CHAPTER

47

Two Lives

I

Hao Zhen let his gaze drift away from his teammates. The chill night air caressed his skin, and the surrounding grass gently swayed in the wind. Memories—good and bad—swirled in his head.

“Eva was a genius—in pretty much every sense of the word,” Hao Zhen finally said. “In a way, she was much like you two.” He absently nodded to his two teammates. “The world seemed to revolve around her, and she excelled at everything she tried. Because she was so outstanding, she was invited to attend a really prestigious school there. At the time, she was twelve, and I was seven. She—”

“A school?” Lan Yue said, giving him a look of confusion.

Hao Zhen blinked. “Oh, right. A school is an… educational… err… organization, I guess,” he said, before waving his hand. “But that’s not really important. We moved over there so Maeva could attend it, and, well… I enrolled in a school there too. Not the same one, as I was much younger, and unlike her, not a genius. A couple of years later, Maeva eventually moved on to a…” He trailed off, realizing that they wouldn’t know what a university was, either. “Well, a higher school of sorts. Later, she became a… scholar.” After a pause, he added, “Of sorts.”

Seeing their confused looks, Hao Zhen sighed. “She… well, she was a special kind of scholar. Basically, she studied… the world. Nature, in a way. I guess you can say she was a nature scholar?” That was perhaps not the best way to describe a scientist—let alone a particle physicist—but Hao Zhen figured it’d suffice, even though his teammates still seemed to be rather puzzled. “Anyway, as for me, I was… well, normal. I was sixteen when I reincarnated, and at the time, I was still attending school.”

“What—” Tian Jin started to say, but Lan Yue beat him to it.

“What about the cultivation novels?” Lan Yue said. “You mentioned them before. You said they resembled our world.”

Tian Jin glanced at Lan Yue with a slight frown, which went ignored, before he gave Hao Zhen a firm nod, indicating that he was curious about that too.

“Right,” Hao Zhen said. “Earlier I said that my life pretty much revolved around Eva? This is an example of that. As a scholar, Eva got invited to participate in a… project, of sorts. Other geniuses from all over the world were also involved, and one of them was a man her age named Yang Qiyun.”

“Yang Qiyun?” Lan Yue perked up. Unsurprisingly, unlike when she tried to speak his old name, she had no trouble this time around. “That name sounds—”

“Remember what I said about my old world having a country with a language similar to the Common Tongue? Yang Qiyun was from there,” Hao Zhen readily explained, having already been expecting that question. “As I was saying, Qiyun and my sister became…” He paused, searching for a good word. “Lovers,” he finally said. “They were… very much like each other. Both geniuses. Both prodigies. Both brilliant. Qiyun would frequent our place quite often, and we got along pretty well. He was the one who introduced me to cultivation novels.”

A lull in the conversation followed. Judging by the look of concentration on their faces, Tian Jin and Lan Yue were likely going through their thoughts to think of what they wanted to ask.

It was Tian Jin who broke the silence.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” he said. “From what I remember, you only started acting… oddly after the incident with Ke Li.”

Hao Zhen said nothing, waiting for Tian Jin to finish. He had a good idea of where the other boy was going with this.

“I believe you also mentioned, back in the cave, that you used to be a… Woven,” Tian Jin continued, giving him a searching look. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but that is when you became an Unweavable, isn’t it?”

Before Hao Zhen could answer, Lan Yue glanced at Tian Jin, then said, “I was about to ask that myself. It was only when I found you two that morning that you started acting… well, like you’re acting right now. Before that, I didn’t really have any impression of you. You were just like a run-off-the-mill new outer disciple. In fact,”—she narrowed her eyes—“if I’m not wrong, you didn’t have your memories of your previous life back then, either, did you?”

“I… Well, you’re correct. On both accounts.” Hao Zhen said, suddenly feeling a little exposed. Both of his teammates could be nothing short of intense when they wanted to be. “Tian Jin, after you punched me, I felt some kind of… head-splitting pain.” Just recalling that sensation made him shudder. “It was more intense than anything I had ever felt before. Ke Li’s poison was nothing in comparison. “Anyway, it was so strong I passed out, and when I woke up again…” He shrugged. “I had sixteen years’ worth of new memories in my head, and I seemed to also no longer be under the control of the Weave. The rest, I believe you already know.”

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“Hmmm.” Tian Jin finally shifted his gaze away from him. He furrowed his brow. “Do you have any idea why that happened? Or how?”

“I have some theories. Well, a theory, at least,” Hao Zhen said. “But it’s full of holes. Basically, I think that maybe my memories of my previous life were sealed somehow, and when you used your Zenith Nullification Gauntlets on me, you might have also ended up destroying the seal, and—”

“No,” Tian Jin said.

Hao Zhen frowned. “What?”

“That’s not how Zenith Nullification Gauntlets works,” Tian Jin said. “I can use it to nullify anything magical that I come into contact with—and when it comes to a living being, anything affecting them—but I need to consciously choose to nullify something. I don’t need to know what exactly it is, but I need to know that something is there to nullify it. If there was indeed a seal on you with your memories, I didn’t know that at the time, so I couldn’t have nullified it.”

