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When was it... that my fate had changed?

Liu Yu’s memory felt somewhat blurred.

I remember when I was very young, I was really quite ordinary, skinny and weak, poor at schooling, lazy with tasks.

My father would chase after me, scolding and hitting, while my mother doted and protected me.

If things had gone as expected, I would have turned into a spoiled youth who by middle age, had squandered the family savings and become destitute, right?

But tragedy struck swiftly. My capable businessman of a father suddenly died while abroad. His death was shrouded in secrecy among the locals, but I still managed to glean some information. I heard he had been killed by the Water Ghosts, his skin flayed from his body.

As a sea merchant, life was always a gamble with death, seldom ending in peaceful old age.

My short-lived father used to say each voyage would be his last, yet he could never restrain himself from the next.

Many of the village elders used to say he’d sooner or later die at sea, and it hadn’t taken long for that to come true.

There’s a saying in the Central Plains, "Misfortunes never come singly.

" It aptly described my situation back then.

With my father having invested all our capital into cargo for a slow ship that never returned, our household was almost entirely ruined, and to make matters worse, my mother fell ill at that time.

The illness was rare, requiring costly medicines to keep her alive.

Without my father, the breadwinner, and relying solely on our modest assets, how could we cope?

Thus, the furniture was sold, the house was sold, everything was sold. In the end, we were even forced to move to a farmhouse.

Fortunately, our family still owned some meager property back in our hometown, just enough to scrape by.

My mother didn’t want to continue treatment. She believed from the beginning that we shouldn’t have sought it, that at least she could leave something for her children. She blamed her own desires to see her child married and having offspring, her own greed for life.

I couldn’t understand why my mother would say such a thing. Isn’t it normal for people to cling to life? What was wrong with that?

So, behind my mother’s back, I continued to sell off belongings to buy medicine for her. While sorting out the inherited estate, I found an old journal, thinking it was an antique, I decided to take it to some learned Scholar to exchange it for money.

That was the first time I regretted not having studied properly. If only I had understood some of it, I wouldn’t have sold my father’s collection of good calligraphy and paintings for next to nothing...

I became a bit savvier later on, but I couldn’t sell that ancient book because many Scholars believed the text was nonsensical scribbling, not real writing, and didn’t see it as a valuable antique.

I remember that in order to sell the book, I made a special trip back to the county, went without food for a whole day, and due to heavy rainfall that night, couldn’t make it home. The following day, I returned home famished only to discover... that my mother had already died...

Her corpse was rotting!

Relatives, anxious to seize our house and land, paid me no heed. I was so distraught at that moment. After my mother’s death, I didn’t even know what to do for a while.

But it was during that time that I met a girl.

A very beautiful girl, so they say, born to Widow Wang next door — as pretty as a sculptured doll. Many believed Widow Wang would sell the girl, whispers even suggested that some major brothels had already taken notice of this village sweetheart.

The little girl called herself Ali, a name she chose for herself, disliking the one her mother had given her. She said she just felt she should have this name.

She was very special, not just beautiful but also able to understand the text in my ancient book.

Back then, I had already lost interest in everything, but her reading of the book’s text enthralled me.

The content of the book was strange, like stories from a storytelling session but far more fascinating than those tedious tales invented by Scholars.

It told of a person from another world and his encounters in this world!

The story was bizarre, absurd, but intriguing. The more one listened, the more captivating it became. An Underwater Dragon Palace, Nine Heavens Mirror, Celestial Serpent Palace, Ghost Domain — this world concealed many terrifying things, all quietly waiting in the darkness for their return.

As we listened, the girl and I began to feel as if it were all real, which led to a bold decision.

We planned to follow the book’s guidance to seek out certain items, starting with the one closest to us.

That item lay deep within the mountains behind our village, in a spot where odd noises were sometimes heard, a place the villagers dared not approach, proclaiming it was haunted by specters.

The book claimed it was called Twilight Mountain, and hidden within was an ancient object capable of traversing realms. If one could possess it, a lot of effort could be saved.

The book’s protagonist had discovered this place but then stumbled upon an even more terrifying truth, which prevented him from touching it.

In the end, he decided to lead an unambitious life in these last peaceful days; he wanted to amass wealth, marry a handful of beautiful wives, and live the life of a rich landowner.

He always chose to live near here, for the convenience, so that once he grew tired of this mundane life and longed for one last splendid adventure, he could head to Twilight Mountain. However, in the end, he never did — perhaps, in this life, he never grew bored.

Liu Yu was skeptical about the book’s protagonist’s words, figuring him for a fanciful liar. But that man... was his ancestor. After some thought, he decided to give it a try and see if this unreliable forebearer was truly mad.

That decision... changed his entire life!

Listening to Liu Yu slowly recount a childhood story, Chen Qing’s eyes widened and he was completely stunned.

There were many things in this world that could not surprise him, after all, he had created them himself; how surprised could he really be?

But the matter at hand ... he just couldn’t hold it in anymore...

"Your ancestor ... is ..."

"Ah ...," Liu Yu said with a smile, "He should be the same as you, from that so-called ... another world, right?"

Chen Qing: " ..."

Is that so ...

That guy ... he’s already dead, huh ...

Chen Qing suddenly burst out laughing, sighing to himself: This little brat!

To think that he had been so worried for him, only for the guy to end up doing quite well for himself, marrying a dozen wives and becoming a landowner. What a good-for-nothing ...

But it was just like before. He remembered asking that kid in the previous life, what was his biggest dream after making money?

He said it was to marry Liu Yifei.

This kind of loser ... what big things could he possibly achieve here?

"You seem happy?" Liu Yu looked at Chen Qing and said.

"Pretty happy ..." Chen Qing looked at Liu Yu, his expression somewhat different: "Your ancestor ... had a good life."

"Is that so?" Liu Yu said with a smile, "Actually, I also thought about following in his footsteps. After traveling around the world I too felt tired. Seeing so many terrifying things, the terrifying truth, I’ve always felt too insignificant.

So, I was planning to become a rich landowner like my old ancestor. I even had the land purchased."

"Oh?"

"Don’t you doubt it ... I really planned that because it seemed so far away anyway.

Plus, with my abilities, as long as I don’t get married or have children, without any concerns, the chaos of this world could hardly threaten me.

I could live more carefree than anyone. Life is short, just a few hundred years, how is not the same as how? "

"What changed your mind?" Chen Qing asked curiously.

"The King of Qin!"

Chen Qing: " ..."

Liu Yu said with a smile, "I always thought that my ancestor was unique, but I was wrong. People like you always emerge in this world, always changing it because of you. The moment I saw what the King of Qin did, I knew he was just like my ancestor!"

"I was very curious at that time because I wanted to know, if a person like my ancestor chose not to settle for the ordinary, what could he achieve?"

"After all, he once said in his autobiography, that if he ever got tired of an ordinary life, he would stir things up fiercely. But by the end of the book, he never tried to do that ..."

"So, I really wanted to know the other outcome, which is why ... I chose to follow the King of Qin!"

Chen Qing listened, puzzled: "But I heard that the King of Qin didn’t end up too well?"

"The process was great!" Liu Yu said excitedly, "He showed me once how a mortal man could suppress the ancients, how a mortal man’s power could change the world!"

"After that, I knew ... I would never choose the same path as my ancestor!!!"

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West Sea:

Zi Yue, who had been tracking the traces of the Heavenly Ghost Octopus all the way, arrived at the spot where Chen Qing disappeared. Looking at the remnants left behind, Zi Yue’s eyes flashed with extremely complex emotions.

"I knew it ... You didn’t die, and Ali still didn’t believe it!"