Once consciousness is lost, the concept of time becomes meaningless.
Even if hundreds of millions of years—or longer—had passed, to the person involved, it was merely the difference between before waking and after.
Li Fan was jolted awake by a light talisman pulsing incessantly before his eyes.
As if urging him on after waiting for an eternity, the talisman flickered without pause. Even though its rhythm remained perfectly uniform, Li Fan could instinctively sense an air of urgency within it.
That urgency even bled into Li Fan himself, forcing him to make a choice even while his mind was still completely blank.
Li Fan stared at the glowing glyph, studying it for a long while before he finally grasped the meaning it conveyed.
[This simulation has ended.]
[You may select one of the following options to retain:
1. One item in your possession from this simulation.
2. Your cultivation realm from this simulation.
3. The simulated memories of one person closely related to yourself from this simulation. These memories may be inherited by said person.
4. Forfeit the above options to accelerate recharge progress.]
...
"Simulation..."
"Retain..."
Words both familiar and foreign seemed to awaken fragments of Li Fan's past memories. Yet just as he tried to truly recall something, a sharp pain suddenly pierced his skull.
Countless scenes and images, as if finally finding an outlet, surged forth all at once, drowning Li Fan in an instant.
His true memories vanished into that boundless ocean. Li Fan let out a miserable cry and lost consciousness once more.
"Set your mind at ease. It's nothing more than evil wind entering his head. Drinking this bowl of talisman water will surely turn his peril into safety and pull him through. But if you want a complete cure, he must take it continuously. Shujuan, you must understand, how many people in the village are waiting on this talisman water to save their lives? We got along well when we were young, but giving you a bowl or two for free is already doing everything friendship could ask for. If you still want more talisman water after this..."
"It will depend on your sincerity."
"Xiaoyue... Master Liwu, don't worry. Even if I must sell everything down to the pots and pans, I will save Fan'er."
...
Amidst his stupor, two chattering female voices drifted into Li Fan's ears from time to time.
Soon after, Li Fan felt a turbid liquid with a peculiar odor being forced down his throat.
It tasted as though it had fermented in a foul ditch for over a decade. The moment it entered his stomach, a wave of nausea rushed straight to the crown of his head.
"Ugh!"
Li Fan jerked over and vomited violently.
"See, Shujuan? Didn't I say this talisman water works wonders? He needs to drink a few more bowls without delay before he can fully recover..."
"Fan'er!" Ignoring the vomit, a woman threw herself forward in sheer delight to check on his condition.
Having just woken, Li Fan found his mind an utter mess, unable to make sense of anything. He grasped only the crucial point: that shrill, superstitious voice wanted to force several more bowls of that murky sludge down his throat. As if smelling that foul stench all over again, an unprovoked fury flared within his heart.
"Charlatans playing tricks!"
His voice was hoarse, cold, and ruthless.
It gave the two women in the room quite a fright.
The small hut fell dead silent. Li Fan instinctively raised a hand toward the witch and made a swatting motion in midair.
Yet the moment his hand lifted, an intense wave of weakness washed over him.
His stomach churned violently, and he could not help but retch once again.
"Shujuan, the way I see it... your nephew's delusions are rather severe. He really needs to drink several more bowls."
"Yes, yes, of course."
"How dare you!" Hearing this, Li Fan was incensed once more.
Yet this body was truly frail to the extreme.
Even struggling with all his might, he was easily restrained by the two peasant women. He had no choice but to endure the humiliation and swallow bowl after bowl of talisman water.
...
A month later.
At the dinner table, Li Fan ate at an unhurried pace. The meal was hardly lavish: green vegetables, tofu, and a bowl of fish soup made up the entirety of the spread.
"Even though we had to sell off most of the family land, your body has slowly recovered, hasn't it?
"I consulted Scholar Qian in the village. He said that when you fell ill, an evil wind invaded your body, causing all sorts of hallucinations. As long as you read more books of the sages, righteous qi will naturally arise in your heart, and those hallucinations will gradually fade..."
Li Fan listened to the woman's nagging beside him, nodding in response from time to time.
At the same time, his mind was sorting through myriad phantom images.
After finishing his meal, Li Fan went out for a walk to exercise his body as usual. He turned a blind eye to everyone who greeted him. After walking for a long time, he finally arrived at a quiet, deserted spot.
Only then did Li Fan look closely at the rapidly pulsing light talisman before his eyes.
"Simulation, inherit.
"What does this mean?"
