Real—or an illusion?
Yu Sheng could no longer tell, and he felt there was no longer any need to.
He stood amid a bizarre chaos of light and shadow. Countless crystal curtains shimmered with splendid, illusory radiance all around him. In the constantly shifting crystallized space, up and down, left and right, cause and effect, and before and after seemed to have lost all meaning. Vague, half-real visions and indistinct voices kept appearing between the curtains. In this space where everything was changing at every moment, an old man with completely white hair stood quietly opposite him.
He was no longer the terrifying figure fused with malformed crystal, and he also differed slightly in... "temperament" from the Yun Qingzi Yu Sheng had seen at Garrison-3.
Yu Sheng hesitated, then slowly approached the old man's figure. Afterward, he hesitantly broke the silence. "Yun Qingzi?"
"Indeed, it is I."
"...Which one are you?" Yu Sheng asked again.
The old man smiled. "Does it make a difference?"
Yu Sheng said nothing. He merely frowned slightly—only then did he belatedly notice that he had a "body" here as well, rather than merely being a projection of consciousness.
"A thousand years, a hundred and twenty-two iterations. The original Yun Qingzi died long ago, but the manifestations of the Great Dao are myriad... Yun Qingzi may also have never died. Perhaps I have always been here," Yun Qingzi said slowly, a faint smile on his face. "Compared with this shallow change between life and death of mine, aren't the secrets within you much greater? For example—at this moment, are you dead or alive?"
Yu Sheng thought for a moment, then spread his hands. "Maybe a little dead."
Yun Qingzi froze for a moment, then threw his head back and laughed.
"What is this place?" After waiting