Qin Yun continued bringing his granddaughter around on an experiential training trip. Simultaneously, he would record down any new insights he received, as a form of accumulation for the Seven Stars Sword Dao’s second volume.
And in Cang City.
Golden Immortal Meng Fu’s obsession kept affecting him.
“Brother Meng. Brother Meng.” A young girl came to a pavilion tower, and ran up the stairs with great familiarity. The old servants in the building did not stop her despite seeing her do so.
Upstairs.
Meng Fu sat cross-legged as he read from the pile of books placed beside him.
“Brother Meng, you are still reading?” said the girl with a smile.
“That’s right, Yanyan.” Meng Fu looked at the girl and could not help but suffuse a warm, gentle smile.
The girl’s temperament, looks, and bearing…
They were identical to his memories. She just had an immortal air to her.
“Ah Yan, I chanced upon this young lady named Ni Yan in Cang City. She was only fifteen then and I felt that she bore a strong resemblance to you. I never expected the resemblance to increase the older she became. Her bearing, the way she gets angry is just like you. Even her name is very similar. Although I’ve cultivated for tens of thousands of years, I can’t forget the twenty years when we were husband and wife.
“You married me and shared my burdens.
“When I was conscripted, you stayed alone at home to keep the family going while serving my old mother.
“I still remember the letters we wrote down to the words.
“In winter, the wounds from your cracking fingers.
“In bed, you curled up into my embrace due to the cold weather.
“When you were ill, I stayed by your side daily. I’ve remembered every detail all this while.
“We were a married couple, but I hate myself for being useless. I failed to give you true bliss. I was also drifting along in the mortal world. My mother passed away, and after you died from illness, I gave up all my mortal baggage and entered the mountains, preparing to die of old age alone. I never expected I would gain an immortal affinity and manage to cultivate to my present realm.
“I have always wished to find you again.
“To repay all that I owe you, but I did not have the chance. You had reincarnated several times and lost yourself to Samsara. Your memories were no longer around, and you were no longer you.
“I had long decided to bury you in my heart and not dwell on the matters of the past. However, when this Miss Ni Yan appeared before me, she really looked identical to when you were young; before you married me…” Meng Fu thought to himself. “I could not stop myself from thinking of you daily. When I see her, my thoughts of you only intensify.
“I thought of leaving Cang City and that perhaps it would be better not seeing her. But I couldn’t bear the thought, so I have been here all this while.”
They were a married couple for twenty years during his mortal days.
His feelings for his wife had become an obsession he found impossible to forget all this while.
No matter how powerful his cultivation became, he still was unable to forget.
“Brother Meng, I’ll be out participating in an experiential training with my other fellow disciples.” The young girl was a little excited. “This is the first time I’ll be dealing with demons despite being so old.”
“Dealing with demons?” Meng Fu nodded gently.
“It’s a demon that eats humans. It’s likely at the second firmament Essence Soul realm. With a few of my fellow disciples working together, that demon will not escape,” Ni Yan said in excited anticipation.
“You have to be careful,” said Meng Fu with a smile.
“Hmm.”
Ni Yan nodded. “I came to inform you, Brother Meng. I have to return to prepare.”
Ni Yan had acquainted herself with this Brother Meng when she was fifteen. He had helped her several times and had even saved her life. She naturally shared a close tie with him.
Meng Fu watched as Ni Yan went down the building and left.
…
Just three days later.
“No!”
In the pavilion building, Meng Fu, who was still reading the array graphs in the books, had a drastic change in expression. He vanished from his spot with Major Void Transference.
Soon.
Thousands of kilometers away from Cang City.
A wolf demon that secretly cultivated in an evil Dharmic formulation released a calabash and sucked the souls of five cultivators nearby into it.
“Hahaha, I have collected five souls at the Essence Soul realm. With another three hundred, my Soul Calabash will be enough to finish refining the twelve Guardian Godfiends.” The wolf demon was overjoyed. The Heavenly realm was extremely vast. He had secretly schemed against a few Essence Soul fellows but was not killing mortals. The sin cultivators derived from killing each other was trivial.
However, matters such as soul refinement were overly evil. It was denounced by many, so he had to be careful.
After all, even if cultivators died, they still hoped to redo things through reincarnation.
However, soul refinement basically severed one’s hopes of reincarnating. It was why it was so condemned.
“You’re courting death!”
With an angry bellow, the wolf demon felt a terrifying wave envelop him. The invisible aura left him unable to move as he widened his eyes in horror.
He saw someone appear in front of him out of thin air. The person stretched his hand out and grabbed the soul refinement calabash from the wolf demon’s hand.
“You actually dare to refine souls?” Meng Fu revealed an anxious look.
“Yanyan, Yanyan.” Meng Fu instantly took control of the soul refinement calabash.
Hu! Hu! Hu!
The soul refinement calabash released fifteen specters which were still fighting one another. One of them was in the form of Ni Yan. She was biting the other souls with a ferocious look. When the other soul fragments entered her body, her soul turned chaotic. These specters’ wills were turning mixed and complicated.
“Yanyan, Yanyan.” Meng Fu immediately used his Dharmic powers to protect Ni Yan’s chaotic soul. “I will save you.”
He attempted reforming Ni Yan’s soul; however, Ni Yan’s soul was already in shambles. Furthermore, she had fused with the other soul fragments. The advent of any fusion made it difficult for Meng Fu to reverse the process.
He was already considered lucky to find her in this state.
