Morning mist clung to the earth like a thin shroud as Li Fan followed his father through the narrow dirt path between the millet fields. Their village, Stone Seed Hamlet, was nothing more than a scattering of mud-brick huts and wooden fences held together by hope and habit.
To the cultivator clans that ruled the region, this place was a speck, a forgotten dot between mountains and wilderness.To the villagers, the world was simple:Plant in spring, harvest in autumn, pray that demons stayed in their caves.
But to Li Fan…This world was a chessboard.
Even at six years old, his mind was sharper than any adult around him. He spoke little, but observed everything — how neighbors argued, how elders made decisions, how resources quietly shifted from one family to another.
He saw patterns.He saw weaknesses.He saw opportunity.
But for now, he hid it all.
"Fan'er," his father called, wiping sweat from his brow, "don't wander off again. The hills have wolves."
Li Fan nodded obediently.His father, Li Zheng, was a simple man — honest, hardworking, and unaware that his son carried the memories of an entire dimension of knowledge from a distant universe.
His mother, Mei Hua, was warm and gentle, hands rough from weaving baskets. She would often smile at him and say:
"Our Fan'er thinks too much. Someday, he'll be a scholar!"
Li Fan only smiled politely.A scholar?He intended to become something far more terrifying.
That night, an elder from the village sat by the communal fire, telling stories to the children.
"Cultivators," he croaked, "are beings who swallow the essence of heaven and earth. Mortals like us? We live at their mercy."
The other children were awe-struck.Li Fan was silent.
Swallow heaven and earth? Nonsense.
Power was not in muscles or mystical energy.Power was the ability to shape belief, to bend rules, to manipulate purpose, to move masses.
This world worshipped cultivation because no one had shown them the true might of intellect.
One day, he thought, I will overturn this entire system.
Later that night, he sat with his father under the moonlight.Li Zheng sighed, patting his son's head.
"You know, Fan'er… the day you were born, I dreamt of a glowing river. A voice whispered a name into my ear — Li Fan. It sounded… ancient. Sacred."
Li Fan looked up sharply.
His name?Given by a dream?
No…No, this was something deeper.The Dao itself was watching him.He felt it — a pull, a resonance, as if the universe itself remembered him.
He whispered to himself:
"The world turns… and I return."
He did not know why, but he felt it clearly:His fate was not random.His father naming him Li Fan again… it was no coincidence.
It was destiny repeating itself.
The next morning, Li Fan climbed onto a large boulder overlooking the entire village. Children played in the mud, adults harvested crops, elders repaired roofs.
Just a tiny dot in a cruel world.
But he did not see a poor village.He saw the seed of a nation.
He saw soldiers.He saw administrators.He saw scholars.He saw the foundation of an empire that would unite mortals, cultivators, demons, immortals, gods…
All under one banner.His banner.
Li Fan narrowed his eyes as the wind carried dust across the fields.
"From this forgotten place," he murmured,"I will build a universe."
The boy stepped down from the rock.His first move had to be small — subtle — almost invisible.
But every empire starts with the first brick.