“You look like you’ve crawled out of pill waste.”

I was pretty sure that was xianxia for you look like shit. And yeah, he was right. With a groan, the light filtered into my eyes, and I sat up to see an oddly familiar scene.

A gigantic peach tree that stretched into the sky.

A peach tree stump from the past.

An old man is looking at me with no small amount of concern.

My eyes rapidly blinked as I tried to understand the obvious. Thoughts of my previous time here flowed back into me as I looked into the old man’s peach-pink eyes. It all revealed a single glaring idea that started to rush my breathing.

This wasn’t a dream, either.

“Easy there.”

The old man’s fingertips moved like lightning, connecting in seven darting strikes against my body. Suddenly, the tense feeling that made me hyperventilate eased and blew away like the wind. A branch from behind helped me up, and before I knew it, I was sitting on the peach tree stump, eating a peach, and staring up at the world in the sky.

It was Earth. Or at least, it looked like a weird version of Earth. The continents were wrong, and the whole thing seemed more prominent than I remembered from space photos.

I rubbed my eyes and took a deep breath before speaking the main question floating around my head.

“What is going on?”

I watched as the old man’s back dipped a little, and he took a long drag out of his cracked wooden pipe.

“I’m afraid I’m responsible for much of what’s happened to you. I’ve got you wrapped up in events that originate from a long time ago, so excuse me if I summarize.”

The old man pointed over towards the little peach tree sapling. It had grown to around one foot tall and had sprouted a single resplendent leaf.

“The Heavens, my old enemy and friend, wants to destroy that peach tree sapling you planted.”

“The Heavens?” I asked. But the old man just nodded his head and continued.

“Yes, The Heavens tried to kill you, which would, in turn, kill the sapling. It tried to collide another planet with yours, but I fused them instead. But The Heavens interfered with the fusing process at the last second and shifted all my hard work around.”

My mouth opened, but it couldn’t speak any words for a long time. There were more incomprehensible things in the old man’s summary than I dared ask at once.

“I’m sorry, you fused… you fused, what exactly?”

“The planets. What you see in the sky there are two planets fused into one. The Heavens even tried to use the origin planet of another primordial.” The old man spoke like it was the simplest thing in the world. But I was pretty sure planets fusing together wasn’t a simple process. I didn’t even acknowledge the talk of primordial nonsense.

Maybe this was a dream. Maybe, I had been killed down in The Pit, and this was simply the afterlife playing tricks on me.

“Ah, ok. Alright. Yeah, totally. Planets fuse all the time. Crash and fuse. Ok.” I nodded along, but the old man just shook his head at me.

“All right, before you slip into denial, come here.”

The old man called me to the sapling, and I numbly walked over. I desperately wanted this to be another dream, but something bizarre happened when the old man’s hand guided my own to touch the leaf.

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It felt like my memories were stuffed with images of endless thundering clouds, peach tree leaves roaming around in the air and lifting an old man with the whole galaxy in his eyes. I watched as yin and yang came together in the sky and how a single colourless thunderbolt caused a light that echoed into the far expanses of the universe.

When my eyes blinked once, the images were gone, and I was back to sitting with a confused look. My head shifted to see the old man staring at me with a hint of sorrow in his eyes.

“I… It was really… You…? But…”

Tears formed as I felt a whirl of emotions simultaneously making my chest clench and my legs weaken. It was real. It was all real. Like, really real. I couldn’t deny it anymore.

Grandma Sylvie was gone.

Mr. Collins was dead.

My friends had all been kidnapped.

Why was this happening to me?

A pair of arms circled me, and despite having only met the old man twice, it felt like the hug was from a loved one.

I cried.

I hadn’t done that in a long time, but it felt like I was doing it a lot more recently. The old man didn’t leave my side the entire time. It wasn’t until much later that my emotions settled, and my breathing deepened to normal levels.

“Who are you?” I asked.

The old man chuckled a bit, and I couldn’t blame him. I also thought it was funny that I was only asking him this now after having cried in his arms.

“I’ve had many names. Recently, I’ve been using the name Grandmaster Life. But you can call me Lyfe.”

It sounded funny how he pronounced it, like a mixture of the words life and leaf. But I liked it. Lyfe was powerful enough to merge planets, so having a comparably simple name fit him well.

“What is this place?” I asked as we returned to our spots on the fallen peach tree stump.

“You can think of this place as an in-between realm where we can communicate,” Lyfe replied. Then, he replied again in anticipation of my next question. “You’re not dead, by the way.”

I smiled a bit at the words and was about to ask my next when Lyfe stole the words from my mouth.

“What do I do?"

Lyfe smiled at my slightly shocked expression. He calmly looked at me and took another smoke from his pipe.

“That’s what I’d ask next if I were you. And my answer is whatever you have to do. Whatever you want to do. Live your new life, kid. Just don’t go dying on me.”

I looked down at the peach stump and pondered for a while. If I was free to live my life the way I wanted, then there were things I already needed to do.

I had to save Arden, and Abby, and Mrs. Collins. I didn’t know how I would do it, but I couldn’t just sit back while some demonic sect goes and holds them captive. My fists clenched as Gou Hui popped up in my mind. I wouldn't let him walk away after abusing me like I was some worthless trash.

But how would I defeat them?

“But how?” Lyfe spoke with a grin.

My jaw dropped a bit. Lyfe had to have some mind-reading—

“No, I can’t read minds. I’m just a bit familiar with your situation. The answer is simple….” Lyfe blew out his smoke, and I watched as it formed into images of me with my legs crossed and my eyes closed.

“…Cultivate…”

The smoking image shifted to an image of me with muscles instead of fat.

“…Get stronger…”

The smoking image shifted for the last time, and I watched as my hand gripped Gou Hui as he foamed at the mouth.

“…Defeat the bad guys.”

My eyes blinked, and I couldn’t help but think that Lyfe made it sound a lot easier than it would be.

“That’s much simpler than it will be, but I believe in you. You’ll find a way.” Lyfe spoke with a strange amount of confidence, like he was sure that even if I failed, things would be alright. I couldn’t help but think of a possibility considering he told me he was called Grandmaster Life.

“Are you able to…?”

“No.” Life took on a grave expression. “Bringing you back to life is a strict no-go. Even for me.”

A strange sense of relief flooded my system as Lyfe stopped staring into me. He hesitated with his following words but reluctantly spoke to me.

“Karma does not give without taking in return. Karma does not take without giving in return.”

The words hung in the air for a while. Eventually, Lyfe spoke again.

“The Heavens’ attempt to kill you violated many karmic ties, allowing me to defend you by merging the planets. If I try and help or revive you, I give The Heavens the same opportunity to kill you.” Lyfe emphasized the words again.

“I can not directly help you. You have to survive on your own.”

I nodded my head with a serious expression. There was a tiny hope in me that wanted Lyfe to take me under his wing as a disciple or something similar. I thought that would be the safest, but it seemed that it would result in dangerous consequences instead.

Sigh.

"Of course, I don't want to die, at least not so soon."

A sudden weariness tackled my body, and Lyfe was looking at me with reluctance when our eyes met.

“Time to go,” Lyfe said.

“Wait, what do you mean?” I tried to raise my arm in defence, but the weight of my arm tripled in seconds.

“You didn’t think you get to stay here forever, right? Your physical body is waking up, which means you've got to get back to that new world of yours.” Lyfe spoke as he reared his wooden pipe backwards. Suddenly, he stopped and gave some free advice.

“Oh, and be sure to listen to the skeleton, alright?”

“No, wait—”

Thwack!