In the courtyard.
"Congratulations, Marquis!" Su Qingying's voice was clear and bright, full of girlish charm.
"It is worth celebrating!" Jiang Ning smiled faintly.
"Your achievement today, Marquis, would have been called leaping beyond the Three Realms, escaping the Five Elements, and breaking free of heaven and earth's cage in the Primordial Era," Su Qingying said.
"Why do you say that?" Jiang Ning asked.
"By drawing the True Spirit imprint into your body and merging it with yourself! The fate linking your past life to this one ends here. From now on, your destiny is yours to command. The future is blurred and chaotic, but in every reincarnation to come, you will forever be yourself. There can be no other possibility!" Su Qingying said.
Snow fell silently in the courtyard.
Su Qingying's words were like pebbles cast into a still lake, sending ripples through Jiang Ning's heart.
Beyond the Three Realms, outside the Five Elements... my destiny is mine to command.
Those words confirmed what he felt within his Spirit Platform, and his understanding of the "true self" suddenly became clear.
Looking inward, he saw that the True Spirit imprint once suspended above his Spirit Platform, holding the power of reincarnation, had now completely dissolved. Like starlight from the very source, it had settled evenly over every inch of his soul and merged with it, until the two could no longer be told apart.
From this day forward, his soul was no longer a vessel bearing the imprint. It was the imprint itself, the manifestation of a unique, indivisible "true self."
All that belonged to my past life died yesterday, Jiang Ning realized. In this life, my thoughts are me. No fate or path stands above "me" to force its will upon me.
*Every road ahead will be mine to