Chapter 549: The Weakness Of Return To Truth
Li Fan could not remember the last time he had truly looked at himself.
The image that came to him instinctively was the frail, scholarly youth of twenty.
It made sense. No matter how his appearance changed over the course of a given life, activating Return to Truth would bring him back to that anchor point, and with it, that same face. For Li Fan, aging was essentially a false proposition. Old age, sickness, death—those things all living beings dreaded were temporary states he could shed at any moment.
He regarded the changes occurring within his own body with a certain indifference. How much more indifferent, then, was he toward the teeming masses of the Xuanhuang World?
Kou Hong, Dao Xuanzi, He Zhenghao, Zhang Zhiliang, Xiao Heng...
The fates of all these people shifted with Li Fan's choices across each simulation cycle. A mortal enemy fought to the death in one lifetime could become a bosom friend sharing wine and laughter in the next. In the lifetime after that, he might become Li Fan's loyal subordinate. And after that? Perhaps nothing more than an innocent soul, collateral damage in some battle of Li Fan's.
But whatever befell them, the moment Li Fan activated Return to Truth, their "state" would revert to whichever anchor point he had chosen. In that sense, were all those experiences across lifetimes not illusions themselves?
When people mock the deeply selfish, they often say: "The world doesn't revolve around you. Why should others always yield to you?"
But for Li Fan, the world—at least this Xuanhuang World—did in fact revolve around him. A single thought, and it reset. All past events dissolved into mist and smoke.
Given that, how could Li Fan possibly regard the people of this world as beings existing on the same level as himself? Even if that power existed only through Return to Truth, he, a man who could reverse the flow of time, truly could not bring himself to treat the inhabitants of the Xuanhuang World as his own kind.
He studied his reflection for a long time and found no trace of the "indifference" Gao Yuan had described.
Perhaps that meant Li Fan himself had not yet noticed the subtle changes taking place within him.
His Psychological Age continued to climb with each cycle, uninterrupted by Return to Truth. He was not, in fact, as unchanging as he believed. Return to Truth could reverse time, but Li Fan, as its vessel, retained the capacity to change even so.
I thought my acting skills were already flawless. A faint self-mockery crossed his face.
He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, something in his gaze had shifted. It was more lively, more vivid, carrying a faint warmth toward the world around him. He watched himself carefully, continuously adjusting, refining.
A long time passed before he stopped.
Corrected, for now.
But acting is still acting. No matter how convincing, it is not real. This world holds too many people with unimaginable abilities. Even an ordinary guard in the Congyun Sea possesses such sharp perception.
To deceive everyone under heaven is, at present, impossible.
But it doesn’t particularly matter. It’s not a critical flaw. The world has its share of utterly cold and unfeeling individuals, I don’t stand out much.
Li Fan treated this minor episode as nothing more than a small personal adjustment and thought no further on it.
That Gao Yuan and He Zhenghao had concocted the idea that he, Li Fan, might be an Eternal Heavenly Venerable who had fallen from grace actually struck him as somewhat laughable.
My intentions were never that profound. I only wanted a pretext to keep clear of whatever war might eventually engulf Tianling Province.
After slipping quietly away from Myriad Immortals Island, Li Fan plunged into the sea alone. He descended all the way to a trench tens of thousands of meters below the surface, confirmed no one had followed him, and only then activated the Arcana True Spirit Transformation and reverted to his original appearance.
He temporarily buried every item he had acquired from the Myriad Immortals Alliance under his identity as a "cultivator of the ancient Heavenly Mechanisms Sect" there, concealed and sealed by A Single Hand Veils the Heavens.
Stark naked, he used his own power to conjure clothing, then ascended to the surface. He borrowed a more fitting set of clothes from a nearby mortal island and headed directly for the island where the Empire's people were stationed.
The journey did not take long. Since he made no effort to conceal his aura, the Empire's Holy Master, that Azure Luan Bird who had once accompanied Xu Ke, detected his approach and issued a divine sense warning before he even arrived.
"What business brings you here, Fellow Daoist?"
Li Fan stopped, hovering in the air, and offered a faint smile. He replied with a single word: "Coalition."
Shortly after, Little Qing flew out personally to receive him. She studied him carefully for a moment, then led him to a private chamber on the island.
Li Chenfeng did not appear to be present; his whereabouts were unknown, and even Formless Killing Mechanism's spirit-locking effect had been temporarily lost.
Li Fan replayed the scenes recorded in his sea of consciousness by the Dao Transformation Stone and confirmed that Li Chenfeng had indeed left the Xuanhuang World, though through a different point of departure than the one he had used when last returning to the Empire.
Not the Empire, then. Some other minor world? The thought stirred in him, but he kept it to himself and said nothing.
"Fellow Daoist, are you also a member of the Myriad Worlds Coalition?" Little Qing asked, going straight to the point.
"I am. I have come under orders to inform you that our cooperation must be temporarily suspended."
Even with her many years behind her, Little Qing was visibly startled. She rose to her feet, her phoenix-like eyes fixed intently on Li Fan. "What do you mean by this?"
Her gaze sharpened, and she regarded him with open suspicion. "Are you truly from the Myriad Worlds Coalition?"
A slow current of killing intent began to fill the air.
Li Fan cupped his hands in a slight bow, gesturing for Little Qing to not be overly tense. "Our Coalition has no intention of going back on its word," he said evenly. "Circumstances have forced our hand. We have temporarily severed contact with all parties, not only your Empire, but every other minor world as well. The intention from above is for everyone to keep a low profile for a time and wait for the storm to pass."
Little Qing's furrowed brow did not ease. She was about to speak when Li Fan pressed on.
"I know you are eager to leave the Xuanhuang World. But conditions are truly exceptional, and we are compelled by necessity. We also benefited greatly from our last transaction, and we are more than willing to complete the remaining arrangements as swiftly as possible."