After nine lifetimes of reincarnation, I returned to the desolate ancient continent.

pain!

It wasn't a headache, nor the faint palpitations you feel after a nightmare.

It was a sharp pain, like someone was slowly scraping his nerves with a blunt knife.

He sat up abruptly in bed, his chest heaving violently, his forehead covered in cold sweat, and his fingers unconsciously clenched the sheets until his knuckles turned white.

The rented room was dimly lit, the curtains weren't fully drawn, and the grayish-white morning light leaked in through the gaps, falling right at his feet. The old air conditioner hummed softly, the water glass on the table was half full, and the phone screen flickered twice; the whole world was utterly ordinary.

Gu Qingxuan knew that the dream he had just had had had come true again.

No, that can no longer be considered a dream.

He had seen the same scene nine times already.

The first time was when he was seven years old, he dreamed that he was nailed to death on a snowfield by a black spear.

The second time was when he was twelve years old. He dreamed that he sank into an ancient underwater palace and his soul was torn apart.

The third time was when he was fifteen. He dreamed that he fell from a sky so high that he couldn't see the end, and was smashed to pieces.

In the following years, these dreams became more and more frequent and clearer.

Until the early hours of this morning, he finally saw the full picture of that dream.

That's not Earth.

It was a world that was collapsing.

Gu Qingxuan closed his eyes, and the images from his dream came flooding back.

A shattered sky, collapsed palaces, burning mountains and rivers, and a pitch-black crack that stretches across the heavens and earth... He stood on the broken white jade steps, his hands covered in blood, corpses strewn at his feet. In the distance, a giant blue carp defied the heavens and crashed into the depths of chaos; on the other side, the moonlight filled the sky, and a white carp hung quietly in the high sky, as if waiting for someone to return.

Then, a giant, pitch-black hand emerged from the depths of the crack.

The moment that hand fell, the sky collapsed.

Palaces, mountains and rivers, escape lights, magical treasures, cultivators... everything was silently destroyed under its palm, as if wiped away in one swipe.

Finally, a pair of eyes opened from the depths of chaos.

A pair of eyes so cold they seemed devoid of any emotion.

Those eyes looked at him and said only one sentence.

"I've found you."

Gu Qingxuan suddenly opened his eyes, and a chill ran down his spine once again.

"Hold……"

He muttered a curse under his breath and raised his hand to press his temple.

The area throbbed with pain, as if something was trying to break out of his brain, but there was always a thick wall separating it. For the past few years, he had suspected he might have a mental problem, and even secretly went to the hospital for a checkup without his family's knowledge, but everything came back normal.

Normal my ass.

A normal person wouldn't have the same death dream nine times in a row.

And there won't be that suffocating feeling of being stared through by those eyes lingering in your chest after waking up.

My phone vibrated.

My roommate Chen Ye sent me a message:

"Old Zhou is taking attendance today. If you're late again, you'll lose your participation grade for the semester."

Gu Qingxuan glanced at it, replied "I know," and was about to get up when he suddenly stopped.

A faint dark red line had appeared on the back of his right hand at some unknown time.

Like blood streaks.

It also resembles some kind of extremely ancient mark.

Gu Qingxuan stared intently at it, his breathing gradually tightening.

But before he could see it clearly, the pattern faded away little by little, as if it had never appeared at all.

He remained silent for a good ten seconds before getting out of bed and going into the bathroom.

The young man in the mirror had handsome features, a pale complexion, and a hint of exhaustion from staying up late. He was the kind of ordinary guy who wouldn't stand a second glance if you threw him into a university campus.

Ordinary, quiet, even a bit sickly.

Gu Qingxuan stared at himself in the mirror, suddenly feeling somewhat dazed.

Was the person standing amidst the collapsing world in my dream really him?

How could that guy with blood on his hands, who looked like he'd been through countless battles, be the same person as the one in the mirror wearing a cheap hoodie and worrying about failing his exams every day?

He turned on the tap and splashed a handful of cold water on his face.

When I looked up again, a flash of blood appeared deep in my right eye in the mirror.

Gu Qingxuan froze on the spot.

The crimson hue was faint, yet undeniably present, like something that had momentarily opened its eyes deep within the pupil.

Before he could react, he suddenly heard a "sizzle" sound in his ear.

The bathroom light flickered.

Immediately afterwards, the phone on the living room table started vibrating incessantly.

Gu Qingxuan frowned as he walked out. As soon as he picked up his phone, the lock screen automatically turned into a snowy display.

It's not that the phone crashed or the screen froze.

Instead, it was as if a television signal had been forcibly interfered with, with white noise covering the entire screen. In the center of the snowflakes, a black crack slowly emerged, exactly the same as the crack in the sky he had seen in his dream.

