I had never been a clever man, even as a child. My only virtue was that I was willing to work hard.
During my student years, I studied like my life depended on it and barely managed to get into an obscure 211 university. After graduation, because my major was not very useful, I drifted through more than a dozen cities in hopes of finding a stable job—but never did.
In my thirties, I got married through a matchmaking arrangement. But because my own career had gone nowhere, my leverage in choosing a spouse was low. The wife I found was neither understanding nor accomplished, and she was deeply dissatisfied with me, often complaining that she had married such a useless husband.
After my daughter was born, my family's finances grew even more strained. Perhaps only the moment I saw my daughter's smiling face could bring me a little joy.
I did not want to live that way either, but all I could do was work twice as hard.
Life exhausted me until my mind grew hazy. Then, because of one occasional mistake, I wound up in another world!
As people commonly called it—transmigration!
The year I transmigrated, I was six years old. This body's surname was Chen and his name was Ganliu. He had fallen from a building while playing, scattering his soul, and I had taken his place.
This was an ancient world. Although I missed my family on Earth—especially my daughter, whom I could never stop thinking about—all I could do was grieve in vain. The two worlds were separated, after all, and no mortal possessed the power to bring autumn and summer together. No matter how many thoughts one had, even a migrating goose could not carry a message across.
I reckoned that, with the accumulation of two lifetimes and the influence of Earth's advanced civilization, I would surely make a great success of my second life. Less than a month after transmigrating, I became famous in the surrounding villages by reciting Li Bai and Du Fu's poems. A great scholar from a neighboring village recognized my talent, took me in, brought me home, and personally instructed me in composition. For a time, I earned the reputation of being a child prodigy.
When I was eleven, I went to the county town to take the examination for the title of Cultivated Talent. That was when I heard people say that the Great Gan Dynasty supported the Immortal Encounter Sect with the strength of the entire nation. This was a xianxia world, where immortal sects stood far above secular dynasties.
At the time, I was so shocked that words failed me. Yet there was no path for me to seek immortality, so I could only continue studying bitterly. I took the imperial examinations all the way into the court. There, I met Immortal Master Five Willows. After begging him countless times, I was finally granted a register and taught the Twelve Talisman Arts of the Mystic Gate, becoming merely a Registered Disciple. After six or seven years of painstakingly cultivating talismans, I finally got a stroke of luck. I abandoned the riches and honors of the mortal world and, at the age of twenty-eight, entered the Immortal Encounter Sect as a servant.
I had thought that as long as I worked hard, I could climb higher step by step, until one day I escaped mortality and left the mortal world behind. Alas, the limits of one's natural talent were not something effort could overturn.
At forty-eight, my twenty-year term of service in the Immortal Encounter Sect ended. I had cultivated only to the Qi Refining Second Layer: Boiling Liquid to Gas. With no hope of becoming an official disciple, I had to leave the mountain and return to the mortal world. From then on, I would have no more chance to pursue the immortal path.
I was overcome by grief. I felt the urge to destroy myself and abandon all hope. Heaven and earth stretched on forever, while the immortals and gods were miserly beyond belief. No one was willing to lend me even a wisp of fresh wind so I could ride it straight to the summit of the azure clouds.
Just before I descended the mountain, a familiar fellow disciple came over and asked, "There's an opportunity. Are you willing to take it?"
There was a sixty-eight-year-old senior sister in the sect whose breakthrough into the Spirit Embryo Realm had failed, severing her immortal path. She wanted to establish a Household in the Outer Sect. She had taken a liking to the fact that I had never lusted after women in the mortal world, had never married, and had never gone to the pleasure quarters. I was honest and reliable, so she had sent someone to ask whether I was willing to cultivate dual cultivation with her. I thought for half a day and realized I truly had no other choice. This was my only chance to continue seeking immortality. Thus, I agreed to the senior sister. We paid our respects to the patriarch, tied our hair as husband and wife, left the sect, and chose Blazing Light Cave, Twin Cloud Mountain as our secluded dwelling.
Only after we married did I learn that the senior sister had forcibly attempted to break through her realm and injured her foundation.
To heal my old wife, the two of us exhausted all our resources, yet we still could not save her cultivation. Every year, she fell by one layer, plummeting from the peak of the Golden Core Realm all the way down into the Qi Refining Realm before finally stabilizing.
Within just a few years, our savings were completely depleted. We could only survive by selling talismans we wrote, and our poverty became so severe that our income could not cover our expenses.
Although my old wife secretly passed on the sect's techniques to me, concentrating the spirit into talismans consumed too much vital essence. I was old as well, and my cultivation could no longer advance even an inch. I remained forever stuck in the Second Layer of Qi Condensation.
My old wife's body was injured and she could not bear children. After several decades of marriage, we had no offspring. Whenever I thought of it, I felt that the bleakness of this life was even greater than that of my previous one.
Yuan Weizhi once wrote these famous lines:
The things we once joked of leaving behind— Today, they have all come before my eyes.
The clothes have already been given away, almost all gone, Yet the needle and thread remain, and I still cannot bear to open the box.
I still think of old affections and pity the servants, And once, because of a dream, I sent them money.
I know well that everyone has such regrets, But for a poor married couple, every matter is a sorrow.
After living two lifetimes, at the age of eighty-six, I died!
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