Rain fell through the skies. The wind whispered through the thin branches of naked willow trees. And the soft murmurs of water fighting with sand floated in the air.
Amidst the darkness of the night, Shen Xuan, a young man not past the age of 16, sat upon a large rock, by the edge of a small lake.
His long pitch-black hair danced along with the wind, his deep blue eyes peered into the surface of the water, and his simple white robes, soaked with rain, stuck close to his skin.
This was the first night of winter and the lake was littered with the last of the fallen autumn leaves.
Meanwhile, from the other side of the shore, a pair of cold eyes looked at his lonely figure.
There, a young girl stood, just a half-step away from walking into the relentless weeping of the skies.
Her fair blue eyes seemed to glow with a shimmer more radiant than the moon. They flickered with unwillingness, fear, and, most of all, a deep sense of helplessness.
Sitting in solitude, Shen Xuan faintly smiled while watching the tree leaves dancing between the waves. He had already noticed the girl's presence, but his mind had wandered somewhere else.
He could coldness of the air slowly permeating into his flesh. Numbing his fingers, and forcefully burning through his limbs…
Breath after breath, his heartbeat sounded out loud in his ears, while his gaze kept on wandering through the stars, undeterred by the slow torture that assailed his mind.
He could sense the sorrow of the world mixed-in with the rain...
The yearning for change whispered through the wind...
And the sad inevitability of fate swimming through the shallow waters of the lake...
As his gaze focused on the silvery moon still rising in the night sky, Shen Xuan faintly sighed. "It truly is not the same…"
He had been gazing at these distant stars for over a decade. However, no matter how long he traced their shapes, they still refused to mirror the skies buried deep in his memory.
Ultimately, reality could not be re-written by a mere mortal's gaze.
This was not his first life, those were not the stars and moon that he was familiar with, and he was not some ignorant child.
The world did not revolve around his wishes and hopes. It had its own truth and logic. It had it's own story. And in this story, Shen Xuan was merely a side character, one similar to countless others.
"I've truly been reborn into an entirely different world."
"Whether a blessing or a curse, that remains to be seen…" He had lost count of how many times he had sat like this, pondering over the faint memories of the past.
In body, he was only 16 years old, but when combining both of his lives, he could be said to have endured more than a century of turmoil.
Shen Xuan had once been a very infamous scholar in his home world. Though initially nameless, his literary works had ended up reaching far and wide, even earning him the interest of the figure who sat upon the dragon throne.
Well…
It was mostly due to his unorthodox views, and it also didn't take long for the scholars of the old guard to band together in order to suppress his path.
The growing ill reputation eventually steered him into a life of seclusion. And, fueled by a burning hatred for the public, he had promised himself to leave a deep and lasting mark on the world.
Something free of all mortal chains.
A masterpiece that would last through all the ages!
"Back then, it was only wishful thinking, but now there's a faint glimmer of hope."
As the saying went… Man proposes, and heaven disposes.
In the end, a human was still just a human, and after traversing the lands for 100 years, Shen Xuan finally breathed his last.
He never had the chance to finish his last piece of work, much less pass it on to the hearts of others.
"I had barely settled on the title…"
Perhaps…
Perhaps that final regret was the driving force that led his soul into this strange world.
"To think I'd still be clinging onto life, even after all of that…"
His gaze faintly narrowed as he focused on a faint and lonely star. "In this new world, death might not be a path that we all must take."
"However, some people don't seem to share the same sentiment." While muttering to himself, he slowly turned toward the side and his cold gaze immediately fell upon the woman that was slowly approaching from afar.
"Mei Ling." His dull voice, like a whisper, stretched across the cold air.
The girl froze-mid step, her soaked robes clinging to her frame. Even though she had been serving at his side since their childhood, she still couldn't help but feel deeply unsettled by his presence.
"Young Master Shen." As soon as her feet stopped, her figure bowed.
"Speak." He said without turning.
After wiping the rain from her face, Mei Ling bit her lips . "The disciple selection ceremony begins at dawn."
She carefully weighed her words. "Is it not prudent to get inside and rest for a few hours…? Young Master, you cannot risk catching a cold."
"The elder, he-"
"The elder?" As Mei Ling spoke, Shen Xuan suddenly cut her off, and the girl immediately swallowed her own words.
She knew that she had just committed a huge mistake.
The wind rushed against her face, and she quickly lowered her head.
"You are my maid, are you not?" Shen Xuan faintly asked.
Mei Ling tensed up, but she dared not answer, much to Shen Xuan's disappointment.
"You need not act as a mouthpiece. If they wish to speak to me, let them come themselves."
