Chapter 268: Taking Over Luo Sheng's Life

Fei Yu finished speaking.

Yan Jing finally understood who the phoenix bird she mentioned was.

"Why would it appear in this small village?" he asked.

Fei Yu paused, her voice tinged with sorrow.

"It did not originally belong to this world. Many years ago, it faced a life-and-death crisis and was forced to cross over from a great Domain. Already severely injured, it lost all its powers. When the people of Huangjia Village saw its divine bearing, they enshrined it as a Deity."

"In order to recover its strength, and needing a place to rest, the phoenix bird accepted their offerings. In return, it bestowed its feathers upon the people of Huangjia Village to ward off disaster and dropped its tears into their well to serve as medicine."

"Little did it know—it never anticipated the greed of the human heart, nor did it foresee that the New Heaven of this world had arrived."

"During the Imperial Era, the Secular Path of Minhu had not yet declined. The village chief of Huangjia Village mastered a method of offering to the New Heaven. After seeing the extraordinary nature of the phoenix bird, he reported the matter to the New Heaven through a sacrificial ritual."

"Thereby, they obtained a method to imprison the phoenix, locking the phoenix bird away to pluck its feathers and drink its blood."

Fei Yu said softly:

"From then on, centuries passed. The Imperial Era vanished, and the Minhu period arrived. Huangjia Village changed its name to Huang Family Village."

"Out of various considerations, the people of Huangjia Village moved the phoenix bird into a dense forest somewhere."

"Then, several more centuries passed."

"Until eight years ago."

"A wealthy young master brought his butler back to the village to visit relatives."

"No, I should say he 'dragged' his butler back to the village to visit relatives."

At this, a hint of a smile touched Fei Yu's lips.

"That wealthy young master's butler was originally an abandoned child from Huang Family Village. He had seen the phoenix bird a few times when he was little, though he didn't know what it was. Later, because he was the fourth person in his household, he was abandoned by his family in accordance with village rules."

"When he returned, he had somehow become the wealthy young master's butler."

"The wealthy young master was a meddler who liked to worry about others. Hearing that his butler hadn't returned home in many years, he asked where the man's family was, wanting to let him see his hometown one more time."

"But the butler didn't want to see the parents who had abandoned him. To divert his young master's attention, he mentioned there was an incredibly beautiful bird somewhere nearby."

"The two of them sought out the phoenix bird's secret location. The wealthy young master saw that the phoenix bird was completely devoid of life, its legs and feet densely covered in scars, and half the feathers on its wings gone. He also heard his butler say that the villagers frequently collected its blood and plucked its feathers."

"The young master was indignant. He originally wanted to set the phoenix bird free, but he discovered a major array set up at its place of imprisonment. The cage couldn't be opened, and they might even trigger a talisman that would expose their whereabouts."

"Left with no other choice, he could only secretly take out his family's mysterious salve to heal the phoenix bird's injuries."

"That mysterious salve was truly extraordinary. The phoenix bird's depleted origin was restored. Having recovered its power, it hinted to the young master to wipe away a corner of the talisman on the ground."

"The two then left. With its origin restored, the phoenix bird stayed in this world for many years, and it had long since found a way to escape."

"The Curse of the Imprisoned Phoenix is a product of the New Heaven in this Domain, so the people of Minhu could not possibly break it. However, someone from another great Domain, or an existence known as a human, could attempt it."

"Through a method of dream entry, it anchored a human in this Domain and made a deal: it would help the human step into the Sixth Tier, and the human would help it break the Curse of the Imprisoned Phoenix."

"Things went very smoothly."

"It managed to escape."

"But at the final juncture, that human suddenly turned hostile, intending to use the weakened phoenix bird as the foundation for his own ascension to the Sixth Tier."

"Subsequently, the phoenix bird used the Nirvana Rebirth Method to barely escape."

"However, this Method of Nirvana would not only cause the phoenix bird to lose the vast majority of its memories, but also regress it back into a hatchling."

Fei Yu didn't say any more.

They both understood the rest of the story. Fei Yu found Luo Sheng, and then eight years passed.

Yan Jing just hadn't expected it.

That the Old Man was also involved in this.

No wonder the Old Man's expression hadn't looked too good when Bi Jie brought up Huang Family Village back then.

