Year 120 of the Immortal Era.
Yaozi Mountain.
Inside the cave abode.
Meng Nan opened his eyes and brought up the Death Log—
[Death Log]-- [Name: Meng Nan] [Age: 120] [Cause of Death: Fighting over a great medicine; body split in two] [Cultivation Before Death: True Essence Stage, Sense Imprint Realm] [Rewind: Five months]
"I cultivated my inner qi to the Greater Celestial Circuit in the real world. After coming back in, the rewind period increased to five months."
Meng Nan glanced over the Death Log. Then images surfaced in his mind—
Between the mountains on either side, apes cried without cease.
Two giants raced along the cliffs, black winds swirling around them.
Suddenly, a flash of gray light shattered the giants' spell bodies. Two enormous heads flew out. Looking closely, they seemed old, but it was still clear that these two heads—
One belonged to Meng Nan.
The other belonged to Zhao Xiaoshuang.
The old couple, husband and wife, had both perished.
Then the black wind dispersed, and the gray light revealed several flying knives. A middle-aged cultivator swept in from the side, smiling as he carried off their bodies. In the blink of an eye, he vanished.
"Killed by someone again."
Counting this time, Meng Nan had died five times already: twice from Qi Deviation, twice killed by others, and only once of old age—and even then, his lifespan had been cut short.
Meng Nan shook his head.
He stood up and looked around. This seemed to be a cave abode, one of its cultivation chambers.
Then he looked at himself—
His hair was white again.
His hands looked somewhat withered.
His clothes were also a dark color.
"120 years old."
Meng Nan took a Storage Bag from his waist and probed inside with his inner qi. It wasn't very spacious, about the same size as the one he'd obtained in his fourth life. It held mostly jade slips.
Stacks upon stacks.
Pile upon pile.
There were so many.
A note was attached to each pile, with summaries and dates. These were all the records Meng Nan had kept over the past century.
"Books have been replaced with jade slips."
That made things much simpler.
Meng Nan took out a jade slip summarizing a century of events and pressed it to his brow.
Zheng Shanpeng's promotion.
The eight cities of Tianlin Cave.
Zheng Shanpeng's flight.
Qingtian Market.
Everything before that was the same.
Then, in the year 90 of the Immortal Era, Ancestor Shi, one of the Five Ancestors of Chashan, passed away. Sky-Scraping Cliff joined forces with Shepherd Ridge and launched an all-out attack.
In just five years, Cha Mountain was destroyed, and its disciples scattered.
Meng Nan had joined Tianlin Immortal Master's sect early in this life. He had gone from being Zheng Shanpeng's disciple in his fourth life to Zheng Shanpeng's junior fellow disciple, but he still clung to his coattails.
Then came the city-building and embezzlement.
Using that, he took his Giant Spirit God secret technique to an even higher level, cultivating it to the hundredth layer. He also used the embezzled funds to refine a Soul Banner, giving himself even more means.
After that, Sky-Scraping Cliff attacked, and Meng Nan fled back to Cha Mountain with Zheng Shanpeng.
He began cultivating in Cha Mountain.
"Twenty-nine Qi Refining Immortal Masters."
"Five peak Ancestors."
In this life, Meng Nan finally learned Cha Mountain's true strength.
Immortal Masters.
Ancestors.
There weren't many of them.
Most of the sect was still made up of disciples like Meng Nan, struggling bitterly in the mortal world.
The conflict between Sky-Scraping Cliff and Cha Mountain could be traced back to the year 35 of the Immortal Era. That year, Cha Mountain discovered a secret realm that had once been a medicine mountain, where many spirit medicines grew. They benefited the cultivation of Immortal Masters and even Ancestors.
More than ten years later.
Word got out.
Only then did Sky-Scraping Cliff start fighting Cha Mountain. Over the following decades, the conflict grew ever more intense, becoming almost impossible to resolve, until Cha Mountain was ultimately destroyed.
When Meng Nan died in his fourth life, Sky-Scraping Cliff and Cha Mountain were locked in a fierce struggle.
Five years later, Cha Mountain swiftly fell.
In the end, it could not withstand Sky-Scraping Cliff.
Meng Nan had slipped away before the war even began, and once the situation looked bad, he never returned. In the early years of this life, he had already helped Qian Yu and the others establish themselves in Qingtian Market. So after leaving Cha Mountain, his first stop was Qingtian Market.
But he didn't stay long.
