Rebirth

An endless darkness was suddenly split open by light,

Yang Qingyun, who had been walking slowly along the road, abruptly halted. Instinctively, he raised a hand to shield his eyes from the somewhat glaring afterglow of the setting sun.

The sudden radiance left him somewhat unaccustomed to it.

Hm,

Sunlight?

Wasn't I already dead?

What was going on?

Yang Qingyun's mouth fell slightly open,

His gaze was somewhat dazed.

His memories still lingered on the scene of him fleeing from a great war with the tide of refugees, only to encounter unimaginable mighty beings battling above the Ninth Heaven. The terrifying shockwaves of their clash had swept across the sky like thunder, collapsing mountains and rivers for thousands of miles. Before he could recover, the aftermath had already shaken him and the fleeing crowd to pieces!

Now,

What was the situation?

The setting sun hung above the unbroken mountain range ahead, its molten-gold radiance spilling across the world and announcing that nightfall was about to arrive.

Yang Qingyun discovered that he was currently in a small mountain village. Beneath his feet was a bare yellow dirt road, while dilapidated earthen-brick houses and thatched huts stood scattered on both sides.

He was standing in the middle of the village's dirt road, near the entrance. Two or three old trees grew wildly there, casting long stretches of shade.

The voices of peasant women came from nearby.

"Uncle Zhuzi, how did your trip into town go? Did those baby cabbages sell for a good price?"

"Not bad. A restaurant worker took a liking to them. Two copper coins a pound—not too shabby."

"That's great! You still have seven or eight hundred pounds growing in your fields. Looks like you're going to make a small fortune!"

"Oh, what fortune? I have to pay an entrance fee to get into town, then hand half the money from selling the vegetables over to the Black Tiger Gang as their cut. Not to mention the regular tribute to those good-for-nothings on Black Wind Mountain. Out of two hundred pounds of vegetables, being left with even a few scraps is already pretty good."

"Sigh, it's still better to practice martial arts. Once you master it, you can rise above others. I heard those underlings of the Black Tiger Gang only know a move or two of farmhand fighting, yet they can sit back and collect money. They don't have to toil under the sun and rain for hard-earned wages like us peasants scraping food from the soil."

"That's right. If our village had one or two martial artists, those damned Black Wind Bandits wouldn't dare demand so much tribute from us. I heard that in the neighboring Cuihua Village, a young fellow recently made something of himself through martial arts. He's already entered a realm, and the people on Black Wind Mountain waived half the tribute from their village."

"Practice martial arts! We absolutely have to practice martial arts! I'm going to make sure that boy of mine learns some real skills!"

Those were the voices of a sturdy farmwife washing clothes beside the well and an honest, brawny villager who had just returned from town, carrying two empty bamboo baskets.

A little farther away, several dust-covered children were chasing one another and playing with branches. From time to time, they ran past him laughing.

Chickens flew, dogs barked,

Wisps of cooking smoke drifted up from the houses.

Along the dirt road leading beyond the village, farmers returning from work came in twos and threes. Their skin had been tanned a bronze color, sweat poured down their backs, and dried mud clung to their feet as they walked home barefoot.

Several village dogs raced to the entrance, gazing toward their masters returning in the distance and wagging their tails desperately. Now and then, they barked a few times.

Yang Qingyun stood in the middle of the road,

His eyes took in everything before him, while his mind was utterly blank.

Quiet,

Peaceful,

This mountain village was so tranquil.

There was no familiar stench of blood, no hoarse, heart-rending cries of slaughter, no corpses piled as high as mountains, and no blackened ruins burned to cinders.

It was like a secluded paradise cut off from the world!

Where was this?

Yang Qingyun was somewhat dazed.

Ever since the Xuantian Realm invaded more than ten years ago, the Chu Kingdom fell, and wars erupted across the land, the other seven kingdoms had also fallen one after another.

The entire world had already lost all order,

Everywhere his eyes reached was filled with chaos and slaughter.

