The figure cracked immediately. Rays of gray light instantly poured out from the crack, accompanied by the strange, low-pitched tone of a cello.

The gray light surrounded Lu Sheng’s whole body within a blink and came in direct contact with the Black Hand behind his body.

“Puff!”

The Black Hand immediately shattered and disappeared. The gray light shook as well, and quickly shrunk into a ball of light the size of an egg with Lu Sheng inside. The space in front of them started to tremble violently as everything started rippling, soon creating a thin crack.

The crack was gray and about the size of a palm, surrounded by a strange edge emitting a dark starlight.

Seemingly having exhausted all its energy resisting the Black Hand, the gray lighted moved toward the gray crack with difficulty, and because of this lack of power, it went off course and slammed into the edge of the gray crack.

“Whoosh.”

The ball of light somehow disappeared into the pitch-black starlit zone at the edge.

The gray ball of light that was supposed to return to the World of Pain through the crack ultimately failed, and fell into the chaotic turbulence of space.

The crack didn’t last long, and soon disappeared naturally.

By then, the deep blue whirlpool in the pond had completely disappeared, leaving behind only a tranquil blue surface.

It was a forbidden zone—only Divine Lords would dare tread on such dangerous ground. Without people being sent or any anomalies coming from the pond, people wouldn’t notice anything wrong for several years.

Everything once again went quiet.

***

“Dang… Dang… Dang…!”

Lu Sheng gradually regained his consciousness. A low-pitched rhythmic sound of an ancient bell constantly rang beside his ears.

“He’s awake! Young Master is awake!” He heard a wave of ecstatic shouts.

“Thank the gods, if something bad happened to Young Master, what would our villa do…”

“The Bhudassivata’s blessing! The Buddha’s blessing!”

Waves of chaotic sounds flowed into Lu Sheng’s ears, but he didn’t open his eyes, and instead circulated the Yang Essence in his body to check his current state.

‘Body severely wounded, but can regenerate.’

‘No anomaly or damage to memory and spirit. No alteration or other change found.’

‘Outside environment normal, everything… wait!’ Lu Sheng trembled, and realized with a shock that another living body of flesh and blood surrounded him!

His heart racing, he rapidly moved his spirit around to detect his surroundings.

‘Is… is that what happened!?’

His true body was curled up inside another human’s heart as if it had shrunk many times. Even now, his true body was in a strange, half-clear state. Outside, however, was another male body that appeared identical to his original body.

As his spirit observed the outside world, vast amounts of memories of this individual flew into his brain like a swarm of bees.

The current body belonged to someone also with last name Lu, full name Lu Chong. He was about the same age as him, somewhere around 20. He was timid and afraid of trouble, though very caring for his parents. Nothing else particularly good or bad about him stood out. If he was born outside, he would be an ordinary son of a rich family.

According to Lu Sheng’s new memories, Lu Chong was born in a hidden villa called Purple Smoke.

The Purple Smoke Villa had existed for several millennium since ancient times, and was similar to the sizeable centralized dynasty of the Great Yin. However, it chose to hide all traces of itself from the world, and instead passed on its heritage from generation to generation.

But all that wasn’t important. The important thing was Lu Sheng could vaguely sense that his spirit and Lu Chong’s were identical at their core!

The two of them integrated naturally without any resistance as if the two of them were one to begin with.

After the integration, Lu Sheng could clearly sense that his spirit had been strengthened by a huge margin. Even though the integrated spirit only had the quality of an ordinary human, the improvement it brought was disproportionately large.

This surprise also made him carefully examine what just happened, however. Good things like this wouldn’t happen randomly, and he needed to immediately analyze the potential danger behind everything.

That had became a second nature for Lu Sheng.

But the more he thought and analyzed, the more he felt something was wrong.

Judging by Lu Chong’s memory, this world was similar to ancient China, with at most the addition of mysterious Qi Cultivators and martial arts masters. But, most of its land was still controlled by and favored the imperial court.

Even the existing Jianghu was not as prosperous as the one in the Great Yin or Great Song, while the masters here usually appeared as mysterious strangers.

Meanwhile, the Purple Smoke Villa where Lu Chong lived had a system of simple self-defense techniques passed down from the generations, and had their own blacksmiths, carpenters, and other craftsmen to forge armor, crossbows, and other items. Combined with the abundant resources on the mountain it was located at, the villa also took in many orphans to train as family guards.

The whole family operated like ambitious local lords at the end of the Han ¹period, and was quite renowned and influential in the surrounding towns and counties.

But even with such power, the Lu Family did not try to advertise or expand their influence, and instead lived simply while guarding a little villa.

Yet, the strangest part to Lu Sheng was how there was not a single bit of difference between the two spirits. When he integrated with the spirit, he felt like he just experienced another life, and couldn’t tell the difference.