"Besides, isn't tomorrow's result already set in stone?" He quickly followed, the calmness in his tone making her feel even more nervous.
"Yes, Young Master." She murmured, her voice almost swallowed by the wind.
Shen Xuan calmly glance at her, unbothered by her penance. In his past life, what scenes had he not borne witness too?
"Tell me, why do you always tremble when you're near me?" His calm voice sounded from beneath the growing curtain of water. "Have I ever struck you before?"
"N-no…"
"Have I ever yelled?"
"No."
"Then, what is it that you fear?" His tone never lifted nor did it fall. Yet, every word landed like the descent of quiet snow. Cold, soft and impossible to dodge.
Mei Ling opened her mouth but no words escaped through her lips. Inwardly, she was cursing her own bad luck!
What words could she use to answer such a set of questions?
"If you must beg, do it with a bit of dignity." Shen Xuan continued.
"There's no need to stain the mud with your knees unless you've committed a crime."
"I… I understand." She whispered before slowly straightening her back.
Shen Xuan glanced at her once more, and after a moment of silence, dismissed her with a flick of his sleeve. "Leave."
The girl bowed deeply once again before turning away and leaving with hurried steps.
Shen Xuan watched her vanish into the mist, a faint smile curling at the edge of his lips. His expression was neither warm nor cruel, just distant from the entire thing.
"Even now, you try to reach me with borrowed voices." He murmured. "But I've long since stopped listening to your tunes."
"The human nature is truly interesting. Even after 100 years, it can still be quite amusing."
"It is soothing to know that some things never change…"
Although this world held a lot of similarities to the one in his previous life, there were still some major differences. And the scale of these differences was akin to the difference between heaven and earth.
Here, mortals and immortals were forced to live under the same skies. Share the same land and breathe the same air.
That's right. Immortal cultivators, beings of legend, were real and they existed here.
In fact, the current Shen Xuan belonged to a lineage of such beings. Having lived a rather sheltered life since his birth.
As for the lives of regular mortals…
Well…
Back in his home world, where only mortals existed, the majority of the population already lived in deep poverty. Generation after generation, they all lived under the feet of the strong.
In this world, the situation was not much different, perhaps even worse.
Here, they were treated like cattle. Their biggest value was not in manual labor but in their ease of bearing offspring.
The more powerful an immortal, the harder it becomes to bear offspring. Thus, mortals, being plentiful and fertile, are preserved, not out of mercy, but necessity.
As long as mortals exist, children with the potential to cultivate immortality will continue to be born. That is their role in the eyes of the truly powerful.
Then, to add wood to the fire, the fighting amongst the countless immortal factions in this world was extremely fierce. Their competitiveness was such that sometimes millions of lives would be lost before the settling of a simple dispute.
And, as the old saying goes: When the tree shakes, those beneath its crown are bound to suffer under the sun.
The large number of mortals living within these warring nations were always the first to be targeted. The most interesting thing was that even if they all banded together and tried to resist it would still be useless.
A single cultivator was enough to easily wipe out a few mortal villages. Their fates could only be described as miserable.
"In this world, strength in numbers only works to a certain degree.."
"A single powerful individual is able to wipe out thousands with a mere flip of their hand…"
"But, ultimately, these so-called cultivators are only as strong as the world allows them to be. They are all still beneath the Heaven's will."
"What a truly wonderful place!"
"I really wonder how those fickle old men would've reacted to such a reality." He leaped down the boulder and began making his way toward the shore.
"A strong cultivator could easily slap this entire mountain, me included, into dust." His deep gaze fell upon the moonlight that swayed in the lake's surface.
Despite the coldness of the season, the water still danced as vigorously as it did during the summer and spring.
The mountain's harsh weather never allowed it to stop moving.
It never went quiet.
It never faltered in its steps.
And, nothing was able to stop it.
Shen Xuan looked at his own reflection through the lake's surface.
As the wind blew and the waves rose, he could faintly see his past self in those murky waters.
His gaze was limpid clear, and his face expressionless. "Today I stand amidst chill winds and gloomy shadows, gazing at the world from the summit of a lonely mountain."
"In time, I shall soar beyond the nine heavens, tread upon this foreign land and wander freely among its clouds."
"In my former life, I was silenced and scorned by those around me…" His heart remained calm, and the figure of his past self slowly faded into the depths of the lake.
"My feet have yet to tread upon the twists and turns of these new roads, but here I am."
The river of time had erased his old face but it could not erase the ambition that was nestled deep in his soul.
"This new life is bound to be interesting."