Am I the mastermind behind it all?
My grandfather, Chen Bazhong, is the one who should take the blame.
Also, I set up the Seven Deadly Formations of the Netherworld? Not my grandfather?
No, how old was I then? Was I even born yet? How old was I?
But just as I was about to refute, I suddenly thought of what Brother Liu and Yuan Ying had said about reincarnation, and what that person from the Bureau of Strange News Investigation said last time: "Long time no see!"
My mind went blank, like a bomb had exploded inside me.
But when I try to think about it carefully, it seems like I can't grasp anything at all.
Just then, Yuan Ying casually added, "Are you sure your childhood memories really belong to you?"
What does that mean?
Do my childhood memories not belong to me? Are my memories fabricated by others?
What's even more ingenious is that Brother Liu added another sentence, which was like stabbing me in the back of my wound.
Are you sure you're really only in your twenties? Is your current appearance not real?
What the hell?
Does this mean I'm already very old?
I don't have the [Earth Soul], that's true, and I don't have much affection for it, but who can stand Liu Sandao's sudden remark?
I told Brother Liu, "Stop joking around. You'll scare people to death."
"I'm bluffing you? I really am..."
Liu Sandao raised his voice several times: "Do you think I'm joking with you? Originally, I didn't want to say it, but I just couldn't hold back anymore."
At this point, Liu Sandao paused for a moment, then continued.
“When a person who has possessed another body passes their ‘birth year tribulation,’ their appearance will revert to that of a child. Chen Bazhong was afraid that you would awaken your memories of your previous nine lives, so he used the ‘memory grafting’ technique to make you think that you are an ordinary twenty-year-old youth.”
Yuan Ying suddenly took out a fragment of the Daoist Canon, and the hexagram "Three Yin Revolving" on it matched my palm lines perfectly.
“Your current destiny chart is like an ancient book that has been crumpled and re-attached. Every time Chen Bazhong shields you from calamity, he shortens his own lifespan. So, in fact, you are the one who caused your grandfather's death.”
Did I bring death to my grandfather?
I said that's not right, my grandfather didn't die at all, we can't even find his remains.
"You don't know anything!"
Liu Sandao pointed to my gradually transparent reflection in the Bagua mirror.
"Do you know why we can't find your remains? It's because you should have been scattered to the winds. It was Chen Bazhong who embedded a fragment of his own earth soul into your destiny. Now, two of your three souls are his, and three of your seven spirits carry the memories of your previous nine lives."
"So those 'childhood memories' are actually my grandfather's past? My current appearance is actually my grandfather's?"
My head is buzzing.
Yuan Ying nodded, her fingertips tracing the cracks in the Bagua mirror: "He used the 'overlapping destiny chart' technique to make your soul coexist with his spirit. In each reincarnation, you think you are twenty years old, but in reality, he has used your lifespan to reset your destiny chart."
Liu Sandao suddenly stared at my neck: "The lines on the back of your neck have turned into the Li trigram. That was the array eye that Chen Bazhong carved on his own body back then, and now it has been transferred to you."
"The scheme he set up was never meant to harm you, but rather to help you completely escape the fate of the 'Three Yin Reincarnations' before the tenth reincarnation."
"But why didn't he just tell me? Why did he have to go through all this trouble?"
I don't understand.
Yuan Ying looked at the image of the patriarch on the shrine, where the ashes on the sword tassel were forming the character "缘" (fate/destiny).
"Because the final secret of the true 'Seven Deadly Formations of the Netherworld' is hidden in your memory. Your grandfather was afraid that if you knew that you were a formation master in your previous nine lives, you would awaken your reincarnation soul prematurely."
Suddenly, Liu Sandao pulled out half a yellow talisman from his pocket, which contained the two characters "Chen Zhong" that I had seen at the bottom of the well.
"You think you're breaking the deadlock, but every step you take is part of your grandfather's calculations. The blank tombstone buried in the mass grave isn't inscribed with the name of the Half-Immortal, but rather with the destiny chart he prepared for you for the tenth reincarnation."
Before he finished speaking, the ever-burning lamp in front of the shrine suddenly went out, and the sound of rustling paper turning could be heard in the darkness.
In the darkness before the shrine, Liu Sandao struck a match.
"Your grandfather should actually have passed away by now."
He stared into my eyes: "You think that blank tombstone buried in the mass grave is for the demigod? You're wrong. It's for himself. Every time he uses the 'Bone-Changing Contract' to protect you from calamity, he crosses ten years off his lifespan. Now, the bottom of the tombstone is covered with twenty-nine dense engravings."
I clenched my fist: "Just to make me a living dead? And... my encounters with you, and with everyone else, were all planned?"
Yuan Ying hummed in agreement: "That's right, it was all planned out, including everyone you've ever met, they were all part of the scheme!"
As she spoke, she took out a wooden box from the shrine, inside which were nine paper effigies neatly arranged, each with my birth date and time written on its back.
"Thirty years ago, the 'Ten Incarnations' of the Half-Immortal took shape for the first time, and the chosen substitute was your grandfather. In order to avoid the calamity for you when you were still an infant, he used the 'Memory Grafting' technique to seal all the memories of his previous nine incarnations as an array master into your fetal soul."
"You think you're learning paper folding, but you're actually memorizing formations; you think you're keeping watch, but you're actually nurturing the souls of your previous nine lives."
I looked at Yuan Ying, a bitter feeling rising in my throat: "He's not my grandfather at all, is he?"
After a pause, I reorganized my thoughts and asked again, "Or rather, is he both my grandfather and my past nine incarnations?"
Yuan Ying remained silent for a long time before taking out a piece of paper from the bottom of the wooden box.
I asked her what it was.
Yuan Ying opened it, and I found it was a yellowed contract.
The line is marked with two fingerprints: "Chen Bazhong" and "Chen Yan".
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