Yuanrong Tower sealed tightly shut, while memories of the Third Dream fermented among the people of the world.

Even more bizarre events followed one after another.

Everyone was horrified to discover that many more “people” had appeared in the world.

Those who should have died had now all come back to life due to the changes in the Third Dream.

The changes Huang Rang had made to improved seed varieties caused a large number of poor people who had originally died of starvation to appear in their original homes.

Countless families were both shocked and delighted.

Bao Wu immediately sought out Xi Yin, and Xi Yin indeed existed.

Right in the manor from the dream, Xi Yin looked around at everything before her with a bewildered expression.

Outside the dream, the owner of this manor had not sold it to Di Yiqiu. So regarding the suddenly appearing Xi Yin, everyone was both confused and curious.

Fortunately, Bao Wu arrived in time. He grasped Xi Yin’s hand firmly and led her out.

Xi Yin was utterly perplexed. She only remembered everything from the Third Dream, so she couldn’t help but ask, “What happened? Why does the manor suddenly have other owners…” After speaking, she looked toward the fields. After a long while, she murmured, “How… how did everything suddenly change so drastically?”

Everything before her eyes seemed familiar yet strange.

She had too many puzzles and uncertainties. She didn’t even notice that Bao Wu was holding her hand.

Bao Wu thought for a moment and explained, “The world’s timeline is in chaos. I’m afraid only Huang Rang can explain it to you…”

He spoke to this point and suddenly froze.

Perhaps even Huang Rang now could not explain.

Even though he was just a martial warrior who usually didn’t like thinking much, he still knew that the radiant Huang Rang from the dream had a very different situation in reality.

—He had never seen Huang Rang in reality, or rather, they had all seen her long ago.

It was just that no one dared believe that was truly her.

For the first time in his life, Bao Wu felt grief for a person.

In Shangjing, more and more people gathered here.

Huang Yang stood bewildered at the Bureau of Astronomy. These people before him—he seemed to know them, yet they were completely different. Everything in his memory carried a sense of strangeness.

What on earth was happening?

Among the crowd, countless people began asking each other questions.

Some explained these bizarre and strange dreams one after another.

Xie Hongchen and Di Yiqiu joined forces, and with the help of He Xijin and others, finally dealt with Fu, Lu, Shou, and Xi.

Everyone looked toward Yuanrong Tower with grave expressions.

“Strange… strange strange dreams…” He Xijin said.

Zhang Shujiu picked up the thread, saying, “It seems we’ve found the source of the strange dreams.”

He Xijin nodded repeatedly.

Wu Zichou said, “Indeed, even the most cunning fox will eventually show its tail.”

At this moment, Di Yiqiu and Xie Hongchen were surrounded by many people. Qiu Cailing, not hesitating to drag her gravely injured body, inquired about the full story from them.

Xie Hongchen had no choice but to answer everyone’s questions. “Everyone,” he suppressed all their voices and said, “Upon investigation, Shi Wenyu in Yuanrong Tower is precisely Yinian Shenbu, who slew Leiyin Daji in the past.”

His words stirred up waves of shock. Everyone was greatly astonished.

The four words “Yinian Shenbu” undoubtedly unveiled memories far too ancient for the immortal sects.

And just at this moment, Di Yiqiu had already arrived beneath Yuanrong Tower.

After the Third Dream, the court from top to bottom was in a state of panic. No one dared to stop him.

Beneath the nine-story tower, Di Yiqiu looked up. He saw at the tower’s peak, Shi Wenyu standing with his hands behind his back. Beside him was Huang Rang, sitting quietly and peacefully in her wheelchair.

Huang Rang’s gaze slowly moved downward. After a long while, she finally found this person among the noisy crowd.

Life was like a dream—she seemed to have already experienced several lifetimes of reincarnation.

Shi Wenyu stood beside her, lowering his eyes to watch below the tower. “Even if you broke the dream through death, what could you change?”

Huang Rang did not answer him. She truly could not answer.

