Once… twice… ten times…
Yuan watched the life or death fight between the young man and his opponent countless times.
'Just what am I looking for?'
Although Yuan didn't know what he was supposed to be looking at, he eventually just started focusing on the young man that had similar facial features as him.
After watching the young man countless times, Yuan noticed something hidden deep within the young man's eyes.
There was a certain light— a feeling of desperation, and this feeling only grew stronger the longer he was on the stage.
The desperation reached its peak when he was about to be killed.
That was when the young man suddenly experienced his breakthrough into Spirit Master.
"Are you telling me that I am not desperate enough?" Yuan spoke out loud.
Whoosh!
The handsome man returned with a smile on his face.
"That's precisely why. You are not desperate. If not for your condition, you would've not made it to Spirit Warrior, much less Spirit Master."
"Your world is quite peaceful compared to the cultivation world. Although there are some conflicts within the world, it usually doesn't affect you."
Yuan frowned and said, "Even if you say that, how am I supposed to become desperate? I can't feel what I don't feel."
"Then perhaps this will help you."
The handsome man waved his sleeves, giving him another scenario.
However, it wasn't of the life or death battle.
Instead, it was the scene of a family being slaughtered in broad daylight.
Yuan's eyes widened with shock as he witnessed a mother and her daughter— alongside thousands of pedestrians getting slaughtered mercilessly in the streets.
Although Yuan didn't recognize any of these people, tears began flowing from his eyes when he saw the woman and her daughter getting killed.
"Mother! Sister!"
A familiar voice suddenly resounded, causing Yuan to turn around.
Standing behind him was the same young man from the life or death battle, but he looked much younger… and weaker.
This young man was crying just like he was, but there was nothing he could do as he watched the murderer slaughter everyone there until a cultivator finally intervened to stop the madness.
Once the killer was apprehended, the young man walked to the corpses of the woman and the little girl.
He knelt on the ground with tears still flowing down his face and hugged their lifeless bodies until he was forced to let them go because the people had to clean the bodies off the streets.
Once their corpses were taken away, the young man stood up and turned to look at Yuan with a profound feeling of desperation in his gaze.
"This is my first experience with desperation. When will you experience your first? When your family dies before your eyes? When your loved ones are taken right before your very eyes? Or when you're betrayed by someone you trusted with your life?"
Yuan frowned and said, "I don't want to experience any of that."
"Of course you don't. Who would want to experience such misfortune?"
"However, you don't get to choose— the weak don't have any choice but to accept their fate."
"I can see pain in your eyes, but it's not desperation, so I will let you experience some more."
The young man turned around and walked away, and the scenery changed once again.
This time, the young man had his lover taken right in front of him, but he was too powerless to stop it.
Once that scene was over, another scene appeared, then another… and another…
Yuan experienced many different situations in his dream, all of them resulting in some sort of misfortune for the young man that increased his desperation for strength.
Eventually, the young man was no longer a weak young man but a handsome man with a formidable aura that stood at the peak of the cultivation world.
"Do you believe in reincarnation?" The handsome man suddenly asked Yuan as they returned to the sword graveyard.
"Reincarnation? As in rebirth?" Yuan asked, as he wasn't familiar with this term.
"Yes. In the cultivation world, people believe that you will be reincarnated after death, living a vastly different new life but without the memories of their previous lives, and that will repeat until you damage your soul."
"I don't know what to say. It's the cultivation world where anything could happen. As ridiculous as reincarnation sounds, I wouldn't be too surprised if it's real."
The handsome man smiled, and then he started approaching Yuan.
Once he stood before Yuan, the handsome man's appearance began turning younger and younger until he resembled the young man that resembled Yuan.
"You already know the truth deep inside, don't you? You just don't want to believe it." The young man said to him.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Yuan said.
"Still trying to act dumb? Who do you think you're trying to fool? Me?"
"But that only means you're trying to fool yourself."
"…" Yuan turned dead silent as he stared at the young man who resembled him.
"You wanted to know who I am, right? Do I still need to answer that question?"
"Why?" Yuan suddenly asked.
"Why is this happening to me?"
"You should know that answer, too. If I tell you everything, it wouldn't be fun, right?"
"Or you actually don't know anything," Yuan said.
"You're right. I don't. After all, I am you, and you don't know anything. However, don't worry, because you will eventually remember…"
The young man's body suddenly started turning into smoke, disappearing into the background.
It was at this moment Yuan woke up from his dream, and he could immediately feel two streams of tears flowing down his face and the sensation of a wet pillow.
"Y-Young Master… Are you okay?" Meifeng, who woke up just a second ago, asked him in a worried voice after seeing his tears.
"Yes… I am fine. I just had a somewhat bad dream," he said with a bittersweet smile on his face.
"A nightmare, huh?" Meifeng then wiped his tears with her hands.