"Silly child."
Looking at his disciple's terrified eyes, Thirteen Wu gave a smile of relief. "When one is young, one's memory is good. Every time I missed home, I could immerse myself in the memory as if I had truly returned."
The old Daoist's voice became somewhat ethereal.
"But as I grew older, my memories blurred. Every time I miss home now, it feels even further away."
"However..."
"Fortunately, I have finally returned to this land..."
"It can be considered..."
"Falling leaves returning to their roots."
At this point,
Thirteen Wu lowered his head indifferently and looked toward Chang'an City, a trace of nostalgia flashing in his eyes.
He simply watched the crisscrossing streets of Chang'an and the commoners wailing amidst the ruins.
He watched the vast Mortal World and its mundane life.
In a daze,
time seemed to flow back over a thousand years.
It was the olden days of the Great Han Dynasty.
There were no immortal blessed lands, nor any Immortal Masters of the Ascending the Tower stage.
There was only a dark alley redolent with the scent of cheap cosmetics and sour slops.
There lived a fatherless bastard.
And a brothel girl who would spread her legs for a few copper coins.
That woman wasn't beautiful, and her figure was bloated; in those entertainment quarters, she was of the lowest class.
Every day, for a few coppers, she had to force a smile, endure men reeking of alcohol, and suffer the beatings of the madam and the disdainful looks of the pimp.
The child was sensible from a young age, knowing he was a bastard born of that woman.
But that woman protected him.
Whenever there was something good to eat, she couldn't bear to eat it herself and would stuff it all into his mouth.
"Eat more. When you grow up, pass the imperial exams and become the Top Scholar, then earn your mother the title of Lady of Commandery."
The woman always said this, her face coated in cheap rouge, smiling like a withered chrysanthemum.
Later,
something terrible happened.
That Winter Solstice, the snow fell in flakes as large as mats.
To buy the child a new cotton jacket, the woman stood at the street corner in the freezing cold to solicit customers.
She encountered a drunken Young Master from a wealthy family.
The Young Master found her ugly and dirty, and he raised his hand to slap her.
The woman, possessing unknown strength, gripped the Young Master's sleeve tightly, demanding an explanation.
In the end,
she received no explanation.
Instead, she received a brutal beating.
Dozens of servants surrounded the woman, striking her with clubs.
The pimp, the madam, and even those she called sisters in the brothel joined in, stepping on her to please the Young Master.
The child stood outside the crowd.
He watched with his own eyes.
He watched the woman who usually washed his clothes, cooked for him, and hummed tunes to lull him to sleep being beaten into a bloody pulp, her life hanging by a thread.
He wanted to rush in.
But he didn't dare.
He was afraid to die.
Until the crowd dispersed.
The woman lay in the snow, her blood staining it red.
The child crawled over, holding her and crying.
The woman struggled to open her eyes, and her hand, covered in chilblains, tremblingly stroked the child's face.
"Mother knows... you look down on me..."
"I've brought shame to you..."
"In the next life..."
"In the next life... I will only be your mother... not a prostitute..."
That night,
fire soared into the sky at the wealthy Young Master's estate.
He didn't know how he did it... even the guard dogs were minced into meat by him.
Later,
he fled to the ends of the earth, like a stray dog.
Until he met a girl.
She was a very good girl; she didn't mind that he was dirty, nor that he was a murderer.
The girl said she wanted to live a peaceful life with him.
He wanted that too.
But the heavens always seemed to enjoy mocking the wretched.
The girl fell ill.
To get medicine for her, he became a suicide soldier for a wealthy family, risking his life.
By the time he ran back, covered in wounds and clutching the medicine he'd traded for,
the girl was already cold, her body stiff.
He was just a little too late.
Just a little too late!
He held the girl's body and sat in the rain for three days and three nights.
He cried until his tears ran dry, and his Mortal heart died with them.
Later,
through a chance Opportunity,
he was noticed by the Old Ancestor of Xuanzhen Grotto-Heaven and brought back to the mountain.
The Old Ancestor said he had extraordinary bone structure and was a natural seed for Cultivation.
He only needed to sever his ties with the Mortal World to attain the Great Dao and achieve longevity.
His Senior Brothers also advised him.
"Junior Brother, the Mortal World is full of suffering. The past is like smoke; just forget it."
