Meanwhile, the little courtyard where Xiao Yan had once lived stood deserted. Only the cold moonlight poured down like quicksilver, coating every blade of grass and every tree in a layer of frost.
The antique ring Xiao Yan had once treasured, but now shunned like a venomous snake or scorpion, lay quietly on the dirt in the center of the courtyard. A small circle of ground around it was scorched black, as though seared by a raging fire, and gave off a faint burnt smell. Those were the marks Yao Chen had left when he forced himself to clean his surroundings after awakening, and the traces of his silent fury.
Moonlight streamed like white silk, gathering strand by strand around the ring, greedily absorbed by the soul dwelling within it. Yao Chen's soul form remained desperately weak. Xiao Yi's farcical "exorcism" had severely damaged his vitality, and he was now drawing in moon essence with all his strength, trying to mend his damaged core. A faint glow flowed across the ring's surface, his soul's image flickering within it like a guttering candle in the wind, liable to go out at any moment.
After an unknown length of time, Yao Chen slowly ceased his cultivation. A trace of weariness flashed through his illusory eyes, but far stronger was his barely containable rage. His furious eyes snapped open. Though he had no physical body, one could almost hear his teeth grinding.
"Wretched disciple! Ungrateful wolf! I... I must have been blind to choose a creature like you!"
Yao Chen's voice was hoarse and brimming with venom. As he saw it, he had merely absorbed some of Xiao Yan's Dou Qi, yet the brat had dared commit such an outrageous betrayal, casting him aside like a worn-out shoe! It was an affront to his master and every forebear of his lineage, an unforgivable crime!
Though Xiao Yan was the one Yao Chen cursed, every word steeped in bone-deep hatred, that towering fury and marrow-deep sense of betrayal were directed far more at the treacherous disciple who had likewise abandoned him years ago, and had even sought to murder his master-Han Feng. This "minor incident" with Xiao Yan had merely stirred up his deeper, older grudges.
Yao Chen's soul form trembled slightly. The resentment, grief, and rage he had accumulated could no longer be suppressed. His earlier curses at Xiao Yan were more like a spark that had lit the fuse of explosives buried deep in his heart. He could no longer hold back the grievances of all those years.
"Heaven! How unjust you are!"
Yao Chen's illusory head jerked upward toward the lone, cold moon. His voice was no longer merely hoarse, but filled with accusations steeped in blood and tears, as though he meant to pour out every last grievance and shred of bitterness.
"I, Yao Chen, have searched my conscience! When in my life have I ever wronged heaven and earth? With my own two hands, leaving a bloody footprint at every step, I climbed to the summit and earned the reverence of multitudes! I thought... I thought I could finally escape the shadows of my past and enjoy a little peace!"
His accusations grew increasingly impassioned, and the violent fluctuations of his emotions made his soul form even more unstable, as though it might collapse at any moment. Beneath the moonlight, that translucent figure stretched out an illusory finger, pointing shakily at the heavens before letting it fall helplessly.
"I took a disciple, not to bring glory to my name, but merely to pass on my legacy, to have someone who cared whether these old bones were warm or cold in my twilight years, so I would not grow old and die alone! And what did I get? Han Feng! I treated him as my own son and taught him everything I knew, yet for a mere 'Flame Mantra,' he colluded with the Hall of Souls and plotted against me! What a beast, betraying his master and disgracing his forebears! He left me without even a corpse or bones, my soul adrift!"
At this point, Yao Chen's voice filled with endless desolation and self-mockery.
"Haha... hahahaha! After so much hardship, my remnant soul clung to life within this ring. I thought I would find a promising junior, live another life, and avenge myself at last! And what happened? Another ungrateful wolf! I absorbed a mere few stages of his Dou Qi, and he treated me like a venomous snake or scorpion, discarding me like a worn-out shoe! What sin have I, Yao Chen, committed to suffer this endless cycle of betrayal and abandonment?"
His curses and accusations echoed through the empty courtyard, and even the moonlight seemed to dim in response. That despair, grief, and fury seemed ready to pierce the night sky and demand answers from the merciless Heavenly Dao. Perhaps he was not cursing Xiao Yan at all, but Han Feng, this unjust fate, and above all, his own blindness in judging others.
After that violent outpouring of emotion, Yao Chen's soul form grew even more insubstantial and transparent, as though a gust of wind could scatter him. He was weary of cursing and weary of weeping, and a marrow-deep exhaustion spread from the depths of his soul. In the empty courtyard, only the moonlight's silent caress remained. He curled helplessly within the icy ring, his consciousness growing hazy.
Amid this despair, when his oil was nearly spent and his lamp about to gutter out, a conversation he had overheard not long before suddenly surfaced in his muddled mind, like a stray ripple on water. It was that strange argument between those two brats, Xiao Yi and Xiao Yan. He had paid it no mind at the time, dismissing it as children's nonsense.
Yet now, after such overwhelming despair and betrayal, with his spirits sunk to their lowest depths, those words seemed to possess some strange magic, compelling him to ponder them.
What was all that about "Transmigrators"... "Another World"... and not drinking "Meng Po Soup" properly... what sort of nonsense was that? Yao Chen murmured silently to himself. He had lived for so many years and prided himself on his extensive knowledge. But what was this notion of "transmigration"? Another World? Ancient texts often recorded legends of Shattering the Void and Ascending to the Upper Realm. It would hardly be strange if other worlds truly existed...
The thought was like a faint spark cast into darkness, stirring his nearly silent mind into motion once more. That brat Xiao Yi was always spouting mysterious nonsense, and his behavior differed from that of ordinary people, while Xiao Yan... there were indeed many puzzling things about Xiao Yan as well. Could the "transmigration" they spoke of be more than empty words?
If Another World truly exists... then a soul's destination need not be confined to reincarnation on this continent? Something stirred faintly in Yao Chen's mind. He had devoted his life to studying alchemy and had never encountered such a bizarre notion. "Meng Po Soup" sounded like some miraculous medicine capable of washing away memories, but what did "not drinking it properly" mean? Could it mean retaining memories of a previous life and being reborn into the world through another body? It bore some resemblance to the "Body Possession" recorded in certain ancient texts, yet judging by the way those two brats spoke, it did not seem to be an evil practice.
This sudden line of thought was like a life-saving straw, allowing him to break free for a time from the agony of betrayal and his resentment toward fate. He stopped dwelling on Han Feng's wolfish heart and canine lungs, and stopped brooding over Xiao Yan's ingratitude. Instead, he began seriously analyzing the possibility that beings called "Transmigrators" might exist.
It was an escape, but also an instinctive attempt to save himself. All manner of unimaginable ideas churned through Yao Chen's mind, temporarily dispelling the despair and venom that had nearly devoured him. Like a drowning man clutching a life-saving straw, he began feverishly contemplating these mysteries within mysteries, hoping to find a shred of solace-or rather, an exit through which he could temporarily flee reality.
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