High-level martial arts: Long spear with black flames to suppress demons.

We returned to the side room of the small courtyard with its blue bricks.

After months of intense fighting, his mind was constantly on edge. Now, finally getting a break, Shen Chang'an felt a deep sense of exhaustion wash over him. He quickly washed himself with water, then lay back on the simple wooden bed, closed his eyes, and soon fell into a deep sleep.

Just as he was fast asleep, the space in the side room suddenly rippled slightly like water.

Immediately afterwards, a blurry spirit silently appeared in front of the bed.

The newcomer was the first person on the left side of the main seat in the main hall.

With Zhou Luotian's once unparalleled cultivation, even if he were just a spirit, shielding a junior's perception would be a piece of cake.

Shen Chang'an lay on the bed, breathing evenly, completely unaware of the top-level expert who was so close at hand.

"The Spirit Sea spans nine hundred and ninety-nine miles... an unpolished gem of unparalleled beauty. It all depends on whether your heart can bear this destiny."

Zhou Luotian stared at Shen Chang'an and slowly raised his right hand.

A surge of spiritual energy emanated from Zhou Luotian's fingertips, instantly enveloping Shen Chang'an's entire body.

Shen Chang'an, lying on the bed, frowned slightly but did not wake up.

......

Tick-tock...tick-tock...

Rainwater dripped from the roof into the old enamel basin, making a crisp sound.

Shen Chang'an opened his eyes groggily.

"Where... am I?"

He sat up abruptly, looking at the dark, damp earthen walls, the peeling mud, and the broken wooden table with a missing leg, propped up by a few bricks to maintain its balance. He patted his throbbing head, trying to recall something.

Suddenly a voice came.

"Chang'an, once you're awake, quickly drink this bowl of porridge. We still have to go to the fields to harvest wheat today."

An elderly peasant woman with a weathered face walked in carrying a bowl of rice porridge so thin you could see your reflection in it; her eyes were cloudy.

In this dream, Zhou Luotian sealed away all of Shen Chang'an's memories and cultivation.

He created the character of Shen Chang'an as an ordinary farm boy born in a remote and impoverished mountain village, whose family was destitute and who had just turned eighteen.

Because dreams are pieced together from his memories and perceptions, Zhou Luotian, who lived in ancient times, also looked at this modern society with great interest.

Their family's life was as bitter as bitter herbs.

The family toiled in the fields every day, the scorching sun baking their skin until it peeled, and the biting winter winds freezing their hands until they bled and cracked. Their parents aged prematurely, and the family was burdened with debt; it seemed as if they were born to suffer.

But Shen Chang'an's inherent resilience was not erased.

During the day, he worked tirelessly in the fields like an ox. At night, he would sit at a broken wooden table, munching on old textbooks he had collected, by the light of a kerosene lamp that made his eyes water.

He didn't know why he had to work so hard; all he knew was that he had to break free from this damned cycle of poverty that had been entrenched for generations!

He wants to get out of this mountain!

Cold and heat come and go, day after day.

Under Zhou Luotian's control, in this life, he did not impose any deliberate disasters or temptations, but simply allowed Shen Chang'an to grow wildly on this barren land like a weed.

Until that summer.

The village chief was so excited that he rushed into the dilapidated courtyard of his house without even putting on his shoes properly, banging gongs and drums.

"We got in! Chang'an University got in! The best university in the country! A golden phoenix has flown out of our poor mountain village!"

At that moment, the father, whose hands were calloused, squatted on the threshold and wailed, while the mother, with trembling hands, touched the gold-embossed admission notice as if she were touching a rare treasure.

Standing in the center of the courtyard, Shen Chang'an, dressed in patched clothes, looked at the sky above that seemed less oppressive and exhaled a deep breath of pent-up frustration that had been building up for eighteen years.

He won; he single-handedly forged a path to the heavens.

Later, after finishing his studies, Shen Chang'an did not choose to join a large enterprise, but instead took the exam to return to his village and become a village official. He led the villagers out of poverty and successfully made everyone in the village rich. He eventually lived to the age of eighty and died peacefully in his sleep. The village and the town erected memorial arches for him, and his name has been passed down through generations.

In the side room.

Zhou Luotian's spirit floated in front of the bed, his eyes reflecting Shen Chang'an's life in the illusion.

"There was much suffering in my first life. But I was unwilling to be mediocre and had excellent resilience."

"But that's not enough. The real trial has only just begun."

"In this second and third life, I will personally intervene and add some spice to your journey. In favorable circumstances, we'll test your resolve; in adversity, we'll test your principles. Let's see if you can still hold onto your true self!"

Second incarnation.

This time, Shen Chang'an didn't even have a dilapidated mud house to shelter him from the wind and rain.

He became an orphan in a remote and backward village, not even knowing who his parents were. He grew up wildly, fighting for food with the village's stray dogs, amidst scorn and beatings.

Due to extreme lack of love and hunger, he fled to the county town at the age of thirteen. In order to survive, he quickly went astray.

He joined a street gang. Because of his inherent ruthlessness and fearlessness, he quickly made a name for himself in the gang. Collecting protection money, guarding other people's places, fighting bloodshed in the streets... He smoked cheap cigarettes, his hair was dyed yellow, and the steel pipe in his hand was stained with blood. He sank deeper and deeper into the mud.

In his dream, Zhou Luotian constantly fueled his ambitions, arranging various lucrative but illegal opportunities for him, attempting to drag him completely into an abyss.

But when Shen Chang'an was seventeen, a turning point occurred.

The gang leader ordered him to cripple a single father who was unable to repay his debts to loan sharks due to illness. When the father saw Shen Chang'an, he knelt in the mud and kowtowed repeatedly, while a little girl with a terrified expression was hiding behind him, clutching a broken pencil tightly.

That half-pencil, covered in mud, was like a needle, piercing Shen Chang'an's numb soul.

He recalled his childhood, when he had to scavenge for food in the mud like a stray dog.

Shen Chang'an threw away the steel pipe in his hand.

Not only did he not lay a hand on the gang, but he also took the blame for the single father's anger.

The price of leaving a gang is severe.

On a dark night with torrential rain, he was cornered in a dead end by more than a dozen people, beaten almost to the point of being crippled, and thrown into a garbage dump like a dead dog, as if he had returned to his childhood.

But he didn't die; he was taken to the hospital by passersby.

He spent six months in the hospital. After being discharged, he dragged his slightly limping right leg to work as a low-level apprentice at a car repair shop. Covered in grease and grime, he endured countless scornful looks, but with his first clean paycheck, he bought a worn-out dictionary and several secondhand books.

He repairs cars during the day and studies diligently under the streetlights at night.

In this script of hardship, which Zhou Luotian deliberately increased the difficulty of, Shen Chang'an spent a full ten years crawling out of the mire, gradually correcting his deviated path, and finally getting into an ordinary vocational college, becoming a conscientious mechanical repairman, and living a plain and uneventful life.

"Stuck in the mud, yet able to pull back from the brink, undergoing painful but necessary treatment..."

Inside the side room, Zhou Luotian watched this scene unfold.

"What a prodigal son returning home! Since adversity cannot break your spirit, then I will give you the best of times! Let's see what you choose."