Lu Chenyuan dreamed a long and fragmented dream, filled with the clamor of mortal markets, the clash of sword and blade, and faintly visible towering immortal palaces, breathtaking beauties, and vast stretches of misty waters.
"Hand over the Xuan Yin Qi-absorbing Scripture and the Tai Yin Treasure Mirror, and perhaps I may spare you a wisp of your soul, sparing you from soul annihilation."
A cold, ice-spring-like female voice echoed in his ear. Lu Chenyuan tried desperately to see that hazy face, but it was as if veiled by an impenetrable mist—no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't bring it into focus.
……
"CLANG!"
A violent jolt suddenly ripped Lu Chenyuan from the depths of his dream.
Before his eyes was chaotic darkness, and strange, kaleidoscopic colors flashed frantically through his mind. Instinctively, he tried to open his eyes, tried to rise, but this body felt as if crushed beneath an invisible great hand, utterly unresponsive to his commands.
Just as this suffocating darkness threatened to swallow everything, a brilliant shaft of white light tore through the heavy ink like a sword. Though the darkness surged back like a tide, this pillar of light stood like a celestial pillar, unchanging since ancient times.
Then, countless intricate golden runes burst forth from the pillar of light, unfurling and spreading through the dark void like a sky full of stars pouring down.
"So beautiful……" Lu Chenyuan thought, utterly captivated.
As the runes grew denser and denser, as if reaching some critical threshold, a clear sound like shattering glass rang through the air.
The world, opened wide.
Lu Chenyuan "saw" a sky washed clean, blue and boundless; saw undulating, lush primordial forests; nearby, a crescent-shaped emerald pond, and a silver-white streak of light piercing the sky, falling into the shimmering waters.
Below his line of sight, a few crude huts built of thatch and bamboo were scattered about, and beside them stretched waves of golden rice.
The perspective rolled violently—he felt like a weightless leaf, drifting past the brown-yellow, rustic village and curling wisps of smoke, skimming over a crystal-clear stream.
In that fleeting, glimpsed reflection, Lu Chenyuan finally saw what he had become.
"It seems to be a round, faintly glinting object……" Confusion filled his heart, and a strange premonition arose:
"Am I no longer human?"
"SPLASH!"
Another violent jolt came, and Lu Chenyuan felt weightless for a moment before crashing heavily into the water. The stream was shallow and couldn't absorb the impact—he crashed squarely onto the blue-green stones at the bottom.
The impact felt like a fist to the face. His chest and abdomen tightened. Riding the momentum of the churning water and the rebound from the collision, his body turned steadily at the riverbed, face up, facing the swaying sun on the water's surface.
"I was still in my rental room, pulling an all-nighter revising a proposal……"
Lu Chenyuan gazed quietly at the sun above the water. The rushing current distorted the light and shadow projected on the riverbed.
He struggled to trace back his memories, feeling his head about to split. The end of his memory was himself collapsing weakly onto the bed—the murky cigarette smoke in the rental room mingling with the neon glow outside the window before his eyes.
He remembered opening a bottle of beer, sitting in front of a dim computer screen—then came world-spinning vertigo, his heart racing wildly, breathing growing increasingly difficult.
"It seems I…… died?"
"Well, that's not so bad. No more worries about making a living, no more anxiety about the future."
Perhaps having been suppressed for too long in life, such an absurd thought actually surfaced in Lu Chenyuan's mind, and a strange kind of elation even rose in his heart.
He carefully "observed" his surroundings. Above was a dark-green canopy of trees, dangling wisps of aerial roots. Agile fish darted across the surface from time to time. A faint tinkling of water rippling reached his ears.
Lu Chenyuan sighed secretly in his heart:
"But if it really goes on like this forever, I'll probably go mad from boredom."
So he could only stare blankly as the sun slowly slid from overhead, brilliant sunset clouds filling the sky, the waters beneath the tree shadows dimming little by little into silence.
During this time, two little fish had circled curiously around him, and even a fearless river crab had tried to flip him over.
Until the bright moon climbed to the treetops, and cold moonlight poured over the river like liquid silver. Lu Chenyuan joyfully felt a cool energy seeping through the water to the riverbed, vaguely bringing an indescribable comfort.
He "saw" moonlight gathering above his body little by little, as if imbued with life, slowly condensing into a faint white halo. Lu Chenyuan was greatly startled, and his state of mind turned upside down in an instant:
"What's this? Absorbing the essence of the sun and moon? Does this world truly have immortals, magical powers, demons and ghosts?" he thought in shock. "Then what have I become? A sentient artifact?"
An intense curiosity and joy surged from deep within Lu Chenyuan. That wisp of halo seemed to have gathered enough power, drifting slowly down and covering him.
In that instant, he felt a chill wash over him, and his consciousness fell into a state of being neither asleep nor awake—a mysterious, ineffable meditation.
Who knows how much time passed, before the surrounding currents gradually thinned and Lu Chenyuan abruptly woke. By now the waning moon had faded from the horizon, and a red sun rose above the treetops, warm morning light once again spilling across the water.
"Time passed so quickly."
Lu Chenyuan was overjoyed. After carefully examining himself, there was indeed a faint current of energy circling within him, moving in circular paths along the edges of his body.
He focused his qi and sank his spirit, trying to "see" his surroundings. Through the blur, he saw a greyish-green mirror lying quietly on the riverbed, its underside carpeted with colorful pebbles. A few fish were foraging at the bottom……
That crab was still tirelessly digging nearby. His current field of vision extended about a meter around himself—not particularly clear, like the old CRT television from his childhood home.
"So this is what I am now." A bitter smile crossed Lu Chenyuan's heart. Then he tried to guide that current of energy to linger at the center of the mirror's surface. The greyish-green mirror body emitted a faint, glimmering light.
"Besides being able to glow, I haven't discovered any other uses."
"I'll focus on absorbing this moon essence first—maybe there will be qualitative changes in the future." He plotted quietly. "I don't know what material this mirror is made of, nor how the outside world views sentient artifacts like me. I really hope some passing cultivator doesn't discover me and casually erase my consciousness."