this infinite world

"So, it turns out I wasn't the only one who misunderstood."

Seeing that wisp of green light vanish into thin air without leaving a trace, Pei Xi, who had been provoked by the direct approach, muttered to himself thoughtfully.

Now that Yang Yun had left the Lord of the Rings world and the will of guidance had returned to its original form, Pei Xi was fully aware of everything that had happened before and understood the misunderstanding caused by the information gap between the two.

In the previous conversation, Pei Xi's use of "boldness" naturally referred to Jieyin's willingness to ask a royal-level saint to cover up the cause and effect and obscure his perception in order to achieve his own goals. However, from Jieyin's perspective, Pei Xi was talking about how he used the Dream World Technique to set up a plan in the past to make Mirko a primary saint, and now he was bringing out this long-buried pawn for this purpose.

The reason their seemingly nonsensical conversation worked was because the perspectives of those within and outside the situation were completely different. Firstly, Pei Xi was obscured from the cause and effect and couldn't control the overall situation; secondly, Jieyin didn't know that Pei Xi's gaze couldn't reach this place. Thus, a kind of unfortunate information gap formed between the two... As a result, they ultimately failed to achieve their goals, and an intruder from who-knows-where won in the end.

"……interesting."

After figuring out the whole story, Pei Xi smiled and stopped calculating with his fingers: "I thought it was Houtu who made the move... How interesting."

"What's wrong, brother? You still can't figure it out?"

Suddenly, a ripple spread out in the void of this multiverse where even saints could not easily exist, and then a beautiful woman dressed in magnificent palace attire, with a noble and elegant demeanor and unparalleled beauty, stepped out from it.

Unlike Pei Xi, who appeared perfectly normal and seemingly just an ordinary person, the newcomer possessed an aura that encompassed the boundless天地 (heaven and earth) and the myriad directions of the universe, truly displaying unparalleled elegance and talent. At this moment, the beautiful woman also gazed at the spot where the azure light had dissipated, and softly asked, "Could it be because of your rank, brother? If so, then I will do it—"

"No, Nuwa, this is not a matter of status, but a matter of humanity."

Pei Xi smiled and shook his head, stopping the beautiful woman beside him from continuing to deduce cause and effect for him: "To be able to conceal cause and effect with a non-saintly body, making it impossible for me to calculate his origins, this person is truly extraordinary."

As he spoke, Pei Xi, dressed in casual clothes, stroked his chin. Surprisingly, he was not angry about the middle finger earlier. Instead, his words revealed a hint of admiration: "Fearless of heaven and earth, every move he makes is based on his true nature. Even when facing me, the Human Emperor, he shows no respect or fear... This kind of temperament really might be the return of 'him'."

"Brother, are you talking about... the Nine-Headed Clan?"

The moment the words "Nine-Headed Clan" were uttered, the holy radiance flowing around Nuwa suddenly froze. Although it was she herself who spoke, as a supreme being who had achieved the status of a royal saint, her memories, which should have been eternally intact, suddenly experienced a brief blank.

The next moment, Nuwa lightly pressed her temples with her slender fingers, and a rare look of confusion appeared on her beautiful face: "A familiar yet unfamiliar name... But brother, if he really is the Nine-Headed Clan, why can't I recall any specific scene of our encounter? I only have some vague memories, like looking at flowers through a fog..."

"Because you forgot."

When this topic came up, Pei Xi first sighed, then murmured, "It's not just you. Even I can't fully remember anything about the Nine-Headed Clan. And perhaps there are only twenty or thirty people in the entire multiverse who still remember the Nine-Headed Clan, and they are all old people who survived from before the War of Creation."

"If you hadn't been among those who received guidance, and hadn't blurted out in a mythical form, disrupting cause and effect and giving direction to that endless, troublesome great cause and effect, then you probably wouldn't even remember those three words right now."

"...Even a Saint of the Emperor level isn't enough?" Nuwa frowned and said, "Since it has this characteristic of erasing cognition, could it be meme contamination? And meme contamination that can affect the entire multiverse must at least be a fantasy-level meme..."

"It's not certain yet, but there must be a big secret and a big crisis involved."

