Mahayana 109
Chapter 109: Across Past and Present Lives – The Shared Fate of Xiao Yifeng and Su Miaoqing
TL : Cnine
ED/PF :
Part 1
“Senior Old Demon King, aren’t you tempted to go up and give it a try?” Lin Xiao asked, smiling lightly.
The Old Demon King gave a low, raspy chuckle. “I’ll spare myself the spectacle. These old limbs have seen enough strain already. Still… Fellow Daoist Lin Xiao, why not test your fate?”
A glimmer flashed in Lin Xiao’s eyes, his thoughts buried deep.
“Fellow Daoist Liu Yue,” Luo Yun asked quietly, “Does the Three Lives Stone tempt you?”
Liu Yue shook his head, his voice firm as iron. “Borrowed power is never equal to power earned. I am young, and I choose my own cultivation. I have no need for such shortcuts.”
Hearing that, Xiao Yifeng scoffed and turned to Su Miaoqing. “Miaoqing, hold on a sec.”
He then strode forward and stood before the Three Lives Stone.
Mo Shuiyao’s gaze followed Xiao Yifeng closely, her beautiful eyes filled with quiet anticipation as she wondered whether his past and present lives were connected to her own.
Xiao Yifeng didn’t act without confidence.
Having lived two lifetimes, if he still couldn’t pass the Three Lives Stone, he might as well go back home and knock his head into tofu block to commit suicide. To him, the stone was nothing more than nourishment served on a platter.
He was certain that if his essence, vitality, and spirit were returned threefold, then combined with his Trinity of Cultivation arts, he would be transformed within this immortal Palace. At the very least, he would gain the power to protect himself.
As for Liu Yue’s nonsense about avoiding external aids in cultivation, Xiao Yifeng scoffed. He had never believed in ideals. Only strength.
With three cultivation arts he refined into one, whatever remained was purity incarnate. There was no instability, no cracks in the foundation. Only strength, honed and unquestionable.
The instant his palm pressed against the Three Lives Stone, a terrifying suction burst forth. His vital blood, qi, and spirit were dragged from him in a single breath, pouring into the stone as though it had been waiting for him all along.
But what it showed him was not some imagined ancient life. It was the life he had already lived. Born in a small village. Watching it be wiped from existence. Being saved by Liu Hanyan and brought into the Heaven Inquiry Sect.
Then things went downhill at record speed. Framed for killing his master, branded a villain, ran for his life, joined the Saint Star Palace, and spent years making enemies like it was a hobby. Three righteous-versus-evil wars later, he finally retired.
After everything, after laying down his blade to seek peace, death still found him. This time, by the hand of someone he once loved.
Xiao Yifeng did not merely recall those memories. He relived them, moment by moment, until they carried him to the very end, to the final scene where he held Lin Qingyan in his arms, and the world faded once more.
To those watching from outside, Xiao Yifeng’s past life appeared only in rapid flashes. When the image of him joining the Heaven Inquiry Sect surfaced, the crowd could not help but exchange uneasy glances. This was meant to be a former life, yet it looked suspiciously like his current one.
The visions sped by far faster than anyone else’s, leaving the onlookers with only a single scene they could truly see.
On a battlefield soaked in spiritual light and blood, Xiao Yifeng stood with a black longsword in hand. His black-and-gold robes fluttered like a banner of war, his gaze cold enough to freeze the soul. Behind him walked a peerless beauty in red, and together they cut through cultivators as though fate itself stood aside.
Then everything stopped. The final image was frozen in silence. The land lay in ruins, as if the world had already ended. Before a massive, blurred stone gate, Xiao Yifeng held Lin Qingyan tightly in his arms, countless chains coiling around them, binding them as the darkness closed in.
Inside the frozen image, Xiao Yifeng raised his head. His eyes were cold beyond reason, carrying a sharpness that felt as though it could pierce the Three Lives Stone itself and gaze directly into the souls of those outside. Then he smiled. Not warmly. Not kindly. The smile was eerie.
The Three Lives Stone shuddered violently, its surface trembling as blood-red characters surged forth once more, like a divine judgement carved in flesh and stone: “One who defies heaven and alters fate. He has this life, but no next.”
As the final words burned into view, a thunderous crack split the stone wide open. With that fracture, the Three Lives Stone fell silent, its power utterly broken.
With no other choice, a vast surge of vital essence was forced back into Xiao Yifeng. Several times his original amount, more than tenfold, a brutal kind of compensation for a process that simply could not continue.
Yet even with such an overwhelming flood of spiritual energy and essence pouring into him, his cultivation rose only from the sixth to the ninth level of Foundation Establishment realm. That alone made it painfully clear just how terrifyingly enormous his requirements truly were.
In the instant of his rapid breakthroughs, the concealment art he had been maintaining wavered ever so slightly, leaking a trace of his true cultivation aura.
The fluctuation was faint, nearly imperceptible. No one outside noticed. No one… Except the Old Demon King, who let out a low sound of surprise, his expression darkening.
Moments later, Xiao Yifeng slowly opened his eyes, staring blankly at the Three Lives Stone before him. Even it could not go any further. His heart sank. The giant stone gate he had encountered before his death in his previous life was clearly no ordinary thing.
That giant stone gate had somehow managed to manipulate the version of himself within, even forcing him to crack the Three Lives Stone. Such eerie, unfathomable power was almost impossible to believe.
Seeing Su Miaoqing looking worried, he jogged back to the group and flashed her a smile. “I’m fine, really.”
Instead of relaxing, her expression dimmed. She glanced at Xiao Yifeng, and as if having made up her mind, stepped forward without hesitation.
She was going to touch the Three Lives Stone herself. Xiao Yifeng was stunned and reached out to stop her.
Su Miaoqing turned back, met his gaze, and slowly shook her head. “I don’t like being protected by you,” she said softly. “It makes me feel useless. I don’t want to become a burden.”
Xiao Yifeng’s raised hand slowly fell back to his side. Su Miaoqing stepped forward and pressed her palm firmly against the Three Lives Stone.
Xiao Yifeng felt his heart leap into his throat. He was more nervous than when he himself had faced the stone, his soul on edge as an eerie vision appeared.
The crowd quickly took it in and froze in shock. Su Miaoqing’s previous life had not been human at all. It was a giant firebird, magnificent and terrifying, shaped like a phoenix yet undeniably different.
Its life unfolded in stark, monotonous scenes. It pursued only one thing: ultimate power. Endless cultivation, without pause or pleasure.
As its strength grew, its temperament became increasingly violent. It began devouring others of its own kind, driven by obsession, all in a desperate attempt to evolve into a true phoenix.
They watched as the colossal immortal bird spread its wings and soared across the heavens. Even a single feather drifting down could scorch the land below into scorched wasteland.
Still, it remained a vast distance from the final step. In a reckless act of ambition, it chose to challenge a true phoenix, hoping to devour it and ascend as the sovereign of all birds.
The battle raged for three days and three nights. In the end, the immortal bird was defeated. Yet by then it had become eerily similar to a real phoenix, allowing it to retain a fragment of its divine soul and reincarnate.
Xiao Yifeng and the others were left dumbfounded. This was absurd beyond belief. Never before had they seen a past life that wasn’t human.
From the power shown in the vision, that dreadful immortal bird was unquestionably at least on par with the Tribulation Crossing realm.
Everyone cast odd glances at Su Miaoqing. This proud yet well-behaved little girl looked nothing like the fearsome immortal bird they had just witnessed.
The vision soon shifted to her present life, racing through her years before the age of ten.
Xiao Yifeng began to feel tense. He would soon appear within the scene himself. Would they realise something was wrong?