Transported to Ancient Times

The path to immortality had been severed. There was no hope of advancing any further.

Staying in this realm meant living off dwindling reserves until their lifespans ran out. Even mighty Void Refinement experts would eventually become nothing more than a mound of earth.

So they were leaving.

Gathering all the remaining power of heaven and earth in the Nine Provinces, along with the lifetime cultivation of every Void Refinement cultivator, they forcibly tore space apart and opened a passage to another plane. There, spiritual energy was abundant and the Great Dao was whole. Eternal life lay within reach, and the path to immortality could still be climbed.

The passage hovered in midair, shimmering with brilliant colors, yet carrying the finality of farewell.

An old man with snow-white hair and beard and the bearing of an immortal turned around. His gaze settled on Chen Hao, his voice tinged with regret. "Young friend Chen Hao, have you truly thought this through? Will you guard the Nine Provinces alone?"

"The path to immortality in this realm has been severed, and the Great Dao has withered. Your talent is peerless. You reached the Void Refinement Realm at such a young age. If you come with us to the new world, you may yet attain eternal life."

"If you stay here, however long your lifespan may be, it will run out one day. Is it worth it?"

Chen Hao lowered his eyes slightly, a faint smile curling his lips.

He was not from this era.

He had come from modern society ten thousand years in the future, suddenly transported into the Primordial Nine Provinces of myth and legend. Here, he had seen legendary gods and demons, met sages recorded in history, traveled across mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas, and watched oceans turn into fields.

He knew this was Blue Star.

It was the distant past of the blue planet where he had once lived.

He was staying not out of foolishness or stubbornness, but because someone was waiting for him.

"There's no need to persuade me." Chen Hao raised his eyes, his gaze calm and still. "I have no fixation on the Great Dao of eternal life."

"Go. Seek your own path to immortality."

"I will stay and guard the Nine Provinces."

Everyone sighed.

No one knew the longing in his heart. No one understood the one person he had cared about ever since arriving in this era.

His parents had died early. Before he was transported here, he had been twenty-two, and his younger sister only ten. She was his only family in the world, the person he would give everything to protect. Since arriving in this Primordial Era, he had missed her day and night, haunted by her even in his dreams.

What good would going to another plane do?

What good would eternal life do?

In a world without his family, even an immortal would be utterly alone.

Only by staying on Blue Star and uncovering the secret of his journey through time could he one day return to the modern world, back to his sister's side.

The cultivators said no more.

One figure after another slowly stepped into the shimmering spatial passage, carrying both hope for the future and reluctance to leave their homeland. Their figures vanished, their presences faded, and the once-bustling summit of the Nine Provinces gradually emptied.

After the last person entered the passage, its radiance slowly faded.

Between heaven and earth, only Chen Hao remained.

The wind passed without a sound; the clouds lay still, without a shadow.

From that moment on, in all the vast Primordial Nine Provinces, he was the only cultivator in the Void Refinement Realm left, guarding this withered world alone.

Chen Hao raised his hand, and a plain, ancient scroll of bamboo slips appeared in his palm.

A fellow cultivator skilled in divination had given it to him before leaving.

The Divination Art.

It could reveal the past and future and point the way home.

Besides waiting for time to pass, he had stayed in hopes of using this art to divine his chance of returning to the modern world and learn whether his distant sister was safe. She was his sole emotional anchor, the only reason he could endure the long years ahead.

Yet he had never imagined that, despite his extraordinary talent for cultivation, he would be unable to grasp even the basics of divination.

Obscure runes, bewilderingly complex hexagrams, endlessly shifting calculations... every step was as difficult as ascending to heaven.

So he found a secluded valley in the desolate Nine Provinces and went into seclusion to study.

He paid no heed to worldly affairs or the passing years.

He devoted himself solely to studying that scroll of the Divination Art.

Spring gave way to autumn, cold to heat.

In the blink of an eye, five years had passed.

For a Void Refinement cultivator with a lifespan of thirty thousand years, five years were no more than an instant.