"We Cultivators seek transcendence. Those mundane emotional attachments are nothing but stumbling blocks on the path of Dao."
He progressed in his Cultivation very quickly.
So quickly that it shocked everyone.
Hearing the String, Bone Resonance, Ink Dot Realm, Seed Lotus, Mountain Gazing... The bottlenecks that took others decades or even centuries, he bypassed as easily as drinking water.
But whenever the night was quiet,
and he closed his eyes,
all he saw was that piercing red snow.
All he saw was the look in that woman's eyes before she died.
He thought of that phrase: "not a prostitute."
Cultivating the Dao, cultivating the Dao.
In the end, what kind of thing was one supposed to become?
He didn't know... he really didn't know... Later,
he gave himself a Daoist name.
Thirteen Wu.
Why call himself Thirteen Wu?
He counted on his fingers, one by one.
No name, no surname.
No father, no mother.
No brothers, older or younger.
No sisters, older or younger.
No son, no daughter.
No wife, no friend.
He had severed every attachment and every bond in this world cleanly.
Finally, only one remained—
Invincibility.
How impressive did that sound?
How overbearing?
But who would know
the kind of loneliness
that lay behind those words, 'Invincibility'?
Until he reached Ascending the Tower... standing high upon the clouds, looking down at the myriad living beings below, he finally understood.
What longevity?
What Immortal Ascension?
Nonsense!
It was all nonsense!
Whether a Cultivator or a Mortal,
once that skin was shed,
wasn't what lay inside just a heart of flesh?
As long as one was human... one could not escape birth, age, sickness, and death, nor could one escape love, hate, and parting.
Tears shimmered in his cloudy old eyes.
He slowly raised his head and looked at the high and mighty Taiyuan Demon Emperor.
"Do you know why I dare to call myself invincible?"
The Taiyuan Demon Emperor's brow furrowed. His descending tiger claw actually became incredibly sluggish under the influence of this inexplicable aura.
Looking at the Old Daoist Priest below who was on the verge of death,
a sense of unease actually rose in his heart.
The Taiyuan Demon Emperor snorted coldly, his Demonic Qi surging frantically: "Stop playing tricks! Die for me!!!"
Thirteen Wu slowly raised both hands.
He used no Spiritual Qi, nor any Divine Ability or technique.
Only an endless desolation spread from his palms.
"I have contemplated this move for a lifetime."
"But it wasn't until I reached a thousand years of age that I finally understood..."
When one wants to show filial piety, the parents are no longer there.
When one wants to love someone, they are already gone.
When one wants to turn back, one is already old.
A thousand years of busyness, a thousand years of Cultivation.
In the end, looking back... it is a tangled mess of countless threads, complex and chaotic.
Beneath the blue sky lies the Mortal World.
And the affairs of the Mortal World, in the end, boil down to four words.
"Too late..."
Yes.
Too late.
In this life, it was too late for everything.
Too late to save his mother.
Too late to save that girl.
Now... is it also too late to save his homeland? "To hell with 'too late'!"
Thirteen Wu took a step forward.
With this step,
he was no longer that bastard who could only hide in a corner and cry.
He was no longer that wanderer who was powerless while holding a corpse.
And he was no longer that high and mighty Xuanzhen Immortal Master.
His cloudy old eyes erupted with an unprecedented brilliance at this moment.
Boom—!!!
The entire Chang'an City, and even the entire sky of the Great Tang, instantly changed color.
It was no longer blue sky and white clouds, nor was it filled with dark Demonic Qi.
Instead, it was a painting.
In the painting, there was birth, age, sickness, and death.
There was love, hate, and parting.
There was the prostitute beaten to death in the heavy snow.
There was the young girl who died of illness.
There were the millions upon millions of 'too late' regrets in this world.
"What is this?!"
The Taiyuan Demon Emperor's expression changed drastically, and he was about to flash away from this place.
But as he turned his head, he met a pair of cold and indifferent eyes.
The girl's figure was not imposing; she looked no different from an ordinary person.
Yet everyone present suddenly felt a sense of relief in their hearts... Thirteen Wu stared blankly ahead, only to see the girl suddenly look toward him and wave her hand: "At your age... why are you risking your life? Go stand to the side."