The Soul-Binding Bone-Setting Needles imprisoned everything about her. She was like a lifeless doll.

Those magnificent clothes and exquisite makeup added superficial glamour but could not fill her soul.

Now, she and her beloved gazed at each other across the tower, and all she could give him was this weak and scattered look.

Beside her, Shi Wenyu asked, “So why break the dream?”

Why break the dream?

Huang Rang remained speechless.

This person was actually most afraid of death and loved pursuing fame and profit above all.

Where did such courage come from?

Yet in the end, she had still done it.

After awakening from the dream, Huang Rang still felt it was a great loss. But to insist on this was probably because she knew just how much resentment from living beings was needed to support such a dream realm.

Everyone in the world only knew that Shi Wenyu had collected enormous taxes year after year to refine longevity pills.

But who knew that his refinement of longevity pills, besides extending life, was even more for extracting the blood and tears of the people, making rivers and mountains weep and all people grieve?

Shi Wenyu’s hand gently stroked the top of Huang Rang’s head, compassionate like a deity pitying their believer.

Finally, his fingertip touched the Soul-Binding Bone-Setting Needle at the top of Huang Rang’s head and tapped it lightly. Huang Rang’s spirit and soul immediately suffered intense pain.

“It hurts very much, doesn’t it?” he asked softly.

And Huang Rang found it difficult even to shed tears. She closed her eyes. Below the tower, that most familiar voice came.

Word by word, he said, “Let her go!”

Shi Wenyu’s response was another light tap on the needle’s end.

Huang Rang only felt that even her primordial spirit was about to split. But she neither spoke nor moved, so she still appeared dignified.

Below the tower, Di Yiqiu stared tightly at Shi Wenyu and repeated once more, “Let. Her. Go!”

Shi Wenyu did not respond. Instead, his fingertip gently pinched the end of the Soul-Binding Bone-Setting Needle. He only touched it very, very lightly, yet Huang Rang wished she had never been born.

Even her primordial spirit trembled, yet she couldn’t even express the pain.

Below the tower, on Di Yiqiu’s body, a layer of azure-green snake scales slowly covered his entire body. His eyes were blood-red, his voice like thunder—”Let her go!”

As his words fell, his entire person was covered by snake scales, his body gradually growing enormous!

A gray-black poisonous mist enveloped him as he suddenly leaped up, forcibly charging at the tower!!

The familiar figure rushed toward the nine-story tower. By the time he reached before Huang Rang’s eyes, he had transformed into a colossal creature.

In Huang Rang’s pupils, she only saw an enormous snake head with eyes like lanterns. It hissed as it flicked its forked tongue. With a thunderous sound, it struck against Yuanrong Tower’s protective barrier.

Heaven and earth shook. Yuanrong Tower’s body trembled, just like the shock in Huang Rang’s heart.

Di Yiqiu’s entire body had completely demonized. The viper snake blood poison, at this moment, fully merged with him. His eyes leaked fierce light—where was there even half a trace of human form?

Then outside Yuanrong Tower, came another violent impact.

A belated tear finally broke across her face.

Di Yiqiu…

Outside the tower came another thunderous sound. Di Yiqiu’s hard snake head left a bleeding wound. The snake pattern at the corner of its eye was vivid to the point of being demonic.

And Yuanrong Tower’s barrier actually could not withstand its impacts and broke open a gap!

Di Yiqiu thrust his head through this gap and opened his gaping bloody maw!

Foul wind poured in backwards. Even Shi Wenyu had to retreat to avoid it!

Xie Hongchen at the side had long been shocked into stillness. Everyone watched in silent speechlessness! Just how must a person’s body be in order to completely merge with a strange beast like a viper snake?

No one knew.

Even Miao Yunzhi could not explain it.

Such a strange occurrence had never existed throughout history.

What kind of intense will must there be to allow a person to completely demonize and transform into a strange beast?

The Heart Sword in Xie Hongchen’s hand emerged again as he rushed toward Yuanrong Tower!

