Chapter 44 (Original)
But he had just looked in the mirror at home, and he still saw himself.
Why are there two versions of myself?
"You...who are you!" Qingjue reached out and grabbed his collar, ignoring the pain in her wrist. "You brought me back, you must know something, you must know how I can go back!"
The person opposite him wasn't much calmer than him; they were also quite surprised, looking at him and asking, "What are you talking about?"
The person opposite him was even more confused than he was, but first pried his hand off: "No matter what, don't get agitated, your injuries are very serious."
What on earth is going on? Where did this plot lead him? How could this be so inexplicable?
He just wanted to go back...!
After a period of extreme agitation, Qingjue fell into an indescribable sadness.
He found himself sitting on the hospital bed and crying without even realizing it.
His emotions fluctuated so wildly that even he himself didn't understand why.
He simply went from wanting to throw a tantrum to wanting to cry, and these emotions stemmed from the fact that he could never go back to the world he used to live in.
This seems like something even more painful than the sky falling down.
"Don't cry, I can roughly guess that you are... You're not mentally stable, please calm down."
Is your mental state unstable?
Am I mentally ill? Was everything before just a figment of my imagination?
Why did God have to play such a bizarre joke on him?
The other self hesitated before speaking, "Are you... me from this side?"
"Over here...?" Qingjue realized what he was asking: "So you really know about what happened over there? So I'm not mentally ill? My inexplicable return, does it have anything to do with you?!"
and……
Qingjue was startled by her own thoughts and murmured, "...Why, I don't remember so much, so many things about this place, I don't remember..."
All he knew was the earthquake, that he had lost his teachers, that he was a kindergarten teacher, and that he hated his job.
But he doesn't remember many traces of his life here.
He had just walked past his own home as if he were in a completely unfamiliar place.
He couldn't even remember the name of the disinfectant.
"...You're really strange." Before he could answer any of his questions, another version of himself countered, "Not only do you not remember, but you also ransacked the house and were covered in blood in the living room. When I came back and saw this, I almost thought you were dead."
"...Who are you? What do you remember?"
"In that case, let me introduce myself. You can call me Bu Qingwu, which is my name in this world, or you can call me..."
"...Immortal Lord Wuqing?" Qingjue was still confused, but upon hearing his name, he blurted it out as a conditioned reflex.
“Yes, you guessed it very quickly after I introduced you like that. You really did come back from my world,” Bu Qingwu continued. “The strange thing is that my memories of my original world are very clear, and it took me a long time to adapt to this society, but you don’t seem to be.”
Bu Qingwu... who was once the real Wu Qing Xianjun, also mentioned some of the contents of his diary in his cabinet, his blog on his phone, and some chat logs.
Those words did sound like something he would say, but Qingjue had no recollection of ever writing them down.
"...And what about the people in this world who know me?"
"My ID card and my real name are both yours, so in their eyes I am you, only... the name has changed. I think it must be the same in that world."
Qingjue was completely bewildered by the overwhelming amount of information he had been given, and felt like he was just saying whatever came to mind: "...My name is...Qingjue, so Wuqing Immortal Lord wasn't originally called by this name?"
He always thought they shared the same name.
Bu Qingwu poured him a glass of water, guessing that he might have suffered some major change in that world.
So he patiently continued to explain: "Actually, I didn't have a name except for a title. But it's fine, Qingjue? I really like your name."
"...Are you really the Immortal Lord of the Mist and Azure Sky from before?"
"Absolutely true, why would you ask that?"
The reason is simple: in his memory, Immortal Lord Wu Qing was a cold-blooded killer, making it hard to connect him with the person who was now patiently talking to him, especially since this person had the exact same face as him.
"...So, is there anything about the plot of that world that you want to tell me? Don't you have any missions?"
"No, I'm just an ordinary person. To be honest, if you weren't in this state, I would feel that we both believe we've both moved on to new lives and don't need to influence each other. If you can come often and occasionally want to enjoy the conveniences and delicious food of modern life, I can take you there. Other than that, I have nothing to do."
Not only was the personality of Immortal Lord Wu Qing completely different from what he had imagined, but it was also different from his own personality.
He seems unassuming and easygoing, almost like a Buddhist.
Aside from their thought processes, they are indeed very similar to each other, which is probably a common point in every world.
Qingjue even couldn't help but wonder if there were more than two worlds.
That's terrifying! Does that mean there are countless people just like you in countless timelines?
Qingjue asked, "Then how can you be so sure I'm from another time...? Could I be a long-lost younger brother or something...?"
"The same face, and these wounds on your body... A normal person wouldn't do this to themselves. After all, I haven't forgotten, and I still have some connection to that world."
