As Ji Yuan walked along the quiet path, the scenery on either side began to blur with each step. After only five or six paces, faint white mist rose around him, and fleeting images seemed to flash by.
Silently, a peculiar fluctuation emanated from the path, with faint traces of formations appearing, exuding a subtle and inscrutable aura.
As he walked forward, he also stirred the white mist around him, causing one or two scenes to flash by from time to time. Though their contents were unclear, an incomparably familiar feeling arose in his heart.
It was as if these scenes originated from his memories, each one a moment he had personally experienced.
Ji Yuan's gaze grew distant, and he walked forward subconsciously, his face blank as if his soul had been lost.
In a daze, he seemed to see his past, familiar faces appearing before his eyes: his master and fellow disciples, as well as the aunts and uncles around the Daoist temple, and the old men who always chatted and played chess at the alley entrance.
Although his vision was gradually blurring, the scenes within the surrounding white mist became clearer. He felt as though he were walking on the streets of Qianyu City, even the faces of the vendors and passers-by were clearly visible.
With one step, he arrived at the small courtyard in the slums, where a slovenly scholar was holding a sage's text and reciting it aloud, shaking his head.
With another step, he naturally appeared in a hundred-year-old ancient temple. Beneath an old tree, a young monk turned prayer beads in one hand and gently tapped a wooden fish with the other.
Ji Yuan quietly stopped. The scene before him gradually receded, transforming into an image that floated in the white mist to his right. To his left, the mist held the courtyard with the scholar.
He could hear the clear sounds of reading and the solemn chants of scriptures, both so familiar yet so strange.
After a long while, when he took another step, the scenes on both sides slowly dispersed like smoke, and the two different voices gradually faded behind him.
Suddenly, an endless darkness surged like a tide, engulfing all light in an instant.
Ji Yuan walked forward as if in a trance, alone in the boundless darkness. Time seemed to cease to exist here, leaving only an infinite loneliness that could drive one to despair.
After an unknown period, a sound suddenly came from ahead. The darkness before him slowly receded, and an image floated before him.
Under a dim sky, a young Daoist stood with a sword, silently watching his former close friend, the scholar who had given up all his fame and fortune for a hopeless group of people.
Ji Yuan stared blankly. Upon seeing himself in the image, personally slaying his former close friend, a flicker of emotion finally appeared in his eyes.
Silently, he suddenly turned his gaze aside, looking at the monk who had fallen unconscious in the corner of the scene. An indescribable feeling began to spread in his heart.
"Is this interesting?"
He asked in a low voice, his words slowly spreading through the darkness.
As his voice faded, a flash of clarity crossed his eyes, and his gaze gradually returned to normal.
After a long pause, seeing no response, Ji Yuan gently waved his hand and wiped away the image before him. His movements, though slow, were firm, without the slightest hesitation.
As the scene before his eyes gradually dissipated, the surrounding darkness also retreated bit by bit, and slivers of light began to push through.
At the same time, noisy sounds broke the solitude of the place. As the darkness completely retreated, he found himself standing on the streets of Qianyu City, with pedestrians coming and going all around.
At the street corner not far away, several vendors were selling snacks: wontons, spring onion noodles, and scallion pancakes, their rich aromas filling the entire street.
"Such a realistic illusion..."
Ji Yuan murmured to himself. Everything before him made him feel as if he had returned to Qianyu City.
Even though he knew he was in an illusion, everything before him was incredibly real, and he could even smell the aroma of food in the air.
He suddenly started, his gaze falling on a boy not far away. Seeing the somewhat faded Daoist robe, an ineffable feeling suddenly arose in his heart.
"Is it over yet..."
After a long while, he couldn't help but sigh, a hint of helplessness on his face.
Since entering the underground dojo, he had encountered illusions and dreamscapes with increasing frequency, and almost every time, they would stir this particular memory in his heart.
Shaking his head, Ji Yuan walked forward, and then arrived before his young self.
He placed one hand on his young self's head and tapped his forehead heavily with the other. Then, he roughly pushed him aside and continued walking forward without even looking back.
Since severing his childhood malevolence with his sword intent in the illusion created by the disciple of the Wangyue Sect, he no longer felt any emotional turmoil from it and could calmly accept his past self.
"You can't escape it!"