At that moment, he didn’t know what exactly he wanted to do.

Kill Shi Wenyu? Rescue Huang Rang, or help Di Yiqiu?

He didn’t know.

His sword light slashed down—he only wanted to tear open Yuanrong Tower’s barrier!

He Xijin and others also no longer hesitated, all charging at the tower.

The elders of Yuhu Xuanzong had originally been observing all along, but now they also all sighed—when people grow old, they become increasingly slippery and shrewd.

People like them claimed they didn’t want to manage immortal sect worldly affairs, but in truth, at the bottom of it, they simply didn’t want to provoke trouble.

“The people of this world—if they play the hero once, they have to be a great fool for life.” The elders all shook their heads, yet together joined the battle. This time, they held nothing back.

Yuanrong Tower’s barrier, under everyone’s united efforts, was finally completely torn open!

Di Yiqiu and Xie Hongchen successively rushed into the tower.

Huang Rang saw Di Yiqiu with snake scales covering half his body, and she suddenly understood—this kind of body was what Shi Wenyu had truly sought all along!

From beginning to end, he had never actually set his sights on Xie Hongchen’s flesh body.

Because a human shell, no matter how much it cultivated, would eventually reach its limit.

Yinian Shenbu probably understood this principle all too well. And after possessing bodies year after year, enduring the torment brought by flesh bodies, he had long grown weary.

Back then, everyone thought he was bewitched by Miao Yunzhi’s words, which led him to insist on cultivating immortality and seeking methods of longevity.

But who knew that this great sage from the immortal sects of three thousand years ago had always been exhausting his heart and blood pursuing his true “lifespan equal to heaven.”

Initially, Miao Yunzhi’s careless words had been a joke to everyone.

Only he took them seriously.

And only he could take them seriously.

He had long since sired many children—he only needed this one ingenious idea!

Miao Yunzhi had been right: mortal life had limits, but strange beasts could live for millennia. And now, he had indeed accomplished it.

Di Yiqiu’s body had perfectly merged with the viper snake. He had become a true strange beast.

And once such a demonized body was in hand, Shi Wenyu would never again have to worry about old age and illness.

Flesh body undecaying, primordial spirit indestructible—he would truly achieve immortality.

As for the resentful energy needed by demon and ghost books, for someone with heaven-reaching and earth-penetrating abilities like him, such things were simply within easy reach.

Why would he care?

Now, Di Yiqiu and Xie Hongchen had successively rushed into the tower.

And Shi Wenyu stood beside Huang Rang, watching with a smile. Di Yiqiu had already transformed back to human form—such a narrow golden tower could not accommodate his enormous snake body.

He rushed toward Huang Rang, while Xie Hongchen slashed his sword toward Shi Wenyu!

But Xie Hongchen’s Heart Sword slashed through emptiness. Shi Wenyu was like only a void shadow. He actually… was not in this time either!

Huang Rang witnessed with her own eyes that at the instant the two entered the tower, Shi Wenyu transformed into black mist, and the entire Yuanrong Tower seemed to have even sound frozen. Only after a moment did time begin to flow again.

—Shi Wenyu had altered time.

Di Yiqiu rushed toward Huang Rang, but he similarly came up empty.

Huang Rang was so close to him, yet his hand passed through her, touching only emptiness.

Both were at a loss for a moment. Huang Rang recited in her heart—Xie Hongchen’s blood…

In that Third Dream, Xie Hongchen’s blood had once caused Yuanrong Tower to stir uneasily. He was the son of Leiyin Daji, and for magical artifacts like Yuanrong Tower, there had always been legends of blood recognition of masters.

Perhaps Yuanrong Tower, because of similar bloodlines, had taken him for its old master!

Huang Rang’s heart was anxious, yet ultimately she could not remind them.

She sat upright in the wheelchair, her clothes and hair ornaments exquisite in every detail. This version of her silently locked eyes with Di Yiqiu.

Between them lay an unknown span of time.