You've only been cultivating for a few years, and you're already talking about cultivating

Zhu Yixin, who was lying on the ground, suddenly twitched her finger.

First, the index finger, slightly curled, then slowly straightened. Next, the middle finger, ring finger, and little finger.

He felt as if his magical power had been evaporated by something, leaving him completely empty and unable to sense even a trace of spiritual energy in his meridians, as if he had been washed clean from the inside out.

What hurt him even more was his chest!

It felt like I'd been gored head-on by a bull; my ribs ached faintly, and every breath brought on a dull pain.

A flood of memories suddenly rushed into his mind, like a burst dam, surging forth unstoppable.

Within the illusion, there is endless reincarnation, death, and beginnings.

He experienced countless cycles of reincarnation, joining the same sects and following the same paths. Each time he thought he could reach the end, and each time he died in an unexpected place.

Even so, he firmly believed that one day he would become an immortal!

He became a Mahayana cultivator, and as long as he passed the tribulation to become an immortal, he could live forever! These things were so real that he thought that was his life.

But the illusion shattered.

Standing in the South Mountain, he realized that he was not some Mahayana stage ancestor, but just an ordinary cultivator who hadn't even entered the gate.

Those memories, those experiences, those struggles and victories between life and death, it was all a dream, it was all a dream!

What a fleeting dream!

Then he went mad.

Those insane memories are blurry, like fragments of a drunken stupor, leaving only scattered images.

He remembered shouting, cursing Ying Wanning, and waving the Shadow Banner as he lunged at her.

Then, Ying Wanning's face was sneered, a pill was stuffed into her mouth, and a bloody mark was branded into her sea of ​​consciousness.

He staggered to his feet, his knees buckling, and he almost knelt down again.

He steadied himself by holding onto a crooked tree, took a few deep breaths, and his vision gradually cleared.

Then he saw it.

A human head was rolling on the ground not far away.

The faint moonlight, combined with the light from Qi Fei's hand, shone on that face, revealing a complex mix of emotions: resentment, unwillingness, and hatred.

The shadowy head of the person.

"ah--!"

Zhu Yixin let out a hiss that sounded inhuman, staggered forward, fell to the ground, and hugged the head to her chest.

His fingers ran through her hair, pressing her head tightly against his chest, as if he wanted to pull her into his arms, as if he were still holding her when she was alive.

Her eyes were still open, empty, filled with resentment and malice, like two frozen glass beads.

He knew that look in his eyes all too well!

She always looks at people she doesn't like with this kind of gaze.

In the past, when she looked at him, she would be gentler, with a touch of warmth, making him feel special and her feel that she was different from him.

He reached out, his hand trembling, and gently closed her eyelids with his fingertips.

Then he raised his head and looked at Qi Fei.

"It was you...it was you! You killed her!" His voice was hoarse and inhuman, streaked with blood, wet with tears, and trembling with a near-collapse.

Qi Fei stood a few steps away, looking down at him with a calm gaze.

"So you not only didn't die," he said, "you also broke free from control."

Ying Wan Ning's evil magic can turn people into puppets, but Zhu Yixin has been exposed to "Bian Ying".

"Shadow Debunking" burned away his magical power and the blood-red mark in his sea of ​​consciousness. In addition, with Ying Wanning dead, the evil magic was like a tree without roots or water without a source, losing all its support.

By a twist of fate, Zhu Yixin regained consciousness.

No more going crazy, no more being delirious, no longer like a puppet being held by strings.

The bloodshot in his eyes had faded, revealing his own tired and desperate eyes.

But a person who is insane cannot feel pain.

A sober person would.

Zhu Yixin held Ying Wanning's head in her arms, kneeling in the mud, her whole body trembling.

"Kill me too," he suddenly said.

Ying Wanning is dead, so he doesn't have much of a future either.

He lowered his head and looked at the head in his arms.

In the illusion, they spent time together.

Sometimes she was a saint, high above all, and he protected her well, facing endless enemies alone.

Sometimes she is the person beside me in bed, gentle as water, whispering softly.

Sometimes she was a betrayer, cold and ruthless, pushing him into the abyss.

But those are all fake.

The Mahayana cultivators are fake, the life-and-death battles are fake, the victories are fake, the defeats are fake, the betrayals are fake—it's all fake.

But since it's fake...

He held the cold head in his arms tightly, pressing his forehead against the top of her head.

Since it's all fake, the only real thing is that Ying Wanning didn't betray him.

So, he still loves Ying Wanning.

Since we cannot live together, we can die together!

To die together with the one you love most is also a kind of ending.

Qi Fei stood a few steps away, looking at Zhu Yixin kneeling on the ground. He didn't make a move, but suddenly spoke up, "Don't you want to cultivate immortality anymore?"

Zhu Yixin did not answer.

He knelt in the mud, holding the person in his arms, motionless.

The wind slipped through his clothes, chilly, but he felt no cold. A person whose heart is dead cannot feel cold.

Qi Fei looked at him and continued, "Having experienced so much, do you have any new perspectives on 'The Shadow God Technique' now?"

Zhu Yixin's body stiffened slightly.

He found the book "Shadow God Technique" utterly absurd, and even argued with Qi Fei about it, saying that Qi Fei had "cultivated for several years" the technique.

At that moment, those sentences suddenly surfaced from the depths of my memory.

"Between heaven and earth, all things possess their inherent nature... They do not exist because people know them, nor do they perish because people are ignorant of them..."

A mountain is a mountain, and water is water. Whether you know its name or not, no matter what you call it, it is there. It will not change because of your perception, nor will it disappear because of your ignorance.

"...The Shadow God has no form, yet bestows upon all shadows their shapes..."

A shadow has no shape of its own, yet it can take on any shape. What you see is never the thing itself, but the shadow it casts.

"...As soon as the shadow rises, the Shadow God is already within it..."

He once thought these sentences were absurd and incomprehensible.

But now, kneeling in this desolate wilderness, holding a dead body, and having experienced countless cycles of life and death in the illusion, these sentences suddenly took on a new meaning.

In the illusion, life and death, love and hate, victory and defeat are all fake.

But they were so real, so real, that he never doubted them for a single moment during those times. Just like now, standing under this moonlight, looking at Qi Fei's face, looking at the head in his arms.

Are these things necessarily true?

What is truth?

What is fake?