I gain ten years' worth of cultivation every day, and even geniuses will only see my doorstep!

The old plum tree on the back mountain of Xuan Yuan Sect has had its flowering period disrupted this year.

Qin Yuan sat on the bluestone, staring at the branch for the entire morning. A flower bud split open, revealing petals inside—not white, but pink. He blinked, and the petals turned white again. It wasn't a matter of light, nor was it a matter of his eyes. The flower was changing on its own.

Lin Qing'er walked over from the herb garden, holding a spiritual herb in her hand. The seedling was three inches tall, with green leaves and black roots—it had been planted yesterday, but the roots were white and the leaves hadn't sprouted yet. She placed the herb in front of Qin Yuan without speaking. Qin Yuan glanced at it, then looked at the stream. The water was flowing backwards. Fallen leaves downstream drifted upstream against the current, reaching the roots of the old plum tree, stopping, and sinking. They sank and floated back up, then sank again. The cycle repeated endlessly.

"How many days has it been?" Qin Yuan asked.

"Three days," Lin Qing'er said, "from the day you noticed the crack was getting bigger."

Qin Yuan stood up and walked to the stream. His face was reflected in the water, unchanged. But in the reflection of the old plum tree behind him, half of the flowers were in bloom, and half had fallen.

He closed his eyes and released his divine sense. Not towards the abyss of chaos, but towards all the worlds. His perception traversed the myriad realms, the sea of ​​chaos, the land of origin, and beyond all worlds. He witnessed scenes of chaos—in one world, the sun rose halfway and set, rose halfway and set again, like a stuck pendulum. In another world, a newborn baby had white hair, and an old man cried in his cradle. In yet another world, two figures of the same person existed simultaneously, one eating, the other sleeping, undisturbed by each other.

The timeline has forked.

Qin Yuan opened his eyes. Lin Qing'er stood beside him. She didn't ask, "What did you see?" She just stood there.

An old man appeared by the stream. He had white hair, a white beard, and a white robe. The robe was covered in countless tiny cracks, like a dried-up riverbed. He walked very slowly, not intentionally, but because his body wouldn't allow him to be fast. Each step felt like pulling himself out of a swamp.

Old Man of Time.

"Time is running out," he said, his voice soft but each word clear. "I need your help."

Qin Yuan asked, "How can I help?"

"Enter the temporal turbulence and tie the forked timelines back together."

Qin Yuan glanced at Lin Qing'er. She nodded. A crack appeared in the air before the three of them. The edge of the crack wasn't black, but transparent, through which countless overlapping worlds could be seen—the same back mountain of the Xuan Yuan Sect, the same old plum tree, but the number of times the flowers bloomed and withered differed, and the same Lin Qing'er stood in different locations.

Qin Yuan stepped in first, followed by Lin Qing'er, with Old Man Time bringing up the rear.

There is no direction in the turbulent flow of time. It's not a matter of up, down, left, or right; rather, the concept of "direction" doesn't exist here. Qin Yuan felt as if he were inside a sphere—no, he felt as if he were the sphere itself. The past was in front of him, the future was behind him, but with each step, the past and the future would switch places.

He saw himself as a child. Seven or eight years old, wearing a gray outer disciple's robe, holding a wooden sword, chopping tree branches in the back mountain. When a branch broke, he picked it up, wrapped it with strips of cloth, and continued chopping. He also saw himself as an old man. His hair was completely white, his face full of wrinkles, sitting under an old plum tree, without Lin Qing'er beside him.

The voice of the Old Man of Time came from behind him—no, from his left, no, from directly in front of him.

"The progenitor of chaos is dead. When it died, the 'anchor' that held time together broke. Now there are seven main timelines devouring each other. With each one devoured, the myriad worlds lose a dimension of time."

Lin Qing'er's voice came from another direction, very close. "What does 'losing the dimension of time' mean?"

"There is no past, only the present. Or there is no future, only the past. Or there is only the future, no present. You choose one."

Qin Yuan didn't choose. He saw the first timeline.

Everything was still. The world within the lines seemed to have been paused. A man stood on the edge of a field, holding a hoe, which hung suspended in mid-air, refusing to fall. A woman sat on the doorstep, holding a bowl of soup, which hung suspended in mid-air, refusing to spill. A bird spread its wings and perched under the eaves, its wings neither flapping nor falling.

Qin Yuan stepped into that timeline. Golden light, the guardian of the Heavenly Dao, shone from his palm, attempting to "awaken" this world. The golden light shone on the man on the edge of the field, and then it stopped. Not blocked, but frozen. The golden light solidified in the air, like an insect trapped in amber. Qin Yuan found that his hand was also immobilized—not because it was being gripped, but because time itself was forbidden to move. His muscles were urging him to exert force, but time wouldn't obey.

Lin Qing'er walked in. She didn't stop. She went to Qin Yuan and took his hand. She didn't explain, she didn't think, she just held it. Because she trusted him. Trust doesn't need time.

Qin Yuan's hand could move again. Not because of his strength, but because of their relationship—a relationship beyond time. He used that thought—"I need to protect her, I need to be with her"—as an anchor, piercing the frozen timeline. The line began to flow. The man on the ridge put down his hoe and wiped his sweat. The woman on the threshold took a sip of soup and burned her tongue. The bird under the eaves flew away, leaving behind a single feather.

The first timeline has been fixed.

The Old Man of Time looked even worse. Another tear appeared in his robe, running diagonally from his shoulder to his waist. "Repairing each tear consumes the repairer's life force. You have seven. After repairing them all..."

"Just finish fixing it before it disappears," Qin Yuan interrupted him.

A second timeline appears ahead.

Everything accelerated. The beings within the lines moved at a speed invisible to the naked eye. An infant slid out of its mother's womb, already walking upon landing, reaching the threshold as an adult, crossing the threshold with white hair, taking another step, collapsing, and dying. Then its body weathered, turning to bones, bones to ash, and from the ash, another infant was born. The cycle continued. A single life, in the blink of an eye of Qin Yuan, was completed hundreds of times.

Qin Yuan stepped in. His hair began to turn white, his skin began to sag, and his fingers began to curl. It wasn't time accelerating for him; rather, he had entered an accelerated timeline, and he had to abide by the rules here.

Lin Qing'er followed. Her hair wasn't white, her skin wasn't loose, and her fingers weren't bent. Because she lived in Qin Yuan's time, not her own. As long as Qin Yuan was still alive, her time was his time.

The Time Elder shouted online, "Found a constant point! There's something constant in every timeline!"

Qin Yuan looked at Lin Qing'er. Lin Qing'er looked back at him. His gaze hadn't changed. From the moment he first saw her in the back mountains of the Xuan Yuan Sect, to this day, billions of years later, his gaze towards her hadn't changed. It wasn't deep affection, nor infatuation, but a confirmation—you are here. I see you.