Jiangcheng University
Li Qingshan stood before the window of the faculty dormitory, dressed in a plain long robe, his figure straight as a pine.
At twenty-three, he was already a lecturer at Jiangcheng University.
His face was as handsome as ever, but his brows and eyes had gained a measure of composure tempered by the years.
Six years.
Six summers and winters had passed since his return from the Dragon and Snake World.
The mysterious stone door in his mind had fallen completely silent after that return,
never stirring again, as though the mighty power that had carried him across the heavens had been nothing but a dream.
Yet the power within him, growing ever deeper and vast as an abyss,
and the Chaos Divine Seed in his sea of consciousness, ceaselessly spinning and becoming one with the Dao, silently attested to the reality of his past.
Through six years of secluded cultivation in this forsaken land of the Dharma-ending age, his progress had never slowed in the slightest.
The divine seed was profound and mysterious. Nourished day and night, it grew slowly but steadily, granting him more instincts that were almost like divine abilities.
His perception of the laws of heaven and earth grew ever clearer. Even with spiritual Qi exhausted,
he could draw pure energy from the sun, moon, stars, earth veins, and void, refining it into himself.
His See the Gods, Indestructible body had long since reached an incredible realm,
its Qi and blood lying hidden like a hibernating dragon,
ready to shake the world and shock all who beheld it once unleashed.
His Primordial Breathing had reached a realm of flawless harmony,
his mind resonating with this world in a peculiar way.
Though trapped within a cage, he seemed able to touch the breathing of the far vaster universe beyond it.
With his present strength, moving mountains, filling seas, flying through the heavens, and tunneling through the earth had long been simple feats.
The powers of immortals and gods described in ancient histories and myths were no fantasy to him.
Six years had also been enough for him to transform his identity in the mortal world.
He had easily completed his studies, pursuing his bachelor's and master's degrees consecutively with remarkable results, and ultimately secured a position at the university,
becoming one of the youngest lecturers in Jiangcheng University's ancient literature program.
The academic path was peaceful and free, giving him ample time to cultivate, explore, and consult ancient texts while perfectly concealing his extraordinary nature.
His parents were gratified, and others looked on with envy, saying only that he was exceptionally gifted.
Today was the first of September, the beginning of the school year.
The office was somewhat noisy,
as new and old colleagues exchanged greetings and discussed the new semester's course arrangements.
Sunlight streamed through the tall glass windows, casting dappled patches of light and shadow.
Li Qingshan quietly attended to the work at hand, entering and filing one list of information after another,
his movements flowing like clouds and water, with a distinctive rhythm.
"Teacher Li, preparing your lessons so early?"
Professor Wang Qinian, whose desk faced his, strolled into the office holding a thermos and greeted him with a smile.
He was a veteran of the department and greatly admired this young man, whose academic remarks were often startling.
Li Qingshan gathered his thoughts, turned, and smiled.
"Good morning, Professor Wang. It's the start of a new semester, so I should make some extra preparations."
His smile and manner were gentle, making it easy for people to take a liking to him.
It was the composure he had gained from years of experience in the mortal world and mastery over his power.
"Good, good, good."
Wang Qinian nodded and took a sip of tea.
"This year's ancient Chinese freshmen are a promising group. A few of them have a real gift.
You'll have to put extra effort into the Introduction to Paleography and Selected Readings in Daoist Classics courses you're teaching."
"It's my duty."
Li Qingshan nodded, his gaze passing over the stack of freshman rosters that had just been delivered to his desk.
He turned the pages of the rosters one by one.
Unfamiliar names entered his sight,
only to be swiftly processed, memorized, and categorized by his powerful divine sense.
Suddenly,
his fingertip paused.
On the roster of a freshman class in the ancient Chinese program, several names struck his eyes with startling abruptness.
Ye Fan.
Pang Bo.
Li Xiaoman.
Lin Jia.
Like four great boulders suddenly hurled into a tranquil lake!
In that instant, Li Qingshan's mind gave a slight shudder.
His spiritual sea of consciousness blazed with brilliant light, as though stirred by those names!
"Ye Fan, Pang Bo."
He silently repeated the two names, his brow creasing almost imperceptibly.
An indescribable sense of familiarity, mingled with a thread of something like a predestined path, wound its way around him.
Why would two freshmen he had never met before stir such a strong response in him?
Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin! Crossing the starry expanse!
The Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land! Life Forbidden Zones!
Dark Turmoil! Strife on the immortal path!
The Eastern Wasteland of the Big Dipper! The old lands of the Yan Kingdom!
The Demon Emperor's Tomb! The Primordial Ancient Mine!
The Desolate Ancient Sacred Body! The Innate Dao Embryo! The Chaos Body!
All manner of supreme divine bodies and king bodies,
the Hengyu Furnace! The Void Mirror!
The Devouring Heaven Demon Jar! The Beginningless Bell!
One Extreme Dao Emperor Weapon after another suppressed the ages,
the Ruthless Great Emperor! Great Emperor Wushi!
The Void Emperor! Emperor Hengyu!
The backs of the human Great Emperors held up the entire starry sky of the human race,
Heavenly Emperor Ye!
And Shrouding the Heavens!
Rumble.
Li Qingshan felt thunder rolling through his mind as countless scenes flashed past in rapid succession.
