Yang Tianyou of Purple Moon

In the fading light of sunset, specks of deep crimson shone through the broad floor-to-ceiling windows and fell upon the young man lying in a reclining chair.

Facing the sunset, the young man curved his lips in a smile. His clear eyes reflected the setting sun on the horizon, and no one knew what he was thinking.

After a long while, a soft chuckle drifted through the room.

"Let it end, let it end..."

As his words fell, his hand rose and the blade descended. The bright red drops of blood that sprayed out were unbearably, tragically beautiful in the fading sunset.

Lu Wu Realm, Eastern Continent, Qin Province, Dragon Valley County.

Purple Moon Town had been built two hundred years ago and was the foundation of the Purple Moon Yang Household, a cultivation Lineage.

After two hundred years of tireless effort by the Yang Household, Purple Moon Town had become a prosperous place, home to more than a hundred thousand mortals. Those surnamed Yang alone made up over half their number.

It was early morning, and the newly risen Rising Sun cast down strands of dawn light. Along the bluestone roads of Purple Moon Town, vendors large and small had long since claimed their places. Their overlapping cries and calls to customers gathered into a flourishing bustle of life that danced freely in the morning sun.

In a secluded pavilion in the east of town, Yang Tianyou stood with his hands behind his back. His brilliant golden eyes glimmered with fine points of light as he gazed at the dense bustle rising in the distance, a faint, heartfelt smile appearing on his handsome face.

"Fifteen years..."

After a long while, Yang Tianyou withdrew his gaze and let out a slow, wistful sigh.

He gently closed his eyes, and scenes from his previous life came flooding in like reflections, instantly engulfing Yang Tianyou's mind.

Wisps of pitch-black demonic Qi emerged from nothing and wound around Yang Tianyou.

At that moment, if a cultivator had been present, they would have recognized this as a sign of impending Qi Deviation.

He had lost both parents at three and had depended on his grandfather ever since. At eight, he had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and sought treatment everywhere, to no avail. At fifteen, he had become fascinated with Daoism, hoping to find a cure in it. Three years passed without success, then another three with the same result, and he finally gave up.

His grandfather's death had left him grief-stricken, and with little time left to live himself, he had not wanted to drag out his life any longer. In the end, he had chosen suicide, bringing his life to a close.

The great sun tilted westward, and in the blink of an eye, a day had passed.

Deep in the dim recesses of his mind, his consciousness rose and sank amid a torrent of jumbled memories, and that spark of awareness grew ever dimmer as time passed.

"Heh, it was only my previous life in the end. If you want to throw my mind into chaos, this isn't enough..."

As his words fell, the once-dim light of his mind blazed forth. Brilliant white light swept boundlessly outward, and in an instant, he broke free of the shackles of his past-life memories.

"From this day forward, I am Yang Tianyou alone!"

Speaking each word distinctly, Yang Tianyou gazed at the setting sun on the horizon, divine light bursting from his eyes. In that moment, his radiance made him seem like a Celestial Person.

Leaving the window, Yang Tianyou returned to his room and immediately sat cross-legged on a meditation cushion, circulating his cultivation and directing his Qi.

The mnemonic for the fifth layer of the Spirit-Shattering Instruction flowed through him like a babbling brook.

The spiritual power within him, long since refined to perfection, moved as readily as his own limbs. It surged through layer upon layer of obstructions with irresistible force, opening one pass after another.

As he went deeper into his cultivation, rays of golden light bloomed around him. His golden eyes, so unlike those of ordinary people, shone with rays nearly a zhang long despite being covered by his eyelids.

"Break!"

At his low shout, the golden light flared brilliantly, then rapidly contracted. A sharp, forceful presence filled the entire room.

He slowly opened his eyes. Even someone as steady as Yang Tianyou, who had lived two lives, could not help feeling immensely excited.

He flexed his hand, feeling the strength within it, which had increased by half. Joy and satisfaction swelled in Yang Tianyou's heart.

