On a small wooden bed lay a boy with a fair face and outstanding facial features with a blanket covered up to his shoulder.
His slender eyebrows twisted into a deep frown, and a thin layer of sweat started to form on his small forehead.
The small figure began to stir uncomfortably looking as if he was trapped in a nightmare but was unable to wake up.
A few moments later, the boy suddenly snapped his eyes open. He sprung up into a sitting position causing the blanket to slide over his small body.
Ignoring the uncomfortable sensation of the fabric stuck onto his skin, he took several deep breaths trying to ease the suffocation in his chest.
Only after his condition has improved did Wan Yu have time to survey his surroundings.
Despite his complexion looking a bit ghastly, it didn't hinder his fairy-like beauty.
On the small fair face was a pair of mesmerizing almond-shaped eyes fanned by long eyelashes. His small thin lips were red as cherry making him look like a little girl if one doesn't pay close attention.
Yet, this immature face had a cold expression that did not suit his age. His beautiful almond-shaped eyes were devoid of any temperature, and his whole body was shrouded in gloomy air.
Wan Yu coldly scanned the unfamiliar but familiar room before wordlessly lowering his eyes to stare down at his small hands.
His hands were that of a child, still fair and clean devoid of any callouses or scars.
He should be around 7 years old and was just demoted to an Outer Disciple.
With this discovery, the corner of Wan Yu's lips curled. A cold smile slowly formed on his beautiful face, his dark obsidian eyes were full of killing intent.
A low laugh escapes from his lips, "Wu Jing... I will make sure you regret having been born into this world."
Unfortunately, no matter how much Wan Yu wished to tear this person into pieces, he couldn't go to the Demon Realm in his current state.
His revenge needs to be put on hold for now.
Restraining his dark thoughts, Wan Yu habitually sat in a lotus position and closed his eyes. After realizing that his spiritual space was still intact, he reopened them.
In his past life, the world only knew him as a sword cultivator with a divine lighting spiritual root.
No one learned that he possessed another space spiritual root which was said to be extinct.
Some time ago, Wan Yu had a fortuitous encounter and stumbled upon records left by the last space cultivator while exploring an ancient tomb.
Thanks to this opportunity, he was able to master his space element allowing him to escape dangers many times.
Others have always thought that he used talismans or secret techniques to escape.
Only Wu Jing could see through his tricks.
However, even Wu Jin couldn't have foreseen that Wan Yu still had another card on his sleeves.
A forbidden technique to reverse the time.
His soul got damaged in return but Wan Yu didn't regret his decision.
Revenge is all he seeks in this life.
His cultivation may advance slower than his previous life but he is confident that he can kill Wu Jing before he ascends into a Demon Lord.
What he needs to do now is to secretly build up his strength while remaining as an Outer Disciple to avoid the limelight.
While Wan Yu was planning his future step by step, a faint voice of someone singing passed through the heavy curtain of rain and reached his ears temporarily pulling him back to reality.
"On every street and pathway,
On everyone's lips,
The first thing we say is,
Good wishes, good wishes to you, yeah!
Good wishes, good wishes to you!"
Wan Yu's expression briefly froze. His dark eyes instinctively shifted in the direction where the voice was coming from.
Almost instantly, he released his divine power to search around the area and happened to stumble upon a presence not far away from his abode.
In his past life, Wan Yu's cultivation was extremely high, therefore, those who could detect his abnormality in this place were only his Master and the Sect Leader.
As a result, he wasn't afraid of being found by whoever was signing nearby. Nonetheless, this finding still surprised him.
Just as Wan Yu was pondering who was it, the voice started fading away before disappearing completely.
He waited and waited but only the sound of thunder and rain remained. It was not long before the long-lost feeling of sleepiness started to kick in.
In the end, Wan Yu decided to investigate the next day and went to sleep.
In the morning, however, he was rudely woken up by several uninvited guests who came to his doorstep on their own accord.
Disdains filled his eyes as Wan Yu unhurriedly washed his face, tidied up his hair, and changed his clothes.
By the time he went to open the door, those people almost kicked down his door in dissatisfaction.
Carefully hiding away his true thoughts, Wan Yu's expression was back in place looking both cowardice and timid as he did in the past.