Back then, when Luo Sheng asked him where his hometown was, he refused to say. He probably had never mentioned it to Bi Jie, either.

Speaking of which, the collective crossing over of Huang Family Village to the Surface World eight years ago was probably inextricably linked to Fei Yu breaking free from the Curse of the Imprisoned Phoenix.

He had a premonition that the waters here were much deeper than he had imagined.

"So all of your memories have recovered now, Xiao Yu?"

Yan Jing asked gently.

Fei Yu shook her head.

The drawbacks of Nirvana Rebirth were immense. Not only had merely a fraction of her lost memories returned, but more importantly, to her present self, those memories felt like reading a storybook, possessing an extremely strong sense of detachment.

Her most intense memories were still of these past eight years.

Therefore, what she cared about the most was still her own foolish young master—

Thinking of this, her tears began to fall.

"How did the young master die?"

"His throat was slit,"

Yan Jing said.

"Impossible!"

Fei Yu froze for a moment, then cried out through her tears, "The young master had the salve! How could he die from having his throat slit?"

That salve could revive the dead and put flesh on bare bones. She had experienced it herself. Now that Yan Jing was telling her he'd had his throat slit, she couldn't accept it.

"Yes, he originally had some,"

Yan Jing replied, his tone inadvertently carrying a touch of melancholy.

After Fei Yu asked this question, his mind finally recalled what Young Master Luo was doing in the last fifteen minutes of his life.

Young Master Luo hadn't woken up immediately after his throat was slit. Instead, it was on the verge of death that his body's instincts woke him from his coma. Then, he used the last of his strength to reach for the jar he always kept at his waist.

But the moment he touched it, he tossed the jar off the carriage.

Because the jar was already empty.

Yan Jing remembered all the scenes of Luo Sheng's journey: the Old Man who had been crippled by others, Fei Yu who had lost her feathers, the strength cultivator with a broken leg, the bricklayer with lung disease—and many, many more, too numerous to count.

Young Master Luo had watched the salve gradually diminish. Whenever it was about to run out, he would add some water to thin it out, but in the end, it was finally gone.

He knew he was going to die, so he threw that empty jar away.

Because he didn't want his maid to be heartbroken after finding him.

"That's impossible!"

Fei Yu couldn't accept it, sobbing uncontrollably.

"Didn't you say that no matter what, you had to save some?! Master Liu's hidden affliction this time, wasn't it you who cured him with the salve?"

Fei Yu had always thought that the reason the Old Man had recovered this time was because Luo Sheng had finally taken out the remaining bit of salve to cure the Old Man's hidden affliction.

Crying deeply, she could no longer distinguish if the person before her was her young master. Her words changed back to using the respectful 'you'. "Good birdie, sweet birdie, it won't hurt once the medicine is applied."

That man's gentle tone seemed to echo in her ears.

Finally, she raised her head, looking at Yan Jing with teary eyes.

"Are you actually not dead at all? Were you lying to me?"

"Perhaps,"

Yan Jing said softly with a smile, causing Fei Yu to cry even louder.

The person in front of her really looked like her young master.

It was only after a few seconds that she finally stopped, as if accepting reality. Wiping her tears, she bowed to Yan Jing and said, "I'm sorry, I've made a fool of myself in front of you."

"I will handle the matters I left behind myself. Please continue to play this role. Even your fate chart is the same as my foolish young master's; Master Liu and the others could never tell the difference."

"Back then, although I escaped using the Method of Nirvana, the New Heaven had already anchored itself to the great Domain behind me through me."

"The reason why it dictated that Huang Family Village could only have forty-nine households was to draw upon the Daoist principle of the Great Dao being fifty, of which heaven evolves forty-nine. And then it made every household have only three people, drawing upon the law that one begets two, two begets three, and three begets all things."

"The entire Huang Family Village, myself included, is actually a Living Human Array leading to the great Domain behind me. I am its core."

"Once East Lake Prefecture makes its preparations, they will head to the great Domain behind me through Huang Family Village."

"Originally, it only required the forty-nine households of Huang Family Village to be in their positions. Even if there were only partial remains, they could open the pathway to the Domain behind me. Now that the forty-nine households of Huang Family Village are gone, I am the only available array core."

"That human used my blood to advance, so he can calculate my whereabouts. Once Mr. Huzi leaves, it will be impossible for me to hide anymore. Even the New Heaven will help him, and he will find me very soon."