Ever since he had gradually reached the Qi Refinement Fourth Layer three years ago, he had been waiting for this day. Now, riding the surge that followed the shattering of his inner demon, he had broken through the Qi Refinement Fourth Layer in one go and reached the Qi Refinement Fifth Layer.

At his present age of fifteen, such cultivation might not place him among the foremost in the Yang Household, but it was still quite good.

In truth, with the mind he had gained from living two lives, Yang Tianyou should have progressed faster. Unfortunately, the Yang Household's Spirit-Shattering Instruction cultivated both spiritual power and the body, making it much slower to practice than ordinary cultivation methods.

Yang Tianyou had begun cultivating at six, working diligently day and night without pause. As he was also an only child, his father, Yang Qiongchu, and his mother, Duan Hongyue, had naturally supported him with all they had.

Even so, it had taken him nine years just to break through to the Qi Refinement Fifth Layer. It was easy to imagine how slow this cultivation method was.

Nevertheless, Yang Tianyou had never regretted choosing the Spirit-Shattering Instruction.

For every loss there was a gain. The Spirit-Shattering Instruction was slow to cultivate, but it was one of only three Foundation Establishment cultivation methods the Yang Household still possessed. Leaving everything else aside, its prospects alone surpassed those of ninety-nine percent of Qi Refining cultivation methods.

Moreover, the Spirit-Shattering Instruction cultivated both spiritual power and the body, and as a metal-attribute cultivation method, its combat power was among the best at the same tier. Even fighting across realms was not especially difficult.

Take Yang Tianyou himself: although he had only just broken through, with his current strength, he could find almost no opponent at the Qi Refinement Fifth Layer. Even against someone at the Qi Refinement Sixth Layer, he dared to rely on his formidable physique to exchange blows.

After his breakthrough, Yang Tianyou walked out of the room, lightly patted his Storage Bag, and took out a brown wooden whistle.

As spiritual power surged, the whistle let out a piercing sound. Wave after wave of sound spread outward through the Spiritual Qi permeating heaven and earth.

Yang Tianyou put the whistle away and waited quietly.

Soon, a smile suddenly flashed in his eyes. He stretched out his right hand and gently grabbed toward a spot behind and to his side.

A soft touch came with a quiet whimper, and a magnificent azure wolf appeared.

A bright red, warm, wet tongue licked Yang Tianyou's face without mercy, while enormous wolf paws rested against him, leaving his once neat white robes in disarray.

"All right, all right. Where have you been playing again? You reek of blood."

Laughing, Yang Tianyou casually cast a Dust-Cleansing Technique and only then nodded in satisfaction.

"Awoo..."

"You went to see those little foxes again? Honestly, you're a wolf. Don't tell me you're planning to take a fox for a wife someday?"

"Awoo..."

"You say a little fox treated you to something? What good things could a First-Tier Inferior-Grade Demon Beast have out in those wild mountains? I think she's tricked you."

"Awoo..."

"Hmm? Is that really true?"

As he listened, Yang Tianyou's initially casual expression gradually grew grave.

The azure wolf seemed to think Yang Tianyou did not believe the story. Circulating Demon Power, the wolf used the equal contract between them to transmit an image of what had been seen to Yang Tianyou.

In the image stood a fruit tree two zhang tall, shaped like a coiling dragon, with twelve golden-yellow fruits clustered thickly on its branches.

"Wu Earth Yellow Apricot Fruit?"

At the sight of the tree, Yang Tianyou, who had studied spirit medicine texts since childhood, could not help crying out.

The Wu Earth Yellow Apricot Fruit was a First-Tier Superior-Grade earth-attribute spirit medicine. Its medicinal properties were balanced and mild, and it was the main ingredient for refining the First-Tier Superior-Grade Spirit Pill, the Qi-Nourishing Pill. It was exceptionally precious.