Good. I should clean you all up together with your greedy Master.
Back to Liu Xun's side, at this moment, his face was solemn as he stared at those ashes on the ground.
Where did these ashes originate from, you ask? Of course, they were from that book.
However, Liu Xun was not the one who burnt it.
Propping his head with his right hand, Liu Xun thoughtfully narrowed his eyes. By this time, he was sure of one thing.
Someone purposely let him see the book and cast a spell to get rid of it after he finished reading.
That being said, he needs to be on guard against that book and those memories too.
Knowing that this small life of his was bound to be full of ups and downs, Liu Xun inwardly cursed himself for running his mouth carelessly last night.
In this fantasy world where those cultivators were able to spy on someone from miles away, Liu Xun who stupidly revealed his whole background was feeling extremely depressed.
Helplessly slumping onto those piles of straws, Liu Xun decided to get some rest first before thinking of his next steps.
Fortunately, Wu Jing's presence was faint and no one would bother to check whether he was still alive or not.
Nevertheless, due to discomfort, he only slept for several hours. Giving a lazy stretch, Liu Xun started to organize his current condition in an orderly manner.
Wu Jing currently called Xiao Xu was an Outer Disciple who joined the Heavenly Sect two months ago.
Liu Xun was not clear about Wu Jing's origin either since the memory started when he was already 10 years old.
Based on this, Wu Jing started as a little beggar living on the street barely surviving each day.
One day, he happened to overhear some people chatting about the big event of the Heavenly Sect opening their gate to accept disciples in another 6 months.
For mortals, cultivators were the closest beings to Immortal, therefore, people respected and feared them.
The Little Wu Jing naively thought that if he were to be accepted into the Sect, he would no longer be afraid of starving.
With this thought, Wu Jing marched off to the Heavenly Sect while asking for directions from people he met along the way.
However, he met some people with bad minds and they purposely told him the wrong way which led him to almost miss this rare opportunity.
The Heavenly Sect's exam was not complicated. At the foot of the mountain where the entrance gate was situated, a long staircase of 9,999 steps was built, and looking from below it was impossible to see where the end was.
People named it 'Stairway to Heaven'. The higher you can go the higher the apltitude you possess which will allow you to pass the test.
For this trial, a formation was set up and no one was allowed to utilize their spiritual energy or magic artifact to cheat.
The test lasted for a week. Whether you chose to go forward or give up halfway was up to you.
Many couldn't persist and descend the mountain after a few days. The remaining were all seedlings from wealthy clans and rare talents.
Wu Jing was the only one who had no spiritual roots but still stubbornly persisted.
However, no matter how strong his will was, Wu Jing didn't have the spatial ring or bag to stock up the food and drink like others and finally collapsed due to hunger.
If not for the Senior Brother who was responsible for overlooking this trial had come to fetch him, he might have died due to starvation.
Regardless, many Elders were impressed by his determination, therefore, he was accepted into the Outer Sect.
His achievement as the only mortal to pass didn't make any splash as people's attention was attracted to a certain talent who managed to reach the top for the first time in history.
It was none other than the male protagonist, Wan Yu.
Due to his outstanding performance, he was hailed as a one-in-a-million-year genius and was accepted as a Direct Disciple of the Sect Leader.
Wu Jing didn't care about Wan Yu and went on his days as an Outer Disciple but his days were not that much better than his beggar days.
Not only was he unable to cultivate, but his appearance was unsightly as well causing everyone to look at him in disgust and often bully him.
Wu Jing couldn't bear it and left the place where the Outer Disciples were living and happened to find this abandoned hut in this desolate bamboo forest.
After staying here he hasn't bumped into anyone, therefore, it has become his home ever since.
Despite being hit and beaten, Wu Jing was able to endure at least before going over that unknown book like Liu Xun did.
At first, he didn't believe it but one event after another appeared as described in the book, and he finally lost it.
Wu Jing felt incredibly unfair at his ending. He resented the protagonists and tried to go against fate.
Little did he know that his unreasonable actions were what made him an actual villain.
Reaching this point, Liu Xun gave a light sigh.
Excluding the fact that Wu Jing, later on, became the revered Demon Lord, his life was truly tragic.
