Though his soul still slumbered, his body had already begun instinctively adapting to its new soul. Spiritual energy began circulating through his meridians, a faint glow flickered in his dantian, and his entire body prepared for the awakening to come. This wondrous process of flesh and soul nurturing one another was one of the greatest miracles in all creation.
Time flowed like a murmuring stream, and half a year passed in the blink of an eye. Deep within the ancient well, radiant light swirled through the mist, while the great cauldron bearing a heaven-defying fortune continued to bob within the haze. During that time, the peerlessly graceful woman in gray occasionally opened its lid and added rare spiritual herbs, yet she never managed to awaken the person inside.
The youth's eyes remained tightly shut. Only the increasingly vigorous vitality of his flesh hinted that some astonishing transformation was brewing. Until one morning, when the first light of dawn appeared-
"Thump! Thump! Thump!"
The sudden heartbeat thundered like ancient war drums, shaking the entire Medicine Cauldron violently. It carried the force to topple mountains and overturn seas, like exploding thunder, like a thousand armies galloping forth, heralding the awakening of a peerless body. The youth's heart became a crimson-gold divine furnace, spewing dazzling divine radiance that illuminated his flesh until it shone translucent.
Deep within his sea of consciousness, the long-silent soul abruptly opened its eyes. In an instant, two beams of divine light, blazing like suns, burst from his pupils and shot into the nine heavens. As the radiance receded, a pair of divine eyes with double pupils emerged-each eye actually held two pupils, with divine flames flowing through them, eternal and undying.
"Boom!"
Surging blood energy erupted from the youth's body like rivers bursting their banks. Beneath his crystalline skin, every inch of flesh held the power to destroy heaven and earth. At last, the Medicine Cauldron could no longer bear the strain and shattered with a heaven-shaking crash.
A figure burst from the well and stood suspended in the air. The double-pupiled youth lightly touched his chest, feeling the surging vitality within him. A smile rose at the corners of his mouth, as though an entire lifetime had passed. "So... I'm still alive."
"It seems... the timing was just right."
A voice as sweet as a clear spring sounded beside his ear. It was ethereal as celestial music from the nine heavens, yet its final notes carried a barely perceptible weariness. Like moonlight that had weathered a thousand years of wind and frost, it remained pure and bright, but had acquired the cold indifference of time.
The youth staggered as he turned. A woman in gray stood on the rim of the well. The morning breeze stirred her ink-black hair, lifting it into a waterfall-like arc beneath the dawn's glow. Her unadorned face was breathtakingly beautiful, especially her eyes-the left pupil gleamed like the clear radiance of the moon, while the right resembled the rising sun. Within those double pupils, where sun and moon shone together, flowed the vicissitudes of eternity.
The instant their gazes met, a vast tide of memories surged into his mind like a flood bursting through a dam:
The gilded halls of the Stone Kingdom Imperial Capital...
The glaring blood within the War King's Manor...
The great battle at the Heaven Mending Pavilion...
Training beside Demon Spirit Lake...
The earth-shaking Battle of the Two Stones in the Void God Realm...
"Aaargh-!"
The youth suddenly clutched his head, veins bulging. Those fragments of memory became countless sharp blades, churning wildly through his sea of consciousness. The double-pupiled woman's figure gradually blurred before his eyes. He staggered backward and fell from the edge of the stone well covered in ancient runes.
At the final moment, he saw the complex emotions that flashed through her double pupils-a mixture of relief and sorrow at finally seeing the first light of dawn after an ages-long wait.
The youth slowly opened his eyes to find himself inside a rustic wooden cottage. A helpless, bitter smile touched his lips as he murmured:
"To think that I, Su Chen, would actually end up transmigrating. If I'd known, I should have memorized classics like the Tao Te Ching and the Diamond Sutra until I could recite them backward..."
He rubbed his temples. Remembering that damned system that had fled in the face of danger, he gritted his teeth. "It froze its host and ran away the moment danger showed up. Anyone saddled with a shameless system like that is cursed!"
Looking around, the youth sighed. "And of all places, I had to transmigrate into a world this dangerous. During the Dark Turmoil, even entire great realms get offered up in blood sacrifices... It really is, 'If you won't work hard at cultivation, come into my body and let me enjoy immortality.'"
Yet a flicker of delight entered his eyes. "Still, this body's talent is almost unheard of, especially these double pupils. Legend says that, cultivated to their utmost, they can split heaven from earth and recreate the cosmos. They're even a little stronger than those who possess a Supreme Bone."
On second thought, however, he calmed down. "No matter how good your talent is, you still have to work hard afterward. Wasn't this body's original owner proof of that? But when I think about how he lost to the Desolate Heaven Emperor, who later stood alone above the ages, created a cultivation system, suppressed the source of darkness, and reached above sacrificial dao, it wasn't really a disgrace..."
Su Chen had transmigrated into the world of Perfect World, the novel he had once been obsessed with. Even more unexpectedly, he had taken possession of the body of Shi Yi, the double-pupiled elder cousin of Shi Hao, the Desolate Heaven Emperor.
This was a particularly unusual moment in the timeline, right after the Battle of the Two Stones had ended. In the original story, after Shi Yi was slain by Shi Hao in the Void God Realm, the Ancient Double-Pupil Woman took his physical body to a secret place in the Medicine Capital. There, she tempered it with countless natural treasures, attempting to awaken his will to live and reassemble his soul to revive him.
Yet fate toyed with men. Before Shi Yi's remnant soul had fully revived, Su Chen's soul unexpectedly intruded from another world. Had Shi Yi's soul been at its peak, even one percent of it would have been enough to easily devour this visitor from another world who possessed no cultivation whatsoever.
