The Past

On an endless expanse of snow-covered mountains, snowflakes drifted through the sky while auroras flowed overhead. Snow lay everywhere, a vast sea of white.

Atop a towering peak, surrounded by snowy mountains, a blizzard descended.

Xu Changqing sat cross-legged on the snow-covered mountain, allowing the wind and snow to batter him. He remained motionless, his gaze fixed upon the endless white world as he reached out to touch the falling snowflakes.

He wore a black silk robe, his thick black hair already covered in snow. His deep eyes resembled secluded spring under the moon, and his entire body radiated a cold, aloof aura.

"Severing Dao, Severing Dao... what should I sever?" Xu Changqing murmured, memories and confusion surfacing in his eyes.

He was not from this world. He had come from Earth, died there, and been reincarnated into the Covering the Heavens World.

But he had arrived too early—during the era of the Ruthless Great Emperor.

When he had first arrived in this world, he had not known what kind of world it was. He had not known cultivators existed. He had merely lived in a small village.

He had had a perfect family, yet he had not called them Father and Mother until he was seven. Burdened by the barrier in his heart, it had taken him a long time to address them as his parents.

When he was eight, war broke out, and the people could barely survive. Two nations were at war, and his village was caught in the conflict. After that, they fled.

He wandered everywhere with his parents, but no matter how long they traveled, they could not escape the reach of war. They spent several years begging along the way.

When he was fifteen, his parents had died in the war to save him. They had covered him beneath their bodies, allowing him to escape.

Only then had he begun to feel the kindness of their upbringing and grown attached to the couple, yet they had died in the end. That day, he broke down.

Holding his parents' corpses, he walked barefoot through a Mountain of Corpses and Sea of Blood, through the smoke of the battlefield. After walking for a long, long time, he finally buried them. He kept vigil for a month, only to be captured by the enemy army.

He had only just reached adulthood when he was sent to a mine. He dug there for three years, never eating enough, never sleeping well, and suffering beatings.

Every day, he dug until his strength was completely drained. Every day, he slept less than five hours. He endured inhuman torment.

In the end, the nation that had enslaved him provoked someone it should not have provoked and was destroyed. He escaped because of it.

During his escape, he encountered countless life-and-death dangers. He had been captured, sold, enslaved, and made into a slave. Surviving had been terribly difficult.

When he was hungry, he ate tree bark.

After struggling to survive for several years, he found a large city.

There, he finally learned that cultivators existed. He wanted to find a master, but he was turned away. He had no talent for cultivation and no special physique.

In his despair, he had once cursed the heavens, asking why they had brought him to this world and why others had systems while he had none.

Later, he gave up on cultivation and only wanted to live out his hundred years in peace.

Although he had learned that this was the Covering the Heavens World and that it was the era of the Ruthless Great Emperor, he had no desire to contend with anyone.

He went to another county town and opened a shop. He lived there, married a wife, and spent five peaceful years.

On the day his wife became pregnant, an immortal cultivator came to town and declared that she possessed a Divine Body, intending to take her as a disciple.

His wife left in ecstatic joy, pregnant with their child. From the air, she gazed at Xu Changqing with love in her eyes and called out, "Husband, don't worry. Once I succeed in my cultivation, I'll come back for you. Then we'll both be immortal cultivators, and we'll never be separated again."

Xu Changqing still remembered it. Because of those words, he waited for a very, very long time—nearly ten years. When he was thirty, having seen no hope, he left.

For the sake of cultivation, he joined the army and fought in wars everywhere.

In the end, he searched corpses on the battlefield and found a fragmented method for opening the Sea of Bitterness.

Though he did not possess a Divine Body, he had heaven-defying comprehension. After spending several years, he finally opened his Sea of Bitterness.

From that moment, when he learned that he possessed top-tier comprehension, he began to rise.

On the day he left the army, he entered the cultivation world at the Divine Bridge Realm. He also spent some of his savings to buy many cultivation techniques, though he was cheated more than once.

After reaching the Dao Palace Realm, the Feathered Dynasty began searching everywhere for people with special physiques.

He understood that the Ruthless Great Emperor had yet to rise, so he cultivated even more desperately.

He entered Secret Realms everywhere, all to become stronger. Along the way, he made many brothers and friends.

Within Secret Realms, he had been hunted down and betrayed. Everything he had worked for had gone to waste.

When he broke through to the Four Extremes Realm, he was captured by a demonic cultivator who wanted to refine him into a blood pill. That demonic cultivator also wanted to turn Xu Changqing's resentment into one of the souls in a resentment banner.

In the end, he was saved by a girl named Mu Miaomiao. She was his confidante and his lifesaver.

He followed Mu Miaomiao around for three years. In the end, she disappeared, and he ventured through the world alone.

