After conquering the Empress, I proved my Dao with the Heaven and Earth Spirit Furnace!

This is fate, not destiny, but the choice of two people.

One chose to be the master, the other chose to be the disciple, thus beginning this... karma!

"You still need to experience the knocks of departure and the knocks of twilight. In this process, there are many paths in your life. Which one you choose is up to you."

If you eventually kowtow to Mu Wang, then our master-disciple relationship can never be severed.

I did not accept your apprenticeship gift, because I have already accepted one once.

The old man spoke softly, raised his hand to pat Qin Chuan's head, and smiled as he asked him to stand up.

Qin Chuan seemed to understand but not quite, and stood up.

Looking at his master, he could feel the other's kindness.

I felt a warmth rising in my heart under such gazes.

He nodded emphatically…

Spring goes and autumn comes, time flows on.

Qin Chuan is nineteen years old.

During those seven years, he spent most of his time living with his master, reading books and gazing at the bright moon and stars.

Everything in the book taught him to respect his teachers and to value the world; everything in the book also made him realize how vast the world is.

In seven years, my father has aged considerably, and my master has grown even older.

Little Orchid is no longer the top attraction in the courtyard.

A year ago, she was redeemed by a wealthy man from the outer city and became his concubine.

Before leaving, she also found Qin Chuan.

She spoke to him gently, as if he were her younger brother.

Finally, with a smile on Qin Chuan's face, he boarded the sedan chair and left Dragon Ridge City.

The two companions from back then, keeping their promise, took over the legacy of Qin Chuan.

He has indeed become a local bully.

But Qin Chuan no longer called himself a bully; instead, he took off his fancy robes and put on a simple blue shirt.

A long blue robe, just like the blue of youth.

However, as the seasons changed, his face lost its frivolity and gained a touch of composure.

He likes to think and likes to look at the sky.

I like to stand in the pavilion during stormy weather, watching the distant lightning and thunder, and watching the rain fall on the earth.

At this moment, he would think of the vicissitudes of life he had read about in books.

Like a dream.

Seven years have passed like a storm, but Qin Chuan doesn't feel that anything has changed.

But to outsiders, he has changed a lot.

Qin Chuan often gazes at Dragon Ridge Mountain, and some memories, seemingly from his past life, float into his mind.

It's very mixed and not coherent.

But over the course of seven years, these memories have surfaced more and more frequently.

Qin Chuan looked at his increasingly elderly master and wanted to express his idea of ​​traveling far away.

He wanted to cross mountains and go further afield to see the outside world.

In the end, he looked at Dragonspine City, at his father, and at his master.

Instead of speaking, they remained silent.

One year, two years, three years... When the second seven years arrive.

That autumn.

As the autumn wind swept away fallen leaves and the earth grew desolate, his father fell seriously ill and passed away one night.

Standing before his father's grave, Qin Chuan's eyes glazed over, as if he were back fourteen years ago.

The father carried him to the master's door, and fourteen years passed in the blink of an eye...

In silence, Qin Chuan drank a pot of wine.

As he turned around, he told his master that he wanted to go far away.

This was a dream of his that had been brewing in his heart for a long time.

As he departed, Qin Chuan kowtowed a second time before his master.

This is... a knock on the door as we depart.

Under his master's watchful gaze, Qin Chuan, carrying a green bamboo box, walked further and further away one morning.

The first time he turned around, he could not see his master. The second time he turned around, even Dragon Ridge City had disappeared.

Qin Chuan remained silent, but he vaguely understood something.

As he turned around, he walked further and further away, never looking back a third time.

In the river, Qin Chuan met a ferryman and they talked about the legends of the river.

According to legend, immortals lived by this river.

"Immortal" was a term Qin Chuan occasionally encountered in the books he had read, which piqued his interest.

I lived by this river for three years, but unfortunately I didn't see any immortals; they were in the river itself.

It seems... I saw another version of myself.

Flying through the sky, cultivating in the mountains, existing within a lineage called the Questioning Elixir Sect…

It's as if by jumping down, I could become another version of myself and end my life.

Three years later, Qin Chuan was twenty-nine years old.

In his final year at thirty, he did not jump into the river, but instead got up and left the long river, heading to a farther place.

A year later, in a secluded forest that seemed to have no end.

On a dark night with few stars, Qin Chuan saw the fleeting figure of a woman and an abandoned old grave.

There was no incense burning at the grave, and the woods were dark and gloomy, which made Qin Chuan somewhat afraid.

When countless figures surrounded him, Qin Chuan's body suddenly trembled.

In that instant, everything around them disappeared.

From then on, he became curious about this dark forest.

Walking through the secluded forest, Qin Chuan witnessed a series of bizarre and fantastical sights, including strange and unusual wild beasts.

He walked through this forest for three years before finally passing through it.

As he left, he glanced at the mountains and forests, a look of bewilderment on his face.

He had a feeling that, if he wanted, this mountain forest could also belong to him.

Here, together with heaven and earth, we pursue a life that transcends the mundane.

As he gazed into the distance, Qin Chuan thought of his master and the words he had spoken twenty-one years ago.

In life, there are many paths to choose from... it's up to you.

"This...is not the path I want to choose either."

Qin Chuan seemed to be deep in thought, then turned and walked away.

Two years later, Qin Chuan was thirty-five years old.

He has been away from his hometown for nine years.

In those nine years, he only went to two places: a river and a forest.

Until that year, he encountered a group of mountain bandits.

The bandits killed people, but they didn't kill him.

Perhaps it was because Qin Chuan, at his age, was still wearing a scholar's robe and carrying a tattered bamboo box, looking somewhat down on his luck.

Then, the beautiful and charming female bandit leader asked a question.

Can you do accounting?

Qin Chuan shook his head, but was still taken away by the bandits and sent into the mountain stronghold.

This is a large village with over a thousand inhabitants, mostly the families of bandits, and many children.

Qin Chuan was assigned to be a teacher here, teaching these children to read.

You don't need too much; at the very least, you need to be able to recognize banknotes and understand letters.

These are the qualities that an excellent bandit needs to possess.

These were also the demands that the beautiful bandit leader made of all the mountain bandits.

Time passed slowly, and three years flew by.

Qin Chuan also accepted his fate and began teaching.

He looked at the sky, seemingly the same as when he was in Dragonspine City.

I only think of my master occasionally, and I think of my father's grave, which I haven't been able to clean in a long time.

Within the mountain stronghold, people die every month.

In those three years, the village was relocated twice.

In the fourth year, the government troops arrived.

Faced with a huge disparity in resources, the entire mountain stronghold was in despair when Qin Chuan hesitated for a moment and suggested using poison.

At that moment, a north wind began to blow, and the officers and soldiers were on the south side.

A crimson mist billowed into the sky!