This time, Pei Xi, unusually, did not refute, but simply nodded heavily. His gaze was profound, as if piercing through the river of time, looking back at that long-forgotten era: "You and I both know that the throne of the Human Emperor should have been held by the Nine-Headed Clan. Although I am the founder of the human cultivation system, the Nine-Headed Clan... he was the first wise man since Hao to systematically deduce the trajectory of human civilization's development."

At that moment, the void seemed to ripple with Pei Xi's words, reflecting an ancient scene—a time before the Hetu and Luoshu appeared, and the path of cultivation was unknown to anyone. Yet, the Nine-Headed Clan had already prophesied that the human race would inevitably have both a rune cultivation system and a sage system in the future… Such insight was enough to demonstrate his profound wisdom.

As he spoke, Pei Xi sighed again: "For this alone, he has rendered a great service to our human race. If he weren't so unknown, he might be able to be compared to the Second Jun in the world, not to mention his sacrifices and contributions during the darkest period of humankind. Before we were even born, he was already the universally acclaimed choice for the Human Emperor..."

At this point, Pei Xi paused for a rare moment, and Nuwa, sensing his distress, immediately touched Pei Xi's slightly trembling right hand: "It's alright, brother, it's all over... Look, I'm standing here perfectly fine, aren't I?"

"Yes, it's all in the past..."

Regarding that heavy history and the blood connection flowing from his right hand, even though the terrifying killing intent no longer rose in his heart, Pei Xi still let out a long sigh, as if exhaling all the gloom accumulated in the long river of time, thinking of the tremor etched deep in his true spirit. After a long silence, he returned to the previous topic: "However, that's not what I'm worried about, but another issue."

"Is he... really from the Nine-Headed Clan?"

"Or rather, is he really not one of the 'others' disguised as the Nine-Headed Clan?"

"Brother, why do you say that?"

These words were truly astonishing. Even Nuwa hadn't expected Pei Xi to suddenly utter such a statement: "The identification of guides, the causal relationships they trigger, and the means to sever the tracing of cause and effect without a saintly body..."

"Just like the oversight I made before due to information asymmetry, the same principle applies to Jieyin. In fact, I don't think he has absolute evidence to prove that the mysterious person who defeated him must be the Nine-Headed Clan."

Fuxi's gaze pierced through countless planes, fixed on a certain point in the void, as if trying to see through the fog to uncover the truth: "Correspondingly, if one is proficient in the Way of Cause and Effect, then actively bearing the burden of cause and effect is not a difficult matter; as for severing the tracing of cause and effect, just as you said, Nuwa, it may be due to the effect of the fantasy-level meme..."

"Most importantly, if that person really was the Nine-Headed Clan, then he should never have done that to me in the end."

Recalling the other party's unwavering middle finger, the hostile attitude was blatantly obvious. Pei Xi frowned slightly, and after a long silence, finally sighed softly: "Wa, Jiu Tou Shi is my lifelong friend, like a brother to me, and I am certain that he also considers me a confidant. But just now, he showed me such deep hatred..." "...as if I had personally killed him once."

As soon as Pei Xi finished speaking, the void fell into a deathly silence. Even the holy radiance flowing around Nuwa paused, as if everything was holding its breath and not daring to breathe.

"But brother, if you ascended to the throne of the Human Emperor after fighting him back then, then you did indeed personally kill him once, didn't you?"

Hearing Pei Xi's nonsensical words, even Nuwa, who was extremely intelligent, could not make sense of the logic behind them. She could only ask with some confusion, "If that's the case, isn't it only natural that he harbors resentment towards you now that he has returned from his tribulation?"

"No, Nuwa, you've misunderstood."

Pei Xi shook his head and sighed again, but his eyes were brighter than ever before, as if piercing through the river of time and returning to his memories of the past: "Although I have forgotten most of what happened back then, and have no memory of the final battle at all, the only thing I am certain of is that the difference between me and the Nine-Headed Clan was a struggle over the Great Dao... There was no personal grudge, only a difference in our positions."

"That's why, even if I ultimately win, he will never hold a grudge against me. At most, it will just be a matter of different paths..."

At this point, Pei Xi paused, as if weighing his words. After a few seconds, the seemingly ordinary young man shook his head and said with a wry smile, "No, I can't be sure either. After all, the matter of reincarnation is subject to many changes... If he has experienced something during his countless reincarnations that has caused some changes in his personality, that would be quite normal."

