174: Chapter 174 Inner Demon Tribulation

[By the time the ninth wave of heavenly thunder fell, Tang Xun was too lazy to even use his fists.]

[He just stood at the peak, arms wide open, letting those golden arcs of lightning strike his body like falling rain.]

[With a Soul Transformation level Physical Body, enduring the latter half of the Nine-Nine Heavy Tribulation was still painful, but it had downgraded from 'painful enough to curse someone's mother' to 'painful enough to want to roll one's eyes.']

[After the ninth wave, the tribulation clouds finally showed signs of dissipating.]

["Finally finished..." Tang Xun breathed a sigh of relief, preparing to sit cross-legged to begin shattering his core and forming his nascent soul.]

[But the tribulation clouds did not disperse.]

[Not only did they not disperse, they were changing.]

[The rolling black clouds began to shrink and condense, their color shifting from pitch black to an eerie grayish-purple. No more lightning flashed; instead, they were replaced by a silent pressure that seeped into the marrow of his bones.]

[Tang Xun's pupils constricted.]

[He recognized this thing.]

[Lightning Tribulation refines the body; Heart Demon refines the heart.]

[After the Nine-Nine Heavy Tribulation, it even threw in a Heart Demon Tribulation as a bonus; it seemed the heavens were truly afraid he would survive.]

["Heh," Tang Xun sneered. "Fine, bring it on. Can it really be more disgusting than that old ghost who ambushed me just now?"]

[As soon as he finished speaking, the grayish-purple cloud mist descended silently, enveloping his entire being.]

[His vision vanished.]

[His hearing vanished.]

[Spiritual power, vital energy, and Divine Sense—all were blocked.]

[He had become a Mortal.]

[—]

["Wah, wah—"]

[The sound of a baby crying.]

[In an old-fashioned delivery room, the lights were dim and yellow, and the smell of disinfectant was pungent.]

[A young couple crowded beside the delivery bed, looking at the wrinkled little thing in the nurse's arms, laughing until tears fell.]

[The man was still clutching a crumpled taxi receipt, his hair as messy as a bird's nest, clearly having rushed over from somewhere in a frantic scramble.]

[The woman's face was pale, but her eyes were full of light.]

["Tang Xun, 3,200 grams, both mother and son are safe." As the nurse handed the child over, she remarked, "This child has a large frame; he'll be tall in the future."]

[Tang Xun stood at the doorway of the delivery room, watching this scene.]

[This was the scene of his birth in his past life.]

[He hadn't seen it before, but he recognized it—that young man, Old Tang in his youth, was exactly the same as in the photos.]

[The scene fast-forwarded.]

[The baby grew into a child; the child ran through the alleys with a schoolbag on his back, stepping through puddles and splashing mud all over his pant legs.]

[The breakfast stall at the alley entrance, fried dough sticks and soy milk. Old Tang rode a vintage bicycle to take him to school; the back seat was so high that he had to hop twice every time just to climb up.]

[Returning home after school, his mother would be stir-frying in the kitchen, the range hood buzzing loudly, while the evening news played on the television.]

[The family of three squeezed into a sixty-square-meter old apartment. When they ate, the table had to be set up in the living room because the kitchen was too small to fit it.]

[They were very poor.]

[But it was also very good.]

[Tang Xun watched for a while, then looked away.]

["My parents are living better than this," he said flatly. "I bought insurance; they received my 'death benefit,' 1.2 million."]

["It's enough for their retirement."]

[He took a step forward, and the old house shattered into dust.]

[The smell of cooking fumes, the taste of soy milk, Old Tang's smiling face, the sound of his mother scolding him for not finishing his homework while she cooked—all of it dissipated.]

["Heart Demon, you'll need to add more spice. This level of stuff won't fool me."]

[—]

[The scene shifted.]

[An office building, cubicles, fluorescent lights.]

[The Tang Xun of his past life sat at his workstation, three monitors in front of him. On his right was a stack of unapproved proposals, and on his left, a cup of coffee that had long since gone cold.]

[The time was 11:30 PM.]

[His phone vibrated, and a message popped up in the group chat: "Tang Xun, is the presentation PPT for 8:00 AM tomorrow ready? The client added three more requirements."]

[The one who sent the message was his team leader, a second-generation two years younger than him who had risen through nepotism.]

[The past Tang Xun glanced at his phone, didn't reply, and continued revising the proposal.]

[The colleagues in the neighboring cubicles were all gone. He was the only one left on the entire floor, and one of the fluorescent tubes overhead was broken, flickering incessantly.]

[The current Tang Xun walked over and looked down at the content on the screen.]

["Ho, a quarterly operation plan," he chuckled. "Back then, I pulled three all-nighters for this piece of junk, and during the final presentation, it was signed with the team leader's name."]

[The Heart Demon's voice rang in his ears, without a concrete form, just a whisper penetrating deep into his consciousness.]

["Go back. I can let you go back. Back to before you transmigrated, I'll give you a healthy body, a promotion opportunity, and let you live the life you wanted in your past life."]

[Tang Xun stared at the screen for two seconds, then slammed the laptop shut with a 'snap.']

["Have you not looked closely at my memories?"]

["In my past life, I earned a monthly salary of 3,500, lived in an 800-yuan partitioned room, squeezed onto the morning rush-hour subway for an hour and a half, and ate a 12-yuan boxed lunch at noon."]

