After being reborn, the villain comes with a spoiler tag.

On a rainy night, torrential rain poured down like a waterfall, connecting heaven and earth into an endless curtain of water.

Raindrops pounded violently against the oil-paper umbrellas of passersby, making a crackling sound.

Despite the rainy night, the street was still brightly lit and bustling with music and revelry.

This is the most bustling street in Zhongjing. All year round, regardless of wind, frost, rain or snow, merchants and travelers come and go in an endless stream, and the traffic never stops.

Only the secluded back alleys present a different scene. These are temporary dumping grounds for garbage and debris from various restaurants and inns, which are collected and disposed of by designated personnel every day.

Here, the laughter and chatter of guests and tavern singers were blurred by the rain and could not be clearly heard.

A ragged boy was huddled in a dark corner of the back alley, his expectant eyes fixed on the direction of the restaurant's kitchen.

This place was usually off-limits to beggars, but tonight the rain was so heavy that the patrol team responsible for driving away the beggars became somewhat lax, only making a token round around the main road before considering their mission complete.

They never expected that in such terrible weather, there would be people willing to brave the rain and wait in the cold alley, just for a bite to eat.

The boy's clothes were clearly worn for many years, hanging somewhat comically on his slender frame.

The boy could only habitually hunch his body to avoid exposing his abdomen, which was not covered by his clothes, but this exposed a section of his lower back covered with scars.

Fortunately, years of hunger had prevented the boy from gaining weight, which allowed him to shrink into the only clothing that could cover his body.

Without any shelter from the heavy rain, the boy was exposed to the downpour, letting the torrential rain wash away the dust from his face and the grime from his hair, revealing a gaunt face and pale skin that made his calm, dark eyes stand out even more.

If he could gain more weight, he would have a very handsome face. That's why every time the boy went to the red-light district, people would stop him and ask if he wanted to learn a job that would ensure he would never go hungry.

"Never have to go hungry"—what an enticing phrase.

But the boy had seen those old, faded, and emaciated "birds" being carried out of the back door and abandoned in the dark alley to rot, so he broke free from the hand that was holding his and ran away.

The boy never went to the red-light district again.

Finally, after the boy's long wait, the back door of a restaurant opened, and a sturdy cook laboriously dragged out a wooden bucket that was half a person's height, quickly put on the lid to keep out the rain, and waited for the porters who collected swill to come and take it away.

As soon as the cook left, the boy darted out of the back alley like an arrow, rushing towards the wooden barrel. He lifted the lid, quickly picked out a few relatively intact items from the top, then scooped them up with the hem of his shirt and hurriedly ran back.

The splashes he kicked up along the way drew curses and shouts from passersby, but the boy paid no heed.

The boy lived in a dilapidated temple not far outside the city, where a group of vagrants had lived as long as he could remember.

The oldest member of that group had been a wanderer for over a decade longer than the boy, and was extremely xenophobic. As a boy, he wouldn't normally be allowed to spend the night in the dilapidated temple.

But recently everything has changed; the dilapidated temple is no longer their domain.

A celestial being came to the temple.

When he ran back to the dilapidated temple in the rain, the fire the boy had started before he left was still burning.

Beside the flickering flame, an old man with white hair and beard lay on dry straw, his face covered with dark age spots, his appearance withered, as if he had been dead for a long time.

But the boy simply placed the food he had brought back next to the old man, got up to add some branches to the fire, and then sat down beside him with his knees drawn up to his chest.

After a long while, the old man slowly opened his eyes, his expression dark and inscrutable. His eyes, covered by a white film, seemed to have exhausted all his strength with just a slight turn.

The old man turned his head and saw the food beside him, his eyes revealing deep sorrow and despair.

The boy had seen these two kinds of emotions in the eyes of many people who froze and starved to death, but there was another expression on the old man's face that the boy could not understand.

The old man finally saw the boy on the other side of the fire.

"came back."

Those three simple words seemed to have exhausted all the old man's strength.

The boy silently ran to the old man's side and pushed the food towards him.

