exist not to hinder, but to test. Only those with true strength and unshakable resolve are worthy of pressing forward."
"There is no shortcut to the peak. You climb by stepping over the fallen, using their bodies as your steps to ascend."
"Success is not a gift from the heavens. It is something you seize by force in a world that offers too little space for too many. I forged my life from bricks made of failure and the deaths of countless others."
"This world is not cruel because it hates you... it is cruel because it simply does not care. Strength is the only language it truly understands."
"You ask if strength can really solve everything? You'll find your answer… on the day the entire world stands against you, and yet you remain standing relying on nothing but your own power."
Those words ones she had long wished to forget now echoed in her mind with an overwhelming and inexplicable force.
Suddenly, Mu Sishan's body began to tremble slightly, as if something deep within her flesh and blood was resonating with those words on its own accord.
A moment later, a surge of power erupted from the center of her chest.
A violent aura of black and white intertwined and burst forth from her body, shattering the wooden table before her without a single touch. Even the stone floor beneath her feet quaked in ripples.
"What in the heavens is going on?!" a startled young woman cried out in shock.
Chaos swept through the restaurant. Some disciples instinctively backed away, others jumped to their feet in fear, and a few more seasoned ones muttered under their breath.
"This... this is the awakening of a special physique…"
"With power surging like that, this body must be of an extraordinary grade!"
Panic spread instantly. The once-clear sky turned ominously dark, as if night had pierced through the heart of day. Silver clouds coiled and spiraled above, as though time itself had been twisted and slowed.
In that very instant, deep within the Sacred Palace at the heart of the Immortal River Holy Land, a tremor ran through the power that had remained dormant for countless years.
A young man sitting in meditation within the palace opened his eyes at once. His pupils shimmered with an endless silver, like the flow of time without beginning or end. His long white hair draped over a robe inscribed with ancient patterns of light. He spoke in a voice so soft it was nearly a whisper.
"…The body of the God of Time?"
Then, without warning, his figure vanished into thin air.
At that same moment, aboard a massive airship floating above the clouds the personal vessel of Mu Nansi an old man sitting in stillness also opened his eyes abruptly. He was Mu Nansi's grandfather, the Second Elder of the Immortal River Holy Land.
He rose from his seat at once, releasing a wave of spiritual energy without restraint before launching himself from the ship like a bolt of lightning, leaving only the sound of the air shattering in his wake.
He had only one destination: the source of the phenomenon. And it was coming from that small, humble restaurant…