Along the way, he did not know how many life-and-death crises he had faced. In the end, he tempered formidable combat strength, traversed countless Secret Realms, and obtained countless cultivation techniques.

Because of those things, he had also been betrayed by brothers and pursued by assassins.

He had even seen his wife hunt him down, and seen his own child raise sword and blade against him.

All this time, he had wandered alone.

He had been fortunate as well. He had found the inheritance of a Quasi-Emperor and acquired resources left behind by a Great Sage. But he had not dared enter forbidden zones or seek out an Emperor's Scripture.

He had also encountered the Ruthless Great Emperor when she was young, while he was at the Dragon Transformation Realm.

Back then, he had just broken through to the Dragon Transformation Realm and entered a Secret Realm in the Southern Ridge. In a town there, he met Little Nannan.

For the sake of gaining benefits in the future, he chose to invest in Little Nannan.

He gave Little Nannan a stable place to live and let her work at an inn, where she could eat her fill and sleep warmly every day. From the doorway of her room, she could also see the road her brother had taken when he left, waiting for his return.

He also gave Little Nannan several cultivation techniques, including methods for opening the Sea of Bitterness and techniques that could be cultivated up to the Dragon Transformation Realm.

After doing all that, he left.

Over three hundred years, he did not know how many homeless people he had seen, nor how many people he had killed.

Over the years, he had taken quite a few Dao Companions, but they were either killed or used to threaten him.

The day his partner was killed was also the day he had felt the most despair. He hated himself for lacking strength, and hated himself for taking a partner in such a chaotic, cruel world.

There had also been a time when he found a Quasi-Emperor Secret Realm and entered it with his confidante, Mu Miaomiao.

But unexpectedly, Mu Miaomiao was captured, and they threatened him to hand over everything he had gained within the Quasi-Emperor Secret Realm.

Suppressing his pain, he gave them all his gains. The other party kept their word, released Mu Miaomiao, and left.

After drifting through hardship for three hundred years, he had finally cultivated to the peak of the Immortal Second Realm. Yet just as he was about to sever Dao, another misfortune struck.

He was captured by elders from his wife's Holy Land. Those elders did not want Xu Changqing to sever Dao, nor did they want him to rise.

They confiscated everything he possessed. Lin Siyu, his wife, had already become the Holy Master of Misty Holy Land, but she never appeared.

At that time, he was utterly despairing. They had shared a bed for years, yet when he was captured by her own people, she did not appear. His heart turned to ashes.

He was imprisoned in a Water Dungeon, only to be rescued by a girl in white.

He still remembered that white-clad girl. A Great Dao Treasure Bottle hung above her head, and she wore a ring.

Xu Changqing knew that what he had done for Little Nannan back then had finally borne fruit...

Snowflakes drifted down, burying Xu Changqing entirely beneath a pile of snow. He reminisced for a long, long time.

He sat cross-legged atop the snowy peak without moving. He remained there for an entire month.

Not far from the snowy mountain stood a Black-haired Girl, her eyes filled with love and boundless regret.

She was very beautiful, dressed in a red silk gown. She had a delicate oval face, large watery eyes, a refined nose, and petite red lips.

She said nothing, merely watching Xu Changqing quietly from afar.

She was Xu Changqing's lifesaver and his confidante, but because of her carelessness and negligence, she had been used as leverage.

In the end, Xu Changqing paid a painful price to save her.

The resources he had gathered over many years were all gone.

She blamed herself deeply, but she also realized that ever since that day, Xu Changqing had become cold and indifferent. He no longer possessed the passion and zeal he once had.

Suddenly, she saw the snowy mountain tremble. The blizzard froze in midair, as though someone had pressed pause.

"Let the past drift away with the wind. I will walk my own path!"

Xu Changqing's resolute voice came from beneath the snow. He had already decided on the road ahead.

He rose from the snow pile and shook the snow from his body, revealing his tall, slender figure. Not a single snowflake remained on his black silk robe.

After three hundred years of tempering, his Dao heart had long become as firm as a boulder. He would no longer be stirred by trivial matters, nor would he be warmhearted again.

"Severing Dao, Severing Dao... why must I sever Dao?"

"That should be Slaying the Self. Dao nurtured me; it is like my father. Yet I would commit the great act of killing my own father. How is that any different from when my son pointed a sword at me?"

"The paths walked by the Great Emperors of every generation have all been different, but no one has ever tried severing all their emotions. Every Great Emperor has bonds in her heart, but I have none!"

"Nothing can defeat me. It may knock me down, but it cannot make me accept my fate or admit defeat!"

Xu Changqing gazed deeply at the snowy sky. Brilliant sunlight poured over him like Buddha Light, while his thick black hair danced wildly in the wind.