Chapter 1: A Guest from a Thousand Miles, Asking From Whence You Came

I was never a clever man, not from the day I was born. My only virtue was a willingness to work hard.

During my school years, I buried myself in books and barely managed to test into a lesser-known “Project 211” university. After graduation, my unpopular major left me wandering through more than a dozen cities, desperately searching for a stable job that never seemed to materialize.

In my thirties, I married a woman I met through a matchmaker. But my own lack of success had lowered my standing, and the wife I found was neither understanding nor exceptional. She was deeply dissatisfied with me, often complaining that she had married a worthless husband.

The birth of our daughter stretched our family’s finances to the breaking point. The only time my heart felt a flicker of joy was when I saw her smiling face.

I didn’t want to live like that, so I could only push myself to work even harder.

But the exhaustion of life wore on my spirit. One day, a single, careless mistake sent me to another world.

In modern terms, I had transmigrated.

I was six years old when I arrived. The body I now inhabited belonged to a boy named Chen Qianliu, whose soul had scattered after a mischievous fall from a building, allowing me to take his place.

This was an ancient world. Though I yearned for my family back on Earth, especially my daughter, all I could do was sigh in vain. The two worlds were separated by an impossible gulf, a distance no mortal could cross. A thousand thoughts and feelings filled my heart, but no messenger bird could ever carry them home.

I told myself that with the accumulated experience of two lifetimes and the knowledge of an advanced civilization, this new life would surely be a success. Less than a month after my arrival, I became famous in my village for “composing” poems by the great masters Li Bai and Du Fu. A renowned scholar from a neighboring town, impressed by my talent, took me in as his disciple. He brought me to his home to personally guide my studies, and for a time, I was celebrated as a child prodigy.

It wasn’t until I was eleven, on my way to the county seat to take the qualifying exams, that I overheard a conversation and learned the truth of this world. The Great Qian Dynasty dedicated its entire national strength to worshipping the “Sect of Encountering Immortals.” This was a world of cultivation, where immortal sects held a status far above any mortal dynasty.

The shock I felt at that moment was indescribable. But with no path to seek immortality, I could only continue my arduous studies, pass the imperial examinations, and enter the royal court. It was there, within the court, that I finally met an immortal master named Wu Liu. After begging him relentlessly, I was finally accepted as a nominal disciple and taught the twelve talisman techniques of the Mystic Gate. I cultivated these talismans for six or seven years until, by a stroke of luck, I was finally able to renounce my worldly wealth and status. At the age of twenty-eight, I entered the Sect of Encountering Immortals as a mere handyman.

I believed that as long as I worked hard, I could climb the ranks step by step and one day shed my mortal coil to leave the world of dust behind. But alas, innate talent is not something that can be changed by effort alone.

At forty-eight, my twenty-year term of service in the sect came to an end. I had only reached the second level of Qi Refinement, “Boiling Liquid into Qi,” with no hope of becoming an official disciple. According to the sect’s rules, I had to leave the mountain and return to the mortal world, my path to immortality forever closed.

A great sorrow washed over me, and I was filled with a desire to give up completely. The world felt vast and indifferent, the gods and immortals stingy. Not one would lend me even a wisp of a breeze to carry me to the heavens.

Just as I was about to leave, a fellow disciple I knew ran up to me. “There is an opportunity,” he said. “Are you willing to take it?”

A sixty-eight-year-old senior sister in the sect had failed in her attempt to break through to the Spirit Embryo realm, severing her path to immortality. She wished to establish a family in the outer sect and had taken notice of me. I had never chased after women, never married, and never frequented brothels. I was seen as honest and reliable. She had sent someone to ask if I would be willing to become her dual cultivation partner.

I thought about it for half a day. I truly had no other options. This was my only remaining chance to continue seeking immortality. And so, I agreed. We paid our respects to the ancestors, tied our hair together as husband and wife, and left the sect. We chose the Blazing Light Cave on Double Cloud Mountain as our new home.

Only after we were married did I learn the truth: my senior sister had forcefully tried to break through, damaging her very foundation.

We exhausted all our resources trying to heal her, but her cultivation was still beyond saving. Her realm fell by one layer each year, dropping from the peak of the Golden Core realm all the way down to Qi Refinement before it finally stabilized.

Within a few short years, our savings were gone. We could only survive by selling the talismans I created, yet we often found ourselves unable to make ends meet.

Although my wife secretly taught me the sect’s hidden techniques, inscribing talismans consumed a great deal of my vital essence and blood. I was growing old, and my cultivation stagnated, forever hovering at the second level of Qi Refinement.

My wife’s injuries left her unable to bear children. After decades of marriage, we remained childless. Whenever I thought of it, this life felt even colder and more desolate than my last.

The great poet Yuan Zhen once wrote:

We used to joke of things that would happen after we were gone,
Today, they all unfold before my eyes.
Your clothes, I have given away nearly all,
Your needlework, I still have, but cannot bear to see.
I think of our old love and pity the servants,
And in my dreams, I have sent you money for your journey.
I know this sorrow is a fate all must face,
But for a poor couple, a hundred griefs will arise from anything.

In my second life, at the age of eighty-six, I died.

(End of Chapter)