“Oh. I guess that’s a theory discarded.” Hao Zhen sighed. “Then again, like I said, it was full of holes, anyway. To begin with, your Zenith Nullification Gauntlets can only nullify magical things of the Red Grade, right?” he asked, and Tian Jin nodded his head. “Well, I find it unlikely that the seal on my memories was only red-grade. There was also the question of who had put the seal on my memories—not to mention why and how,” he said. Then he added, “Not just that, there’s also the question of, again, why and how I had my memories of my previous life in the first place.”

“And how you became an Unweavable,” Lan Yue pointed out.

“Actually, I was thinking that regaining my memories somehow made me immune to the laws of the world—but you’re right,” Hao Zhen said. “You see, I don’t really know how I ended up reincarnating in this world. To reincarnate, you have to die first, but I have no recollection of that. One moment, I was Amyas, preparing dinner in the kitchen… and then I was a child called Hao Zhen. I know neither how my first life ended, nor what happened between my two lives.”

Reaching that point, Hao Zhen bit his lip, hesitating, before saying, “And then… there’s also the possibility that I’m wrong about all of this. Maybe I wasn’t Amyas in my previous life, but somehow just got his memories that night, and the pain I felt was his memories entering my mind. Or maybe I am Amyas, and my soul entered Hao Zhen’s body that night for some reason, pushing Hao Zhen’s soul away, but I somehow ended up with Hao Zhen’s memories. Or maybe Amyas’s soul fused with mine, or my soul fused with Amyas’s, and—” Hao Zhen abruptly cut himself off, noticing the overwhelmed looks Tian Jin and Lan Yue were giving him.

He closed his eyes, centering himself. His heart was racing against his chest, and he realized he was shaking. He shut his eyes tighter. This was exactly what he wanted to avoid—what he had been trying to avoid. He really didn’t like pondering the question of his identity. He knew too little to draw any conclusions, so thinking about it was a waste of time on top of filling him with a kind of dread he couldn’t really put his finger on.

“Hao Zhen?” Tian Jin said, softly. Hao Zhen then felt something touch his arm.

Opening his eyes, Hao Zhen was startled to see that Tian Jin had reached forward, raising himself slightly off the ground, and currently had one of his hands gently grasping his forearm, a look of concern on his face. Glancing to the right, Hao Zhen saw that Lan Yue was looking at him with a mixture of confusion and worry, though she also looked rather… hesitant?

Hao Zhen took another moment to calm himself, before giving them a strained smile. “I’m fine,” he said.

Tian Jin gave him another one of his searching looks. Hao Zhen didn’t know what the other boy was looking for—or what he found—but Tian Jin eventually retreated, though he still looked concerned.

Hao Zhen took in another deep breath, then sighed. “Anyway, the only—” he started to say, but paused, noticing how strained his voice sounded. Then, a little more firmly, he continued, “The only thing we really know is that I regained my memories and became an Unweavable that day. Besides that, I believe that what happened must be related to you, somehow,” he said, addressing Tian Jin. “Even if it wasn’t because of your spiritual skill, I do believe you played a role in me regaining my memories and becoming Unweavable. It’d be too much of a coincidence otherwise.”

Tian Jin slowly nodded. He still seemed a little concerned. “I agree.”

Lan Yue had also relaxed silently, though like Tian Jin, she still appeared rather tense.

Hao Zhen shifted his weight, uneasy. The way his two teammates were looking at him bothered him. He didn’t need—or want—their concern. He was fine. To begin with, they were the ones that needed comforting, what with the extermination of Tian Jin’s clan and the kidnapping of Lan Yue’s mother. “Well, is there anything else you two want to know about my old world?” he asked, hoping to move the conversation forward.

Tian Jin didn’t have much of a reaction to that, but Lan Yue’s gaze softened. For a moment, an understanding look flashed crossed her face, before she mustered her usual haughtiness.

“Of course,” she said, scoffing, though there wasn’t any heat behind it. “Surely you don’t think that the little you’ve told us so far is enough? I obviously wish to know about your old world.”

“Likewise,” Tian Jin said after a moment’s hesitation, summoning a smile. “I also wish to know about your previous life—what kind of life you led.” Then, as if something had occurred to him, Tian Jin added, “In fact, I’m also quite curious about your current life, as well. I believe you’ve mentioned your father was a merchant?”

Hao Zhen perked up. “He was, yes,” he said, glad for the shift in the topic of their conversation. “As for my previous life… Honestly, like I already said, I was pretty normal. It was really my sister who was special. She—”

“That’s not what I asked,” Tian Jin said, raising a hand in front of him. “I don’t want to know about your sister. I want to know about you. About my friend.”

“Oh.” Hao Zhen stared at Tian Jin, then at Lan Yue, who nodded her head, indicating she agreed with the other boy. Hao Zhen swallowed, suddenly feeling rather overwhelmed. “All right,” he finally said, still a little uncertain. “Well, let’s see…”

Later that night, their conversation came to an end, and Tian Jin and Lan Yue started cultivating. They were still sitting on the ground beside him, their eyes closed. Hao Zhen looked at his two teammates. Then, shaking his head, he closed his eyes before he began cultivating too. There was a smile he couldn’t quite suppress on his face.

The next morning, he realized his two teammates had broken through to the third level of the Red Spiritual Realm.