["You want me to go back?"]

["You might as well just strike me dead."]

[The scene shattered. The cubicles shattered. The fluorescent lights shattered. That cold cup of coffee and the never-ending PPT, all shattered.]

[—]

[The third act.]

[A sports field. A basketball court. A university gymnasium.]

[Some were playing ball, some were running; the sun was bright, and youth was in the air.]

[The past Tang Xun sat in a corner of the bleachers—thin, short, wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses with peeling paint. He held a copy of 'Data Structures and Algorithms,' but his eyes were fixed on the court.]

[Specifically, he was staring at the girl in the white dress by the side of the court.]

[She was handing water to the boys playing ball.]

[Not to him.]

[Never to him.]

[The Heart Demon spoke again: "Her name is Lin Siqi. You had a crush on her for two whole years but never said a single word."]

["I can make her like you."]

[Tang Xun walked onto the bleachers and sat down next to his past self.]

[The two Tang Xuns sat side by side, one frail and the other robust; the scene was somewhat comical.]

["Like?" The current Tang Xun tilted his head. "I've almost forgotten what she looks like."]

["You should change your approach. For example—tell me there's a shortcut to cultivating to the Soul Transformation Stage, or tell me which Secret Realm has a Mahayana Stage Cultivation Technique; for something like that, I might actually hesitate for three seconds."]

["Using a girl I liked when I was twenty to bait me?"]

["Do you take me for a fish?"]

[The court shattered. Lin Siqi shattered. The textbook in his hand shattered.]

[Tang Xun stood in the Void Realm, starting to feel a bit bored.]

[—]

[But when the fourth act arrived, his footsteps paused for a moment.]

[A long table.]

[A hot pot restaurant.]

[A steaming pot base bubbled in the middle of the table, with plates of tripe, duck intestines, and beef aorta neatly arranged.]

[Seven or eight people sat on both sides of the table, noisy and boisterous, clinking glasses.]

[They were his colleagues from his past life.]

[Not that second-generation team leader, but another group—Old Liu, who mentored him during his first year; Fatty Xiao Wang, who always treated him to meals; and Intern Xiao Chen, who threw up at every team-building event.]

[Old Liu stood up with a beer mug: "Come, come, let's welcome Tang Xun's permanent appointment! You're a full-time employee now, no more being late!"]

["Pah, Old Liu, you're the one who's late the most!" Xiao Wang laughed so hard the fat on his belly shook.]

[Those faces.]

[Those voices.]

[Tang Xun stood at the entrance of the hot pot restaurant and did not go in.]

[He stood there for about the time it takes to take three breaths.]

[Then he turned and left.]

["Blanching tripe requires the 'seven up, eight down' technique; that idiot Old Liu always boils it for too long," he murmured as he walked away, his voice very soft.]

[The hot pot restaurant and the smiling faces of everyone inside turned into flying ash behind him.]

[—]

[The fifth act.]

[Tang Xun thought the Heart Demon's stock of memories had run dry.]

[When the scene condensed again, he frowned.]

[This time, it wasn't his memory.]

[It was a sight he had never seen before.]

[A city. Skyscrapers. Traffic. Neon lights.]

[But it wasn't the city from before his Transmigration—it was newer, larger, and brighter.]

[A massive banner hung over the street, reading: "China Manned Mars Exploration Program Launched."]

[On a large roadside screen, a news anchor was reporting: "Today, our country's fourth domestically produced aircraft carrier was officially launched..."]

[Tang Xun's pace slowed.]

[He walked through the crowd, saw the roadside snack stalls, and smelled the aroma of roasted sweet potatoes. An old man was pushing a tricycle selling candied haws, and the payment QR code was a new version he had never seen.]

[At the subway entrance, young people were looking down at their phones. He couldn't understand the interfaces on their screens, but he was all too familiar with that hurried way of walking.]

[This was the world after his Transmigration.]

[The part he hadn't been able to see.]

[The Heart Demon did not speak.]

[It didn't need to.]

[This scene itself was the best bait.]

[Tang Xun stood on the street corner for a long time.]

[So long that even he felt something was wrong.]

["...Fuck," he cursed, his voice a bit hoarse.]

[He raised his hand and slapped himself hard on the face.]

[The crisp sound echoed through the empty illusion.]

["If I really wanted to go back, I wouldn't have chosen the path of cultivation in the first place."]

[His voice returned to calm, but there was something more in it than before.]

[It wasn't hesitation.]

[It was confirmation.]

["The regrets of my past life, I accept them. What's gone is gone."]

["But now—I can live for a thousand years."]

["What can I do in a thousand years? Enough to do everything I want to do in this life, every single thing."]

["A mere Heart Demon, trying to use nostalgia to manipulate me?"]

[He stomped his foot down.]

[The asphalt road began to crack from beneath his feet, the fissures spreading in all directions. Skyscrapers fell, neon lights extinguished, and the aroma of roasted sweet potatoes dissipated.]

[The entire illusion collapsed with a bang.]

[—]

[The grayish-purple cloud mist peeled away from Tang Xun and receded toward the sky.]

[He once again saw the peaks of Shenfu Mountain and the tribulation clouds overhead that were rapidly dissipating.]