A magnificent, boundless, tragic fantasy world, filled with blood and fire, wars and legends,
had revealed itself before him!
Those names: Ye Fan! Pang Bo! Li Xiaoman! Lin Jia!
They were no longer ordinary freshmen!
A barely audible sigh escaped his lips.
So the inexplicable sense of "stillness" he had felt since birth
was the depletion of heaven and earth's essence Qi in Earth's Dharma-ending age.
The "shackles" within his body
were the seeds of the Body as the Seed method that the Desolate Heaven Emperor had planted in the beings of the Shrouding the Heavens universe,
doors to divine treasures that had yet to be opened.
Everything had an explanation.
"Teacher Li? Are you all right?"
A female colleague beside him noticed his momentary distraction and asked with concern,
"You don't look so well."
Li Qingshan instantly reined in all his outward emotions and regained his gentle composure. He smiled.
"I'm fine, Teacher Zhang. Maybe I didn't sleep well last night. I'm a little nervous about teaching the new students."
Teacher Zhang smiled.
"You get nervous too, Teacher Li? Even Professor Wang has praised the original insights in your classes."
"Oh? Has he?"
Li Qingshan replied as though it were a casual remark.
His colleagues' chatter became background noise as Li Qingshan's thoughts flew far away.
"Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin, Mount Tai."
He paced to the window, his gaze piercing the void as he looked east.
There lay the land of Qilu, where Mount Tai towered majestically.
According to his memories, the journey that would change the fates of many was not far off.
His students, the names on those rosters, would be the beginning of that legend.
Ye Fan, the future Heavenly Emperor Ye,
would break the Sacred Body Curse,
rise from desperate straits, bearing the hopes of all living beings,
battle the heavens and quell the Dark Turmoil,
and become an immortal in the mortal world.
Pang Bo, a Demon God Body, steadfast in his affections and loyal to his friends, would accompany him all the way.
Li Xiaoman would be possessed by the Crocodile Ancestor, suffer a turbulent fate, and meet a tragic end.
Lin Jia, Zhou Yi, Wang Ziwen-behind every name lay a life of twists and turns.
And his own students, whom he would teach over the next four years, would become the future Heavenly Emperor and Supremes!
The wonders of cause and effect could go no further than this.
The era he lived in was the very eve of that legend's opening!
"So that's how it is."
Li Qingshan slowly closed his eyes.
Through six years of secluded cultivation, he had thought he was merely accumulating strength in silence in an advanced Dharma-ending world,
waiting for the stone door to open again so he could explore the unknown heavens.
Never had he imagined that he had been standing all along at the edge of the whirlpool of such a magnificent age!
All along, he had been within arm's reach of the future protagonist, of the center of the storm that would sweep across the heavens!
Dharma-ending Earth, Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin-I've been at the starting point of the story all along!
The many emotions he had felt while reading the novel in his previous life,
his curiosity and longing for that starry sky,
his reflections on the fates of its characters,
collided thunderously with his understanding of reality at this moment, producing an exceedingly mysterious and stunning resonance.
Warm autumn sunlight fell over the campus, which was filled with youthful vitality.
Along the plane-tree avenue, freshmen moved back and forth, pulling their luggage, filled with anticipation and curiosity about the future.
His divine sense passed through the crowds like the most precise radar, sweeping over them without a sound.
Soon, using the photographs on the roster, he located two male students who had just registered.
His gaze settled beside a bench on a shaded path not far away.
Two male students who had just registered stood there, talking and laughing.
One was somewhat slender, with delicate features and clear eyes that held a steadiness rarely seen at his age.
The other was tall and burly, with a tiger's back and a bear's waist. His laughter was hearty, and he was full of vigor.
Ye Fan!
Pang Bo!
For now, they were only ordinary young men who had just entered university,
knowing nothing of the future, much less the cruel and magnificent way in which the gears of fate were about to turn for them.
Pang Bo was clapping Ye Fan hard on the shoulder, laughing loudly as he spoke.
"Yezi, we finally made it into the same university! I hear Jiangcheng University has beauties as plentiful as clouds. Are the good days about to begin for us?"
Ye Fan laughed and pushed him away.
"Is that all you ever think about? Let's get through military training first."
Li Qingshan watched them quietly, his gaze complicated.
He saw Ye Fan seem to sense someone watching him. Ye Fan looked up and glanced around in mild confusion, but found nothing.
"The course of fate,"
Li Qingshan murmured, his voice barely audible.
He knew that, according to those long-buried memories, seven years from now, on a trip to Mount Tai,
Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin would descend and carry them, along with some others, away from their homeland,
Head for the Big Dipper Star Domain, a place full of opportunities and dangers.
He turned away from the window and returned to his desk.
The roster lay there quietly.
His gaze swept over those names once more, but his state of mind had already changed.
He picked up a pen and lightly touched its tip to the list,
landing on the instructor's remarks field for the "Introduction to Ancient Scripts" course for Ye Fan's class.
Then, slowly, he wrote down his own name: Li Qingshan.
"Professor Li, the department has decided that your 'Introduction to Ancient Scripts' class
will be held in Room 404 of Teaching Building No. 1, at ten in the morning every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday."
The teaching secretary's voice came from the doorway.
Li Qingshan looked up and smiled faintly, his smile taking on a deeper meaning:
"All right, thank you.
I'm looking forward to meeting the new students."