Patching the Chosen One

Patching the Chosen One

"So late, and you're still not resting?" With a casual wave of Han Feng's hand, a cup of hot tea flew onto the table before Xiao Yan. "Sit. What is it?"

Xiao Yan did not sit. He simply stood there, as though hesitating over something.

"Senior Brother," he said after taking a deep breath, as if making up his mind, "I... I've been having the same dream these past few days."

"Oh?" Han Feng became interested. He raised his own teacup, signaling Xiao Yan to continue. "A dream? Tell me about it."

"It's rather long, and rather... complicated."

"Then keep it simple."

Xiao Yan looked into Han Feng's calm eyes. His Adam's apple bobbed before, at last, he spoke in a dreamy tone and uttered something utterly shocking.

"I killed you."

As those words fell, the air in the room seemed to freeze.

Their eyes met.

(°ー°〃)

(￣△￣;)

Han Feng's hand, holding the teacup, paused in midair. Then, as though nothing had happened, he brought it to his lips and took a light sip.

He set down the cup and coughed, breaking the awkward silence. "...Go on."

His reaction was so calm that even Xiao Yan found it surprising.

Having received his senior brother's permission, Xiao Yan finally sat down and recounted, bit by bit, the long and vivid dream that had plagued him for several nights.

In that dream, there was no Dou Sheng senior brother descending from the heavens. There was only a good-for-nothing youth who had fallen from the clouds into mortal dust, suffering countless scornful looks. He dreamed that his dou qi had been absorbed by his teacher's soul, leaving his cultivation stagnant and even regressing for three whole years, turning him into the laughingstock of all Wu Tan City.

The girl from the Misty Cloud Sect came bearing a letter of divorce and crushed the last of his dignity before his entire clan. He wrote a divorce letter on the spot and roared, "Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river—never bully a poor young man!"

Later, on the back mountain, his teacher's soul appeared. He took him as his master, rose from the third stage of Dou Qi to become a Dou Practitioner, chose the Flame Mantra, struggled along the edge of life and death, and only after risking his life managed to devour his first Heavenly Flame.

To fulfill that three-year agreement, he ascended the Misty Cloud Sect. Yet this resulted in a blood feud so deep that he had no choice but to leave his homeland and flee for his life, eventually arriving in the Black-Corner Region.

There, he heard a name that shocked him—Han Feng.

In the dream, Han Feng was his teacher's traitorous disciple. He had betrayed and murdered his master, leaving his teacher no choice but to cling to life in soul form!

Thus, he and the Han Feng of his dream fought to the death over the Fallen Heart Flame at Canaan Academy.

He personally witnessed the Fallen Heart Flame erupt, and the Han Feng from his dream came to seize it. He fought desperately to stop him and, by a twist of fate, ultimately subdued that Heavenly Flame.

At the end of the dream, he gathered every force he could muster and fought a great battle in the Black-Corner Region against that disgrace to their sect named Han Feng.

In the end, he personally slew that Han Feng beneath his ruler.

By the time Xiao Yan finished the last word, his breathing had grown somewhat heavy.

That dream had been too real—so real that he could clearly remember every detail of every battle, the wild joy of every victory, and... the bone-deep hatred he felt whenever he faced Han Feng.

"Senior Brother." He raised his head, his eyes filled with confusion. "I don't know why, but after having that dream, there's always a voice in my heart telling me..."

"This was how it was supposed to be."

He spoke those four words softly, yet they carried immense weight.

As though he had lost a path that should have belonged to him—a path filled with blood and fire, struggle and glory.

Han Feng listened quietly without speaking.

He merely stood, walked over to Xiao Yan, and asked in return.

"Supposed to be? Was it truly supposed to be that way?"

Xiao Yan froze at the question. He opened his mouth but did not know how to argue back.

Looking at the senior brother before him, the one who had given him a new life, resources, and protection, he sank into even deeper thought.

"Senior Brother," he finally asked after a long while, voicing another question that had troubled him for some time, "why... didn't you cultivate the Flame Mantra?"

Han Feng smiled at that. Rather than answering directly, he asked, "Xiao Yan, let me ask you this. If, in your teens, you were already the young master of a first-rate power in the Central Plains, cultivating a Heaven Grade Cultivation Method and unmatched among your peers, then someone brought you a Yellow Grade Cultivation Method and told you that it might, perhaps, possibly evolve into a Heaven Grade Cultivation Method—or even the legendary Emperor Grade."

"But the condition for evolution would be to seek out those elusive Heavenly Flames. And you would have to discard the cultivation method you had practiced, start all over again, and gamble on an opportunity with nine chances of death and one of survival."

Han Feng looked at him and asked calmly, "Would you choose it?"

Xiao Yan was stumped.

Putting himself in Han Feng's shoes, he realized that he probably... truly would not have chosen it.

The risk was simply too great—so great that it made no sense at all.

"But... but I chose it," he muttered somewhat indignantly.

Han Feng raised his hand and gave him a light smack on the head.

"You brat!" he scolded, both annoyed and amused. "You chose it when you were a Dou Practitioner. Even if it couldn't evolve, you could still cultivate a high-grade method again, so the loss wouldn't be great. When I chose, I was already a Dou Emperor and cultivated a Heaven Grade Cultivation Method. I stood above all my peers. If I lost that gamble, how great would my losses have been?"

Xiao Yan rubbed the spot where he had been hit and chuckled foolishly.

That was right. It was different. His senior brother was right—they had stood in different places from the very beginning. The lingering knot and confusion in his heart vanished with that smack and laugh.

"Do you have any more concerns now?" Han Feng returned to his seat and picked up his teacup again.

"N-no." Xiao Yan shook his head and said somewhat sheepishly, "That dream just troubled me. It made me feel stifled inside."

"This isn't necessarily a bad thing." Han Feng's gaze deepened. "That dream may have shown you another cruel path, but didn't it also mature your mind somewhat?"

"At the very least, you now know that strength does not come from nowhere."

"If you think life is too comfortable now..." Han Feng abruptly changed his tone, a faintly benevolent smile appearing on his face, "I can arrange for you to experience the kind of cultivation you had in that dream right away."

"Huh?" Xiao Yan blanked for a moment. Then he saw the ill-intentioned smile on his senior brother's face, shuddered, and sprang up from his chair.

"No, no, no! It's not comfortable! I'm not comfortable at all! Senior Brother, I suddenly remembered that I haven't finished today's physical training yet. I'll be going now. Please get some rest early!"

With that, he ran out of the room without looking back, vanishing in a flash as though a ferocious beast were chasing him.

Watching his fleeing back, Han Feng shook his head with a laugh.

The room returned to silence.

The smile on his face faded, and understanding flashed through his eyes.

"Heavenly Dao..." he murmured. Others might not have understood, but as a transmigrator, he saw through it at a glance.

Xiao Yan was the chosen one of this world. His growth should have been accompanied by hardship and fortunate encounters.

But Han Feng's appearance was equivalent to giving him an absurdly powerful cheat, allowing him to skip all the suffering of the beginner's village and sail smoothly onward.

A chosen one who grew up this way would ultimately still lack some tempering of the heart.

So the Heavenly Dao of this world had used dreams to forcibly patch up his temperament, letting him personally experience the path of blood and fire that should have been his.

"He really is the Heavenly Dao's son."

Han Feng chuckled softly and stopped dwelling on it.

He slowly closed his eyes, and his mind sank into cultivation once more.