Yang Yin Long's steps were uneven, his legs trembling with the fatigue of battle. The forest around him blurred in shades of deep green and violet dusk. His breath sounded like a torn bellows, each inhale burning his lungs. The wounds along his side and shoulder—though scabbed closed by heat and qi—still pulsed with dull, heavy pain.
He had taken three steps.
Only three.
On the fourth, the world tilted.
The trees dissolved into shadow.
And his consciousness sank into blackness.
---
A Memory Long Buried
At first, the darkness was empty—silent, vast, unending.
Then, slowly, a colorless mist formed, and shapes began to ripple like reflections across disturbed water. A familiar yet distant warmth wrapped around him, like sunlight through closed eyelids.
He recognized this sensation.
Not from this life.
From before.
He had always known—deep down—that something about his childhood memories in this world was unnaturally blurred. The faces of people from before the age of fifteen were vague. Their voices hollow. Their words half-remembered. Like dreams that dissolved when morning came.
He had assumed it was grief—his memories fading by instinct, as if trying to protect him from old pain. The orphan's heart, averting the ache of absence.
But now—
The mist parted.
And a figure stood before him.
Broad-shouldered. Tall. A silhouette backlit by an eternal, golden horizon. His features were indistinct, as though the heavens themselves refused to let his identity be fully remembered. But his presence was overwhelming—not martial strength, not spiritual realm, but blood-deep familiarity.
His voice, when he spoke, was warm as sunlight and heavy as mountains.
"Long'er."
The name struck him like a bell.
Yang Yin Long's breath hitched.
No one has ever called me that in this life…
No there was some who called me that..
But who?
The voice echoed again—firm, proud, and carrying a trace of laughter that only men who had walked through life's brutality could wear with ease.
"Long'er"
'Who are you?'
"Long'er, you have fate in your bones. One day, you may walk the path of cultivation—perhaps even beyond."
The warmth of the voice contrasted with a barely concealed grief. As though speaking through a wall of time. As though this moment had already been lost.
"But remember this, my son."
A hand—strong, callused, gentle—rested on Yang Yin Long's shoulder.
"No matter what heights you walk toward, no matter what Dao you seek—"
"—do not let our bloodline fade."
Yang Yin Long's heart shook.
The voice deepened, taking on the weight of lineage, fire, and love.
"Have children. Many. Raise them. Protect them. Pass our name forward. Do not let our line be broken. And make sure to have children with many beautiful and talented women, making sure our clan's bloodline is inherited."
"Though I believe as a member of Yang clan and as my son you won't be disappointing in this subject."
The words struck not his ears, but his soul.
A memory hidden behind the sealed gates of reincarnation had surfaced.
Yang Yin Long tried to see the man's face—his father's face—but the light grew brighter, washing features away. Only a final expression remained:
A confident, knowing grin.
With a smug face grin that only true men understand.
The grin of someone saying:
You'll understand when you're older.
And then—
The dream shattered.
---
The Firelight and the Old Man
Yang Yin Long opened his eyes to the sound of crackling flame.
Night had fallen fully. Shadows swayed in the flickering light. The air was thick with the smell of roasted meat—rich, fatty, and faintly metallic. Around him lay the corpses of wolves, their fur blackened, their bodies stiff, arranged with precise efficiency. Some were missing cores; some had long strips of hide removed with surgical neatness.
He recognized the clearing.
It was the same battlefield.
But the atmosphere was different now—quiet, almost sacred. A bonfire stood at the center, its flames dancing orange and gold.
An old man sat by the fire.
His back was straight despite his age. His hair was grey but thick, tied loosely behind his head. His robe was plain—coarse linen, clean but patched. His movements were slow, casual, unhurried.
He was turning a spit of wolf meat over the fire.
When he spoke, his voice held a smile in it.
"Good child, you're awake."
Yang Yin Long blinked, his vision adjusting. His throat was dry. His body refused to rise. He swallowed and managed, hoarsely:
"...Senior… saved me?"
The old man chuckled softly.
"Saved you? No, no. I only waited."
His gnarled fingers adjusted the roasting meat, and the fat dripped into the fire with a crackle.
"When I found you, I thought you were dead. I was about to move on. But then—"
He tapped his chest lightly.
"—I felt a pulse of life still clinging to your body. A thread. Weak. Fragile. But there."
Yang Yin Long's spine stiffened.
Life force…?
Healing… wood attribute qi.
His consciousness dipped inward.
The Heaven-and-Earth Refining Vine seed in his sea of awareness trembled faintly, like a sleeping creature shifting its weight. No grand movement. No awakening. Just… a reminder.
A reminder that he was not alone inside his own body.
He understood.
"I had taken… a recovery pill," he said calmly, cupping his hands despite his exhaustion. "It must have activated while I was unconscious."
The old man gave him a look of such knowing amusement that Yang Yin Long's ears heated slightly.
"Mm. A pill. Yes. Of course."
His tone neither believed nor disbelieved.
It was simply a sound a mountain would make while watching a river rush by.
Yang Yin Long bowed his head anyway.
"This junior thanks Senior for not leaving me to die here."
The old man waved the words away like drifting smoke.
"You fought. You survived. I only sat by the fire."
Suddenly, the warmth in the air shifted.
It didn't grow cold.
It grew deep.
The way the air changes when one realizes the lake underfoot is far deeper than it appears.
The old man looked at him fully then.
And the forest fell quiet.
The atmosphere thickened—not with killing intent—but with something older, heavier, like the stillness of ancient stone temples and forgotten altars.
"Since you are awake now," the old man said softly, "I will give you an opportunity."
Yang Yin Long's heart tightened.
The old man's smile did not change.
But the world around him did.
A presence—not spiritual pressure, not killing aura—a presence of existence began to awaken inside the old man.
Not loud.
Not violent.
But vast.
The way the sky is vast.
Unmeasurable.
The flames reflected in the old man's eyes, and their color changed—from warm orange to something deeper, older, like embers that had burned since before mountains rose.
Yang Yin Long's breath caught.
His instincts screamed.
This old man was no ordinary traveler.
Not even merely a Foundation Establishment elder.
No—
This was something higher.
The old man looked directly at him, voice as gentle as wind brushing grass.
"Tell me, child—"
The fire cracked.
The night bowed.
"Do you wish to live a short life strong—"
The old man leaned forward.
"—or a long life powerful?"
The world waited for his answer.
---
End of Chapter 11