It was not that he didn't possess any spiritual roots but it was dug out by someone when he was a child.
It was no wonder that Wan Yu never realized that a disciple named Xiao Xu whom everyone called Ghostface turned out to be the Demon Lord Wu Jing.
There were more questions and details that Liu Xun found in Wu Jing's memories but for now, he decided to focus on the matter at hand and temporarily suppressed those thoughts.
He might die soon but at the very least it shouldn't be today or tomorrow.
Relying on his memory, Liu Xun walked into the woods and arrived at a small stream not far away from his place.
Admiring the lush greenery and inhaling the refreshing air devoid of any pollution, his mind cleared up a lot.
The sound of flowing water was soothing. The water was clean and clear as it flowed over the stony streambed.
Taking off his shoes, Liu Xun slightly dipped his right foot into the cooling water.
It was cold but bearable.
Between taking a cold shower and remaining dirty, Liu Xun decisively chose the former.
Either way, he will be taking medicine afterward so might as well make himself a bit more presentable.
Knowing that no one would come here, Liu Xun took off his clothes one by one until he was completely naked and immediately dived into the water.
Goosebumps erupted all over his body and Liu Xun wasted no time in scrubbing his body.
Unfortunately, halfway through, several voices were heard coming in his direction making Liu Xun pause.
Without any hesitation whatsoever, he swiftly swam to hide behind a relatively big rock deciding to wait for those people to walk away.
"I know that you have a lot of good stuff on you. You better give them to us while we are still speaking nicely!"
An immature voice filled with disdain sounded. Not long after, a soft timid voice which belonged to that of a young child was heard.
"I-I have already given you everything that Master gave me..."
"Heh, do you take us for fools? Who doesn't know that your Master is so generous in giving resources even to a trash like you!"
"That's right! Those pills will be useless on you anyways so might as well give them to us!"
Feeling wronged, the same pitiful voice retorted, "I really don't have any! Whoever told you is lying!"
Hearing this, one of the rude kids mocked, "Are you saying that Elder Su lied to us?"
As if not expecting an elder to be involved, the little boy's voice shook, "... Did you come here because of Elder Su's order?"
Seeing the boy's obvious fear toward their Master, those three smirked and proudly replied, "That's right! Do you think that going against Elder Su's wish is something a trash like you should be doing in your situation?"
"Elder Chen might be kind enough to pick up a trash like you but it is not worth his time protecting the like of you!"
Having his sore spot being poked, the boy balled his fists with his head lowered unable to bear the humiliation.
He then tremblingly reached into his front lapel and took out a bottle filled with Qi refining pills.
The three's eyes lit up with greed at the very sight of the white porcelain bottle. One of the boys was about to snatch the bottle away when a stone suddenly hit his outstretched hand causing him to yelp in pain.
"Ouch!"
"Who's there?! Come out!"
Realizing that there was another presence witnessing them robbing another person in broad daylight, the three hurriedly scanned their surroundings trying to find the culprit.
However, not a single soul was spotted.
Just as they were about to threaten the other party with their Master's name, a crisp and clear voice unhurriedly sounded coming from the stream.
"Committing a daylight robbery... Heh, your Master taught you well."
Hearing the blatant mockery in his voice, the three's faces became ugly.
"Who are you?! You dare go against Elder Su!"
Listening to this warning, the juvenile instead chuckled, his voice still as relaxed as ever, "Was it not enough for him to be demoted from the Inner Sect? Should I lend your Master a hand and directly exile him from the Sect?"
Hearing this, the three abruptly froze. They couldn't confirm whether the other party was bluffing or not but judging from his calm mannerism that didn't match his youthful voice, they didn't dare to gamble.
Realizing that they might have kicked an iron plate, they hurriedly kowtowed asking for forgiveness.
"Y-Young Master, It is not like that! Let us explain-"
"Shut up and scram for this Young Master." The youth's voice suddenly turned cold as he cut them off.
As if given amnesty, they all loudly thanked him and hurriedly ran away without looking back no longer caring about snatching other people's stuff.
During their exchange, Wan Yu remained motionless. His eyes dangerously narrowed in a certain direction.
He had long known that there was someone here.
However, in the past, no one stepped in to help him.
Something is not right with this person. Wan Yu darkly thought.