The boy behind him shouted with all his might, "You think you've severed your malevolence, but you're just avoiding your past. What has already happened, no matter how hard you try, will still exist!"
As his voice rose, Ji Yuan stopped. After his voice slowly fell, he couldn't help but sigh.
He didn't turn around, because he already knew in his heart that the boy behind him was not truly his younger self, but rather the creator of the illusion had taken possession of him.
At this moment, he suddenly remembered that after comprehending the twelfth method, the stone tablet had not posed a question as it had the previous eleven times, but had directly turned into fine sand.
Now, it seemed, this was the long-delayed question.
"Past events are like smoke, like dust. Everything should scatter with the wind. Whether something exists or not is merely a memory."
Without thinking, he spoke directly to his 'younger self' with his back turned, "No matter how it was in the past, it may have some influence, but it cannot determine the future."
When he was caught in the illusion of the Wangyue Sect disciple, he had also been stirred by memories of the past, seeing his younger self filled with malevolence.
That time, Ji Yuan not only severed his past malevolence with sword intent but also gained many insights, understanding a very simple truth.
The past is the past. No matter how many things have happened, what truly determines the future is only the present.
With that, he stopped lingering. His steps, though not fast, were firm as he walked forward. With each step, the surrounding scenery rapidly vanished.
It was as if, just as he had said, all past events would eventually scatter with the wind.
When all the illusions completely dissipated, a white light instantly filled his vision. After his eyes adjusted to the light, he found himself back on that quiet path.
However, the path was now free of mist, and he had reached its end.
Ji Yuan looked forward and saw that beyond the end was a dense bamboo forest. Within it, there was a small clearing, no more than seven or eight zhang in size.
In the clearing within the bamboo forest, several desks made of green bamboo were placed, but they were empty, with nothing on them.
And surrounding the desks stood Huang Tianci and the other seven figures, facing each other quietly, a very strange atmosphere permeating between them.
After a brief moment of thought, Ji Yuan strode forward to this spot, about seven or eight paces away from the group.
"You are the only one who has reached this place so far."
Huang Tianci slowly turned around, a smile on his face, "Congratulations."
Looking at the young man before him, Ji Yuan remained somewhat silent. Although Huang Tianci still had a smile on his face, he appeared very weary.
Even his eyes exuded a weariness that seemed to have endured for thousands of years.
"These people..."
He sighed inwardly, then turned his gaze to Xu Luoxuan and the others beside him.
These six men and women stood like puppets, their faces devoid of any expression, their eyes having lost their usual luster, and no trace of life could be felt from them.
"These were all my good friends. In our youth, we roamed the world together. Even though we were all born as reclusive cultivators, we still moved forward with hope."
Huang Tianci sighed, his eyes filled with reminiscence.
Alas, his former friends had long since passed away in the long passage of time. These were merely shadowy illusions that he had managed to manifest through special means, after paying a great price.
Without his spiritual power sustaining them, and without the infusion of past memories, only their forms remained.
Shaking his head, Huang Tianci waved his hand gently. A light breeze swept past, causing the figures of the six to turn into dust and slowly fade away before his eyes.
"You are the master of this water mansion, the former Grandmaster of Alchemy, aren't you?"
After a long while, Ji Yuan finally spoke, but not with a question, rather with a certainty about the other's identity.
Hearing this, Huang Tianci nodded slightly, not denying it. Indeed, a halo emanated from him, and he transformed into an old man with white hair and beard.
"Having lingered for thousands of years, this dojo has finally reappeared in the human world. If it were a few more years, I would truly be unable to hold on."
He sighed and shook his head, but thinking that he could still walk outside the water mansion with his 'friends' and interact with various cultivators, a smile touched his lips.
"River God Dao?"
Ji Yuan's eyebrows twitched, and a guess immediately surfaced in his mind.
Indeed, the old man before him nodded, and faint fluctuations of divine power emanated from him, confirming his guess.
For some reason, this person had escaped the calamity thousands of years ago. However, due to the power of heavenly punishment and other factors, he had been forced to transform himself into a water deity through the 'River God Dao' cultivation method.
It was precisely for this reason that the other party could persist until now, but thousands of years of time were ultimately too much for a deity without incense offerings.
If Huang Tianci had not been a Grandmaster of Alchemy, and if the water mansion had not been affected by the great battle of the past and planted with a large number of spiritual herbs, he might not have been able to hold on until now.