The Great Sage XuanDe, his fury seemingly evaporated as quickly as it arrived, gestured toward a swirling vortex of iridescent light. "The Passage to Reincarnation," he announced, his voice regaining its calm authority. "Beyond lies your next life. But before you go, drink."
He offered a small, intricately carved cup filled with shimmering, opalescent liquid, the Water from the Veil of Oblivion, designed to erase the memories of the Netherworld. "It will ensure a clean slate for your next life."
Lian Qin Yu hesitantly took the cup; it felt strangely cool, soothing, almost… seductive. As she drank, the liquid, a cool, sweet nectar, washed over her.
A gentle forgetting began to settle over her mind, dissolving the sharp edges of the Netherworld experience. Images flickered... Xuanming's mischievous grin, the Great Sage XuanDe's thunderous voice, and the spectral beings in the halls of judgment then faded, dissolving into peaceful oblivion.
Alongside the cup, Lord XuanDe presented a slim, leather-bound book: Celestial Weaver's Guide. Its pages seemed to writhe with arcane symbols, pulsing with faint light. "A gift," XuanDe explained, his voice softer now. "A guide for your future journey. Within, you will find knowledge of cultivation practices and guidance for your guardian beasts. It modifies itself accordingly to realms. Consider it a reward for your selfless action."
As Lian Qin Yu stepped toward the vortex, a sudden, violent tremor shook the Netherworld.
A being of pure energy, a chaotic entity composed of swirling nebulae and crackling lightning burst forth from a hidden rift in the fabric of reality. It shrieked, a sound like grinding tectonic plates, and unleashed a torrent of raw energy directly at the vortex.
The unexpected blast sent shockwaves through the Netherworld. It struck the cup in Lian Qin Yu's hand, shattering it and sending shards of opalescent liquid scattering through the air.
A portion of the water splashed onto the Celestial Weaver's Guide, causing its pages to glow with an unearthly brilliance. The effect was immediate and profound.
The chaotic energy had interwoven with the water, leaving Lian Qin Yu's memories not entirely erased but fragmented, woven into the very fabric of her cultivation manual.
The Celestial Weaver now pulsed with both the power of the Veil of Oblivion and the wild energy of the unknown entity, a fusion that would uniquely shape Lian Qin Yu's future cultivation path.
Lord XuanDe, though visibly displeased, merely sighed. "Well," he muttered, adjusting his robes, "at least it adds a certain… je ne sais quoi." Then, with a slight smile, he added, "Perhaps this unforeseen event will be a boon after all."
With a final, reassuring nod from the Great Sage, Lian Qin Yu stepped into the vortex, the fragmented memories of the Netherworld and the Celestial Weaver's Guide firmly etched in her soul.
Her reincarnation journey commenced, not with a clean slate, but with an unpredictable blend of the ordinary and the extraordinary, setting the stage for a life far beyond anything she had ever imagined.
She would forget the specifics, the details. But something deeper would remain, a feeling, an unshakable imprint of the Netherworld experience, shaping the very core of her being.
As she entered her new life, a hidden power surged beneath the surface, a connection to the realm beyond… waiting to be awakened.
======
The reincarnation tunnel was a kaleidoscope of shifting colors and swirling energies. Lian Qin Yu felt herself dissolving, her essence unraveling like a loose thread. Then, nothingness.
A profound emptiness. Terrifying oblivion. And then… sensation.
A throbbing ache. A suffocating pressure. The stench of death and decay.
Lian Qin Yu awoke. Or rather, something awoke.
It wasn't a clean awakening... it was more like being violently yanked from a dream.
She was aware and conscious, but her mind was a tangled mess of fragmented memories... hers and someone else's.
The memories crashed over her: a life of brutal toil, starvation, and ceaseless pain. A life lived in the suffocating darkness of a salt mine, where human lives were as expendable as shovels.
The body she inhabited was frail, scarred, and aching; the soul that once resided in this vessel had died a slow, agonizing death. The new memories surged and blended with her previous ones. She was her… and yet, not her.
The pain, the despair, the relentless exhaustion, an unbearable symphony of suffering, threatened to crush her. A bitter laugh escaped her cracked lips. "I'm a slave," she thought. "And I'm dead. Again."
Her hands, calloused and trembling, instinctively touched an empty jade vial. The Water of Forgetfulness had done its job, obscuring the details of her journey through the Netherworld. Yet… one thing remained.
As she reached for the Celestial Weaver's Guide, a faint prickling sensation coursed through her fingertips.
The water that had splashed on its pages had not erased her memories. Instead, it had fused them with this new life, creating a paradox, a fractured but powerful coexistence of past and present.
The Celestial Weaver's Guide felt warm in her hands. A faint yet powerful energy pulsed within its aged pages... an echo of the chaos that had infused it.
She was ready for anything life threw at her. She had the knowledge. The will. The unrelenting determination to fight against fate itself.
The death of the slave was the beginning of Lian Qin Yu's true awakening.
The game was on.