"The part you just said, from 'took it away' onward, came through as nothing but static."
Gu Chengming's brows knotted together. He tried again.
"That person looked like—"
Bzzz.
"He was holding a—"
Bzzz.
"After he crushed that artifact, the whole world began to—"
Bzzzzzz.
Three attempts. Three failures.
Every specific detail involving the man in the moon-white brocade robe—his appearance, methods, motives, even the words he had spoken, "We meet again"—was intercepted by some force that stood above all else. Not a single intelligible syllable got through.
Gu Chengming fell silent. He wasn't too discouraged, though his heart sank a little.
The suppression wasn't acting on him. It was acting directly on the information itself.
This Mortal World Immortal sure covered all his bases.
Gu Chengming cursed inwardly and quickly changed tack.
"I can't talk about the other person for now. Something's blocking me." He looked straight at Ji Yixi. "I'll ask something else."
Ji Yixi nodded slightly.
"You once gave me a lead," Gu Chengming said gravely. "You said Longevity Sect's hidden hand was anchored to a 'name.' Do you remember that?"
Ji Yixi's response made his heart sink another half inch. Her voice was soft, but her tone was certain. "I never told you anything about a 'name.'"
A chill shot down Gu Chengming's spine.
In his memory, Ji Yixi had clearly told him that Longevity Sect's hidden hand was anchored to a name.
But in the Ji Yixi before him, that had never happened.
There were two possibilities.
First, the "previous timeline" he had experienced had been completely overwritten when that person triggered the reversal. Everything Ji Yixi had told him in that overwritten timeline had vanished along with it. In this new present, she truly had never said those words.
Second, the timeline in his