"Original Sin nightmare, Original Sin curse..." Gu Qingfeng muttered. Although he didn't know exactly what this thing was, his intuition told him it probably wasn't anything good.
Indeed.
The two words 'Original Sin' were terrifying enough on their own. Adding 'nightmare curse' to them, one could guess with their toes just how damn terrifying it must be.
"Do you know who that voice belongs to?"
"A woman."
"A woman? What kind of woman?"
Just as Gu Qingfeng was about to inquire further, the other party fell silent again. It was unclear whether they didn't want to say or simply didn't know.
After a long while, the other party spoke again: "A woman from the Wu Dao Age who was once buried by Wu Dao Daozun on the Mountain of Illusion."
Good heavens.
There was such a thing?
"She said she's waiting for Wu Dao Daozun, waiting for him to return to the Mountain of Illusion."
Gu Qingfeng asked, "But in the legends, didn't Wu Dao Daozun already..." There were many legends about Wu Dao Daozun.
Some said he severed his own Karma, transcended Heaven and Earth, and became a god.
Others said he learned a great secret of Heaven and Earth and was jointly erased by the gods.
Still others said he personally buried Heaven and Earth, transforming into a Karma black hole...
What was true and what was false?
Gu Qingfeng did not know.
Information about the Wu Dao Age was already scarce to begin with; even legends were few and far between.
"Wu Dao Daozun is dead, but still alive..." This statement confused Gu Qingfeng. What did it mean to be dead but still alive?
What kind of saying was that?
Alas.
The other party offered no explanation, and Gu Qingfeng truly couldn't figure it out. Moreover, he felt communicating with this entity was too exhausting; it was somewhat draining. This fellow had spoken for a long time, yet all his words were ambiguous, half-truths and half-falsehoods, leaving Gu Qingfeng genuinely impatient.
He decided not to continue questioning. Instead, he gazed at the other party, pondered for a moment, and said, "We met once before. Are you also from that world?"
"I am not."
"Is that so? That's rather peculiar."
Gu Qingfeng thought for a moment, then added, "Last time, you attacked me. This time we meet here probably isn't a coincidence either. Do you have something to find me for, or is there another reason?"
"Through the ages, calamity births Heaven and Earth; through three cycles of reincarnation, eternity appears. Past life and present life meet through Karma; whose fate belongs to whom depends on Heaven."
As the other's voice faded, Gu Qingfeng's heart skipped a beat. Subconsciously, he felt some resistance to these words. "What does that mean?"
"I come from the Wu Dao Age."
"You come from the Wu Dao Age?"
For a moment, Gu Qingfeng's mind was in disarray.
In his thinking, since the other party was a Those with Original Sin like himself, logically, they should also be a Those with Original Sin who had fused with the Blood of Original Sin, just like him. How could they be from the Wu Dao Age?
Moreover, the Blood of Original Sin was the blood of Wu Dao Daozun. Yet this fellow claimed to be from the Wu Dao Age. Could it be he had fused with the Blood of Original Sin back in the Wu Dao Age?
Wasn't Wu Dao Daozun still damn well alive back then?
Gu Qingfeng was deeply puzzled. Just as he was about to ask, the other party spoke.
"We will meet again."
With that.
The other party vanished without any warning, disappearing without a trace, as if they had never appeared.
Only Gu Qingfeng remained in the chaos, feeling utterly bewildered.
He was genuinely a bit dumbfounded now.
What the hell was all this?
This guy popped up out of nowhere.
Said a bunch of inexplicable things, then vanished just as inexplicably.
And then?
There was no 'and then'...
Gu Qingfeng had once wondered what would happen if he ever met another Those with Original Sin like himself. But he never imagined that when he truly did meet one, it would begin so mysteriously and end just as mysteriously.
Gu Qingfeng carefully pondered the other's words.
When he asked if the other was a Those with Original Sin, they said 'yes and no,' neither admitting nor denying it.
