When Han Yuexi asked the question again, Ye Yu remained perfectly composed. He had begun pondering how to smooth over this very pitfall ever since she’d lost consciousness yesterday.
First, the information she’d provided made one thing clear: she had experienced those dreams more than once—and each time she met him within the dream, she awoke as if reborn. In truth, it was merely waking from the dream, yet Han Yuexi had stubbornly insisted it was time flowing backward and true resurrection. Because of that misunderstanding, when they met in reality this time she had immediately launched an out-of-turn challenge, expecting a replay of the dream’s time-rewind. Clearly, she had not distinguished dream from reality.
Although he still didn’t fully understand why she retained those memories, one thing was certain: he had to offer her a plausible explanation, or else he’d be in endless trouble. Ye Yu knew all too well the maxim “a man bearing treasure invites suspicion,” so he said calmly, “How many of you do you think exist in this world?”
At that, Han Yuexi’s expression twisted into outright confusion. Ye Yu then made a parallel gesture with his hand. Yes—he was invoking the Parallel World Theory again, but adapting it, since Han Yuexi was not his Daoist partner in this life. He explained: after ascending to the Divine Realm, he had glimpsed the legendary Wu Wang Mountain, one of the Five Mysteries of the lower realms. From its summit one day tumbled a fragment of a Five-Colored Divine Stone. That stone possessed wondrous power—when he died in one world, it /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ sent him to a world parallel to his own, then returned him again upon his death.
In each of those parallel worlds Ye Yu’s identity varied—sometimes he was a demon-god, sometimes a devil-god—but as if fate insisted, each time he saw Han Yuexi there. Of course, he’d met other members of the divine races in those worlds, yet none of them retained memories of those crossings. Naturally, he had assumed she was the same, so he’d never first revealed his identity. As for what she called time reversal and resurrection, he said it was simply the process of awakening after his death in a parallel world.
“You were reckless,” he chided her. “On mere conjecture you sought death—did you not value your life? After three such journeys, the Divine Stone shattered, and I lost all chance to cross into parallels again. Now we stand in our true world: if you die here, there is no second awakening. The same goes for me.”
Han Yuexi was stunned. Her guess had been only half right. Many inexplicable things found their answers in his words, yet one question still gnawed at her: why, without that stone, did she share his dream-memories? She opened her mouth to ask, but Ye Yu shook his head.
“I don’t know why you keep those memories. That puzzles me as much as it puzzles you. But I’m even more curious what the Wu Wang Divine Stone really is—and why it wields such power to thrust me into other worlds.”
Indeed, more than memories, that stone defied all belief. To traverse parallel worlds...
Seeing Han Yuexi deep in thought, Ye Yu continued his feigned musing: “If I ever meet Wu Wang Mountain again, I must climb it myself. When you glimpse it too, be sure to tell me.”
Han Yuexi blinked, then nodded at once. She too was intrigued by the legendary mountain, one of the Divine Realm’s Five Mysteries, which appeared at random in any of the realms—meeting it required destiny. Despite her near ten millennia among the gods, she had never once beheld it.
Ye Yu then shifted the topic. “By the way, who is that gray-robed Daoist Lu Yuan, and why were you ready to risk your life for him?”
“Lu Yuan, called the Hidden-Ghost Daoist, has drawn all manner of specters into his own body. Half-immortal, half-ghost, he shattered the void to enter the Divine Realm. I sought him for my younger brother.” Han Yuexi’s eyes darkened with complexity. “Remember when I mentioned in the... parallel world that my brother possessed Heaven’s secret that defied divination?”
At those words, Ye Yu’s attention sharpened. “Heaven’s secret, defying divination”—that phrase usually belonged to overpowered protagonists. Yet the pitiful look on Han Qianzhang’s face hardly matched such an grand destiny.
Han Yuexi went on to recount her brother’s tale. In the Celestial Realm there were fairies; in the Divine Realm, there were born-godlings—like herself and her brother, natives of this world. When Han Qianzhang was born, Han Yuexi had already reached Early Golden-God Realm. On that day she witnessed a being truly born by destiny: heaven trembled, divine beasts heralded, rosy clouds filled the sky spotlighting him alone. Ancient heroic spirits formed faces in the clouds, gazing down. No one could have expected such an omen.
Her father quickly sealed that region to hide it from prying eyes, for a birth that stirred cosmic signs would surely draw envy. When her parents attempted to divine his fate, they were grievously harmed: he truly bore Heaven’s secret, and any rash attempt to divine it could only meet backlash and misty visions. Han Yuexi and her family believed the Han clan would produce a dragon-born god, so they protected him jealously. They expected life to proceed until he grew powerful—yet fate struck first.
In the Divine Realm, every nine years an eclipse appeared. When it came, Han Qianzhang lost control, becoming a slaughterous force. At first Han Yuexi could not comprehend it: his eyes turned crimson, divine power surged, and he attacked all in sight. Helpless, she subdued him and called her parents, but none could explain. Only when the eclipse ended did her brother return to normal.