The hairs on Gu Qingxuan's arms stood on end.

The next second, the phone suddenly went black with a "snap," completely crashing.

The room returned to silence.

It was so quiet that it was as if everything that had just happened was an illusion.

Gu Qingxuan stood there, his throat dry.

Things from my dreams are starting to appear in reality.

This is definitely not a good sign.

He took a deep breath and tried to restart his phone, but nothing worked. Finally, he could only put it in his pocket, quickly change his shoes, and head out.

A faint smell of cooking oil wafted through the hallway. The aunt next door was preparing vegetables at her doorway, while steam rose from the breakfast stalls downstairs, the aroma of soy milk and steamed buns mingling with car exhaust. Students, office workers, electric bikes, buses—everything was crammed into the ordinary yet noisy morning of this city.

Gu Qingxuan, however, did not feel at ease at all.

He even felt that there was something inexplicably wrong about the whole city today.

As he passed the entrance to the residential area, he subconsciously looked up at the electronic screen on the street corner.

The screen was playing a video of a phone game crashing, with the male and female protagonists laughing in a standard yet hollow way. Gu Qingxuan was about to look away when, in the next instant, the screen suddenly flickered.

Immediately afterwards, the entire screen turned into a snowy display.

Gu Qingxuan stopped abruptly.

The black crack reappeared.

This time, it wasn't just a fleeting glimpse; it was a clear crack in the center of the screen, as if someone were scratching a hole with their fingernail from another world.

Everyone around seemed oblivious, continuing to look down at their phones, rushing to catch the subway, or hurrying forward with their breakfasts in hand.

No one looked up.

No one stopped.

Only Gu Qingxuan stood still, his heart beating faster and faster.

The voice rang in his ears again.

It was very light and very far away, as if it came from across countless layers of water and time.

"Gu Qingxuan".

The moment the voice fell, Gu Qingxuan's scalp tingled.

Because he could tell—

That was a woman's voice.

It was cool and quiet, yet it carried a strange sense of familiarity, as if I had whispered many words in his ear long ago.

Gu Qingxuan turned around abruptly.

Crowds of people come and go, and sunlight shines obliquely through the gaps between the tall buildings, making the street corner appear white.

Right in the middle of that crowd stood a girl.

Wearing a white top and with long black hair, she held an old book in her hands, appearing as quiet as if she were in a different world from the noisy reality around her.

She was also looking at Gu Qingxuan.

The moment their eyes met, Gu Qingxuan's mind went blank, as if something had been violently knocked away.

Moonlight, white carp, wind and snow, collapsing sky, a white-clad figure standing at the end of the cloud bridge... countless fragmented images suddenly flooded his mind, making his temples throb and his vision even slightly darken.

He instinctively took a step forward.

The girl moved first.

She closed the book and walked towards him.

Each step was light, yet it felt like stepping on the heaviest spot in Gu Qingxuan's heart.

The closer he got, the stronger the sense of familiarity became, so strong that Gu Qingxuan even had an absurd illusion—

This wasn't the first time she had approached him like this.

Instead, it has been done many times.

From a very, very far place, across many, many years, I finally stood before him again.

The two stopped a step apart.

Gu Qingxuan opened his mouth, but all the questions he had prepared got stuck in his throat.

who are you?

Have we met before?

Was that you calling me just now?

What exactly is the crack on the screen?

But the moment I saw the girl's eyes, all of these problems suddenly became unimportant.

Because there was something in those eyes that he simply couldn't bear.

It felt like waiting for too long, like something lost and then found again, like finally confirming that the person who should have died was truly alive and standing right in front of you.

She looked at Gu Qingxuan and remained silent for a few seconds.

Then, she spoke softly:

"This time—"

Gu Qingxuan's heart clenched suddenly.

"Something within you is beginning to awaken."

boom!

The moment those words were spoken, the crimson hue deep within Gu Qingxuan's right eye erupted once more.

It wasn't a flash, but rather as if something suddenly awoke, and his entire field of vision was tinged with a faint bloody light for a moment. The world before him seemed to be torn apart for a brief instant; streets, crowds, vehicles, and even the "GG" sign all appeared as brief double images.

Behind that double image, he saw something else.

On the electronic screen at the street corner, the black crack is slowly widening.

Behind the crack, a cold eye stared intently at him through countless snowflakes and noise.

At the same time, the voice I had heard in my dream rang out again.

No longer far away.

No longer blurry.

It was as if she was whispering words into his ear.

"I've found you."

Gu Qingxuan's pupils suddenly contracted.

The girl in white standing in front of him changed her expression for the first time.

She suddenly looked up at the large electronic screen, her voice finally revealing a hint of barely suppressed urgency.

"Walk!"