3. Little female ghost, why are you still here?

This is a place that no one can ever reach, because time here belongs to only a single person, and this person forms an extremely perfect closed loop at the beginning and the end of life.

Within this temporal closed loop, everything that happens is predetermined, admitting no exceptions or accidents.

A faintly glowing ring hangs suspended in this space.

This is the forbidden celestial artifact of the ancient Immortal Realm—the Spacetime Closed Loop.

Chen Sheng stood beneath the Spacetime Closed Loop, gazing at the suspended forbidden artifact above his head, feeling the profound connection between it and himself.

In a sense, he was the master of this forbidden artifact, and no one could ever take it away from him.

Yet it could also be said that he himself was this forbidden artifact.

Not merely the artifact spirit.

He was the Spacetime Closed Loop itself.

When Chen Sheng completed his first temporal closed loop, he came to understand this truth. From coming into being out of nothingness, to finally piercing through the veil of reality and learning the truth from the female Ghost King, he had helplessly chosen to initiate the Spacetime Closed Loop. All of this had been predetermined, ordained from the very first moment.

Originally, Chen Sheng should have tried to complete his second temporal closed loop, allowing his timeline to freely infiltrate and alter things. By that time, he could effortlessly rewrite a person's destiny, ensuring that everything in a person's future would unfold without the slightest variable, turning all into absolute certainty.

Yet now, Chen Sheng stopped, for he heard a familiar voice calling out his name at this very moment.

"Finally, she is born. I wonder how old she is now..."

Chen Sheng looked far into the distance, as if piercing through the void and time. In an instant, across a past epoch of spacetime, he beheld that intimately familiar, petite figure.

"Why is she still so small?"

Upon seeing her clearly, Chen Sheng could not help but wear a slightly dazed expression. Her passage of time always seemed much slower than he had imagined.

Whether he was simply being impatient, or whether the second temporal closed loop he was meant to complete was interfering with him, he could not be sure.

After a moment of thought, Chen Sheng concluded it must be the latter.

He was the Spacetime Closed Loop itself, the true monarch of time and space, capable of dominating them entirely, but... that was only within the temporal closed loops he had already completed.

The future of the timeline where he had not yet completed the loop was not predestined; everything within it teemed with countless variables.

In other words, the mischievous sprite of the future timeline was repeatedly leaping back and forth.

"Well then, this time, I shall grant your wish!"

Chen Sheng smiled, and then his figure vanished.

When he initiated the Spacetime Closed Loop, he had originally believed he would undoubtedly die. Yet unexpectedly, it opened up a vast, boundless expanse, elevating him in a single bound to the heavens. Having transformed into the Spacetime Closed Loop itself, Chen Sheng was already an immortal.

The kind of existence that was a forbidden immortal.

For other immortals could be slain, cursed, sealed, suppressed, and controlled... but he could not!

Unless one first leaped into Chen Sheng's timeline.

Yet stepping into Chen Sheng's timeline meant that one's life and death would lie entirely within a single thought of Chen Sheng.

It was only within his own timeline that Chen Sheng was powerful to the point of near-invincibility, capable of annihilating the world with a mere thought. Once he left his own timeline, however, Chen Sheng would become much like an ordinary mortal.

Otherwise, Chen Sheng truly was the ultimate taboo.

Chen Sheng had vanished, but he did not leave his own timeline, because the past spacetime where a certain young girl currently resided belonged within Chen Sheng's timeline.

That pair of gold-rimmed glasses was the permit to enter Chen Sheng's timeline.

And it belonged solely to that young girl alone.

Had it not been her, had it been unrelated to her—not even her parents—then putting on those gold-rimmed glasses before she had worn them would have been nothing more than a very ordinary, comforting little game. But after she had worn them, should any other person put them on, a torrent of curses would erupt instantly, and the cursed individual would soon depart from this mortal world through a completely natural death.

...

"That young man who called himself Chen Sheng met that drunkard and told him that he was haunted by a female ghost who had died of grievances over a hundred years ago. He said his family had already been buried beneath the earth ahead of him, waiting only for him to arrive so that the entire family, young and old, could set off together on the road to the Yellow Springs."

"Yet the drunkard did not believe it, and in the end, he went anyway."