There was no longer even the slightest place of stability.

It was even rumored that the farther reaches of the continent had also fallen into complete turmoil!

There was no pure land left in the world!

Famine, exorbitant taxes, gangs, soldiers, bandits, officials, powerful clans—the common people at the bottom, stripped of all order, could only drift from place to place and struggle to survive amid the daily slaughter of aristocratic clans and great houses.

Yang Qingyun stood there in a daze.

"Yang boy! Yang boy! Come back to your senses. What's wrong?"

Suddenly,

A shout rang beside his ear, pulling Yang Qingyun back from his daze.

The honest-looking man who had earlier been chatting with the farmwife and had returned from town had somehow appeared in front of him. He had set down the basket from his shoulder and was waving his large hand before Yang Qingyun's face.

His honest, weather-beaten features seemed vaguely familiar.

Yang Qingyun was stunned for a moment,

Then distant memories surged forth, and scenes from the past surfaced one after another.

"You're... Uncle Zhuzi?"

Yang Qingyun's pupils gradually widened, shock appearing across his face.

Suddenly, he seemed to understand something.

His entire body stiffened as if struck by lightning!

Wasn't this Wang Family Village from thirty years ago?!

The first place he had stayed after transmigrating, not long before, when kindhearted villagers had brought him back!

"What's wrong?"

Wang Zhu looked at Yang Qingyun, who stood blankly in the middle of the road. After being called back to his senses, Yang Qingyun's expression had shifted several times, prompting him to ask with concern.

"Oh, it's nothing. I think I remembered something. Hm, Uncle Zhuzi, you go on and get busy. I'll stay quiet for a while. Maybe I'll be able to recall more memories."

"All right, then. But take your time thinking about it—don't rush. I'll go cook first. Remember to come over and have a simple meal later!"

Seeing Yang Qingyun sink into thought, apparently recalling his origins,

Wang Zhu was somewhat worried,

But he had no intention of disturbing him.

He had brought Yang Qingyun back from outside the village a few days earlier.

At the time, the other man's delicate skin and tender flesh suggested he was some young master from a wealthy family. He seemed to have fainted from hunger beside the road, so Wang Zhu had kindly brought him back for the time being.

If his family found him later, Wang Zhu might even receive a reward and thanks.

However, after waking up upon returning to the village, Yang Qingyun had said that he seemed to have lost all his memories. He only remembered that his name was Yang Qingyun; he could no longer recall anything about his family.

Left with no choice, Wang Zhu had temporarily allowed him to stay in the village.

Now that Yang Qingyun seemed able to remember something, that was the best outcome. So Wang Zhu stopped disturbing him, bid him farewell, and left with the baskets on his shoulder.

Yang Qingyun stood in the middle of the road,

Slowly raising both hands, he lowered his head and stared at his palms.

They were an ordinary Mortal's hands—fair and slender, without even the slightest callus from gripping a blade and practicing martial arts. His body also lacked that feeling of being full of leaks, as though air could escape from every direction!

They were exactly the same as when he had first transmigrated, according to his memories.

"I've been reborn!"

"Reborn thirty years in the past!"

Feeling the utter weakness of his body, which had completely lost all its strength,

Astonishment, panic, joy, excitement, and a jumble of emotions surged through him. In the end, the corners of his mouth lifted slightly, turning into an impulse to throw his head back and laugh!

He could feel it.

The weakness within his body now was not the weakness he had suffered before death—weathered by hardship, riddled with hidden injuries, and as full of leaks as a broken wooden barrel.

Rather, it was the weakness of a tender sprout, a young seedling that had yet to grow!

Deep within that weak body was a vitality brimming with life!

If he had not lived thirty years in his previous life, tempering an unyielding spirit while drifting through the chaotic age, he probably would already have been unable to stop his tears from flowing!

He had returned!

He had returned to before the Black Wind Bandits abducted him and sold him as a slave in a mine, before the event that had caused lifelong regret!

He had returned to before everything had happened!