Throughout this past month, every time he looked at this restless text, Li Fan seemed to sense an urgent plea within it. On several quiet nights, lying in bed unable to sleep, he had even felt the urge to simply pick an option at random and get it over with.
Yet his innate cautiousness ultimately kept him from making a hasty decision.
Li Fan had a premonition.
No matter which option he chose, what awaited him was likely nothing good.
Feeling a slight headache, Li Fan simply put the matter out of his mind for the moment and refrained from thinking about it.
Instead, he continued sorting through the tangled, chaotic memories in his head.
"Are these phantom visions real or fake?"
A month had passed, and Li Fan still could not find an answer to that question.
The scenes in his memory came from different people, different eras, and even different worlds.
Bizarre, grotesque, and taking countless forms.
Some were personal experiences from a first-person perspective, others were seen from the vantage of a third-person observer. There were even sweeping overviews looking down from high above the firmament.
It was truly impossible to distinguish truth from illusion.
"Perhaps... all of them are real.
"All of them are things I once experienced during those so-called 'simulations.'"
Li Fan closed his eyes, forcibly suppressing the endless flood of phantoms and stray thoughts. He could not help thinking:
"If these are all my memories, then no matter what, I could never have been as weak and frail as I am today.
"So something must have gone wrong during the simulation.
"Cultivation realm..."
Li Fan could not resist staring once more at the second option provided by the prompt.
Over these days, Li Fan had made inquiries both directly and indirectly. Combining that with the countless visions in his head, he was certain that only true cultivators had anything to do with the word 'cultivation.'
"No matter what I went through in the simulation or what realm of cultivation I attained, it would certainly be better than where I am now. Seen this way, there seems to be nothing wrong with choosing to inherit this option.
"Flying through the skies, burrowing through the earth, living forever without aging."
At that thought, Li Fan's heart gave an instinctive shudder—representing both a primal yearning and a strange, inexplicable dread.
Yet having held off on deciding for so long, Li Fan was not about to change his mind on a whim.
He compared the option of inheriting cultivation with the others one by one.
"A single item wouldn't seem to help change my current predicament. Besides, with my body this frail, I can barely hold a pair of chopsticks. Even if I obtained an immortal treasure, I probably wouldn't be able to use it." Li Fan shook his head inwardly.
"Select a close person to inherit the memories."
Li Fan pondered for a long time.
"Someone closest to me... If that person inherited the memories from the simulation and saw my dire straits, they would probably step in to lend a hand."
When he focused his attention on this option, dozens of distinct figures surfaced in Li Fan's mind.
Li Fan looked through them one by one.
When his gaze settled on an old man with hair as white as frost, the feeling that naturally welled up in his heart was the most comforting. As for the others...
"None of them look like decent people.
"Could it be that in the simulation, I actually associated with people like that?" Li Fan felt a sense of disbelief.
He stared at the old man's image for a long time.
Then Li Fan turned his gaze to the final option prompt: "Accelerate recharge progress."
Based on his contemplation over this period, Li Fan roughly deduced that recharging was likely a necessary condition to initiate another simulation.
"Which means, I can conduct another simulation."
...
In reality, Li Fan slowly opened his eyes.
He had stayed in this secluded spot outside the village for quite a while. As dusk fell, Li Fan hurried back.
For the period that followed, he pretended that everything was as before.
As his body recovered, he studied day and night without pause.
In truth, he was patiently waiting for the recharge to finish.
At last, on this day, an inexplicable sensation arose in his heart. The simulation could be initiated once more.
With a silent thought, Li Fan plunged into darkness once again.
When he woke once more and looked around, he was utterly stunned.
It was still that familiar room.
It seemed nothing had changed.
"Could it be that all of it truly was just my imagination?" Li Fan's mind was shaken, his disappointment beyond words.
Yet very quickly, he noticed faint differences between this room and the one he had grown familiar with.
"This ink stick—I had clearly used up more than half of it.
"And..."
With a stir of his heart, Li Fan quickly flipped through the books and papers on his desk.
"Indeed. It seems I have returned to a little over a month ago?"
To verify his hypothesis, Li Fan rushed out to find his aunt. Sure enough, she looked noticeably younger. The grey hairs on her head were more than half gone.
"So this is what the simulation is!"
After a surge of wild excitement, Li Fan quickly calmed down again. Evidently, this body had long grown accustomed to such things.
"Returning to the past with foreknowledge.
"Vast though this world may be, there is nowhere I cannot go.
"Only, I must be cautious—cautious above all else of whatever severely injured me in that simulation."