"Only when he arrived did the drunkard realize that the young man calling himself Chen Sheng had not deceived him. But by the time he felt regret, it was far too late! Everything was beyond saving!"

"Yet just as the drunkard was consumed by remorse, he saw the sunlight once more. It was that young man calling himself Chen Sheng who had dug him out. And not only he, but his parents and family were all rescued."

"That drunkard was naturally filled with boundless gratitude. The young man calling himself Chen Sheng simply left behind a warning that he was never to drink alcohol again, or else the vengeful female ghost would come for him once more, before turning and leaving directly."

At this point, the old man's face inevitably took on a look of fond reminiscence.

As people grew old, they tended to dwell on the past.

It was naturally impossible to forget one's savior.

"That drunkard was you, wasn't he?" Yu Youxin squatted nearby, having listened to the story like an enthusiastic spectator, and looked at the old man with a peculiar expression.

"Ah, yes, it was this useless old codger," the old man laughed heartily. After laughing for a while, as if unburdening himself of the tale, his spirits lightened noticeably: "This old man can tell that the young man calling himself Chen Sheng back then was someone with genuine abilities. I reckon that after all these years, he is probably still hale and hearty. If you are lucky, you might just run into him."

"Didn't you meet the man called Chen Sheng only because you encountered a ghost? Is encountering a ghost supposed to count as good luck?" Yu Youxin could not help remarking.

"Hey, you little lass, you really know how to pick faults in what people say. Shoo, shoo, run along!" Hearing the young girl speak thus, the old man instantly grew displeased and chased Yu Youxin away.

Noticing that this old man was not the "villain NPC" she was looking for, Yu Youxin walked away and continued her search.

And she actually found one.

It was a man wielding a knife in a frenzy, having already hacked the security guard at the school gate to death and now preparing to rush into the school to slaughter others. Upon seeing this, Yu Youxin immediately swept forth a flash of sword light.

With a single strike, the knife-wielding assailant's head went flying, landing far away.

Pulling back her sword light, Yu Youxin ignored the gazes of the surrounding people and walked away on her own. After all, in her view, these were merely "NPCs," serving merely as background props to populate the scene.

This was an old trope in video games, designed to make it seem as though there were many players around; she understood it all.

She remembered a single-player immortal cultivation game she used to play, where a player would enter and play for just a little while, and other cultivators in the game would proactively initiate friendships with you, then ask your opinion of so-and-so, or badmouth certain people. If you agreed with them, your favorability with that cultivating friend would increase, but the person being spoken ill of would instantly become hostile toward you.

Once this hostility accumulated enough, the maligned cultivator would immediately come seeking revenge. What made players grind their teeth in frustration was that the cultivator who came knocking usually had stats far higher than the player's.

Consequently, most players, lacking sufficient attributes since they hadn't played long, were forced to die at the hands of this cultivator.

And once killed, a player would harbor an intense desire to slaughter the offender.

Yet upon actually killing that cultivator, one would discover that his Dao-companion, his master, his parents, his friends, and others would come one after another to seek revenge. Accompanying them would be the friends of his Dao-companion, the friends of his master, the friends of his parents, the friends of his friends, and so on, seemingly without end.

At that moment, the player would completely forget that they were playing a single-player game and plunge into a state of frantically stacking hatred buffs.

Yet if you didn't kill them, they would come to trouble you again and again, killing you time after time, and after killing you, they would loot the gear and manuals you dropped.

Even if you didn't kill them, merely injuring them would likewise provoke retaliation from their Dao-companion, master, parents, friends, and the rest.

This was a type of NPC meant to populate the world, and specifically the kind of population mechanism that could make a player's teeth itch with anger.

If the game planner's personal information hadn't been well-guarded back then, they would have long since been hunted down by other cultivators wielding magical treasures, rushing over overnight to discuss the Dao with them.

The kind of Dao where white blades went in and red blades came out.

Of course, white blades going in and yellow blades coming out worked too, though the spots where they stabbed would be rather hard on the eyes.

As Yu Youxin departed, however, several people quietly followed behind her. They watched as the young girl raised her sword with one hand and lopped off another person's head.

And the person whose head was severed had also been in the middle of committing violent crimes.

Then, these followers saw the young girl leave directly without waiting for the rescued person to express any gratitude.

When they trailed after her, they witnessed the young girl raising her sword to kill once more.

