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

The moonlight shone on that face.

Thick eyebrows, square face, and a faint old scar on his eyebrow.

There were a few unshaven stubbles on his chin, which gleamed with a bluish-gray luster in the moonlight.

Those eyes were full of heroic spirit, but he was a bit stubborn.

Xiao Nian recognized that face. Even after a thousand years, Xiao Nian still recognized it.

No wonder Xiao Nian felt his eyes were so familiar that day.

Jiang Wangshu, his roommate for three years in his previous life, slept in the bunk above him.

At that time, Xiao Nian was still pursuing Ye Xunmei. Jiang Wangshu would always be eating a steamed bun while cursing him, "You lick dog, you'll end up with nothing." After cursing him, she would stuff the meat coupons she had saved into his hands and say, "I can't stand that greasy stuff."

Xiao Nian was so moved back then that she almost came out as gay.

"Jiang Wangshu?"

The man in black suddenly stopped moving.

He took a half step back, but the light of true energy in his right hand did not dissipate.

But the expression on his face changed.

"What did you call me?"

"Jiang Wangshu," Xiao Nian repeated. "He's from Class 7, Grade A of the Military Academy. He likes to steal my chair so he can stand on his tiptoes and peek at the girls in the front row."

The man in black's pupils contracted sharply.

"What the hell are you talking nonsense!" he roared, his voice booming through the night forest.

"You, a demon who possessed an old man's body, dare to mention the Martial Arts Academy? Do you even know who Meng Chenhai is? You've taken over the body of an eighty-year-old man, and now you're pretending to know him? Have you no shame?! You've completely disregarded the rules of the cultivation world!"

He grew angrier as he spoke, pointing his right finger at Xiao Nian, his inner energy condensing at his fingertip.

"The Quanxing demon!" he spat out through gritted teeth.

"People like you deserve to be skinned alive, chopped up, and fed to the dogs. And why did you have to possess an eighty-year-old man? Don't you have any conscience? Aren't you ashamed?"

Quanxing is the villain in the world of cultivation, an evil cultivator who doesn't care about any rules.

After listening to his cursing, Xiao Nian stood still, leaning on her cane.

"That bone fragment in your right knee was from when you were twelve years old and you lost your balance while practicing swordsmanship. You've never had it removed, and it hurts on rainy days. When it hurts, you like to apply a hot water bottle to it."

"When you first came here, we laughed at you for having rheumatism at such a young age. You didn't tell us the truth until Chu Chen used you as a test subject and we found out. Later, when he removed it for you, you cried."

When Xiao Nian said the second sentence, Jiang Wangshu's expression began to change.

"I remember the night you broke through to the Qi Refining stage when you were eighteen, you dragged me to the back mountain of the academy to drink. We drank until midnight and I cried and said that all I wanted in my life was to stand high enough so that Ye Xunmei would regret it."

"I told you that woman wasn't good enough for you, and you kicked me and told me to get lost," Jiang Wangshu continued.

Xiao Nian stood in the moonlight, leaning on his cane. Jiang Wangshu was clearly very familiar with him, yet the combination before him felt both strange and familiar.

"You..." His voice was hoarse, "How do you know all this? Who are you? And you even possessed the soul of my friend Xiao Nian?"

"Bearing, are you out of your mind? Xiao Nian is a Martial Emperor who has broken through limits. How could I take over his body? Two of them?" Xiao Nian was speechless. Jiang Wangshu was good in every way, except for being stubborn, so he had a nickname called Bearing.

"Do you still remember what you said last that night?" Jiang Wangshu stared intently at him.

Xiao Nian remained silent for a moment.

I said, 'Jiang Wangshu, if one day I reach the highest point, you must come and support me.'"

Jiang Wangshu's expression shifted from hesitation to surprise. He released his inner energy and rushed straight to Xiao Nian, embracing her.

"Xiao Nian!" he cried out in disbelief, "You're not dead? No, wait, your face... how did you become Old Man Meng?"

"It's a long story." He paused. "I'm still me, only this shell belongs to Meng Chenhai."

Jiang Wangshu stared at him intently for a long time, her eyes reddening, before suddenly punching him on the shoulder.

"Hey, hey, hey, aren't you afraid my old bones will fall apart if you keep hitting me like that? You're a True Qi Martial King," Xiao Nian teased.

"Stop fucking laughing at me, you son of a bitch."

He grinned and said, "The day the news of your death in the Kunlun Mountains came back, I drank a whole jar of sweet potato liquor and smashed eight tables after I finished it."

Xiao Nian slapped his hand away: "Stop bragging, did you pay for it? Does your hand hurt?"

"Waaah, stop joking with me." Jiang Wangshu couldn't help but cry.

"Why are you, a True Qi Martial King, crying? Don't cry. There are still many things I don't understand."

Jiang Wangshu rubbed her face vigorously twice, and her eyes were red when she stood up.

He sniffed, trying to make himself look less disheveled.

"Do you know Meng Chenhai?"

Jiang Wangshu nodded.

"He's not your average drunkard."

Jiang Wangshu glanced around and saw that only Qian Yukun was present. Xiao Nian nodded, indicating that the other party was one of their own.

Jiang Wangshu leaned closer, lowering his voice, "He is our contact, and also our religious leader, a member of the New Army."

Xiao Nian frowned slightly; Old Meng was indeed no ordinary person.

Jiang Wangshu continued, speaking quickly: "After we parted ways, I joined General Zeng Yuantu's new army, responsible for liaison work in the Jiangbei area."

"When Meng Chenhai was an instructor at the Military Academy, he ostensibly just loafed around drinking, but secretly he provided various forms of financial assistance to the new army. He was General Yuantu's mentor and also my benefactor. Later, he introduced me to General Yuantu."

Xiao Nian listened to him in silence, and the hazy fragments of Meng Chenhai's drunken memories suddenly came together in her mind like a jigsaw puzzle.

Being kicked out of her home by her son, being chased for debts by the Li family, being watched by the night watchman, and preferring to freeze to death in a dilapidated temple rather than tell anyone—that wasn't cowardice, but a secret she couldn't reveal, an identity that could lead to the extermination of her entire family at any moment.

Xiao Nian finally understood why those memories were always so hazy and blurry: Meng Chenhai had hidden them so deeply that even the body's instincts were locking them away.

"So why did you come to see him?" Xiao Nian asked.

"I received news that he had offended the Li family and been beaten, so I thought he had been exposed and rushed over to collect his body," Jiang Wangshu said with a wry smile. "But instead of collecting the body, I noticed something strange about the old man, so I've been following him."

Xiao Nian was too lazy to explain his thousand years of cultivation.

He stated directly, "I can't explain where this body came from either. Simply put, I died, but not completely, and stuffed myself into this recently deceased body. The Xiao Nian you mentioned is still me. Just in a different shell."

Jiang Wangshu looked at him, touched his wrinkled old face, and almost cried again: "Then you're older than my father now."

"I'm not gay." Xiao Nian shook off his hand.

Jiang Wangshu composed herself, hesitated for a moment, and then asked:

"I've heard some things about you over the years. You broke through to the next level at twenty-five, becoming the strongest in the world, and then died in the Kunlun Mountains. My sister-in-law, Liu Wan'er, she went missing afterward, did you know that?"

Xiao Nian knew, of course, that his eyes had dimmed.

"I know. You'll find out when you get back."

Jiang Wangshu didn't press further; he knew this was Xiao Nian's pain.