After I stopped trying, a rich woman trained me into a demon emperor.

The sheer cliffs of Laoshan.

Thick fog rolled in.

Zhou Ran's figure disappeared.

Along with the overwhelming primordial energy emanating from him that had suppressed the entire arena, it vanished completely.

There were no spatial rifts, and no array fluctuations.

He was standing here one second, and the next second, he was completely wiped out by the air.

"Owner!"

Xiao Rou screamed.

She lunged forward.

He ripped off the leather pouch at his waist, and thousands of black flying insects swarmed out, transforming into a dark cloud that plunged into the thick fog.

The entire mountainside was devoid of any trace of Zhou Ran's presence.

Xiao Rou's pupils constricted, and the whites of her eyes were bloodshot.

She went mad. Her ten fingers dug into the cracks of the bluestone slabs, her nails snapped and bleeding profusely.

"impossible!

The master's life force cannot be extinguished!

Xiao Rou screamed.

She has the life-and-death talisman planted by Zhou Ran inside her body.

That was her lifeline, the source of her morbid sense of security.

Now, the thread that connected her soul has been severed.

The thick fog suddenly reversed direction.

The bluestone steps melted before Xiaorou's eyes.

She plunged headfirst into the soft mud, the pungent smell of blood filling her nostrils.

She suddenly looked up.

Towering ancient trees, stilted houses.

This is Black Witch Village.

In the center of the village square, there is a grand chair covered with a tiger skin.

Zhou Ran sat in the chair.

He wore a long black and gold robe, with the Primordial Totem flowing on his left arm.

He rested his chin on one hand, his eyes icy cold.

Xiao Rou trembled all over, and tears welled up in her eyes.

She scrambled over, knelt before the armchair, and clung tightly to Zhou Ran's leather boots.

"Owner!

Xiaorou, we've found you!

Don't leave me!

She pressed her face against the muddy boots and rubbed it frantically.

"roll."

Zhou Ran lifted his right foot and rolled her hand off the top of his boot.

Then he stood up.

Xiao Rou panicked.

She crawled after him on her knees, reaching out to grab the hem of his shirt.

The moment his fingertips touched the fabric, Zhou Ran took a step forward.

Not fast, not even in a hurry.

But Xiaorou climbed desperately, always falling short by just one step.

Her knees scraped against the gravel, the skin and flesh rolled back, and blood left long trails.

"Owner……

Please...

stop……"

Zhou Ran didn't turn around.

His figure receded across the square, through the shadows of the stilted buildings, growing farther and farther away, fading into the distance.

Xiao Rou climbed even faster.

His fingers dug into the mud, and he broke several toes.

She desperately reached forward.

The distance between her fingertips and the hem of his clothes remained constant, always just an inch off.

We can't catch up.

You can never catch up.

"Don't go! Please! You can hit me! You can yell at me! Just don't disappear!"

Zhou Ran's figure blurred into a shadowy silhouette in the thick fog.

And that was it.

Xiao Rou lay on the empty square, hugging herself.

I clenched my teeth to stop myself from crying out loud, but the tears just wouldn't stop.

It's not because of pain.

It's because she doesn't even deserve to be trampled under her master's feet.

A breeze was blowing overhead.

She suddenly looked up.

Zhou Ran reappeared on the armchair, resting his chin on one hand, his eyes cold.

Exactly the same as before.

Xiao Rou's eyes lit up.

She crawled over on her hands and feet and hugged the boot again.

"roll."

It's the same character again.

Then he stood up again.

I don't know how many times it looped.

Xiao Rou's kneecaps have been worn through, and her fingers are now just bones.

She didn't stop.

Because she knew that if she stopped, Zhou Ran wouldn't even show up again.

……

At the same time.

Aning stood frozen on the cliff face of Laoshan.

She watched Zhou Ran disappear and felt it was absurd.

She was a mortal, without divine consciousness.

She only trusted her own eyes and the gun in her hand.

"This is unbelievable!"

Ah Ning gripped the dagger at her waist tightly.

She was engulfed by white mist.

The surrounding temperature suddenly rose.

Humid and stuffy.

Aning turned her head.

The cliffs of Laoshan have disappeared.

She stood in front of a green security door with peeling paint.