A few years later, his Giant Spirit God secret technique had advanced somewhat, reaching the hundred-and-thirtieth layer, and his Soul Banner had also begun to take shape. At that point, he and Zhao Xiaoshuang set out from Qingtian Market, crossed Ghost Mother Mountain, and traveled southwest.
They stopped for several years along the way at Xuanwu Mountain.
Then they crossed Xuanwu Mountain and arrived at Blood Lotus Mountain.
Each of these mountain regions stretched hundreds of thousands of miles from end to end, on a scale like Cha Mountain, Sky-Scraping Cliff, and Shepherd Ridge.
Vast lands, crowded with mountain ranges and crisscrossed by rivers.
More than twenty years passed in a flash.
Meng Nan and Zhao Xiaoshuang had opened a cave abode on Yaozi Mountain, within Blood Lotus Mountain, and had been cultivating there for more than four years.
This place was over a million miles from Qingtian Mountain, with layer upon layer of mountains in between.
It was already a different world.
Qi Refining Immortal Masters claimed lands as their own, while great demons that had lived for years ruled over their mountains.
Human cultivators!
Demon Cultivators!
Here, they had come to stand as equals.
But whether one was in the south or the north—
Rogue Cultivators were all just struggling to survive, continually striving for the Qi Refining realm.
Meng Nan.
Zhao Xiaoshuang.
They were both just two among the countless Rogue Cultivators.
They traveled far and wide, seeking a breakthrough, and in the end perished in the wilderness.
"Five months from now."
"A great medicine?"
Meng Nan could see the scene of his death five months later, but he knew nothing of the other events during those five months. He had inherited no memories.
He could only guess and speculate.
But asking Zhao Xiaoshuang would be far more direct.
Meng Nan stepped out of the cultivation chamber and saw that the cave abode was quite spacious. Seven or eight small rooms had been carved out here: some for cultivation, some for alchemy, and some for crafting artifacts.
Zhao Xiaoshuang was sitting cross-legged in one of the chambers, cultivating.
She was 120 years old.
Zhao Xiaoshuang's hair was gray-white too, and her face looked rather sallow, much like in their third life.
She cultivated with a sword laid across her knees. Her aura was different; she was no longer practicing the Thunder Illumination Scripture. Instead, it resembled the Dragon Mountain Scripture, with a sharper edge.
Meng Nan watched her for a few moments, and a guess formed in his mind—
"This is the advanced cultivation method of the Dragon Mountain Scripture, Cha Mountain's true legacy, the Lesser Thousand Sword Scripture!"
Zhao Xiaoshuang had actually changed cultivation methods!
She had originally practiced the Thunder Illumination Scripture. Even if she advanced further, she should have switched to the Five Thunder Secret Record, not the Lesser Thousand Sword Scripture.
Meng Nan was surprised for a moment, then quickly understood. "Compared to thunder arts, Xiaoshuang likes the sword more. If she had the chance, it makes sense that she'd switch to the Lesser Thousand Sword Scripture."
He watched Zhao Xiaoshuang cultivate some more.
Judging by her aura, her Primal Qi was abundant.
She was even stronger than many True Essence peak cultivators Meng Nan had seen in his previous life.
"Looks like she found the right path."
Meng Nan was delighted.
Just then.
Zhao Xiaoshuang finished cultivating and opened her eyes. The husband and wife met again.
"Huh?"
"Amnesia?"
"Then I'm talking to a nineteen-year-old kid right now?"
"The me in your memories should be the nineteen-year-old me. That was the year I'd just given birth to Meng Xingzhe. I was still young then, so tender you could squeeze water from me. Now look at me—I've become an old woman. Disappointed?"
"Scared, little one?"
"How does it feel? Tell Granny all about it."
In this life, Zhao Xiaoshuang was indeed just as she'd always been. As soon as she heard Meng Nan had lost his memory, she was surprised for a moment, then couldn't help teasing him.
Meng Nan looked at Zhao Xiaoshuang and shook his head. "You've changed."
"Hmm?"
Zhao Xiaoshuang looked at Meng Nan.
Meng Nan sighed. "When you were eighteen, you'd blush for days just from calling me 'husband.' But now—"
"Eighteen?"
"Husband?"
Zhao Xiaoshuang wasn't embarrassed or annoyed. She just laughed. "Now all you can do is dig up those old, moldy stories."
The two of them joked around for quite a while.
Only then did Meng Nan get down to business.
Early news: It'll be released on New Year's Day!
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