This time, Pei Xi's words carried a hint of self-deprecation, as if he felt it deeply: "Even I myself changed a lot after going to the Negative Multiverse, let alone the Nine-Headed Clan, who has not appeared in the human world for countless years and has already gone through countless reincarnations?"

Upon hearing this, Nuwa, who had once accompanied the person before her, also fell silent. For a moment, neither of them spoke, and the atmosphere in the void became exceptionally heavy. After a long while, Pei Xi managed a weak smile and said, "Of course, these are just my one-sided speculations, without any evidence, and should not be taken seriously... To determine the truth of the matter, we must wait for the other party's next move before we can make a more accurate judgment."

"No, brother, of course I trust your judgment."

Nuwa frowned her beautiful eyebrows: "But if that person isn't the Nine-Headed Clan, then who could it be?"

"good question."

Faced with Nuwa's question, Pei Xi answered much faster this time. The young man spread his hands and replied in a perfectly standard posture, "The best answer is, I don't know either."

"Brother...this isn't the time for jokes, is it?"

Seeing this, Nuwa rolled her eyes and looked at the young man beside her with a speechless expression: "There are only the two of us here, so stop using the same tricks you used to deal with Tongtian and the others to keep us in suspense and play mind games."

"...If Tongtian knew that you singled him out as an example and dissed his intelligence, he would definitely be angry."

Seeing Nuwa's eyes widen as if to say, "If you dare to tell anyone, I'll never forgive you," Pei Xi quickly waved his hands to indicate that he would never speak of it. At the same time, he brought the topic back: "If I really want to give a rough probability, then there is a close 70% chance that he is the Nine-Headed Clan himself."

"...You just said he wasn't?"

"Don't rush, Nuwa." Pei Xi rubbed his temples, looking like he had a headache. "The reason I said there was a 70% probability is for logical reasons."

His fingertips traced across the void, creating ripples of cause and effect: "You and I both know that the name 'Nine-Headed Clan' has long been buried by the river of time. The weight of this name is beyond the capacity of ordinary beings to bear. Who among those of sound mind would willingly accept this name without reason?"

As he spoke, Pei Xi suddenly sneered, a sharp glint flashing in his eyes: "'Nine-Headed Clan' may have great opportunities, but it also involves endless and complex causes and effects... To put it bluntly, neither the Primordial Heavenly Court nor the myriad races of the Primordial World would be happy to see such a person appear. This is simply making an enemy of the entire multiverse."

"……really."

Nuwa nodded in agreement: "Those guys in the Heavenly Court have been unhappy with your existence for a long time, and now that you have not yet returned to the Primordial World to take the throne, the myriad races of the Primordial World will naturally not want another troublemaker. Moreover, he is your nemesis... In this sense, it is not an exaggeration to say that he is 'an enemy of the whole world'."

But as she spoke, Nuwa suddenly realized something was amiss: "Wait, doesn't this just prove he's real? What idiot would do something so foolish and take on such a huge karmic burden for no reason?"

"Therefore, if that person really is not the Nine-Headed Clan, it can only mean that the other party has much bigger ambitions."

Pei Xi sighed and said, "The time of promise is approaching, and as the beacon of the Dao, I cannot act rashly. Moreover, the appearance of the Nine-Headed Clan has attracted the attention of the entire multiverse. It is truly a time of great turmoil."

"However, no matter how things change, the essence remains the same. Regardless of whether the other party is genuine or using a false identity, there is always one person who comes to mind, and one sentence that I still keep in mind even after I have become Pei Xi—"

Pei Xi's eyes flickered slightly, and ripples immediately spread through the void. Time and space unfolded a scroll under his will...

In a city called Third New Tokyo, amidst the clamor of voices, a disheveled, bearded man wearing a tattered straw hat was laughing heartily at a banquet with his teammates. Though his eyes were glazed with drunkenness, a startling glint shone in them. With an air of triumphant pride, he raised his glass and slurred, "You ask me why I'm doing this?"

At that moment, the man's voice seemed to transcend time and space, merging with Pei Xi's words: "Because, ah, people's dreams..."

"It will never end!" (End of Chapter)