The old man simply closed his eyes gently, and after a long while, so long that the boy almost thought the old man had fallen asleep again, he finally asked:

"Have you remembered the mnemonic I taught you yesterday?"

The young man nodded.

A hint of relief appeared in the old man's eyes as he slowly raised his right hand, which resembled the bark of an old tree.

The boy knew that the old man was testing his learning, so he obediently placed his head under the old man's hand.

But they didn't see the ruthless glint in the old man's eyes, which were already clouded with white.

……

Huo Yu suddenly awoke from his meditation and looked around. He was no longer in the dilapidated temple in the rain that night, but in his cave in the Yellow Springs Sect.

Before me, a seven-petaled lotus flower was slowly rotating, and a strange fragrance emanated from its heart, making one feel drowsy.

The seven-leaf hibiscus was indeed extraordinary in its ability to repair the soul. However, Huo Yu did not expect that it would take much longer to absorb the seven-leaf hibiscus than he had anticipated, and that another effect of the seven-leaf hibiscus was also more powerful than he had imagined.

The exotic fragrance of the seven-leaf hibiscus can evoke the memories that cultivators least want to recall, but Huo Yu never expected that what he would see was that rainy night.

The sequel to that memory is that after the old man placed his hand on the boy's crown, the boy Huo Yu lost consciousness.

When he awoke again, it was already broad daylight, and beside him was the old man's cold corpse, clearly having been dead for some time.

Huo Yu now knew, of course, that the old man had intended to use a body-snatching technique on him.

The technique of possession cannot be used on mortals, which is why the old man taught him the Fire Control Technique, wanting to gamble on whether he would die first or Huo Yu would reach the first level of Qi Refining.

He both won and lost his gamble: Huo Yu was indeed at the first level of Qi Refining at the time, but the old man's attempt to possess his body failed.

Huo Yu had guessed the truth soon after embarking on his path of cultivation, but at that time, he was still unaware of the old man's cause of death in the dilapidated temple.

For Huo Yu at that time, the old man was one of the few people who had treated him well in the past fifteen years, and he was also the one who enlightened him and led him from the mortal world onto the path of cultivation.

After the old man passed away, Huo Yu buried his body and most of his belongings, and erected a wooden tombstone that he had personally carved in front of the old man's grave.

Because the old man's name was unknown, only the words "Master" and "Disciple Huo Yu" were engraved on the wooden tablet, and the rest were blank.

Huo Yu stood in front of the old man's tombstone for a day and a night, knelt down and kowtowed three times before leaving Zhongjing.

He took away only the old man's one remaining possession that had not been buried in the tomb: a thread-bound book containing the Fire Control Technique, which the old man had written for him by hand when he was still able to move.

Huo Yu was unusually indifferent to emotions during his youth. In fact, this situation continued until Huo Yu cultivated for a hundred years before it improved slightly.

Even today, Huo Yu can still recall the scene of standing in front of the old man's nameless monument. He thought his heart should be filled with sorrow, but he felt no emotion different from usual.

He stood there numbly for a day and a night, without feeling the slightest bit of sorrow, before kowtowing and leaving.

Besides being emotionally detached, Huo Yu also had no memories of his childhood. He didn't know where he came from or who his parents were. He only knew that when he had memories, he was already a little beggar in Zhongjing.

Even the name "Huo Yu" was something he gave himself based on a restaurant sign he saw while begging.

Regardless of which incarnation Huo Yu was, he never looked back on his past, nor did he ever question it, which seems somewhat abnormal now.

However, Huo Yu always considered that old man to be his first and only master.

Regardless of the old man's initial purpose in teaching him the Fire Control Technique, he was his guide on the path of cultivation. Therefore, neither Huo Yu then nor Huo Yu now felt anything special about this memory.

It's not that I don't want to think about it, it's just that I've forgotten it in a very ordinary way.

He didn't understand why the Seven-Leaf Hibiscus would show him this memory, but he didn't have time to think about it now.

In fact, the reason he had to wake up from his meditative state of absorbing the Seven-Leaf Hibiscus was because the outer sect assessment of the Yellow Spring Sect was about to begin.