"As for Master Liu and Mr. Huzi, there is no need to worry. I will handle them as well. Please believe in me."

As her voice fell, Fei Yu slowly turned around and walked toward the door, step by step.

But suddenly, an inexplicable sensation passed through her mind. She felt as if she had forgotten some things and remembered some others.

Then, Luo Sheng's gentle voice came from behind her:

"Xiao Yu, are you really leaving?"

Fei Yu turned around blankly and looked at Luo Sheng behind her. She was shocked to discover that the slight unreasonableness she had previously sensed in her young master had unexpectedly vanished.

She didn't know when it had started, but in her eyes, there had always seemed to be a trace of strangeness about Luo Sheng. But suddenly, that strange feeling disappeared.

Furthermore...

Why was she leaving again?

It seemed it was because she didn't want to implicate her young master, because she was going to look for that human.

Right, just now her young master said he was lying to her, that he hadn't died at all and was just joking with her.

Yes, she had just cried out of happiness.

But why... were her tears falling again?

She blankly touched the tears streaming down her face.

Until Yan Jing walked up to her side, hugged her, and said gently:

"Xiao Yu, don't leave. Sleep for a while—"

Yan Jing spoke softly, then raised his hand in a chop. Triggering his Fear form, he struck heavily on the back of Fei Yu's neck.

Caught off guard, Fei Yu fainted.

Still feeling uneasy, Yan Jing followed up with a few more chops.

Taking advantage of the moment Fei Yu turned around, and having fulfilled Eldest Young Master Luo's unfulfilled wish, he chose to completely take over Eldest Young Master Luo's life. From then on, reversing cause and effect, he was Luo Sheng—whether it was the Luo Sheng of the past or the Luo Sheng of the future.

And the memory of their conversation just now had also been slightly modified by him.

Halfway through, he had explained that he was lying to Fei Yu.

He also slightly adjusted a few details, smoothing out all the illogical points in Fei Yu's previous memories.

They became: her young master had secrets, but her young master was always her young master.

Especially the part about the noodles.

Holding the unconscious Fei Yu, he closed his eyes slightly and sat quietly at the table in the middle of the courtyard.

He was very mindful of one thing Fei Yu had just said.

That was the fact that he and the previous Luo Sheng shared the same fate chart.

He didn't know if this so-called identical fate chart was because he was using Luo Sheng's body, or if he originally shared the exact same fate chart as the previous Luo Sheng.

But looking back at this incident, he suddenly understood why Eldest Young Master Luo's dying wish was to make noodles one last time.

During this journey of taking over a life.

If he hadn't tried to let Tiger grasp the power of Fate, Tiger wouldn't have been entangled by great destiny, and thus wouldn't have needed to leave.

If he hadn't cured the Old Man's hidden affliction and instead relied on himself to complete the Third Stage of the task, the Old Man wouldn't have drawn the attention of Across the Lake, and he wouldn't need to leave now.

If he hadn't insisted on embarking on this journey, Fei Yu wouldn't have been locked onto by that human so quickly, and she wouldn't have left either.

Without all these radical actions, apart from the difficulty of fulfilling the final wish and maximizing favorability, everything would have been fine.

It was just like Eldest Young Master Luo back then.

If he hadn't sought to investigate the reasons behind his family's destruction and hadn't returned to Bianliu County, perhaps he would still be living a peaceful and ordinary life with the Old Man and Fei Yu right now.

In the final moments of his life, it was probably because he had this exact thought that he remembered this courtyard where the three of them had once stayed.

So what if there were more mosquitoes? So what if there were fewer noodles?

There are mosquitoes in the courtyard.

But we are also there.

From a certain perspective, his and Eldest Young Master Luo's destinies truly were similar.

"However, from now on, I am you,"

Yan Jing murmured in his heart.

He would attempt to reverse this flawed life in his own way.

When the sky began to brighten, after handing Fei Yu over to Tiger and Bi Jie next door, he returned to the courtyard and exited the Inner World.

Today was the day the Dungeon would be released.

It was also the day he prepared to make a major move for the first time.

He took out his phone and dialed a number he had never called before.

"Hello? Uncle Wang, it's me, Little Jing. Have you had breakfast yet?"

"I wanted to ask about Huang Family Village. Are the bones of those inner world residents and such still there?"