Qingjue lay back down, but the heavy weight in her heart still hadn't been lifted.
"Then... do you have any way to let me go back? The Yun family doesn't know yet..."
"...You mean the Yun family, and that young master Yun?"
"You know him?"
"I know very little about him. In my original storyline, I wasn't familiar with him."
"The original plot," Qingjue sat up instantly, "Yes, at least you know the original plot. You were the one who switched places with me when you were alive, right?"
"I was able to exchange worlds with you only after I died."
"Damn it..." Qingjue's mind was in a mess, but at least the inexplicable ups and downs of frustration and sadness from before still lingered in his heart.
Even the pain in my body felt much less because of my mood... And why did he stab me just now? I was acting like a madman.
That feeling was so terrible that he didn't want to experience it a second time.
He rubbed his stiff face, wiped away the tears, and asked with renewed spirit, "You... I mean, how will I die right now?"
"In modern terms... I was just cannon fodder, so my death was rather hasty. I don't know what happened after that, so you probably won't get the questions you're looking for."
"..."
Such top-tier combatants could become cannon fodder.
The identity of a master is indeed too sinister and dangerous.
"Then... could you be more specific? Who killed you? Did you have any enemies? What year did you die? Do you have any reference points? Or rather..." Qingjue didn't want to think about the possibility of his disciples turning against each other.
“No one killed me, and I made no enemies. I remember it was when Young Master Yun was of marriageable age. Not long ago, the Yun family head held a grand banquet, and I accidentally fell off a cliff.”
Indeed, it was hasty.
Qingjue was even more puzzled: "This is not right..."
In his memories and understanding, Yun Yuelin was already past the age of growing up, but because cultivators look young, age is not a standard for measuring cultivation level.
"Could it be..." Qingjue thought for a moment and said, "that you died so long before the main storyline began?"
Qingjue mentally calculated the timeline: a hundred years ago, the Jie, Zhao, and Li families were ambitious and attempted to annex the cultivation world. The Yuanmuyuan was burned down, and the Tianyan family was slaughtered.
About fifty years later, Demon Lord Yan Shiqun died, Qianlun Mountain was sealed off, and Qing Jiujie and Xie Jiajieyou perished together.
Forty-five years later, he transmigrated. When Yun Yuelin met him, he was already past the age of having his hair tied up.
Five years later, he got to know Xie Zhoujian and his group and took them as his disciples.
Ten years later, now.
No matter how you look at it, the original Immortal Lord Wu Qing died long ago.
It can only be speculated that he probably died after Qing Jiujie.
That means we won't get to the core plot anymore; it seems the revenge of the Zhao, Li, and San families is only just beginning.
Let's set aside for now how Qingjue could possibly die so easily, given his physical strength and combat capabilities. Let's just consider it a typical plot-driven death. Now, let's work backwards and predict what will happen next.
...In other words, the original plan was for Yuanmuyuan to be forever sealed in history. After the Quanzhou-Zhangzhou earthquake, Muyuan would die, and Yan Shiqun and the others would not be "recruited" by him.
Mu Yuan is dead, the Gu poison is incurable, and his disciples have scattered and will not help him.
...The Yun family will be wiped out.
...
Okay, that's good news.
Zhi Qingjue quickly realized that he had changed everything, proving that the plot was not static.
As long as they don't come up with some idea that death is unchangeable, it's a huge comfort.
Now he has another question.
Why is his memory loss so severe? Upon closer examination, it seems that he has fewer and fewer memories of modern times.
Could it be that... as he gradually becomes immersed in the story, he will lose his connection with the modern world?
But why is Immortal Lord Wuqing unharmed?
"...That's strange..." Qingjue pondered but couldn't find any clues. "Logically speaking, this could very well be some kind of pattern, but without my previous memories, it's hard for me to find any patterns..."
Judging from the incident, he did indeed suffer a huge physical injury before coming here. After arriving, his thoughts and mind were somewhat out of control. He was almost obsessively determined to go back, even at the cost of his own life.
So what exactly was the trigger for the amnesia and the time travel?
...Losing memories is a very buggy thing.
He could lose his memory under any circumstances, at any time.
It's possible that because of this severe injury, he was forced to travel back in time, and thus forgot all his previous memories.
It's also possible that he experienced something before he suffered a severe injury, but he gradually forgot about it.
In short, there is no way to verify it.
Qingjue was indeed racking his brains, and he had absolutely no clues to support any of his conjectures.
Well, there's no point in worrying about this.
His immediate priority is to go back and see if he can learn more from Bu Qingwu's so-called original storyline.
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