Chapter 67 Past and Present Lives, I Am Not Me

"Who are you?"

These three words had no sound, yet were more violent than any collision in Chaos.

Chen Yuan sat on the prayer mat, a black stone held in his right hand, suspended for a long time.

It wasn't that he couldn't place it. It was that he didn't know whose hand should place it.

Gu Ziyuan?

That Outer Sect Disciple of the Jiejiao who sat alone playing chess deep in the bamboo forests of Jinao Island, trapping and killing the Long-eared Dingguang Immortal with the Zhenlong Chess Game?

The Gu Ziyuan who shocked the Twelve Golden Immortals with a single move?

Or Chen Yuan?

That Guardian Qilin of the Great Shang who endured for thirteen years in Zhaoge City, repelling spears with a folding fan and stabilizing the Eastern Yi with brilliant strategies?

Two lives overlapped and tore at each other in his consciousness, like two opposing torrents clashing in the same riverbed.

The black stone spun once between his fingertips. Then again.

The old man did not rush him.

Sitting cross-legged opposite him, one hand rested on his knee while the other slowly twirled a white stone. He waited for a long time, so long that the Yin and Yang Qi in Chaos had circulated for an unknown number of cycles.

"You are not the first person to sit here and ask 'Who am I?'"

Chen Yuan looked up.

"Over the past three thousand eon, those who have sat in your position include Immortals, demons, and Mortals. They have all asked."

The old man's tone was as if he were speaking of a very common matter.

"Guess how they finally resolved it?"

"How did they resolve it?"

The old man extended a finger and tapped the chessboard.

"They didn't."

"Half chose their past lives and lost their present. Half chose their present lives and sealed their past."

"Both are incomplete."

These words fell into his consciousness, heavy and solid.

Chen Yuan remained silent.

The old man looked at him and continued, "Your 'past life' had heaven-defying calculation abilities and unparalleled strategic planning. But he was too cold. Too sharp. Everyone around him was treated as a chess piece. Including himself."

"That is why he underwent Shijie. It wasn't that his cultivation was insufficient, but that his Dao Heart was flawed."

Chen Yuan's hand tightened slightly.

"The piece he lacked—" The old man pointed to Chen Yuan's chest.

"—is precisely what has grown in you in this life."

"Eighteen years of life as a Mortal. Parents who doted on you, close friends who stood by you, and the woman who protected you with her life."

"These are things the past you never had."

Chen Yuan's throat moved.

Huang Yuerong's face flashed through his mind.

On the training grounds, she charged with her spear, her eyes full of defiance.

In the Broken Soul Ravine, she used her flesh and blood to knock aside the mountain-overturning seal, breaking three ribs.

Blood still hung from the corner of her mouth when she turned back to shout at Zi Shou to leave quickly.

Zi Shou's voice came too. Covered in blood, standing on the sacrificial altar, he looked back toward the main camp and hoarsely shouted, 'Brother Chen!'

And his mother.

Mending his clothes under the lamp late at night, the stitches fine and dense, each one carrying the warmth of her body.

These were not the actions of chess pieces.

These were people.

And his only response to them at the time had been calculation.

"I was wrong."

His voice was hoarse, squeezed out from his throat.

"I treated everyone as pieces on the board. Even myself."

The old man gave a slight nod.

"Knowing one's mistake is not difficult. What is difficult is changing."

The chessboard was cleared. The black and white stones returned to their places.

"Come. Play using your combined self."

Chen Yuan took a deep breath and picked up a black stone.

This game, he played extremely slowly.

Before each move, he would pause for a long time.

He wasn't calculating; he was asking himself—is this move one that Gu Ziyuan wants to make, or one that Chen Yuan wants to make?

His past life's instincts told him to cut off the white stone's Dragon, a fatal blow to the throat.

His present life's intuition told him to slow down and leave a path open.

He tried to meld the two voices together.

At the tenth move, he placed a stone on the star point.

