Why did you provoke that old man? He's a reincarnation of a deity!

On the 17th day of the 12th month of the 355th year of the Great Xia Dynasty, in a dilapidated temple in Mizhou Prefecture.

Xiao Nian was awakened by a chill that seemed to seep into her bones.

He opened his eyes abruptly, snowflakes pelting his face along the window frame. He found himself huddled in a pile of moldy straw, wrapped in a thin, breathable, tattered cotton robe, his limbs stiff and almost immobile.

"Me? Still alive?" He raised his right hand, his skin as withered as a dried corpse, veins bulging, black dirt embedded in his fingernails, and several scabbed wounds on the back of his hand.

Xiao Nian stared at the hand for a long time. He remembered that he was undergoing tribulation just a moment ago.

A calamity befell the cosmic order, and a thousand layers of purple lightning cleaved through the eternal void. He, the Azure Emperor Xiao Nian, at the peak of the True Immortal Realm, had traversed the universe for a thousand years without a single defeat. He was only one step away from becoming a True God, but in the end, he perished under the final heavenly tribulation.

"How did I end up here? Didn't I fail my tribulation?"

"Could it be that my thousand years of cultivation was all just a pipe dream?"

Xiao Nian once studied under the Kunlun Immortal of the Nine Heavens Emperor Sect. At the age of twenty-five, he was a Martial Emperor who had broken through the limits, but he died on Kunlun Mountain. The Kunlun Immortal saw that he possessed a rare treasure, so he rescued him and took him away from Blue Star under the pretext of taking him as a disciple. From then on, he embarked on the path of cultivation.

After cultivating immortality, Xiao Nian's talent was astonishing. Over the course of a thousand years, he defeated countless geniuses in the universe without ever being defeated. He easily cultivated to the True Immortal Realm and was hailed by various immortals as the only genius in the past tens of thousands of years who had the opportunity to advance to the True God Realm.

He was only one step away from becoming a true god, but unfortunately, after traversing the universe for a thousand years, he ultimately perished in the heavenly tribulation without any warning.

It wasn't until the moment the cosmic order was shattered that Xiao Nian realized he had too many inner demons to resolve. Although he was invincible throughout the universe, he abandoned his family and sect for the sake of cultivation, and even chose to leave the Nine Heavens Emperor Sect.

This experience could not be explained by a dream. Xiao Nian pinched her thigh hard; it felt very real.

"Could it be...? That I've possessed someone else?"

Xiao Nian tried to sense the magical power within her body and suddenly discovered that the power that could destroy stars with a wave of the hand had vanished without a trace.

Even his physical body, comparable to the stars, and his divine sense, which covered the entire universe, vanished completely. An incredulous look appeared in Xiao Nian's eyes.

"This shouldn't be a tribulation of inner demons." Xiao Nian shook her head.

With Xiao Nian's cultivation and knowledge at the True Immortal realm, he naturally knew the principle behind the illusion constructed by the Heart Demon Tribulation. In this situation, the absence of any spiritual energy fluctuations indicated that this was the Heart Demon Tribulation.

Xiao Nian took a deep breath and felt a soreness and pain in her lungs, then coughed heavily.

Just then, the voices of two night watchmen could be heard outside.

"Huh? That pedantic scholar Meng is still alive?"

"You don't need to worry about him. If he offends the Li family, he's not far from death."

"That old bastard deserved it. Who told him to be so dishonest? I heard he's stolen a lot of things from the Li family and sold them over the years."

"The Li family arranged for us to stay here and keep watch, so just watch and don't say anything."

The sarcastic remarks between the two gradually faded away.

Xiao Nian sat on the haystack, looking at her withered hands. "Meng, the pedantic scholar?"

He tried to recall this body carefully, but his head spun, and he could only remember some general details:

This year is the 355th year of the Great Xia Dynasty, which is exactly the year after Xiao Nian was taken away by the Kunlun Immortal. A thousand years later, he was reborn in the body of an eighty-year-old man named Meng Chenhai after his death.

Meng Chenhai had two sons and a daughter. He once served as a candidate for Hanlin Academy. After his wife passed away, he developed a bad habit of drinking and gambling. He even mortgaged his family's courtyard house to buy alcohol.

In order to counter the powerful ships and cannons of foreign powers, the Great Xia Dynasty completely abolished the civil service examination system for literature and established martial arts schools throughout the country, while literature was relegated to a useless field of study.

Meng Chenhai held a nominal teaching position at the military academy, barely scraping by on a meager salary. He was a heavy drinker and could only earn a few copper coins by teaching the Li family to read.

Because of his fondness for alcohol and his unrestrained speech, he was drunk every day and was kicked out of his home by his son last month.

Running out of money for drinks, Meng Chenhai remembered the Li family's wages. He went to ask them for his wages but was kicked out and publicly accused of dishonest dealings. Later, he got into a fight with several students from the martial arts academy at a teahouse. The students, young and hot-blooded, and relying on the imperial court's promotion of martial arts, easily knocked him to the ground and left.

Meng Chenhai was over eighty years old and already frail. He collapsed on the street on a snowy night and no one cared. He relied on his remaining willpower to come to this dilapidated temple, but eventually froze to death there. Xiao Nian then returned.

