My Purple Mansion is finally about to appear. The third chapter is out today, brothers and sisters, keep it up and press on! If you have votes, cast one and help me hold onto the rankings. Whatever you do, don't let me fall off! Please!
The boundless void.
It was muddled. It felt as though its "brain matter" had been stirred into a paste, all jumbled up. It couldn't remember anything—not who it was or where it had come from. Every so often, it would clear up a little and vaguely recall what kind of person it had been. It kept cycling back and forth between confusion and lucidity.
Now it was just a white ball of light, about the size of a thumb. It was faint and dim, lighter than smoke, as if a breeze could blow it away and make it vanish from heaven and earth without leaving a trace.
Fortunately, there was no wind in this void.
It had no idea where it was. It had been floating through an endless void, surrounded by hazy grayness, gray mist blanketing everything. Because of the mist, anything a hundred zhang away gradually faded from view. It could see only what lay within a hundred zhang of itself.
It drifted through this boundless void, lost and without a clue. It floated from one side to the other, then from the other side back again. Apart from the endless gray mist, it had seen nothing else, and there was no one to keep it company. At first, it had found it rather interesting, but as time passed, it grew bored.
Why was it here?
And where was this place?
It "clutched" its head in pain, racking its brains.
It couldn't remember a thing. It didn't understand why it was here. It vaguely felt that it should have been in another place, one that was lively and interesting—not in this desolate void where there was practically nothing but gray mist.
But it had forgotten where it was supposed to be. It couldn't remember anything at all.
Whenever its "mind" was just about to recall something, a powerful wave of drowsiness would suddenly wash over it, lulling it into a muddled sleep. When it came around again, everything that had happened before was wiped clean from its memory. It couldn't remember even the tiniest thing. Then it would happily drift off again.
And so it drifted.
It happily discovered that it seemed able to drift infinitely far.
But the surroundings remained gray and hazy, with nothing in sight. After a long time, it couldn't even tell whether it was drifting or staying in one place. There was almost no difference between the two.
Still, after spending a long time in the void, it finally discovered a second kind of thing besides the gray mist—Purple Lightning.
This little thing was only as thick as a strand of hair and about an inch long. It glowed, but with a faint purple light. It moved very, very slowly, swaying its head and tail through the void like a fish swimming along. From time to time, it gave off a crackling sound, like a tiny purple bolt of lightning.
Oddly enough, there was no gray mist within several zhang of this little thing. Wherever it swam, the mist automatically parted for several zhang, as if to avoid it.
In terms of size, this little thing was far smaller than it was.
After all, it was at least a ball of light, while this little thing was only a thread of light barely an inch long.
It called this thing Purple Lightning.
At first, it had thought it had found one of its own and was overjoyed. It wanted to drift over and greet it in a friendly way. Perhaps they could even keep each other company and drift together, so it wouldn't be quite so lonely. The void was simply too desolate, and it had been so long since it had seen a little thing like this. Naturally, it wanted to get to know it.
But when it drifted to within a hundred zhang of Purple Lightning, a tremendous fear suddenly welled up in its heart. It was an instinctive terror, the kind one felt upon encountering a deadly natural enemy.
Like a mouse encountering a cat, or a rabbit meeting a hawk—it made no sense, and there was only one thing to do: flee.
Without even thinking, it immediately turned and fled for its life. It didn't know what this little thing was or how dangerous it might be, but its instincts told it that if it didn't run, it would die.
The farther away it could get, the better. Going over to say hello would be courting death.
The slow, drifting motion of that strand of Purple Lightning came to an abrupt halt. It seemed to have noticed the ball of light, too. Its lazy air vanished in an instant, replaced by a fierce, murderous aura. Purple Lightning twisted around and shot after it, now pursuing it at the speed of lightning.
It was terrified out of its wits. Summoning every last ounce of strength, it fled at full speed.
Two streaks of light, one white and one purple, chased each other through the boundless, gray-hazed void.
It was a little faster, gradually widening the gap. But Purple Lightning pursued relentlessly, refusing to give up. Even hundreds or thousands of zhang behind, it kept chasing, locking onto the trace of energy the ball of light left behind as it fled.
It had no idea how long it ran. It felt like countless centuries.
It regretted it so bitterly that its guts nearly turned green. As it fled for its life, it encountered a second strand of Purple Lightning, then a third, then a fourth—countless more. Because it was fleeing so fast, it accidentally barged into these little things' territories, startling them and drawing them into the chase as well.
It had never known there were so many damned natural enemies in this boundless void. The instant it sensed the threat of Purple Lightning up ahead, it could only turn at once and flee in another direction.
Now, a long string of thousands of Purple Lightning strands trailed behind it. Some of the little things were several inches long, while others were only half an inch. As countless strands of Purple Lightning collided with one another, they gradually fused into a single streak.
Who knew how much time had passed?
The Purple Lightning, now as thick as a finger and nearly a zhang long, had absorbed the strands within a radius of nearly ten thousand li. It churned up all the gray mist in the area, and as it pierced through the mist-shrouded void, thunderous crackles rang out without pause.
It kept fleeing, putting as much distance as it could between itself and the terrifying Purple Lightning.
Fortunately, by this point, that streak of Purple Lightning had long since stopped caring about a weak little ball of white light like it. It couldn't be bothered to chase it anymore. At some point, it had become entangled with the gray mist of the boundless void.
The gray mist here was no lifeless thing. Stirred by Purple Lightning, it formed a vast vortex nearly a thousand li across. The vortex surged with tremendous force, wildly sweeping up and absorbing the surrounding mist. It kept condensing, growing denser and more solid by the moment.
Meanwhile, Purple Lightning sent out earth-shaking bolts of purple lightning, trying to tear the vortex apart.
"Crack! Boom—!"
In that instant, the streak of Purple Lightning erupted in a bolt of purple lightning ten thousand zhang long, violently ripping apart the vortex shrouded in gray mist. The gray-mist vortex split in two. The clear qi rose, while the turbid qi sank.
And that streak of Purple Lightning had finally exhausted its energy. It gradually fell apart, breaking into inch-long flashes of purple light before vanishing without a trace.
It kept far away, watching the changes in the void with its heart in its throat. It stared up in astonishment as the gray mist in the sky gradually dispersed, revealing a clearer expanse, while the ground slowly solidified and exposed rock.