Looking back now, Gu Qingfeng didn't know whether he had been too lucky in this life or his fate was truly unyielding. Although he had walked this path not knowing how many times he had faced life and death, he had always managed to preserve his little life and pull through in the end.
Back then, after returning to the Yao Yue Palace and saving Feng Zhuyue, he was once again besieged by numerous experts from the various sects and families of the Great Northwest. Despite having lived incognito in the Yao Yue Palace for many years and having elevated his cultivation and strength to a higher level, the number of experts who had come to besiege him that year was simply too great. Even though he already possessed Creation at the time, it was of no avail. If not for the mysterious expert of the Great Northwest, Peach Blossom Old Daoist, who had intervened and rescued him, Gu Qingfeng would have had slim chances of survival in that battle.
Gu Qingfeng recuperated for several years within Peach Blossom Old Daoist's Peach Blossom Secret Realm before leaving the Great Northwest and beginning to wander around the Yanluo Imperial Dynasty.
He didn't know how Feng Zhuyue had learned of his whereabouts in the Yanluo Imperial Dynasty, nor why she had personally gone to find him. Gu Qingfeng did not wish to become further entangled with Feng Zhuyue.
The reasons were complex.
First, he had too many enemies in the Great Northwest; they were practically everywhere. He had already implicated Feng Zhuyue once and did not want to implicate her a second time.
Of course.
That might have just been an excuse. Perhaps the greater reason was his inherent nature, or perhaps Gu Qingfeng truly was a philandering man who played with emotions.
Thus, when Feng Zhuyue found him back then, he deliberately lied, claiming he had already formed a Dao companion with a woman in the Yanluo Imperial Dynasty.
Gu Qingfeng rarely regretted things he had done in his life, but the deliberate lie he told back then to make Feng Zhuyue forget him was something he still regretted to this day when he thought about it.
Because after that incident, Feng Zhuyue changed.
To be precise, she fell into demonhood.
She transformed from a gentle, moving, delicate woman into a female demon who killed without batting an eye. On the very day she inherited the position of Palace Master of the Yao Yue Palace, she slaughtered all the experts from the various sects and factions who had besieged Gu Qingfeng that year!
Yes.
Slaughtered!
Without exception, everyone who had participated in besieging Gu Qingfeng back then was killed by her. Many of the large and small sects and families of the Great Northwest suffered catastrophic destruction because of this.
From then on, the name Feng Zhuyue vanished from the Great Northwest.
Only the Frontier Queen, who struck fear into the hearts of all, remained.
Later, when Gu Qingfeng learned of this, he felt deep regret in his heart. He had returned to the Great Northwest more than once to search for Feng Zhuyue, but unfortunately, he never found her. After that, he never saw Feng Zhuyue again, not even once.
The name Feng Zhuyue had been sealed away in the deepest recesses of his heart.
This dream was like returning to ancient times, and also like returning to his youth.
It was even more like opening a long-sealed heart, feeling exceptionally real.
The setting sun was changing, the waning moon was also changing, like half yin and half yang intertwining, and even more like the Tai Chi Chaos in transformation.
In his daze, Gu Qingfeng seemed to see a woman.
A woman who was sleeping.
Gu Qingfeng couldn't help but call out Feng Zhuyue's name.
He could sense that this woman was Feng Zhuyue.
However.
No matter how he called, the woman seemed unable to hear, remaining asleep.
Gu Qingfeng wanted to walk over, but found it impossible. No matter how he walked, he could not reach the woman's side, as if he was in the reality of the Primordial Ruins while the woman was in an ethereal dream.
Whether this was reality or a dream at this moment, Gu Qingfeng could no longer distinguish, nor did he care whether it was reality or a dream. All he wanted now was to wake the woman.
To ask her if she was Feng Zhuyue. He had far, far too many heartfelt words he wanted to say to Feng Zhuyue, and it wasn't just a simple apology.
Yet, when he opened his mouth to call out again, he froze.
He felt again as if the woman sleeping in the dream was not Feng Zhuyue, but another woman.
This woman was also very familiar.
It was actually Man Tu Fan!
How could it be Man Tu Fan?
He continued to look.
The more he looked, the more he felt the woman was Man Tu Fan.
Looking again, he felt she resembled Feng Zhuyue.
As he gazed, Gu Qingfeng himself became lost. He simply could not distinguish whether the woman seemingly sleeping in the dream was Feng Zhuyue or Man Tu Fan.
With a sudden boom.
Gu Qingfeng's heart jolted. He thought of a possibility.
The woman seemingly sleeping in the dream was both Feng Zhuyue and Man Tu Fan. The two of them might be previous life and present life.
Earlier.
Longque Niangniang had said he owed Man Tu Fan more than just a Karmic Flower. Gu Qingfeng hadn't understood at the time, but now he finally did.
If Man Tu Fan was truly Feng Zhuyue's previous life, then what he owed was indeed more than just a Karmic Flower; there was also a lifetime's debt of affection.
To this day, he still clearly remembered when Man Tu Fan broke the seal and emerged. He had felt she seemed familiar. Back then, he didn't know what that sense of familiarity belonged to. Now he finally understood that the feeling of familiarity upon seeing Man Tu Fan belonged to Feng Zhuyue.
Gazing at the woman sleeping in the dream.
It was like gazing at Feng Zhuyue, and also like gazing at Man Tu Fan.
Gradually.
For some reason, Gu Qingfeng increasingly felt the woman sleeping in the dream was somewhat unfamiliar.
No!
Not unfamiliar. On the contrary, it was an indescribable, inexplicable sense of familiarity.
What truly shocked and bewildered him was that the woman sleeping in the dream still gave him the feeling of being Feng Zhuyue, still of being Man Tu Fan, yet at the same time made him feel she was not merely Feng Zhuyue, nor merely Man Tu Fan. At the very least, she was not the Feng Zhuyue he knew, nor the Man Tu Fan he knew. Moreover, this feeling of familiarity was becoming increasingly strange, while that sense of déjà vu was growing stronger and stronger.
Suddenly!
A name surfaced in Gu Qingfeng's mind.
Wuyou!
Empress Wuyou!
He didn't know why he suddenly thought of Empress Wuyou. Perhaps that intense feeling of familiarity had involuntarily made him recall Empress Wuyou.
Thinking of this, Gu Qingfeng's mind couldn't help but tremble.
If...
If the woman sleeping in the dream was not only Feng Zhuyue, nor only Man Tu Fan, then she also belonged to another person.
Empress Wuyou.
To be honest.
Although the merging of previous life and present life into one was a rare occurrence, it was not rare to Gu Qingfeng. Not to mention the merging of previous life and present life, he had even seen the merging of three lives and three worlds into one.
Yun Nichang of one life, Hongxiu of the second life, and Ouyang Ye of the third life were people of three lives and three worlds.
Including Jun Xuanji, who knew how many lives and worlds she encompassed.
If Feng Zhuyue and Man Tu Fan were previous life and present life, he could reluctantly accept that. But if Empress Wuyou were added on top of that, this was somewhat difficult for Gu Qingfeng to accept.
Because the existence of Empress Wuyou was far too important to him.
His origins, the Original Sin Blood within his body, those messy Karmic ties from the Era Without Dao, and how he had inexplicably awakened in the Quicksand Minor Secret Realm after igniting the Original Sin Karmic Fire on Mount Without Dao back then, and so on and so forth—far too many incomprehensible things that had happened to him were related to Empress Wuyou.