Yin Fire had an incredibly overpowered ability—it could break illusions.
But now, it had actually failed. It wasn’t until the illusion ended that Su Mo realized everything that just happened was an illusion.
He turned his gaze to Shuang’er and Xiao Xiao.
Xiao Xiao still looked adorably clueless, but Shuang’er was no longer as gentle and kind as before. The corner of her mouth curled up, and she said with a light laugh, “Your name is Qianye, right? Not bad at all. I really like you.”
Seeing this, the others quickly took their leave. The elderly grandmother from earlier even made sure to carry Xiao Xiao away, gently coaxing her, “Mommy has some grown-up things to do. Grandma will take you out to play.”
Soon, only Su Mo and Shuang’er were left in the grand hall.
She stepped forward, one step at a time. Su Mo stepped back, one step at a time.
He had clearly heard the little whispered conversation between the old woman and Xiao Xiao earlier: grown-up things to do.
No way. Absolutely no way!
Suddenly, his backward steps came to a halt right where he stood. He couldn’t move an inch. Watching her get closer and closer, Su Mo’s feelings were all over the place.
As a guy, it wouldn’t be honest to say he didn’t have even a tiny bit of curiosity. But right now, he was in a female body. If she actually…
It felt so embarrassing.
“Don’t come any closer!”
The gentle, girl-next-door type had suddenly turned into a big bad wolf. Su Mo wanted to cry but had no tears left.
“Noooooo…”
With a miserable scream, Su Mo’s clothes were stripped off, and Shuang’er’s charming laughter echoed through the palace…
…
Seven days earlier.
The sky over Haicheng was deathly still.
Luo Wanqing crawled up from the shore, his entire body weak and sore.
He looked left, then right, feeling like something wasn’t quite right.
“Huh, didn’t I just get swallowed by a tsunami? How come I’m fine? And why didn’t that building collapse either?”
A glimmer of innocent wisdom shone in Luo Wanqing’s naive eyes. Then he suddenly slapped his thigh. “I got it! I must have fallen asleep on the street. All of that was just a dream!”
He nodded seriously and turned to leave.
But just as he turned around, images started replaying in his mind, like a slideshow.
“No, wait, just now…”
His expression suddenly turned serious. A blurry figure began to take shape in his mind, and all the events from moments ago started connecting.
He remembered that just a few hours earlier, he had been surfing by the seaside. Suddenly, a tsunami appeared in the distance—faster, larger, and more destructive than anything he’d ever seen.
Because he was too far from the shore, he couldn’t escape in time and ended up being swallowed by the massive wave.
While struggling in the water, he vaguely saw buildings on the shore being destroyed by the tsunami. Huge ships docked at the port didn’t escape unscathed either. The people on land seemed to vanish in an instant.
But just as he thought he was about to die, an old man in a Daoist robe with a white beard suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Luo Wanqing couldn’t recall his face, only remembered that with a flick of the whisk in his hand, the tsunami began to reverse. The destroyed buildings eerily restored themselves like a video playing backward—until…
“Ugh—I can’t remember anything after that.” Luo Wanqing scratched his head, then suddenly noticed the wound on his arm. He had gotten it from a big fish while swimming during the tsunami.
“So, that Daoist was incredibly powerful. It seemed like he reversed time itself… but then why is the wound on my arm still here?”
Luo Wanqing couldn’t figure it out no matter how hard he tried, so he decided to let it go. He took out his phone and started dialing.
Beep… beep… beep…
“Hello? What’s up?” Ye Qingyi’s voice on the other end sounded gloomy.
“Brother Su Mo, you won’t believe it—I met a real-life immortal today!” Luo Wanqing’s voice was full of excitement. “The tsunami had already made landfall, but then that old immortal flicked his whisk, and it just went back! Woo woo woo…”
Ye Qingyi was silent for a few seconds, then suddenly asked, “Are you sure you saw an immortal? What did he look like? What was he wearing? Male or female?”
Luo Wanqing replied, “He was an old man—no, wait, an old immortal. He had the face of a child but white hair, looked like a true Daoist sage, had a… charming figure? No, no, that’s not it. Anyway, he was really powerful. He was a Daoist priest.”
Ye Qingyi’s breathing quickened. “Thank you. Next time we meet, I’ll treat you to a feast!”
With that, she hung up.
Luo Wanqing stared at the beep beep beep coming from his phone, frozen for a moment, then jumped three feet in the air. “Woo hoo! Brother Su Mo is treating me to a feast!!!”
Passersby glanced at him with confused looks. “Weird, where did this crazy person suddenly come from? He wasn’t here a moment ago.”
“Why is the sky so gray? Did something happen?”
“There’s no rain, so why am I all wet?”
“Ouch, my leg hurts so much. This makes no sense…”
Similar incidents weren’t limited to Haicheng. They were happening all over the world. Some lucky individuals actually remembered the process of disaster striking and then retreating, though they all thought they had just been hallucinating.
…
The Four Kingdoms Island was shrouded in thick volcanic ash. Magma raged everywhere but couldn’t leave the island, as if an invisible barrier completely isolated the island from the outside world.
Hovering in mid-air, a haggard-looking old Daoist in a robe suddenly coughed up blood.
Beside him followed a dog—a Husky—floating in the air just like him.
The Husky looked worried and spoke in human language: “Senior, by reversing time and space all by yourself, you’ve nearly exhausted your primordial essence. If you try to seal this space-time rift as well, your body won’t be able to handle it.”
The old Daoist’s voice was ancient and distant, as if it didn’t belong to this era: “The Young Mistress granted me divine power precisely so I could protect this world. Thanks to that divine power, I’ve already lived for over two thousand years—far longer than any ordinary person. Living any longer would be meaningless. It’s just a pity… my understanding of time isn’t deep enough. My reversal wasn’t complete. There are still remnants.”
He let out a sigh, his voice filled with resignation. “Ah, well… ah, well. As long as I can hold on until the Young Mistress grows up. Once she’s here, none of this will be a problem…”
There was not a trace of regret in the old Daoist’s clear eyes. His whisk flicked through the air, and his body suddenly became transparent.
“Senior!” Hot tears streamed from the Husky’s adorably blank eyes, and its voice grew hoarse. “You’re dying for this world, yet in the end, no one will even remember you. Is it really worth it?”
“Everyone dies eventually. All I seek is a worthy death. Dying for the sake of all living beings… at least I won’t have failed the Young Mistress’s trust.” The old Daoist’s whisk suddenly exploded, scattering into tiny specks of starlight that swirled around him.
The next moment, the starlight sank into his body, and his transparent form scattered like fireworks, transforming into a single stream of light that shot straight into the heavens.
He was using himself as glue to piece the shattered sky back together!
“Senior!”
Two voices cried out at the same time—one was the Husky’s anguished howl, the other came from somewhere far away. But the old Daoist could no longer hear them. Only one final, aged farewell remained: “Young Mistress, this old servant takes his leave!”
The echo faded away. Suddenly, a figure appeared on the scene, his eyes full of regret. “In the end, I was one step too late. I never got to see the senior’s face…”
Beside him was Nangong Xuan, looking disheveled. He caught the Husky just as it began to fall from the loss of support, and said with a sigh, “We didn’t even get to learn the senior’s name.”
Just then, a choked voice came from his hands: “The Carefree Hermit… Master Yu.”
