Like a drowning person suddenly breaking the surface to find air, Qin Zhizhi abruptly jolted awake, opening her eyes and gasping for breath. Her vision was entirely dark, as if she had plunged into a boundless void.
Qin Zhizhi immediately realized something was wrong. She had been so deeply immersed in the scene just now that she had nearly trapped herself in it. If not for the lack of her system’s voice, she really would have believed she was dead.
When exactly had she realized something was off? After closing her eyes, she had felt her consciousness gradually fading, on the verge of dissolving entirely into the world. But then a thought suddenly struck her: Wait a minute, where is my system?
She was different from the others; she was a transmigrator carrying a system. If the mission was over and the wedding was off, her system should have notified her of the mission’s completion rather than letting her simply die.
To put it simply: Where on earth did that massive system in my head go?
The moment she realized this, Qin Zhizhi regained her breath and snapped awake.
That was incredibly close; she had almost fallen for it.
By now, how could Qin Zhizhi still be in the dark about her situation? The anomalies had all started when the old monk opened his eyes. On the screen, the slightly plump, round-faced monk had opened his eyes with a smile. In his eyes, one could see a grain of sand, a flower, a drop of water, and furthermore, a Buddhist pagoda, a world, and the stars.
A mustard seed containing Mount Meru; an instant stretching into eternity.
Although Qin Zhizhi, whose soul had been scattered across the four directions, had never witnessed such a miraculous phenomenon, she recalled a tale. She had once browsed through a book titled Strange Tales of Another World in the library of the Tiantong Sect. The book recorded myths and legends passed down in this world from tens of thousands of years ago, one of which was related to the Shapo Sect.
There was a legend on the continent that the world they lived in was merely a dream of Brahma. Everyone existed within his dream, and the moment he rolled over and woke up, people would be shaken loose from his dream like leaves, falling into an endless void. Upon hearing this tale, a patriarch of the Shapo Sect cultivated diligently day after day beneath a Bodhi tree until he achieved enlightenment. He created the mental cultivation method “Pure Heaven Dream” and founded the Shapo Sect on his own. Five hundred years later, he successfully ascended, becoming the third recorded ascended cultivator in the continent’s history.
The Pure Heaven Dream could trap a person in their own dreamscape, even causing real death. However, this mental method was bizarre and exceedingly difficult to practice, so later generations rarely passed it down. In the current Shapo Sect, aside from the Sect Master’s lineage, no one practiced this technique anymore, and Qin Zhizhi had never encountered it before.
If she had ever seen it, she would have gouged out that old monk’s eyes on the screen right then and there!
Though she did not yet know why, Qin Zhizhi guessed that she had not entered her own dream, but rather Xie Yutai’s. Because it was not her own dream, her actions had been restricted. Since the dream consisted of memories they both had experienced, she had almost been drawn into it. If she had not remembered her system, her soul would likely have dissipated completely, just as she had seen in the dream.
Qin Zhizhi knitted her brows, growing angrier the more she thought about it.
Right then, she heard noises coming from the darkness. There was the sound of overturned tables and chairs, a chaotic scuffle, and a woman’s hysterical laughter.
“Hahaha, Xie Yutai, you’ve gone mad! Do you really think that by killing me, you can get away clean and avenge her?”
Qin Zhizhi pricked up her ears and looked toward the direction of the sound. Yet she could see nothing. Her field of vision was filled with an absolute, boundless darkness that brought about an inexplicable sense of suffocation.
After a long silence, a cold, detached voice finally spoke slowly: “You should not have touched her.”
The hysterical female voice spat fiercely: “If she hadn’t been so foolish, how could she have taken the bait?”
The sound of something being violently hacked apart rang out, followed by a dead silence. Qin Zhizhi held her breath, her heart thumping in her ears like thunder.
The woman chuckled softly: “Hehe, you don’t dare to kill me. Our transaction isn’t over yet.”
“What exactly do you want?”
The woman’s voice sounded like a siren’s curse, whispering close to the ear.
“Xie Yutai, I want your heart.”
Xie Yutai’s heart.
What a luxury.
There was a time when Qin Zhizhi had wanted it too.
Later on, she only wondered if Xie Yutai even possessed a heart.
Could someone who practiced the Path of Absolute Emotions truly have a heart?
The immortal lord Xuetang, who had created the Path of Absolute Emotions and successfully ascended, had lived his entire life without family, friends, affection, or love. Before his ascension, he had done only one thing, he personally executed his own master, who was the Sect Master of the Guiyuan Sect at the time. People claimed this was to sever his final lingering attachment to this world. How ironic that the Sect Master of the Guiyuan Sect had raised him from childhood and guided him into adulthood, only to meet such an end.
The world believed that to achieve the Path of Absolute Emotions, one had to sever all feelings, reject love, and remain free of any attachments.
Five hundred years after Xuetang’s ascension, Xie Yutai took up this cultivation method, becoming the only person to practice the Path of Absolute Emotions.
Rather than saying he chose the path, it was more accurate to say the path chose him.
Qin Zhizhi sat quietly in the void, her mind wandering through random thoughts. Suddenly, she felt a sharp, gouging pain in her heart. Her face turned instantly pale, and she clutched her collar tightly. At this moment, it felt as though someone was squeezing her heart with tremendous force.
