In the far southeastern part of the Great Yan Kingdom, there was an unnamed village.
There, inside a house where the air was thick with the smell of incense, a twelve-year-old boy struggled to sleep.
From the way his body twitched and trembled, it was obvious that he was having a nightmare.
The vivid scene of him living together with his parents was still painfully clear in his mind.
He couldn't believe that his parents were already gone.
It was supposed to be a normal business trip, they had only gone to sell spices in a nearby town, but they had died yesterday.
Their disfigured bodies were brought back, escorted by cultivators of the Vermilion Flame Sect, one of the most famous sects across the kingdom.
He had been expecting his parents to return, bringing sweets back for him to eat.
Instead, all he saw were their lifeless bodies.
What they said was that his parents, along with many others, had been attacked and killed by evil cultivators.
The disciples of the Vermilion Flame Sect promised that they would definitely avenge the innocent souls, but that did not change the fact that he had lost his parents.
Before he could even adjust to the situation, the caretaker, Auntie Mei, left without saying a single word to him as soon as the funeral was over, leaving him completely alone with his two uncles.
He could still remember the gazes of the people who looked at him so piercingly.
Only a few had come to offer sincere prayers.
Most of them looked at him with intense, calculating eyes.
Even though he was devastated by the sudden changes and the loss, his eldest aunt, Zhao Lianhua, consoled him.
She said that she and his uncle would be there for him.
Hearing those words, he felt truly relieved.
He had somehow started to accept the loss of his parents.
But before going to bed, as he passed through the corridor, he heard a voice.
"You are thinking too much…"
The voice belonged to his eldest aunt.
Li Tianyuan stopped instinctively, not because he intending to eavesdrop.
Following her voice, another voice sounded from inside the room, a male voice, deep but crude.
"We have to wait a few more days… That kid is still our blood. Taking everything so quickly seems—"
His aunt cut him short.
"That is exactly why we have to hurry. If any outsiders get involved, it will get complicated."
"What if that child doesn't want us to be his guardians and refuses to let us manage the assets?"
"That's just a child. What can he do?" she said lightly.
"He will be grateful if we provide him enough food and a place to sleep. We only need to worry about how much portion we should give to your younger brother…"
The dream perfectly reflected the scene he had encountered, making his body tremble all over.
He remembered how devastated he had felt hearing their conversation.
The blood of his father, his elder brother and his wife, the very people he was about to trust, now appeared as nothing but greedy demons in his eyes.
They were not here to console him.
They did not care about him.
They were here for the fortune left behind by his parents.
They were no different from the very evil cultivator who had killed his parents.
The warmth.
The concern.
The gentle smiles.
Everything was nothing but lies.
"Mom… Dad… I don't want to be here anymore… Everyone has turned scary… Take me with you too… I don't want to be here…"
The child muttered with intense emotion in his sleep, his body trembling without stopping.
His body temperature rose at an alarming speed.
Sweat soaked through his clothes as his condition worsened.
Just as it was about to spiral out of control, a gentle male voice echoed inside the boy's mind.
'Don't be afraid… There is nothing to fear… Everything is fine…'
The voice was calm and nostalgic.
The child recognized it instantly.
He had heard this voice countless times before.
Whenever he was reading, writing, or attempting something adults usually did, the voice would always appear in his mind and guide him toward the correct path.
When he first learned to read and write, it was this voice that guided him and taught him many things.
It taught him how to do mathematics like an adult.
It taught him how to speak properly and how to write what he wanted to express.
Even though he was only twelve years old, the voice had guided him through many things, that had made his parents proud of him.
Whenever he followed its guidance, he would always receive praise and many treats from his parents.
The soothing voice in his mind slowly calmed him down.
The boy began to see a vision, a man surrounded by light.
The voice led him toward that figure.
As he followed, another vision appeared before him: the life of a person from another world, living a completely different life.
The vision began with that person losing his parents at a young age.
He was devastated, just like the boy was now.
But unlike Li Tianyuan, the man's parents had only left him a house burdened with debt.
Because it was the only thing he had left as a memory of his parents, he refused to give it up.
He tried to repay the lender with everything he had.
All the money he earned went toward paying off the debt, all the way until he reached the age of thirty-five.
After years of struggle, he finally managed to repay the debt and keep the house.
However, he never married.
He was never blessed with a good job or a healthy working environment.
Just when he thought he could finally live for himself, he met with an accident and died at the very age.
The vision was vivid and heartbreaking.
That man's entire life had revolved around repaying debt.
It was a depressing story filled with misery.
Perhaps because the story was even more miserable than his current situation, or perhaps because he was experiencing those memories as his own, the boy stopped crying.
The trembling ceased altogether.
As the vision continued, the boy felt more and more, that he was no longer Li Tianyuan, but the man whose life he had just witnessed.
He also learned that cultivation, which existed in reality here, had only been fiction in that man's world, appearing in novels and comics read on a tiny device called a mobile phone.
That world felt unbelievably magical to him.
At the end of the dream, the man stood beside him, patting his head affectionately and ruffling his hair with care.
'Everything is fine. No matter what happens, I will always be with you…'
The boy looked at the man and asked softly, 'Who are you?'
The man simply smiled.
'You already know.'
With that, his body crumbled into countless tiny particles, merging directly into the boy's body.