Every time Li Fan awoke from seclusion, he would glance at the True Reversion panel and calculate the passage of time according to his physiological age.
Anchored Year 1 corresponded to age twenty, and so forth.
In his twelfth lifetime, he had also checked the True Reversion panel many times.
Yet when the time suddenly leapt from Anchored Year 29 to Anchored Year 39, Li Fan had failed to detect even the slightest anomaly.
Even as he looked back again and again upon the experiences of that twelfth life, he had never noticed those "missing ten years" from his own existence.
Part of this stemmed from habitual patterns of thought.
After all, in the perception of the vast majority of people, time was continuous and indivisible.
How could it be Anchored Year 29 one second, and Anchored Year 39 the next?
There was also another, even more crucial reason: it was as though some presence had distorted his perception, causing him to overlook this detail without realizing it.
A classic case of becoming so inured to the bizarre that one failed to see anything amiss.
What on earth was going on?
Who stole my time?
Li Fan could not help sinking into profound dread.
Because it was unknown, it brought terror.
The Heavenly Physician was undeniably formidable.
Yet at least he had a concrete form.
Li Fan was no match for him in this lifetime.
But after ten reincarnations, a hundred reincarnations...
Through endless reincarnation, he would one day grow to the same height and ultimately defeat him.
Yet this unknown existence made Li Fan feel a sense of powerlessness for the very first time.
He did not even know what the other party was, nor by what means it had stolen the time that belonged to him.
What terrified Li Fan even more was that the various influences it exerted could not be shaken off even after True Reversion.
This meant the entity was very likely on the same tier as True Reversion itself.
At the very least, its power had to be extraordinarily close to True Reversion.
This was the true root of Li Fan's fear.
All along, True Reversion had been Li Fan's reliance for any hope of Longevity.
It was the source of his confidence, allowing him to remain unflinching no matter how formidable an adversary he faced.
No matter how dire the crisis, with a silent thought of "True Reversion," the real and the illusory would invert, and everything would return to the beginning. The crisis would naturally vanish without a trace.
Yet now, the absolute supremacy of True Reversion was threatened...
Nearby, the father and daughter, He Zhenghao and He Xinxin, noticed that Li Fan's expression had turned grim.
He Xinxin was about to speak, but He Zhenghao caught her arm and gave a small shake of his head.
Fear echoed within Li Fan's heart, lingering long without dissipating.
Fortunately, Li Fan possessed an unyielding will.
Having survived far too many brushes with death, and faced now with what was merely an as-yet-nonlethal threat at a past point in time, he gradually brought his terror under control.
He began to examine and analyze the matter in detail.
Soon, he detected something illogical about the incident.
Composing himself, Li Fan inquired of He Zhenghao, "Daoist He, might I ask about the origins of Xinxin's deduction technique? Would you be willing to reveal a thing or two about it?"
He phrased it as a polite inquiry, yet his eyes carried an unmistakable sense of brook-no-refusal intensity.
He Zhenghao hesitated for a moment before reluctantly explaining, "My daughter's deduction art is known as the Heavenly Net of the Dao. It is a deduction technique custom-tailored to her companion wonder, the Dao Script Compass. In terms of its quality, it can barely pass as half a wonder of Heaven."
At this point, a glimmer of pride naturally surfaced on He Zhenghao's face.
"A companion wonder?" Li Fan's thoughts stirred.
There were relevant records in the Treatise on Wonders.
Certain cultivators were born with wonders of heaven and earth inside their bodies. These wonders were all extraordinary in their own right and harmonized flawlessly with the cultivator.
Such occurrences were exceedingly rare, however; the book had merely mentioned it in passing without devoting much ink to description.
Anyone born with a companion wonder was nourished by its laws from the womb. Their cultivation speed was astonishingly rapid, and any among them who managed to survive to adulthood without incident would inevitably become a prominent chosen one of the realm.
To think He Xinxin was one of them.
No wonder she had attained the Foundation Establishment realm at such a young age, Li Fan mused privately as he appraised the young girl.
Feeling Li Fan's gaze fixed upon her, He Xinxin felt a sudden wave of inexplicable nervousness.
"Xinxin, explain the general principles of the Heavenly Net of the Dao to your Uncle Li," He Zhenghao said.
Hearing this, He Xinxin nodded. Trusting her father, she did not harbor much guardedness.
She began explaining in a soft, gentle voice.
"A mortal born between heaven and earth lives as though within a gigantic net. Every move one makes exerts an influence on the surrounding people, matters, and things. Those who cannot achieve transcendence are bound to be affected by other people, matters, and things in turn. They intertwine and interact, forming the myriad affairs of the world.
"And of worldly affairs, whatever has occurred will inevitably leave behind traces.
"By observing the various marks left upon this colossal net, one can come to know all matters of the world.
"This net is named the Heavenly Net of the Dao. And the marks are called the Dao Seal Corrosion Script."
...
As the girl explained, the puzzle in Li Fan's mind began to unravel.
Having ten years of his time stolen in Daoyuan Province had occurred in his twelfth lifetime.
He Xinxin was merely a Foundation Establishment cultivator. No matter how extraordinarily gifted she was, it was utterly impossible for her to see through True Reversion and deduce something that had happened nearly a hundred lifetimes ago.
Furthermore, that unknown entity which had stolen a decade of his life was of supreme tier; logically speaking, it was not something He Xinxin could deduce either.
Yet she had somehow caught sight of a clue.
That was because...
An apple that had been bitten was different from an intact apple.
Likewise, any living being whose time had been stolen by that inexplicable entity was bound to differ from normal beings. It would be tainted with a trace of that unique aura.
Although Li Fan had returned to the point before his time was stolen by means of True Reversion, he had not been able to completely rid himself of its influence.
The fact that Li Fan had remained utterly oblivious to it until now was proof enough.
He Xinxin's Heavenly Net of the Dao had not directly deduced True Reversion, nor had it deduced that unknown time-stealing presence. Rather, by deducing Li Fan, she had glimpsed the influence of "It," and was thereby able to reconstruct what had happened to him.
Li Fan even suspected that if He Xinxin were to deduce any cultivator in Yuandao Province, she could never have predicted a result like Li Fan's.
That was simply not something a Foundation Establishment cultivator could perceive. Even with half a wonder of Heaven like the Dao Script Compass as her foundation, it would still be impossible.
If one had to draw an analogy, that unknown existence stealing time was like a black hole, lying silently across the skies of Yuandao Province. Every so often, it devoured ten years of time from the entire province.
Under normal circumstances, it was impossible to discover its existence directly through ordinary observation or deduction.
Yet because of True Reversion, Li Fan had escaped from this black hole.
And yet the black hole's influence had not disappeared.
Thus, Li Fan was like the distorted light around a black hole. Through him, one could deduce the matter of "It" stealing time in Yuandao Province.
Chapter 251