Such newly absorbed souls were usually unable to defeat the specters that had been nurtured in the soul refinement calabash for years. It was very common for them to be eaten up upon contact. But now, Ni Yan’s soul had actually managed to consume the other souls and was partially still in existence. That was quite a remarkable feat.
“Whoosh~”
The soul fragments contained some of her memories of her life.
The further the memories were from the present, the more blurred they became.
This was also why numerous reincarnations would wear down one’s memories.
“This is…”
Meng Fu was taken aback.
In one of the soul fragments in Ni Yan’s incomplete form, he saw a woman washing clothes by the river. When she looked up and saw her husband who had returned ten years after the war, she cried in agitation.
“Ah Yan.”
After lifetimes of frittering and having memories wiped through reincarnation, the few scenes which were left behind were the most impressionable ones. Clearly, the scene of waiting for her husband to return from the war for ten years had left the deepest imprint on her.
“She is Ah Yan’s reincarnation?” Meng Fu was completely stunned.
“T-This… Why didn’t I do a thorough investigation!? Like a fool, I believed that Ah Yan had reincarnated too many times and that I cannot awaken her original memories. I thought I shouldn’t disturb her any further. Even though I noticed how Yanyan looks like Ah Yan… and even suspected she was a reincarnation of Ah Yan, I still foolishly decided to let Yanyan live her own life.
“I did not even check if she’s Ah Yan’s reincarnation.
“I felt that I had to let go.
“But wasn’t my staying in Cang City a result of me being unable to let go? I’m just fooling myself!
“What do I do? What do I do? Ah Yan, how am I to save you?”
Meng Fu reeled in anxiety.
And deep in Ni Yan’s soul, the souls she had consumed were fusing with her in an unstoppable manner. She was slowly turning more belligerent.
“I can’t save her. I can’t save her. Even as a Golden Immortal, I can only watch this helplessly.
“I’ll never be able to save her.
“Back when I saw Ah Yan pass away, I was helpless. Today, I’m just as helpless. How useless I am.” Meng Fu’s obsession over the past tens of thousands of years reached an intense maximum. Emotions of regret and guilt filled his heart.
Meng Fu turned to look at the wolf demon beside him. “How dare you cultivate in such evil arts?”
“I wanted to refine the twelve Guardian Godfiends.” The wolf demon was burning with anxiety. “Senior, please spare me!”
“Twelve Guardian Godfiends? You want to refine Ah Yan into a Guardian Godfiend? You deserve death!” Meng Fu’s eyes were fill with a ferocity. A terrifying might swept through the wolf demon as he instantly disintegrated in horror and despair.
At the instant the wolf demon disintegrated, an invisible energy bore right into Meng Fu’s body.
Meng Fu was going through intense emotional upheavals, as though it provided the perfect breeding ground for this power which fused within him.
“Hahaha, I’ve succeeded. It is when he is feeling intense emotions that his Dao heart will reveal a flaw. It allowed my avatar of lust to easily fuse with him. In a few years, I’ll be able to full control him.” King of Myriad Fiends, Boxun, rejoiced in Meng Fu’s mind. As for Meng Fu, he did not sense any problems at all as he wallowed in misery.
A perfected Great Dao existence could easily scheme against an ordinary Golden Immortal. If his goal was not to infiltrate the human’s Three Sovereigns’ Fire Cloud Palace, there was no need for him to go through such troubles.
******
Qin Yuluo did not know that the Brother Meng she thought of keenly had suffered this calamity. She was still obediently practicing according to Qin Yun’s arrangements.
In the blink of an eye.
Qin Yun had taught his granddaughter for 530 years. This day, they were walking on a path amid the concluding sunset.
“Yuluo.” Qin Yuluo looked to the side as he waved his hand, sending a residential building to land on the desolate plains by the side of a road. “Let’s stay here for today.”
“Yes, Grandfather.” Qin Yuluo revealed a look of glee.
That night.
Qin Yun sat in his room with the book placed in front of him, ruminating over what he should write next. Much time had passed, but Qin Yun had not been able to finish the second volume of the Seven Stars Sword Dao. It was still very far from his objective.
Frogs croaked outside in a symphony as the cold night breeze blew into the room.
Qin Yun listened to the ribbits as he looked up and over. He saw a sky filled with stars. The scene made him recall the days when he lived in the village as a child.
He put down his brush and walked out the room.
Standing in the yard, he looked up at the star-filled sky. Be it the Great Chang world or the Heavenly realm, the star-filled sky looked the same, just like the eye-catching dipper that formed the seven stars of the Big Dipper.
“Seven stars…” Qin Yun looked at the Big Dipper as his state of mind was thrown back to the times when he looked up as a child back in the village.
It was no longer a state of mind that focused on cultivation.
Instead, it was a state of mind that resembled unsophisticated nature.
However, it gave Qin Yun a baffling inspiration.
“Boom!”
After teaching his granddaughter for more than five centuries, the insights he received on a daily basis had accumulated to an extreme. The inspiration that Qin Yun suddenly had naturally transformed into a full-bodied system.
A Great Dao surfaced in Qin Yun’s mind.
Qin Yun felt pleasantly surprised as a thought flashed past his mind. “While guiding Yuluo’s cultivation, I ended up figuring out the Seven Stars Great Dao!”
Yes, he had been stuck at a bottleneck in his attempt to figure out the Great Dao of Man. Yet, on this very night, he had naturally figured out a pinnacle Great Dao, the Seven Stars Great Dao.