244: What if it were a different ending?

In the boundless Void Realm, Zhou Yan sat cross-legged.

By now, he had received sufficient rest; both his mind and this illusory Physical Body had returned to their initial state.

Zhou Yan opened his eyes, doubt welling up in his heart.

"Strange, the Heart Demon Tribulation is still ongoing, which means it hasn't ended yet."

"But why doesn't the new Heart Demon take advantage of my currently unstable mood to attack and let the Heart Demon Tribulation continue?"

"This doesn't look like it will end easily either."

"Clap, clap, clap."

A faint sound of clapping came from afar and drew closer.

Until a figure appeared before Zhou Yan.

Upon seeing the newcomer, although Zhou Yan had anticipated it, he still found it somewhat hard to accept when seeing it with his own eyes.

The newcomer was none other than Zhou Yan, yet it was not the real him.

"How about that? I specifically waited for you to rest well before coming. Pretty decent of me, right?"

"Zhou Yan" laughed and joked, his attitude like an old friend reunited after a long time, intimate and casual.

Zhou Yan had also prepared himself mentally and responded calmly.

He extended his hand, signaling for "Zhou Yan" to shake it.

The other party understood and reached out to shake it as well, with the exact same strength as his.

Zhou Yan then nodded, flung the other's hand away, and pointed directly at his nose to question him.

"Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron?"

"Carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, neon."

"Odd change, even stay?"

"Sign depends on the quadrant."

"After the fresh rain in the empty mountain?"

"Hang yourself on the southeast branch—or, the weather is late autumn."

Seeing the other party answer fluently, Zhou Yan didn't know whether to be glad that his prediction was accurate or to be wary of the difficulty of the Heart Demon.

No wonder his own Heart Demon hadn't appeared before; it was waiting here all along.

Looking at this entity that should be called "Heart Demon," a strong sense of wariness rose in Zhou Yan's heart.

Just from those few probing sentences earlier, he understood that the other party knew everything.

Only he himself knew his weaknesses best; he could even foresee which areas the Heart Demon would attack.

The Heart Demon seemed to see through his thoughts and spoke with a smile.

"It seems you are about ready."

"Then we might as well start early. After all, I am the manifestation of your original heart, so naturally, I hope you win."

"Defeat me, and you will be a Nascent Soul Cultivator."

This time, it was the Heart Demon who took the initiative to reach out, signaling Zhou Yan to shake hands.

Although Zhou Yan's brows were tightly locked, he still extended his hand. However, just as the two hands were about to meet, he suddenly withdrew his hand halfway and took the opportunity to perform a flippant hair-tossing gesture.

Sure enough, the other party also seemed prepared, making the exact same movement almost simultaneously, as synchronized as if they were one body—they could even go next door to pilot a mecha.

"Had enough fun? It's time to go through the process."

"Although I hope you win, the necessary steps must still be taken."

The Heart Demon patted Zhou Yan on the shoulder with one hand.

Zhou Yan did not resist after noticing this, and only when the surrounding space began to shift again did the other party release him.

Zhou Yan had no time to mind the Heart Demon and turned to look at the familiar scene before him.

The Heart Demon did not pay attention to him, merely looking around on its own.

This was nowhere else but the place Zhou Yan first saw when he descended into this world.

"Tsk, they say the higher a Cultivator's cultivation, the clearer their memory."

"How come I feel like you haven't really recalled this place much?"

"At least it can be considered the place of your Rebirth, yet you have no sentimental attachment to it at all?"

The Heart Demon picked up a blood-stained hook; Zhou Yan remembered it.

At the beginning of his Transmigration, this hook had just sliced across his chest, tearing open a bloody wound, after which boiling medicinal liquid was brutally poured into his body.

Their intention was to use the medicinal liquid to delay his death and prolong the time of torture.

Because they were purely doing it for torture, they didn't care if the medicinal liquid had cooled, nor did they care about prying his mouth open; they simply brutally used the hook to slice open his stomach, poured the liquid directly in, and then used a branding iron to seal the wound.

Zhou Yan, who had just arrived in this world, was a college student who hadn't graduated long ago—how could he have ever endured such pain? He passed out on the spot, not even knowing how his body was stitched up afterward.

He only knew that he had been unconscious for a long time; when he woke up, the excruciating pain was unbearable, and he wished he had never awakened.

At that time, his body was in such pain that once he was awake, it was difficult to fall asleep again; he couldn't even escape reality.

Therefore, even though his cultivation improved later and his memory became clearer, he instinctively avoided that memory.

And it was precisely those memories and pain that gave birth to his intense desire for revenge.

Fortunately, he encountered the Sect's recruitment; otherwise, based on his initial thoughts, he feared he would have fought them to the death, entangling for years or even over a decade, until he had wiped out their clan or died first.

By then, what would he have become? Would he still be himself?

Zhou Yan's deep thoughts were seen by the Heart Demon.

The Heart Demon smiled again, pointing to the wooden platform that was originally empty.

A person identical to Zhou Yan then appeared on the platform, struggling continuously.

"You are lucky, but luck will not accompany you forever."

"If there were no System, what would you have encountered after your Transmigration?"

"If you had walked toward another ending, would the current you still be you?"

The originally empty dungeon suddenly became lively.

Several people dressed as servants crowded around a Middle-aged Man wearing silk and satin, sporting a small mustache.

That man stroked his beard, his gaze shrewdly examining the Zhou Yan on the platform.

"You were right, this kid is actually still alive."

"Having experienced such torture, given the frailty of ordinary aristocratic family descendants, his will should have been extinguished long ago."

"And the fact that he can survive shows that his Mental Energy is far beyond that of ordinary people."

"This is a rare talent indeed."

He beckoned, and two servants entered the cell, dragged the unconscious Zhou Yan down from the platform, and hauled him before him.

The Middle-aged Man took a black pill from his sleeve, pried open Zhou Yan's mouth, and tossed it in.

The pill dissolved upon entering his mouth and quickly vanished.

Immediately after, Zhou Yan collapsed to the ground, his whole body trembling violently, struggling desperately like a fish out of water.

In the end, his whole body withered, his hair turned gray-white, but a crystalline gem condensed between his brows.

The Middle-aged Man was overjoyed, stepped forward quickly to pluck off the crystal, wiped it on a servant's clothes, and examined it carefully by the firelight.

"Good, good! Such a pure crystal, it really is a good thing."

Changing his tone, he sneered and ordered the servants.

"What are you still standing there for?"

"Hurry up and treat our 'guest's' wounds."

"He might be able to help the Dong Family cultivate several Qi Refining Cultivators; we must take 'good' care of him."

"Just right to make up for this loss all at once."

After saying this, he tucked the crystal into his bosom and left laughing.

The withered Zhou Yan on the ground was lifted up by the servants, and boiling medicinal liquid was poured into his mouth. Perhaps because of the order just given, this time they "mercifully" did not use a hook to slice open his stomach.

Afterward, he was locked into another cell, his collarbones pierced by iron chains, his body inserted with all sorts of tubes, with medicinal liquids constantly being replaced, barely maintaining his life.

Zhou Yan and the Heart Demon were like two transparent bystanders, with no one noticing their existence, just quietly watching that withered "Zhou Yan," contemplating his fate of being reduced to a tool.

The Heart Demon turned around and looked at Zhou Yan.

"Seeing this scene, how do you feel?"

"Are you slightly uneasy for having wiped out their entire clan back then, or are you unhappy for not having personally taken action?"

"The same event, a different ending—what would you do?"