In other words, they might also be a Those with Original Sin, but not the same kind as himself. Yet they insisted he and Gu Qingfeng were the same kind of person, even belonging to the same individual, and they claimed to be from the Wu Dao Age.
If he and this entity truly belonged to the same person.
Then that person must be Wu Dao Daozun.
But damn it, Wu Dao Daozun was still alive in the Wu Dao Age, right? How did this guy fuse with Wu Dao Daozun's Blood of Original Sin?
Gu Qingfeng racked his brains but couldn't figure it out. The more he thought, the more chaotic his mind became; the more he pondered, the more confused he grew.
What gave Gu Qingfeng an even bigger headache was the sentence the other party said last.
"Through the ages, calamity births Heaven and Earth; through three cycles of reincarnation, eternity appears. Past life and present life meet through Karma; whose fate belongs to whom depends on Heaven."
What did that mean?
Why mention this particular phrase?
His Previous Life Karma should lie in the Wu Dao Age, and this person also claimed to be from the Wu Dao Age, even belonging to the same individual.
Thinking of this, Gu Qingfeng suddenly connected it to a terrifying possibility: Could that fellow wrapped entirely in white cloth from earlier be his Previous Life?
Now that the three cycles of reincarnation had arrived, and eternity was beginning to appear, was this Previous Life of his beginning to meet his Present Life on the path of Karma?
Preparing for mutual creation and mutual destruction?
Could it be like that?
Gu Qingfeng shook his head, rejecting this terrifying thought.
He felt the whole thing was rather unrealistic, downright absurd.
Leaving aside whether 'through three cycles of reincarnation, eternity appears' was true or not, even if it were, 'past life and present life meet through Karma' shouldn't happen like this. Most importantly, Gu Qingfeng believed that if he met his own Previous Life, he would definitely be able to sense it. And while he felt some familiarity with that white-cloth-wrapped figure earlier, it was just a sense of familiarity. This familiarity should stem from the Blood of Original Sin, not from any connection between Previous Life and Present Life.
"You... have no Previous Life. He... has no Previous Life. We... none of us have a Previous Life."
Suddenly.
Another voice gradually reached him.
This voice was very familiar. Hearing it, Gu Qingfeng immediately thought of a person—a woman who was both familiar and strange to him, a woman he wanted to see yet didn't want to see, a woman who stirred complex, contradictory emotions within him, a woman intertwined with his love and hatred.
As the voice faded.
A radiant halo slowly rose within the originally chaotic dreamscape.
The halo resembled a Yin moon, yet also a Yang sun.
It seemed like light, yet also like darkness; the light was transforming, the darkness shifting.
It appeared sacred, yet also evil.
That halo, like a bloody sun and moon, stained the entire chaotic dreamscape crimson upon its appearance. The crimson hue seethed as if boiling, yet also seemed to burn. Accompanying it was an utterly terrifying aura, a might that felt as if it could melt Heaven and Earth itself.
Gazing at the blood-red sky, at that halo resembling a bloody sun and moon, feeling this might that seemed capable of melting everything, Gu Qingfeng's brow involuntarily furrowed slightly.
From within the bloody moon emerged a woman.
Three thousand strands of white hair.
A blood-red robe.
A woman of peerless elegance, stunning beauty, matchless in the world, yet one who also appeared incomparably tragic and beautiful.
Her beauty was so radiant it dared to rival the sun and moon, so captivating it made all things in the world pale in comparison.
Blood stained the sun and moon.
Filling the entire sky.
As she appeared, her stunningly beautiful face—so exquisite it seemed not of this mortal world—quivered slightly. Gazing at Gu Qingfeng, her expression held longing, entanglement, resentment, and even anger...
A multitude of emotions swirled chaotically together, exceedingly complex. Yet, more than anything, there was hesitation, confusion, and a sense of being lost.
Just as Gu Qingfeng had thought, it was none other than the World Honored Lady, Jun Xuanji.