Whoa, a box!

The fresh air after the rain was uplifting, but the smell of gunpowder mixed into it was unsettling.

With those conflicting feelings, Jingxing slowly opened his eyes.

Dazzling sunlight spilled through the branches and leaves, and he instinctively raised a hand to shield his eyes. The lingering dizziness had yet to fade, and his ears were still ringing.

He braced himself against the ground and sat up, looking around. An unfamiliar forest stretched before him. Towering pines and cypresses soared into the sky, their overlapping branches and leaves breaking the sky into scattered patches of light. Wind swept through the woods, gently stirring the grass and leaves, but there were barely any birds calling. It was unnaturally quiet.

Farther away, snow-covered mountains stretched across the horizon. The river winding along their foothills bore a faint, indistinct tinge of dark red, as though this land had just been through a war.

Jingxing drew a quiet breath. Sure enough, the smell of gunpowder in the air wasn't his imagination.

"So... where is this?" He frowned as he stood up and dusted off his clothes.

As a painter, he noticed the contradiction in the scene at first glance—life and death had been forcibly worked into the same landscape. It was eerie, and definitely not a place he knew.

"After all, there hasn't been a war around Klimt for a long time." With that thought, Jingxing pulled himself together and began carefully examining his surroundings.

There were no roads, no buildings, and, apart from the smell of gunpowder and what looked like bloodstains, no traces of civilization whatsoever. It was like a primeval forest utterly cut off from the world.

His memories stopped a few hours ago. To find inspiration for his graduation art exhibition, he had turned down a group sketching trip organized by his mentor and planned to travel alone by spaceship to the Pilopa System instead.

It was a region of space where, supposedly, a mysterious Pathstrider had stolen the colors purple and blue. He wanted to see for himself how light and shadow would be distorted in a world without those two colors.

But just after he walked out of the school gates, a sudden wave of dizziness had swallowed his consciousness.

When he woke again, he was already lying here.

"Kidnapping?" The thought had barely surfaced before he dismissed it himself.

What kind of kidnapper would dump someone in a place like this and leave?

Shaking his head, Jingxing hurried over to the suitcase lying askew a few meters away and entered the combination—

"Click—" The latch sprang open. His painting supplies, spare clothes, and identification were all safe and sound.

When he caught sight of the slightly worn large white cloud brush at the bottom of the suitcase, his tense expression eased a little.

But the next second, fragments of images surfaced in his mind without warning—mountains of discarded drafts, snow and wind blanketing heaven and earth, and... countless dazzling bubbles beyond words.

They were divinely beautiful, yet they also brought a tearing pain to his soul.

Jingxing's face paled slightly. He staggered back several steps and wiped away the cold sweat that had broken out on his skin.

He hadn't deliberately recalled those memories in many years. Everything that had happened at the end of his previous life remained like a wound that would never heal. Since he had been lucky enough to get a second life, there was no need to keep living in the past.

In this life, he only wanted to follow the guidance of that "Idrila" and seek out the many kinds of beauty in the universe.

Jingxing closed his suitcase, then took out his phone. If he could still connect to the Interastral Peace Corporation's communications network here, the rest would be simple.

Although opinions of the Corporation had always been sharply divided across the galaxy, he was the orphaned child of a Corporation employee. As long as he could pay, the Corporation probably wouldn't turn a blind eye to his call for help.

He sat down beneath a tree and unlocked his phone. The signal bars on the screen were full.

Jingxing couldn't help letting out a sigh of relief.

However, just as he was about to send his location and call for help.

A gentle breeze suddenly blew through, sweeping away every trace of the gunpowder smell in the air and replacing it with an exceedingly faint floral fragrance.

Jingxing's fingertip paused. The next instant, transparent ripples silently spread through the space several meters in front of him, like the surface of a lake disturbed by a stone.

Jingxing's pupils contracted sharply. With barely a moment's hesitation, he grabbed his luggage and backed away. Only after putting enough distance between them did he stop.

At the same time, the wind died down, and the swaying branches and leaves froze in midair. Even the light seemed to crumple, slowly twisting out of shape.

At that moment, an eerie silence fell over the entire world.

"Hum—" A low, distant drone sounded from the depths of space.

A point of cyan light slowly appeared, followed by a second, then a third. Countless cyan motes drifted out of the void and intertwined, eventually tracing an intricate, arcane trigram diagram in midair.

Qian, Kun, Zhen, Xun... The cyan lines connected to one another, slowly revolving like the paths of stars.

Jingxing's heart jolted. In this era, those who could use the imagery of the eight trigrams so naturally were basically from the Xianzhou Alliance and its affiliated planets.

Two years ago, he had accompanied his mentor to the Xianzhou Zhuming for an artistic exchange. There, General Huaiyan had granted him an audience and praised him for a splashed-ink landscape painting.

Could this be... another important figure from the Xianzhou?

As he pondered, a slender figure suddenly stepped out from the center of the diagram.

The first thing he saw was a pair of eyes that shaded from purple to blue, followed by long, silvery-white hair falling to her waist. Her contrasting white-and-blue dress swayed gently, its hem embroidered with patterns resembling peacock tail feathers. Silver ornaments chimed softly with each step.

She walked slowly out of the spatial rift. Her presence wasn't overbearing, but Jingxing still instinctively held his breath.

Just then, the woman looked up and surveyed her surroundings, murmuring softly, "I've changed places again... Where is it this time?"

Her gaze moved slowly, finally settling on Jingxing. For the first time, her eyes, which had been as calm as a lake, showed a ripple of emotion.

But in the next second, she suppressed it, leaving only a faint smile on her face.

"What a coincidence," she said softly. "Fancy running into an acquaintance."

Jingxing froze.

An acquaintance? He instinctively looked to either side, confirming that there was no one else in the woods besides him.

"Are you... talking to me?"

The woman didn't answer immediately. She simply watched Jingxing in silence, her gaze lingering on his face for a moment before slowly sweeping over the suitcase beside him.

An indescribable look flickered through her purple-blue eyes, like nostalgia, yet also like relief.

But the emotion vanished so quickly that Jingxing even wondered if he had seen it wrong.

A moment later, she smiled gently. "Of course I mean you."

Jingxing frowned slightly and was about to press her further when the woman closed her eyes and made a calculation on her fingers, as though confirming something.

Then she nodded gently. "Mm... It isn't time yet."

Jingxing grew more confused the more he heard. "Time for what?"

The woman pondered for a moment, seemingly weighing her words.

"My current situation is a little unusual." She didn't continue, instead changing the subject. "Let me introduce myself first. I'm Yaoguang, general of the Xianzhou Yuque. Jingxing, it's a pleasure to meet you."

Jingxing's heart skipped a beat. Whoa, a box! She just rubbed her fingers together and found out my name?