The blood-soaked scene made them shudder and chilled them to the bone, sending creeps down their spines. Yet they all noticed that the young girl, far from being disturbed, seemed increasingly delighted, the speed at which she raised and swung her sword growing faster and faster, much like a professional executioner.

At this moment, officials from the city's yamen rushed over—constables endowed with the authority to act expediently. However, just as these constables surrounded her, they saw the young girl casually flick her longsword, step upon the blade, and transform into a long rainbow, soaring up into the sky and vanishing into the firmament.

And with that, Yu Youxin disappeared.

Because she had just chosen to "quit the game." When she had wanted to fly earlier, a voice had told her that once she flew, she would immediately leave this place, which was why she had refrained from sword-flight until now.

Now that she had played to her heart's content, she prepared to return.

Following Yu Youxin's sudden disappearance, some among the onlookers were shocked while others were ecstatic. Yet right then, night fell.

The expressions of those individuals with their varied reactions shifted instantly, and they scurried back to their respective homes in a panic. Those whose journeys were long sought out the nearest shelter where they could hide.

The night descended swiftly, and the dawn broke just as quickly.

Scarcely had those people returned to their homes when, a short while later, day broke.

And then, a number of new faces appeared within the city.

Some of these people wore bewildered expressions, others looked pleasantly surprised, while still others were filled with doubt and suspicion. For they were all individuals who had died yesterday, yet had resurrected today.

Moreover, every single one of them was using someone else's identity!

A wealthy tycoon had turned into a beggar, but the tycoon-turned-beggar was immensely excited, because this new body was robust, youthful, and full of vitality.

Therefore, the tycoon-turned-beggar resolved to build his fortune from scratch and make a triumphant comeback.

Yet, proficient in all manner of mercantile strategies, once hailed as a business prodigy who had started from absolute zero at the age of thirteen, he now found that trying to build from scratch once more was completely unlike his earlier experience at thirteen.

Obstacles blocked him at every turn; even trying to complete a single petty transaction proved utterly impossible.

Why was this?

He could not understand.

Having gone a whole day without food, he collapsed limply by the roadside, out of strength. At that moment, a passerby walked past and tossed a coin to him.

Hearing the sound of the coin, he instinctively wanted to refuse, but the words stuck stubbornly in his throat, refusing to come out. In the end, he took the money and bought his first filling meal.

Another day passed. The dead resurrected with new identities, while the living remained as they were.

As for the tycoon-turned-beggar, he was still attempting his comeback.

Until five days later...

The tycoon-turned-beggar, who had always harbored grand ambitions, finally realized that he was now truly nothing more than a beggar. Stripped of his past glamorous identity, no one gave him any face anymore.

And the reason he had been able to start from scratch at thirteen was simply because his father had held immense power.

He wanted to laugh, but he could not force out a smile.

Thus, he produced a chipped bowl, placed it beside himself, and lay down right there on the ground.

He was a beggar now.

Witnessing this scene, a certain person finally withdrew his gaze.

It was Chen Sheng.

He was the true master of this world—a world where true death did not exist, where anyone who perished would revive in an unfamiliar place under an unfamiliar identity.

Still, the probability of a former tycoon turning into a beggar was actually quite low, which was why Chen Sheng had lingered to watch for a few extra moments.

And then, he had been moved by the former tycoon's fighting spirit.

Such tenacity and drive were rare sights nowadays.

Pity that the former tycoon lacked staying power.

Barely five days had passed before his spirit was thoroughly crushed.

Yet this was not entirely due to a lack of willpower on the former tycoon's part.

Chen Sheng gazed toward a certain spot. There was no one there, yet he stared fixedly nonetheless. Finally, after quite a while, a figure unable to bear Chen Sheng's scrutiny revealed herself.

It appeared to be a young girl, very cute in appearance, save for an ash-white complexion. At the moment, she was glaring fiercely at Chen Sheng.

As if to say—I am very fierce!

"What is it! Why are you staring at me?" Chen Sheng said nothing, but the little girl threw a tantrum first.

"Why on earth do you keep following him around? Ghosts bring bad luck to people, you know," Chen Sheng asked with a smile.

For this little girl was none other than Chen Xiaoyi.

To be precise, she was still that little female ghost at this moment!