"Possession?" Xiao Nian whispered, "My soul has landed on Blue Star when I was twenty-five years old? Possessing this body that just died."

He touched his face: snow-white beard and hair, a face full of wrinkles, and deep-set eyes.

Eighty years old. He was an eighty-year-old man. I, the mighty Azure Sky Emperor, who traversed the universe for countless ages and could shatter stars with a mere wave of my hand, was now huddled in a froze, decaying old body.

"Damn, this body shatters at the slightest touch, how are we supposed to play like this?"

"I've died twice," Xiao Nian said with a bitter smile. "I survived one tribulation and froze to death once."

The fact that he had lost all the skills he had painstakingly cultivated over the years did not discourage him. As long as one is alive, there is hope, especially since all his memories have been preserved.

In his previous life, he cultivated solely for speed, for freedom from all attachments, for the ruthless nature of the Great Dao. But when he reached the point of becoming a god, he realized that the true Great Dao, from beginning to end, is intertwined with countless emotions; emotions are the very flesh and blood of the Dao.

In this life, he will live a life of swift retribution and without regrets!

My beloved Liu Wan'er is here, as are my father, mother, and sister. Everything can start over.

"In this life, I will never let anyone I love leave me!"

His gaze gradually sharpened, as if flames were flickering within it.

"I came back, but I came back too late." Xiao Nian's gaze was firm. "This time, everything can start over."

The cold wind continued to blow through the dilapidated temple. Xiao Nian struggled to stand up, leaning against the door frame for a while until her legs stopped trembling before turning back to the haystack.

He searched through Meng Chenhai's belongings: a broken inkstone, a half-broken brush, a few copper coins, and a small piece of dried biscuit wrapped in oil paper.

The dry biscuit was frozen solid. Xiao Nian broke off a piece, put it in his mouth and gently softened it, then chewed it with his soon-to-fall-out teeth and swallowed it.

Xiao Nian swallowed the dry biscuit to replenish some energy, then sat cross-legged and began to practice the [Nine Deaths Nirvana Technique]. This was a healing secret technique used by an ancient tribe on a certain star, which could heal injuries under extremely harsh conditions, even without breathing.

After circulating the incantation for one cycle, this body, already buried in the earth, was in such poor condition that it could only barely recover some of the broken bones and meridians.

Meng Chenhai left him with few things, and these were not what he was looking for.

"The fact that the Li family sent people to keep an eye on this old man suggests that he harbors some kind of secret."

"Even before he died, Meng Chenhai climbed here... Could it be?"

He took off Meng Chenhai's tattered cotton robe and shook it, then turned the straw pile up inside and out, but found nothing useful.

Xiao Nian's gaze fell on an inconspicuous patch of loose soil in the corner of the wall. Meng Chenhai's memories told him that there was something there. He squatted down, used a branch to probe into the soil, and dug down inch by inch.

A moment later, Xiao Nian felt himself dig up something hard. He pulled it out and found it was a palm-sized box with distorted characters engraved on its edges—Arabic numerals.

Xiao Nian knew what it was at first glance: an envelope sealed with exotic techniques. It would automatically destroy itself after three failed password attempts.

"A sealing array, and a high-level secret sealing technique at that."

Although the spiritual energy on Earth has been depleted, a magical civilization has developed beyond Earth, possessing a unique system of sealing techniques.

Meng Chenhai, a poor and penniless old scholar, certainly couldn't open it, and didn't even know what it was.

Xiao Nian guessed that Old Man Meng had probably taken it by chance when he was a teacher at the Li family. He thought it looked valuable and wanted to exchange it for a few ounces of wine, but he didn't know how hot it was.

Xiao Nian's current abilities are insufficient to open the box, but he has already guessed what's inside. It's most likely evidence of the Li family's crimes. Nowadays, anyone with eyes can see that the Great Xia Dynasty is about to collapse, and various forces are eager to make their move. Xiao Nian knows that after the collapse of the Great Xia Dynasty, the Li family will seek refuge with forces outside the region.

Xiao Nian buried the box back in its original spot, disguised it with straw, and patted the dirt off her hands.

"No wonder the Li family is so focused on Meng Chenhai. They know the things are missing, but they have no evidence that the old man stole them. If they kill the old man directly, they're afraid the things will fall into the wrong hands. So they sent night watchmen to keep an eye on him day and night to see if he leaks any information."

He looked up at the gray sky outside the dilapidated temple.

"Hmph, this thing will have its uses."

He stood up, broke off another half of the dry biscuit, and slowly chewed it in his mouth. The crumbs slid down his throat with his saliva, and his stomach finally felt a little warm. Staying full was the key to preventing hypothermia.

But he knew all too well: this eighty-year-old, crippled body had two broken ribs, blood clots in its lungs, and its meridians were like dried-up riverbeds. If he didn't repair his body as soon as possible, forget about cultivating immortality; he would even have a hard time surviving this winter.

"I need elixirs to recover. Elixirs cost money." He looked down at the few copper coins.

Xiao Nian revealed a meaningful smile.

"Isn't the Li family keeping an eye on me? No money? Then go ask the Li family for it."

Outside the temple gate, a pair of eyes secretly watched everything that was happening in the dilapidated temple with disbelief.

Grandpa died, but then he came back to life. What should we do?