"No matter who you are, and no matter the reason, thank you for sending me back."

Yang Qingyun closed his eyes and clenched his fists, suppressing the excitement in his heart.

The thirty years of memories buried deep within his mind surfaced one after another.

He was not actually a native of this world.

Before coming to this world, he had experienced another life.

In his first life, he had been born on Earth, one utterly unremarkable person among the countless masses. If he had unexpectedly died one day, apart from grieving parents and siblings, perhaps twenty or thirty friends and relatives would have sighed over the brevity of life—but no one else would have cared or remembered him.

The world would continue turning without him. He had been an entirely ordinary person.

He vaguely remembered reading an excellent novel. After staying up several nights to chase its latest updates, he had closed and opened his eyes—and arrived in another world.

That had been the second life he spent wandering through this world.

Life in the otherworld was nothing like the beautiful stories in novels.

After transmigrating to this world, he was still merely an ordinary person.

There was no system, no cheat,

He could only rely on himself, struggling to survive in this world.

Yet not long after arriving, he encountered an attack by the Black Wind Bandits and was abducted and made a slave, sent to mine for three years at Falling Rock Mountain, which belonged to the White Feather Sect.

Only after the White Feather Sect was destroyed three years later did he escape amid the chaos.

After escaping, he acted with extreme caution. While striving to find an opportunity to practice martial arts, he also used the knowledge from his previous life to improve himself.

After fifteen years of struggle and painstaking effort, he finally reached the Viscera Refining Realm. He also cultivated a blade technique as swift as lightning and earned the title Lightning Blade. He became somewhat famous in the Southern Wilderness martial world.

But afterward, fate played a tremendous joke on him!

"Black Wind Bandits, mine slave, Qi Depletion Art..."

Past memories flashed through his mind, and a complicated expression appeared on Yang Qingyun's face.

During those three years in the mine, he had desperately cultivated the basic Qi Depletion Art taught by the White Feather Sect in order to stay alive. As a result, he had completely squeezed dry his body's potential.

This had planted the root of the disaster that made his future Martial Path cultivation incomparably difficult,

Until, after reaching the Viscera Refining Realm, his path forward was completely severed!

And precisely because of this,

When Spiritual Qi Resurgence later arrived, the Xuantian Realm invaded, and the Martial Path entered an era of explosive growth,

An even more prosperous golden age of the martial world descended!

Countless prodigies seized the momentum and opportunities, rising to compete and achieving higher Martial Path Realms. The once lofty Innates of the old martial world were no longer experts. Grandmasters, once worthy of being celebrated in song, could be found everywhere. Even the Grandmasters who had towered above the seven kingdoms like legends of the martial world lost their mysterious, elusive nature.

The status of Viscera Refining martial artists gradually fell from the ranks of first-rate experts in the old era to second-rate, then from second-rate to third-rate, until they were ultimately submerged without a trace!

The era had changed!

But unfortunately,

Yang Qingyun, whose path ahead had been severed, had not gained much benefit from the great age of Spiritual Qi Resurgence.

His body had long since been shattered by the exploitation of those years, its origin gravely damaged. Even with ten times the effort of ordinary people, despite all his unwillingness, he still could not break through to the Innate Realm.

In the blink of an eye, the fruits of his arduous efforts during the first fifteen years were swallowed up beneath the vast current of the era, unable to raise even the slightest ripple!

Yang Qingyun, whose path forward had been severed,

Until the moment before his death,

Was still trapped in the Viscera Refining Realm, unable to break through!

Did he regret it?

Of course he regretted it!

But what could he do?

The fate of the weak was never theirs to control!

Back then, when he had been powerless to truss a chicken, the Black Wind Bandits had captured him and sold him to the White Feather Sect's mine.

He had been powerless to change it!

In the mine, in order to survive, he had cultivated the Qi Depletion Art, trading the exploitation of his body's fundamental potential for greater strength than ordinary people possessed.

He had been powerless to change that, too!

