Her vision suddenly turned dark.

Zanxing felt herself trapped in an extremely narrow space. This space was airtight, humid, and cramped. She couldn’t see anything around her clearly, only hearing a powerful sound rhythmically echoing one beat after another.

“Thump, thump, thump—”

Accompanied by the blurred sound of rushing water.

She wanted to move her body, but found herself completely unable to move, as if someone had forcibly stuffed her into a small box. She tried to gather all her Demon Lord yuanli, but when she clenched her fists, she discovered she couldn’t accomplish anything.

She seemed to have become someone without the strength to even tie up a chicken.

Everything around pressed against Zanxing, and she felt like a ball of dough that kept growing, making the crushing sensation stronger and stronger until she began to feel suffocated. This suffocating feeling was inescapable.

She didn’t know what she should do.

Her sense of smell seemed to grow more sensitive day by day, so along with that blurred sound of water, she also caught a faint fishy odor. That fishy smell seemed to carry the scent of blood, somehow familiar. Unable to break free, she could only grow in this muddled state within the darkness, growing and growing…

Until one day, this dark place seemed to experience a tremendous tremor. She felt an extreme stuffiness flowing through her body, as if she wouldn’t have another chance if she didn’t get out of here now. Under the external tremors, her body began moving uncontrollably in one direction. She felt as if she was being stretched into a long strip, her flesh and bones squeezed and deformed, intense pain grinding through every inch of her body. It was like struggling to emerge from the crevice between two mountains—

A baby’s cry suddenly rang out beside her ear.

Zanxing shuddered violently, her skin aching as if pierced by needles. She saw hurried crowds and iron basins filled with bloody water, saw the woman on the bed covered in sweat, saw countless faces either joyful or worried. Chaotic sounds filled her ears, making her dizzy for a moment, until someone gently picked her up and wiped her entire body with a clean cloth. She saw her own hands—soft, newborn baby hands—and only then realized with shock that the babbling cries had come from her mouth.

She had been born.

…

The yellow winter honeysuckle bloomed brilliantly, appearing delicate yet vibrant within the white pagoda. The silver lion watched the cultivators who had all simultaneously closed their eyes at a certain moment, pacing back and forth nearby with some agitation.

Within the pagoda, a strange young voice seemed to echo, falling into the air and quickly becoming indistinct.

“Tsk tsk, they all entered after all.”

…

When Zanxing opened her eyes again, she found herself sitting in front of a courtyard.

The sunlight outside was pleasant. This was a very old courtyard that seemed to have been uninhabited for a long time. The ground was covered with a thick layer of dust, spider webs filled the eaves, and perhaps because no one had cleaned it, moss had grown on the stone slabs, emanating a ghostly green glow.

She sat in the shadow of the sunlight, squinting at the occasional sparrows landing in the courtyard, unbearable fatigue emanating from every corner of her body. She felt like a piece of rotten wood already hollowed out by ant colonies, or like a candle stub about to burn out.

She was very, very old.

So old she couldn’t walk, so old that her children no longer wanted to come back to see her, so old that her entire body was filled with the aura of death, without half a trace of spirit or vitality. She could only wait like a fish stranded on shore for the soul-reaper to pass by and take her to the afterlife.

She didn’t understand why she had suddenly become an elderly woman on her deathbed, but this decline seemed to exist not only in her body—even her thoughts had become sluggish, and she didn’t even want to think about it further.

The plants in the courtyard had also all withered yellow, with broken branches falling into the soil and ant colonies busily crawling past.

The aged woman sat in the courtyard, her eyeballs cloudy, slightly closed, as if her breath too was about to dissipate between heaven and earth. Suddenly, a cat’s cry came from outside the courtyard, and vaguely, a white cat leaped onto the surrounding wall, its figure flashing through the courtyard.

The woman seemed startled by this movement, her weak breath suddenly disrupted for an instant, something flashing through her mind before quickly disappearing.

She slightly raised her eyes.

At the same time, in a similar small courtyard, an elderly person in their twilight years shakily stood up and walked in the direction illuminated by sunlight.

This old person wore white clothing that was as aged as the person, the color somewhat yellowed, as if it would turn to dust with just a gentle touch. He walked slowly, stopping to rest for a long while after each step, as if even the tiniest distance would exhaust all his strength.

One step, two steps… like a snail climbing a peak. After an unknown amount of time, he finally approached that small patch of the courtyard covered by sunlight.

The elder slowly extended his hand, his fingertips grasping a beam of sunlight. That sunlight looked warm and intense, but felt slightly cool when it touched his fingertips.

After a long while, he raised his eyes, revealing a pair of eyes as bright as those of a young person.

Without a trace of confusion.

…

The room was filled with a heavy medicinal fragrance.

People came and went around, with chaotic sounds occasionally ringing in her ears, accompanied by the painful moans of the person on the bed.

This was a middle-aged woman, exceptionally thin, with waxy yellow skin and features made somewhat ugly by the torment of illness. Though it was scorching summer weather, her entire body seemed to be cold, covered with a thick quilt, with doors and windows tightly shut.

The maid beside her said quietly, “Madam has had poor health since birth, and now it’s gotten even worse. She suffers torment daily—even observers find it painful to watch.”

“Chronic and incurable.” Someone else sighed: “Truly pitiful.”

The woman on the bed had her brows tightly furrowed. She was born with a strange illness that no medicine could cure. This disease wasn’t fatal, but it was exceptionally torturous—daily pain throughout her body, plus fear of light and cold, keeping her indoors year-round with rare outings.

The constant pain seemed to leave her no energy to care about anything else. Sometimes she even forgot who she was, only feeling that this illness had no end and that life was nothing but endless suffering.

Outside the window, rain began falling pitter-patter, and the wind made the windows rattle with “pa pa” sounds.

The maid left. In the summer afternoon, the woman on the bed suddenly felt somewhat thirsty and struggled to sit up, wanting to reach for the cup on the small table.

Her gaze suddenly froze.

On the small table’s cup, a white brocade pouch had somehow appeared. This pouch seemed to have materialized from thin air, exquisitely embroidered with clean patterns. It was an ordinary object, but somehow, just one glance at it made it seem completely out of place with the medicinal fragrance filling the room.

The woman stared at it, then reached out as if possessed, passing over the cup she had originally wanted to grab and picking up this strange brocade pouch.

The moment the pouch touched her hand, the pain throughout her body seemed to lessen instantly. She squinted slightly, her mind experiencing a moment of stagnation, like busy ants that suddenly found themselves in the same place and couldn’t help but harbor great doubt about everything before them.