An indescribable aura rose from the young Li Fan.
Though he bore the tender face of a scholar, he naturally carried an unfathomable majesty.
Twenty years later.
"Hail the Grand Preceptor!"
Inside the Grand Preceptor Manor, Li Fan looked upon the assembled ministers of Great Xuan and raised his cup with a smile.
Facing the flattery of the court's high officials, his thoughts drifted elsewhere.
"What is true cultivation actually like?"
In twenty years, he had risen from a lowly scholar to become the Grand Preceptor who held sway over the entire imperial court.
Yet he had never forgotten that he was merely within a simulation.
Nor had he forgotten his purpose.
To pursue the truth behind his lost memories.
"Over all these years of ceaseless sorting day and night, I have finally figured out a few clues. It is just that without immortal spiritual qi, no matter how many preparations I have, I have no way to execute them." Li Fan sighed inwardly.
Once the wine had flowed and the guests had dispersed, Li Fan returned to his bedchamber and quietly looked at himself in the mirror.
He stroked his dense beard, then removed the disguise.
"Compared to twenty years ago, there has been no change at all.
"Heh.
"Even this body..."
Li Fan stretched his limbs.
Twenty years had passed, yet not only had he felt no aging, he even felt that with the flow of time and the accumulation of years, this body had grown increasingly youthful and full of vitality.
Keep in mind that he had not yet formally embarked upon the path of cultivation.
"I truly am no mortal."
To conceal the secret of his agelessness, though Li Fan took wives and concubines, he rarely shared a bed with them, using heavy state affairs as an excuse. Every few years, the woman who shared his pillow would even die suddenly of an illness.
Originally, people in the court had seized on this to spread many rumors.
However, once he personally executed the late emperor and installed the young crown prince upon the throne, not a single voice of dissent remained under heaven.
Li Fan had not become Grand Preceptor out of a lust for power.
It was to find a way to step beyond this world.
Though this body possessed the miraculous gift of longevity, in all other aspects, he was no different from a mortal. Trying to traverse the world on his own two feet in search of the path of cultivation was simply too difficult.
Yet after becoming Grand Preceptor, he established a secret organization specifically for Seeking Immortals.
His future actions would be far more convenient.
Another ten years passed.
The young emperor gradually grew to manhood. Unwilling to remain a puppet controlled by Li Fan, he secretly raised death warriors and schemed with ministers outside the palace, plotting to assassinate Li Fan and reclaim power.
The plan proceeded smoothly. Without seeming to notice a thing, Li Fan stepped alone into the trap laid by the emperor.
Seeing Li Fan surrounded on all sides by dozens of death warriors, the young emperor could not hide his triumph and laughed aloud.
"Grand Preceptor, oh Grand Preceptor! Back when you whipped me in the name of teaching me to read, did you ever imagine this day would come?"
Yet in the face of this desperate situation, Li Fan's expression did not change in the slightest from beginning to end.
"This day? What of this day?" he asked back with a chuckle.
"Facing death, and still stubborn!" The young emperor sneered and waved his hand. The death warriors surged forward brandishing sharp blades.
However, what happened next defied his expectations entirely.
When blades struck flesh, only the clinking of metal rang out. They could not pierce him in the slightest.
Meanwhile, with every punch thrown by the seemingly frail Grand Preceptor, the burly men he had personally handpicked were blasted into flying gore, exploding on the spot.
The ambush had turned into a bloody slaughterhouse.
By the time a blood-drenched Li Fan walked up to the young emperor, the ruler had already been scared out of his wits.
Looking down at his blood-soaked robes, Li Fan frowned slightly. "Without divine abilities or magical arts, relying purely on mortal flesh is so inconvenient.
"And yet, in the face of such thick stench of blood, I feel hardly any discomfort.
"It seems what I experienced in those past simulations..."
"Grand Preceptor, Grand Preceptor, spare my life!" The young emperor wailed in terror. Li Fan merely gave a cold snort and stomped him to death.
...
One emperor died, and another took his place.
Under heaven, only the Grand Preceptor remained eternal.
Time flew by, and the Great Xuan Dynasty changed hands several times. The realm grew accustomed to the frequent rise and fall of rulers.
On this day, the Grand Preceptor celebrated his seventieth birthday.
Officials from across the land traveled ten thousand li to the capital to offer their congratulations.
Worthy talents gathered at the Grand Preceptor Manor.
"Dao Xuanzi, do not push people too far!"
A thunderous roar suddenly resounded across the skies above Xuanjing.
Chapter 1522