In that hell,

Failing to complete the White Feather Sect's tasks meant death,

And being weak and bullied also meant death!

In order to survive, he could only desperately squeeze himself dry and cultivate the Qi Depletion Art, this inferior evil technique that exploited the body's potential, in exchange for a chance to live!

This was the price the weak had to pay

To keep living!

"Fortunately, I've returned. Everything can still be changed!"

Suppressing his trembling hands, Yang Qingyun let out a long breath and steadied his mind.

Although he did not know what principle had allowed him to be reborn and begin a third life,

For him, this was undoubtedly an opportunity to make up for past regrets and a great fortune that could change his future destiny!

In this life,

He would definitely change everything,

Strive to live,

Until he reached the summit!

Yang Qingyun suddenly clenched both fists!

His eyes held the determination that thirty years of wandering in his previous life had failed to change in the slightest!

Just then,

Rumble!!!

A continuous rumble of tremors rolled through the air, while the rapid hoofbeats rang out like a frantic barrage of drums and gongs from the road beyond the village, sending clouds of dust billowing into the sky.

Whether they were inside the village or among the villagers outside preparing to return, everyone raised their heads and looked in that direction.

Soon,

Accompanied by the rapid, pounding rhythm of hooves, a squadron of black riders astride tall horses emerged from the woodland at the end of the winding road through the village. Fierce and imposing, they surged toward the village like a flood bursting through a breached dam, trailing clouds of dust that blotted out the sky!

Their terrifying momentum was like a raging torrent or a tsunami swallowing everything in its path!

Every villager who witnessed the scene was utterly cowed, standing frozen in place!

"Brothers, kill them all!"

Among that black, thunderous cavalry, the one-eyed big man leading the charge atop a tall horse gazed at the tranquil little mountain village and the honest, helpless villagers around it, lambs awaiting slaughter. A vicious, terrifying grin spread across his face.

Swish!

The one-eyed big man drew his saber with savage force. As his horse raced forward, the silver blade flashed like lightning across a villager by the roadside.

As blood sprayed into the air, a head soared skyward!

The one-eyed big man charged at the very front, gripping his bloodstained saber and leading the cavalry like a flood as they thundered into the mountain village!

In an instant,

Chaos erupted all around!

And at that moment,

Standing in the middle of the village road, Yang Qingyun gazed at the bandits' charging cavalry. Distant memories surged up from the depths of his mind, and the overwhelming hatred within them finally transformed into a cold, terrifying killing intent in his eyes!

"Black Wind Bandits. So it's you!"

Memories surged through the depths of his mind like a tide.

Yang Qingyun slowly raised his palm and clenched his fist, his gaze icy cold.

"Although this body hasn't cultivated yet, as long as there's even a shred of strength in it, that will be enough!"

The strength in his hand

was pitifully weak.

But,

at that very moment, relying on the perceptive power of his peak Viscera Refining Realm from his Previous Life, he clearly sensed every inch of the human body's flesh and blood.

He meticulously sensed the changes in the force within his body. Under his profound control, drawing upon the experience of his Previous Life, he circulated that force through his body's meridians.

After only a few rhythmic breaths,

he had already grasped every bit of strength within his body!

All his strength

was gathered and brought under one command!

"Although my Martial Path in my Previous Life stopped at the Viscera Refining Realm, it was precisely because I could not advance any further that I devoted myself to excavating and applying the power of my own Qi and Blood."

"In terms of using the body's strength, I'm not a grandmaster, but I surpass one!"

As the force circulated through him,

the force throughout Yang Qingyun's body grew increasingly smooth and harmonious!

At this moment,

his body had yet to step onto the Martial Path or temper its Qi and Blood.

Yet under the control of his profound realm and the memories of his Previous Life, he had brought all his strength under one command, placing himself at the pinnacle of mortals!

And if he was willing to pay any price,

he could even erupt with the true power of an Entry Realm Warrior in an instant!

"You're all dead!"

Cold killing intent filled the air around him!