Did she actually feel real pain even in a dream? Why?
Qin Zhizhi felt as though she was being strangled, overwhelmed by a wave of suffocation as cold sweat poured down her body like a rainstorm. She could not control her movements, feeling her chest tighten abruptly as if bound hard by something.
That intense, near-death sensation completely engulfed her. Qin Zhizhi’s vision blurred, and she eventually closed her eyes completely, falling back into darkness.
Once the heartache subsided and she opened her eyes again, Qin Zhizhi stood completely unharmed in the void, her face devoid of expression. If there was a word to describe her feelings right now, it was simply: numb.
She had to admit that the Pure Heaven Dream was remarkably powerful. It was so realistic and emotionally intense; no wonder the Shapo Sect had not produced many outstanding young talents in the past century but still managed to secure a spot among the three major sects. With just this highly mastered Pure Heaven Dream, the Sect Master could likely wipe out half of the demon realm or the cultivation world with a single glance.
If she had not kept reminding herself that this was merely a dream and forced herself to close her eyes and sleep, she probably would have met her end this time.
Qin Zhizhi began to feel an unprompted melancholy.
This was too difficult. This puzzle was simply too hard.
Could Xie Yutai break the dream?
Just as she let out a long sigh, a cold snort echoed in her ear: “Hmph, to think someone broke my dream so quickly. How utterly boring.”
Qin Zhizhi sprang up. A faint light suddenly appeared in the once-empty void, and a blurry figure materialized out of thin air. It looked as if someone had brushed an ink painting onto the air; the colors grew deeper and the outline became sharper until finally, a round-faced monk wearing a monastic robe stood before her.
Was this not the very monk who had been reclining on the screen painting earlier?
Qin Zhizhi widened her eyes, sizing the person up and down, not daring to approach just yet.
The round-faced monk was equally impolite, scanning her from head to toe. Eventually, he uttered with a face full of disdain: “Just you?”
Hearing this, Qin Zhizhi was baffled: “What do you mean, ‘just me’?”
The round-faced monk was highly annoyed: “Such an interesting technique of mine, yet it was ultimately breached by someone with a deficient spiritual consciousness like you. What fun is there left to play?”
Qin Zhizhi was shocked: “What on earth are you talking about?”
Deficient spiritual consciousness? Was he referring to her?
The round-faced monk asked in surprise: “You don’t know it yourself?”
Qin Zhizhi scratched her head: “I don’t know.”
The round-faced monk imitated her gesture and scratched his own head, his round skull matching his round eyes: “Think about it carefully. Have you ever had a dream in your entire life?”
Qin Zhizhi was about to snap back, but her eyes flickered, and she shut her mouth.
Thinking back carefully, she really had never had a dream.
In the past, she had simply assumed she slept too soundly and forgot them upon waking. After entering the path of cultivation, she figured that cultivators naturally did not dream much anyway, so she had never given it much thought.
Qin Zhizhi was puzzled: “But I’ve always been quite normal.”
In the cultivation world, being told one had a “deficient spiritual consciousness” was the exact equivalent of a normal person being pointed at and called a fool. She had grown up in the Tiantong Sect; while she might not be deemed a genius, she was at least considered quite clever. How could she have a deficient spiritual consciousness or be considered foolish? In her memories, Qin Zhizhi of Wudu City was also a perfectly normal person; though she possessed a gentle and quiet temperament, there had been nothing wrong with her.
The round-faced monk formed a hand seal and calculated, then raised his round face and said with certainty: “Of your three souls and seven bodily spirits, you are missing Queyin and Feidu. You possess only three souls and five bodily spirits. If that isn’t a deficient spiritual consciousness, what is?”
Qin Zhizhi asked in confusion: “What are Queyin and Feidu?”
The round-faced monk explained: “Queyin governs love, while Feidu rules desire.”
Qin Zhizhi froze, unable to recover her senses for a long time.
For some reason, she suddenly recalled the scene of her first meeting with Xie Yutai.
During the grand tournament of the three sects that year, Xie Yutai, defending the arena, wielded a sword that was cold, sharp, and at the pinnacle of mastery.
The edge of his blade had grazed Qin Zhizhi’s temple, severing a few strands of her hair. His sword qi had sliced through her red hair ribbon, which fell to the ground, severed in two. Yet at that exact moment, Qin Zhizhi had closed the distance, raising her hand to swiftly reach for Xie Yutai’s waist, grabbing the dagger hanging there.
As the spring breeze blew and the setting sun cast a slanted glow, a touch of twilight lingered between Xie Yutai’s brows, and a faint ripple flickered in his eyes.
“Oh dear, you broke the protective hair ribbon my senior brother gave me!” Qin Zhizhi tilted her chin slightly, triumphantly twirling the dagger in her hand, her smile as crafty as a little fox. “Why don’t you give me this dagger as compensation instead?”
At the time, she had thought to herself: So this is the legendary male protagonist of the Path of Absolute Emotions, the cold-hearted and detached Xie Yutai.
After a long while, seeing that Qin Zhizhi was no longer responding, the round-faced monk asked curiously: “What’s wrong with you?”
Qin Zhizhi finally seemed to snap out of a dream, uttering an “ah” as she came to a sudden realization: “So, the one who has sealed away their capacity for love is actually me.”