Even twins that were born at the same time would be different due to the environments they grow up in.

‘Is… could this be…’ Lu Sheng had too many thoughts at once, but most were questions and theories about this phenomenon.

There were too many suspicious parts in this, to the point where no one could tell the truth.

***

“Young Master, drink some congee. It’s good for your stomach.”

Purple Smoke Villa, West Court bedroom.

A beautiful girl with a balanced body was helping a pale, colorless, and frail youth to sit up on his bed.

The girl carefully held the bowl of congee closer, scooped up a spoonful, blew on it lightly, and carried it in front of the youth’s mouth.

The youth swallowed the congee, glanced at the girl, then looked around the bedroom.

“Where is Dad?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

“The Lord has already visited, and is now having a brief meeting with the elders in the Purple Sun Hall,” the girl immediately replied in a small voice.

Her name was Cha Lan, Lu Chong’s personal maid.

Lu Sheng closed his eyes and let out a sigh. A sliver of Yang Essence flowed out of his heart, and started to nourish and modify this body silently.

Surprisingly, the moment the Yang Essence poured into this body, he felt a sharp pain.

He quickly simulated other forms of energy with Yang Essence and continued experimenting. Devil Qi, True Qi, Inner Qi, even the purest Essence Qi… nothing worked.

‘ Is it because this body is too weak to bear higher forms of energy? Or… the fundamental rules here are different… and the cells of the body cannot absorb them?‘ Lu Sheng had his suspicions.

Even in the same universe, the laws of physics took on different forms depending on the environment.

Some laws of physics observed in one environment would not appear at all in another. This was common even back on Earth.

‘ Interesting… It seems this place is quite different from the Great Yin… ‘ Lu Sheng gave up trying. His body was curled up in the heart in a strange state, and he could use it at will. He wasn’t in any hurry to change that.

The most important thing at the moment was to hide his identity, understand his surroundings, and try to find a way back while recovering.

As he calmed down, he let his maid feed him several bowls of tremela purple rice congee. The hot congee was mixed with several nourishing herbs, and his body felt warm and comfortable after eating it.

After the meal, Lu Sheng ordered his maid Cha Lan to prepare hot bath water. After a quick bath and switching into light clothing, he walked out of the courtyard and started to stroll inside the villa.

Cha Lan, afraid that he was going to faint like before, carefully followed behind the entire way.

The Purple Smoke Villa wasn’t big, and was about the size of a normal university campus. A total of five buildings was in the villa, connected with long walkways, and lined with rooms for servants, gardens, courtyards, training grounds, and other utilities.

200 people resided within the villa, 30 of which were the family guards. Every single one of them was an experienced and courageous warrior, and they periodically hunted and eliminated bandits. With their sturdy bows and crossbows, thick iron and leather armor, and other weapons for close combat, they were almost invincible in the area.

But those were only minor details. To Lu Sheng, no matter how elite the ordinary soldiers were, they were just that—soldiers that could be killed with his mere breath.

What he truly cared about was the hidden secret within the Purple Smoke Villa.

According to his memory, he would be part of a secret and ancient ceremony that was held in a secret shrine with his father and elders.

The ceremony seemed to be a tradition. It wasn’t like Divine Weapon sacrifices, but every time, some weird and strange items would be brought up.

One year, a fetus from the womb of a beautiful 15 years old virgin was required. But where did the fetus come from if she was a virgin?

Another year, the blood obtained from the fingers of 99 boys under the age of ten during their dreams was required.

A hair that hadn’t been cut for 20 years, and rice wine that had been soaked in rabbit blood for 10 years.

Basically all sorts of strange and messy ceremonial items. Even Lu Sheng couldn’t tell what all these things were needed for.

But after every ceremony, a small number of people within the villa would become powerful prodigies of martial arts.

Lu Sheng could vaguely see a patterns from all those years of memories.

Even though he couldn’t strengthen his body with Yang Essence, this body of his had lethal martial art techniques approaching those of a Grandmaster. Even without the special bloodline power of Divine Lords and Divine Weapons, or the strong body from Devil techniques, he could still overpower any ordinary enemy.

He had piles of martial arts techniques that could easily strengthen this body, and improve it to the pinnacle of a mortal martial arts master in a short period.

But he didn’t want to do it. His gut feeling told him that this Lu Chong in this world had a tight and inseparable connection to himself.

One theory that he came up with prevented him from rashly strengthening this body. The theory was related to the old Dharmaraja he’d met back in Black Seal Temple.

‘ Heavenly Devil… Heavenly Devil… If my theory is correct…’ Lu Sheng had walked in front of an ancient shrine at this point. He stood still, raised his head, and quietly looked at the countless little tablets standing in the shrine. His mind became increasingly clear.