The doorknob was rusty, and there was a little "GG" sign for unlocking the door.

This is the place she dreams of.

Black City, the old town, her home.

Aning's hands and feet were ice cold.

Reason was frantically screaming in my head.

This is fake.

This is an illusion.

She is an excellent mercenary who has received the most rigorous interrogation training.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and prepared to pierce her palm with a dagger to dispel the illusion.

Squeak.

The security door is open.

"Sis! What are you standing there for at the door?"

The food's all cold!

A boy going through puberty stood inside the door.

Wearing a school uniform and holding a game console.

Ah Ning's hand holding the dagger paused.

Inside the door, the mother, wearing an apron, carried a steaming pot of pork rib soup to the dining table.

"You brat, always running around outside, come in and wash your hands and eat!"

Your dad just got off work.

Her father sat on the sofa, looking at the newspaper, and glared at her.

There was no shadow of being cursed by the employer.

The aroma of the food wafted into my nostrils.

That's the taste of everyday life.

It was the taste that Ah Ning longed for most during the countless days and nights she spent licking blood off the edge of a knife.

Aning's rationality collapsed.

She loosened her grip on the dagger.

Her eyes were completely red.

Large tears fell down.

She stepped inside.

"Mom, I'm home."

She knew it was fake.

But she was willing to finish this never-ending meal in this flawed illusion.

……

On the bluestone slab of the cliff.

The flowerpot stood quietly in place.

Bai Xuan watched as Xiao Rou frantically kowtowed in the mud, chasing the air covered in blood.

It watched as Ah Ning hugged a moss-covered stone and wept uncontrollably.

Bai Xuan sighed.

It did not panic.

It is a mushroom that has lived for four thousand years.

Two golden spore strands peeked out from the edge of the flowerpot.

Two thin threads slowly approached each other in mid-air and stuck together.

Bai Xuan closed his eyes, which were the size of mung beans.

"Amitabha."

The thick fog over Laoshan dissipated.

Bai Xuan opened his eyes.

It is not the Bai Xuan who can speak human language and absorb the dragon energy of heavenly tribulation.

It was just a white umbrella mushroom growing on an unmarked grave.

It has no hands or feet.

It cannot move even an inch.

Without eyes, they cannot see the sun, moon, or stars.

It has no mouth and cannot make a sound.

There was only absolute darkness and deathly silence in the world.

The spring rain falls on the umbrella, and it can only endure it.

When exposed to the scorching summer sun, it can only wither.

The autumn wind sweeps away the fallen leaves, and the winter snow buries them.

One year.

century.

Millennia.

In the illusion, Bai Xuan relives his thousand-year imprisonment.

At first, it tried to struggle.

It longed for the days when it could enjoy the finest food and drink and absorb high-level spiritual energy by Zhou Ran's side.

It wanted to pull out its roots and escape this graveyard.

But it can't move.

I don't know how many centuries have passed.

Bai Xuan gave up.

It stopped struggling.

It was baked by the sun.

It accepted the coldness of the snowmelt.

It heard the insects crawling beside the roots.

It sensed the nutrients from the decaying corpses in the soil.

The obsession has dissipated.

A thousand years of solitude is but a grand dream in the universe.

Bai Xuan's two spore strands trembled slightly in the darkness.

Countless years have passed.

The thick fog on Laoshan Mountain has gathered again.

Bai Xuan remained in the flowerpot.

But the white umbrella mushroom in the flowerpot has completely changed.

The gold patterns on the umbrella canopy are now subtle and no longer glaring.

That sly, mischievous aura vanished completely.

Instead, there was a profound and weighty Taoist aura, like the evening bells of an ancient temple.

It is still only the size of a palm.

But its consciousness is no longer confined to this plant-like body.

Mountains are mountains, and water is water.

It saw Xiao Rou and A Ning, who were trapped in a dream world and unable to extricate themselves.

It also saw Zhou Ran sitting at the stone table in the farmhouse courtyard through the layers of walls.

The faceless, solitary monk looked at it and nodded slightly.

"Amitabha."

Bai Xuan closed his eyes again.

The spores retracted back into the flowerpot.

It stopped moving.

A half-foot-tall mushroom stands upright in a flowerpot, blending seamlessly with the rocks and vegetation, becoming indistinguishable from the rest.