Feng Lingtian walked for a while longer, and the road ahead gradually brightened.
The surrounding light was no longer the dark red light from before, but a bright light close to daylight, seeping in from the end of the passage. It wasn't dazzling, but it created a stark contrast with the color scheme of the entire Hell Road.
Feng Lingtian slowed his pace, his gaze falling on the halo of light. He carefully confirmed that it was not an illusion.
Feng Lingtian could only continue walking forward. The rocks under his feet gradually turned into smooth stone slabs, and the cracks and fragments on the ground gradually decreased.
The passage no longer narrowed, but instead widened, with the cliffs on both sides receding into the distance, as if a long tunnel had finally come to an end. Feng Lingtian took the last few steps and stepped out of the passage.
After stepping out of the exit, he stood on a wide, circular stone platform. The platform was flat, grayish-white in color, and had no obvious patterns.
There is a crack in the very center of the stone platform, from which a soft white light seeps out. It falls on the ground without being dazzling, but shines quietly, as if it has been solidified for a long time without going out.
Feng Lingtian didn't linger at the edge of the stone platform. He walked to the center of the platform, and the crack flashed as he approached.
Light poured out from the crack and enveloped his body. When the light faded, he found himself no longer on the stone platform.
When Feng Lingtian came to his senses, he was already on a flat ground, hard and dry to the touch, like some kind of stone, but with a pure white surface.
There were no walls or boundaries on any side, only an endless white space stretching to the horizon. There was no light source overhead, but the entire space was as bright as day, not dazzling, but evenly lit.
The distinctive dark red color of Hell Road, the smell of sulfur, and the heat waves of magma all vanished. It was as if he had been transported to another place.
Feng Lingtian immediately closed his eyes, calmly sensing the flow of Soul Power. Only after confirming that the Soul Power was usable and that his disguise had not been broken did he relax and open his eyes, turning his gaze forward.
As he was thinking, a blurry image suddenly appeared not far ahead. The image gradually became clearer, like an old video that had been edited.
Feng Lingtian took a few steps closer and saw the scene clearly—it was a dilapidated street with low bungalows on both sides and garbage and waste paper scattered on the ground.
At the street corner, a baby wrapped in a thin blanket was placed in a cardboard box. There was no one around the box, and no footsteps or voices could be heard nearby.
The baby was tiny, wrapped in a faded old blanket, with half of his face showing, his eyes closed, and his eyelashes trembling slightly in the cold wind.
One of the streetlights was flashing, while another had gone completely out. Only the signboard of a shop in the distance was still half-lit, casting a long shadow on the edge of a cardboard box.
Feng Lingtian stopped in his tracks. He recognized the place in the scene—it was a street from his past life, and the cardboard box was where he had been abandoned.
The old man later told him that it was a very cold night, and when he was found, his lips were already purple from the cold, and the blanket he was wrapped in was so thin that it let in the wind.
The old man was passing by that street when he saw the cardboard box under the streetlight, walked over, and picked it up.
Feng Lingtian stood before the image, his gaze fixed on the baby wrapped in a thin blanket, his eyes closed, looking as peaceful as if asleep.
After the scene remained in the white space for a few breaths, Feng Lingtian suddenly felt a slight pulling sensation in his body—
It wasn't an external force, but rather something from within him, as if something was pulling him toward that scene.
Before he could react, the ground beneath his feet vanished.
He stumbled into a real, warm space.
When Feng Lingtian opened his eyes, he found himself curled up in a thin, breathable blanket, his hands and feet wrapped up, his posture stiff, as if he hadn't moved since being placed inside.
It took him a moment to realize his current state—he had returned to his body as an infant, abandoned in a cardboard box, wrapped in that thin blanket.
His consciousness had already experienced time travel, more than ten years in the Douluo Continent, and the trials of Hell Road, but his body was that of a newborn baby.
He couldn't speak or move; he could only curl up in the cardboard box, feeling the cold wind seeping in through the gaps in the blanket.
Occasionally, pedestrians would pass by on the street, their footsteps approaching and then fading away. Someone would walk closer to the cardboard box, glance at it, and then quickly leave, as if confirming something and never looking back.
Feng Lingtian felt the cold wind seeping in through the gaps in the blanket and heard the footsteps of pedestrians in the distance, getting closer and then further away.
He realized why he was there—he remembered the night, the details the old man later told him, but he also knew this was his only chance to come closest to "seeing his biological parents."
But when he regained consciousness, his parents were gone. A thought briefly crossed his mind:
If one day he had the chance to find out his parents' identities, what would he do?
He thought for a moment, then gave up, because those two people were gone, and he had no one left to hate.
But Feng Lingtian now has a more practical choice in mind. He is an infant, but he has a full adult consciousness.
He could cry, attract more attention from passersby, and act like a "smart, healthy" child, so that people with better conditions could take him away.
He could change his fate in that moment, so that he would no longer be taken in by the old man and no longer live that kind of impoverished life.
For a fleeting moment, his throat did move, as if he were about to make a sound.
But he didn't.
Because in that instant, he thought of something else—if he hadn't been picked up by the old man, the old man wouldn't have met him that night.
The old man once told him that he had no desire to live anymore. His wife had passed away many years ago, and living alone felt like just getting through the days.
If the old man hadn't found that cardboard box under the streetlight that night, he might have given up on life. It was the baby in that box that gave him something to hold onto, a reason to keep living.
Feng Lingtian swallowed the sound that was about to escape his throat.
He huddled quietly inside the cardboard box, feeling the cold wind pass over him, without making a sound. After a while, footsteps stopped near the box.
The footsteps were light, slower than the previous ones, as if someone who wasn't walking very fast was approaching.
Feng Lingtian felt a pair of rough hands gently lift a corner of the blanket, letting in a gust of cold wind. But the wind stopped the moment the hands closed the blanket.
He couldn't see the person's face, but he could feel those hands gently lifting him from the cardboard box.
"It's so cold..." he heard an old voice say, "Luckily I saw it."
Feng Lingtian was pulled into an old cotton-padded coat, pressed against the person's chest, where he could hear a slow and steady heartbeat.
He felt himself being held in a pair of rough hands, the hands with tiny cracks that looked as if they had cracked many times in the cold wind, but the way they held him was as steady as if nothing had happened.
Feng Lingtian stayed quietly in that embrace, no longer struggling, no longer waiting for anything. He remembered that embrace, that voice, the warmth of that old cotton-padded coat. In his heart, he said: Grandpa, I've finally met you again.
The feeling that surged up from deep within the baby's body was neither resentment nor joy, but rather more like something that had been hanging in the air finally settling down.
The image froze at that moment, then slowly faded away.
Feng Lingtian stood on the ground of the white space again, looked down at his hands, and confirmed that he had returned to his original body.
The hands were still there, the cold wind was gone, and the old man's heartbeat had ceased. He hadn't brought up that experience on his own initiative; someone had laid it out for him to see again.
He knew that experience was real, but he could never go back to that point in time.
He used to think that he didn't think about those things because they were too far away, but now he realized—
The reason he rarely mentioned his past life during his years in the Douluo Continent was not because he forgot, but because he didn't need to repeatedly confirm it to prove that the experience had existed.
He has traveled enough roads and met enough people in this world; those experiences have become a part of him, and he doesn't need to look back on them every day to confirm that they happened.
The past life is gone. What should be remembered has been remembered, and what should be taken away has been taken with him. The path he must walk is here.
He raised his head and looked at the empty area in front of him, without speaking or looking away.
He knew this was not the end.