When Chen Hao finally closed the bamboo scroll and opened his eyes, the hexagrams formed naturally. He had mastered the art.

At last, he could divine.

The longing and concern he had suppressed for tens of thousands of years surged forth at that moment.

He sat cross-legged, formed hand seals, and cast a hexagram, his mind fixed on a single purpose—

To ask about the way home, and about his sister.

The hexagram took shape, and the golden light faded.

Chen Hao gazed at the clear hexagram before him. Little by little, the anticipation in his eyes faded into stillness.

There was no shortcut.

No teleportation.

No chance to return instantly to the modern world.

What the hexagram revealed was blunt and cruel—

He could only remain in this world and endure, day after day, year after year, era after era.

He would watch dynasties change, living creatures multiply, mountains and rivers shift, and civilizations rise and fall.

He had to keep waiting.

Until the years reached their end, until time flowed into the modern era from which he had come.

Only then could he return.

Chen Hao slowly rose and looked toward the distant horizon.

His gaze seemed to pierce through the ages, reaching that small figure in a modern city, just ten years old, timidly calling him her brother.

"Wait for me."

Within the cave abode, soft light shone in silence.

Chen Siyao's fingers tightened slightly around her phone, her heartbeat quickening beyond her control.

Following the livestream comments, she looked up. Deep within the cave abode, atop a raised platform formed from natural jade, someone really was sitting.

He wore plain robes in a style so ancient he seemed to have stepped out of an old book. His ink-black hair fell over his shoulders. There was nothing fierce about his presence, yet he carried a coolness and loneliness that seemed beyond the mortal world.

He sat quietly with his legs crossed, as though he had become one with the entire cave abode, as though he had been sitting there for a thousand years, ten thousand years.

"Yaoyao... there really is someone here..." Yang Wanqing hid behind Chen Siyao in fright, her voice trembling softly. "We—we should hurry and leave. What if he's a bad person...?"

Chen Siyao was frightened too.

Dark mountains, an uninhabited cave abode, a mysterious figure appearing out of nowhere—any one of these was enough to terrify two young women. But her phone was still streaming, and hundreds of viewers were watching. She bit her lower lip, forced down her panic, and gently patted the back of her friend's hand, signaling her to stay calm.

She dared not raise her voice. She merely bowed slightly toward the platform and spoke softly and cautiously. "Sorry, we only came into the mountains to livestream. We didn't mean to disturb you. We'll leave right away..."

Before she finished speaking—

Chen Hao, seated on the platform, slowly turned his gaze toward Chen Siyao.

In that instant, all the light in the cave abode seemed to freeze.

His eyes were as deep as a starry sky stretching across eternity, calm and still, yet holding the weight and silence of countless weathered years. There was no hostility in them, nor any surprise. His gaze simply settled on Chen Siyao, quietly and gently.

That single look was enough.

Chen Hao's soul, sealed away for tens of thousands of years, suddenly shuddered violently.

His spiritual energy fell into disorder. His Dao heart trembled. Even the state of mind that had remained steady through the ages erupted into towering waves.

It was her...

It really was her.

That face, those eyes, those gentle, innocent features slowly overlapped with the little girl deep in his memories, the one who had always timidly called him "big brother." The two images merged, finally becoming the graceful, lovely white lotus standing before him.

He had crossed a river of time spanning ten thousand years.

He had endured the changing of dynasties, the rise and fall of civilizations, the flourishing and withering of the world.

Guarding this shattered and reborn land of the Nine Provinces, he had waited through endless ages and hoped through countless seasons. Now, without warning, he had come face-to-face with the person he had longed for all his life.

Chen Siyao felt uncomfortable under his gaze, her cheeks growing warm.

The man before her looked very young. His features were strikingly handsome, and his bearing was so unearthly that he hardly seemed mortal. Yet the emotions in his eyes were far too complex: heartache, joy, disbelief, and a tenderness and longing too deep to dissolve. For some reason, the sight made her heart ache, as though she had seen him somewhere before.

A feeling both strange and familiar quietly welled up in her heart.

The livestream chat had already exploded.