But his gravely wounded, nearly extinguished soul was slowly rebuilding itself, and this vulnerable period gave Su Chen an opening-not only did he successfully seize control of the sea of consciousness, but he also gradually fused with the original owner's remnant soul, inheriting all of Shi Yi's memories and insights into cultivation.
As for whether the mysterious Ancient Double-Pupil Woman had noticed anything amiss, Su Chen could not be certain:
Perhaps the flawless fusion of their souls had deceived the discerning eyes of this ancient powerhouse;
Perhaps she had noticed long ago but chosen to tacitly accept it-after all, what mattered to her might simply have been the survival of these double pupils. Whose will occupied the shell could have been entirely irrelevant.
This delicate situation left Su Chen both relieved and uneasy. He understood that he stood at a crossroads of fate. Having inherited everything belonging to the double-pupiled youth, he would also have to shoulder the corresponding karma. In this world where strength reigned supreme, whether this opportunity would prove a blessing or a curse remained unknown...
"So be it. Since I'm here, I'll make my peace with it. From this day forward, I am Shi Yi, the double-pupiled one!"
Su Chen-no, he should now be called Shi Yi-pushed open the rustic wooden door, and the morning's spiritual energy washed over him like a tide. Raising his gaze into the distance, he saw:
Mountains dark as painted brows loomed through the morning mist. A few auspicious cranes spread their iridescent wings, tracing elegant paths among the clouds. At the foot of the mountains, a lake like green jade lay nestled between the peaks, reflecting the dawn clouds in ripples of golden light.
When his gaze fell upon the center of the lake, his double pupils activated involuntarily. His vision pierced the deep water, and there, to his astonishment, he saw a
green-scaled Flood Dragon coiled on the lakebed. As though sensing something, the Flood Dragon abruptly opened its eyes-in an instant, two vertical pupils like blood moons lit up in the depths!
"Roar-!"
The Flood Dragon's furious roar sent a thousand towering waves exploding across the lake. Its immense body churned the water, and its terrifying pressure made the entire lake boil and surge. Green scales flashed as it burst from the water and circled through the air, searching. By then, however, Shi Yi had already concealed his aura. Mystical runes flowed through his double pupils, hiding him perfectly within heaven and earth.
"So this is the world of cultivation..." Feeling the surging power within him, Shi Yi smiled. With a slight movement of his double pupils, even the veins of a distant falling leaf became perfectly clear. He suddenly understood that he had inherited not merely this body, but an entirely new life.
The mountain wind brushed past, sending his robes fluttering. The young man stood at the cliff's edge with his hands behind his back, ten thousand miles of mountains and rivers reflected in his double pupils. Behind him, the rising sun broke through the clouds and cast boundless golden light over this ancient, mysterious land.
"You're awake?"
A cool voice suddenly sounded behind him. Shi Yi's heart jolted. At some point, the double-pupiled woman had silently appeared thirty feet behind him, her gray robes drifting as though she had become one with the surrounding mist.
The woman in gray before him wore her dark hair loose, revealing an otherworldly face, snow-white as jade and so beautiful it seemed almost dreamlike. An ethereal resonance of the Dao surrounded her, transcendent and untouched by worldly dust. Words could scarcely describe her.
She was none other than Shi Yi's master, the Ancient Double-Pupil Woman. She possessed double pupils just like his, but hers had already reached the pinnacle of cultivation, the realm where the two pupils merged into one.
"This disciple pays his respects to Master." Shi Yi turned and bowed respectfully. A flicker of uncertainty crossed his double pupils. "May I ask, Master, where are we...?"
"The Uninhabited Forbidden Zone, beyond the Upper Realm's Three Thousand Continents." The double-pupiled woman spoke evenly, yet her words made Shi Yi's pupils contract sharply.
He instinctively looked around. "We've... already left the lower realm's Eight Regions?" His voice trembled slightly. He suddenly realized that while he slept, he had probably missed countless upheavals in the lower realm.
This vast expanse known as the Three Thousand Dao Provinces was far larger than anyone could imagine. Its provinces were scattered like stars across a chessboard. Some shone like radiant pearls hanging in the heavens, others were deep and secluded as ancient wells concealing abysses, while many secret realms lay hidden within the clouds, their true faces unseen for a thousand years.
Here, there was no concept of a boundary, only endless expansion-towering divine mountains pierced the nine heavens, bottomless ravines swallowed rivers of stars, and every inch of land bore the inscriptions of ancient laws.
It was precisely these inexhaustible wonders of heaven and earth that had nurtured peerless powerhouses whose brilliance shook past and present alike. Some sword cultivators cleaved sun, moon, and stars with a single stroke. Some practitioners refined three thousand stars with one hand. Still more nameless souls gained sudden enlightenment into the Heavenly Dao in some mountain hollow.
Every mountain ridge sang of new legends, every river carried an unfinished epic, and this eternal land forever awaited the next legend whose tale would astonish all the ages.
Beyond the borders of the Three Thousand Dao Provinces stretched the even vaster, boundless Uninhabited Forbidden Zone. Its desolate immensity was hundreds or thousands of times greater than the known Dao Provinces.
Within the forbidden zone, laws fell into chaos and space and time twisted. Even sect-leader-level giants whose might awed entire regions became guttering candles in the wind upon entering. The slightest misstep could extinguish their Dao and destroy their bodies, leaving them another wandering soul in the forbidden zone's depths.
Yet within this deadly land that devoured all living things, scattered safe havens still existed. Like solitary islands in endless darkness, they lay sheltered by ancient laws. Some floated in the void, while others hid within mists of chaos, offering refuge to a handful of living beings.
But even these so-called "safe zones" were not everlasting-perhaps one day, the unknown powers surging in the forbidden zone's depths would devour them completely, and they would vanish into the boundless chaos.