The position was precise, a result of his past life's calculation.

But he intentionally left a way out. That was the warmth of his present life.

By the thirtieth move, his layout began to show a form never seen before.

It was neither an airtight iron wall nor a scattered collection of idle stones.

Instead, it was tight yet relaxed, firm yet gentle. Like a tree with deep roots but spreading branches.

The old man's white stones began to exert more pressure.

Forty moves. Fifty moves. Sixty moves.

Each white move was more ruthless than the last, continuously tearing through the black stone formation.

If it were the Gu Ziyuan of the past, he would have counterattacked furiously. If it were the Chen Yuan of the past, he would have retreated to recalculate.

He chose neither.

He yielded a piece of territory, while simultaneously planting two follow-up moves in the space he gave up.

They weren't traps, but living moves where retreat and survival coexisted.

The ninetieth move.

The old man cut off a large Dragon in his bottom-right corner.

He did not panic.

His gaze fell upon the seemingly isolated black stones in the top-left corner of the board.

At the same moment the Dragon was killed, they silently connected into a living formation.

Preserving the Dao amidst defeat.

This was what the old man had taught.

At the one hundred and twentieth move, the old man stopped.

There was a long silence.

"In this game of chess, you are still not as good as me."

Chen Yuan did not argue.

"But you have walked a path of your own."

The old man extended his hand and traced an arc across the board, from the sharpest black move to the gentlest.

"In your past life, there were no people in your chess. In your present life, there were people but no self."

"In this game—there are both people and self."

As soon as he finished speaking.

The wall in Chen Yuan's mind that stood between the memories of his two lives shattered with a bang.

Jinao Island. Biyou Palace.

The bamboo forest on the ten-thousand-foot cliff. A Daoist robe washed until it was pale.

The mnemonics for the Wuwei Sutra.

The tremor when the heaven and earth chessboard awakened. The moment the Great Dao Golden Wheel took shape within his body.

Yunxiao's smile when she handed him a bowl of medicine.

The curiosity hidden in Bixiao's eyes as she chased him through the bamboo forest, scolding him for being unmotivated.

Qiong Xiao stealing his chess pieces and hiding them in her sleeve, then puffing out her cheeks and refusing to admit it when he saw through her instantly.

The meaningful gaze from Daoist Duobao when he broke the Zhenlong Chess Game.

From the highest point of Biyou Palace, the voice of the Grandmaster of Heaven fell from the Nine Heavens—"Ziyuan, the Dao comes before the chess, and the chess comes after the person."

Shijie. Reincarnation. The cycle of Karma.

Everything came rushing back.

The Great Dao Golden Wheel turned on its own, humming low, sorting, settling, and integrating the surging memories into his bones and blood, bit by bit.

This time, he was not overwhelmed.

An unknown amount of time passed.

He opened his eyes.

His illusory figure had solidified to the extreme.

His features were distinct, his silhouette clear.

In his eyes was the depth and coldness of his past life, as well as the warmth and obsession of his present life.

He stood up and gave a deep bow to the old man, bending his waist to the limit.

"Junior Gu Ziyuan, and Chen Yuan of this life. I thank Senior for your guidance."

Straightening his back, his gaze met the old man's.

"But I have a question."

"Who exactly are you, Senior?"

The old man's finger stopped on his knee.

The white stone he had been twirling for an unknown amount of time was finally set down.

He did not speak.

On the chessboard, the black and white stones suddenly began to vibrate on their own.

One, two, ten, a hundred...

All the stones slid simultaneously, rearranging themselves on the board.

Black and white intertwined, forming strokes of characters.

Each stroke was ancient and heavy, like characters carved on the first stone tablet at the dawn of the world.

Two characters.

Chen Yuan's pupils shrank suddenly.

His fingers clenched abruptly, his knuckles turning white.

His lips moved, but no sound came out.

But in the depths of his eyes was a shock like never before.