Chapter 310: Daoist Dongxu’s Dream

“I’m Wang Li, Nascent Soul Stage.”

“I’m Wang Hongtu, Nascent Soul Stage.”

“…Could the two of you be any more half-hearted with your names?”

At first, Daoist Dongxu had thought Jiang Li’s generous spending meant he was the illegitimate child of some Tribulation Stage cultivator.

But then he reconsidered. Among the five Tribulation cultivators of today—Commander Liu was a man of integrity, Li Er was afraid of his wife, the Sword Sovereign had only appeared a few years ago, no time to sire a child, and Empress Yu Yin didn’t even have a harem—how could she have a child?

By that logic, the only possible candidate left was Sect Master Bai Hongtu.

But even that was unlikely. What kind of illegitimate son made such a spectacle of himself, practically begging others to know his identity?

If an illegitimate identity could be made public, it wouldn’t be called illegitimate.

More importantly, one of them was named Wang Li, and the other Wang Hongtu—clearly just swapped surnames and made up fake names on the spot.

“Human Sovereign, it’s been five hundred years since we last met.” Daoist Dongxu bowed respectfully.

Since Jiang Li failed the secret realm trial five hundred years ago, Daoist Dongxu had not seen him again.

“Sect Master Bai.” Daoist Dongxu also rarely interacted with Bai Hongtu.

Daoist Dongxu was a rogue cultivator, while Jiang Li and Bai Hongtu were leaders of top-tier powers—there was little overlap between their worlds.

Even the Nine Provinces Council wouldn’t invite a Fusion Stage rogue cultivator to attend.

The main issue was that he was too hard to find.

Now that the juniors had left, Jiang Li and Bai Hongtu dropped the act as well.

“Daoist Dongxu, you’ve got a good eye. You saw right through our carefully crafted identities at a glance!” Bai Hongtu admitted with no hesitation.

Daoist Dongxu thought to himself: even if I were blind, I could still see through this awful disguise.

“Human Sovereign, your luck is truly… difficult to describe,” Daoist Dongxu said with a bitter smile.

Five hundred years ago, the trial involved picking a fruit at random, then spitting out the seeds—the first to finish won.

Some picked apples, some picked pears, others got watermelon—and Jiang Li drew dragon fruit.

He ended up spitting seeds until he could barely talk.

Five hundred years later, though he had advanced to the Great Ascension Stage, his luck hadn’t changed a bit.

Daoist Dongxu’s method of judging people by their luck was usually pretty accurate—except when it came to Jiang Li.

Jiang Li suspected that back then, the system might have had some hidden way to let him win.

“What’s the final reward? A spiritual treasure, or some rare material?” Bai Hongtu asked. If it was just something ordinary, he wasn’t going to take it.

He didn’t need it, and he’d be embarrassed to accept it.

“Neither. I want to tell you the truth of the world.”

For someone at the Fusion Stage to speak of “the truth of the world” sounded like absurd boasting.

But Daoist Dongxu’s serious expression made it hard to believe he was joking.

“We’re listening.” The two men stopped joking around, sat on the stone chairs, and quietly waited for Daoist Dongxu to speak.

Originally, Daoist Dongxu thought his low cultivation would make others scoff at such words. He hadn’t expected these two to actually be willing to listen.

“The reason I believe in fate stems from my dreams.”

“Dreams?” Bai Hongtu had little experience with the Dao of Dreams.

“Yes. I’ve been dreaming since I was young—extremely vivid dreams.” Daoist Dongxu nodded sincerely, signaling that he wasn’t lying.

“I was born into a small sect. My father was the sect’s Grand Elder. I grew up smoothly, left the sect to explore the Nine Provinces, and eventually reached the Fusion Stage.”

“When I was a child, I dreamed of dying inside my mother’s womb.”

“After waking, I asked my mother about it. She said that when she was pregnant with me, she was severely injured and thought I would be stillborn. But my father managed to find a pill in time, cured her, and I was born alive.”

“Before that dream, I had no idea that had ever happened.”

“Then I dreamed that my sect was wiped out by an enemy clan, and I died with it.”

“Later, I investigated and found out that indeed, an enemy faction had once planned to attack our sect. But the day before, they provoked a powerful figure who wiped them out. That’s why we were never attacked.”

“I also dreamed of falling off a cliff and dying at the bottom. The feeling of death in that dream was terrifyingly real.”

“Just days before that dream, I had been walking a cliff trail and lost focus for a second. I almost slipped, but caught myself in time.”

“After the dream, I couldn’t shake the unease, so I went to the base of the cliff. The scenery there matched the dream exactly. I’d never been down there before.”

“Can you imagine what that felt like? I nearly went insane!” Daoist Dongxu clutched his head. In reality, he had nearly died—and in the dream, he had died.

It was like fate was mocking him, saying, “So what if you escaped once? You won’t escape forever. You will die.”

Jiang Li and Bai Hongtu suddenly thought of Yu Feng.

“Later, I had a deviation while cultivating, nearly went mad, but managed to suppress it.”

“Then I dreamed that I did go mad, descended the mountain, killed someone, and was slain by a great cultivator.”

“After checking, I found that exact cultivator had indeed passed by the foot of the mountain—at the exact time I nearly lost control.”

If it had happened once, it could be coincidence. But time after time, dreaming of unknown things that later proved true—it became impossible to dismiss as mere chance.

‘Eerie’ was a better word.

“I even dreamed of being killed by Outer Demons.”

“But in reality, the Old Human Sovereign Lu appeared and saved me.”

“There are many more dreams like these. Every time, they end with my death. The dreams feel so real, it’s as if I really did die.”

“That’s why I believe I’m only alive today because of luck. Fate determines everything. No matter how strong you are, you can’t defy fate.”

Jiang Li and Bai Hongtu fell silent, contemplating the cause of Daoist Dongxu’s dreams.

They had never heard of anything like this.

“I started wondering—could there be other worlds out there? Maybe the versions of me in those worlds actually died, and their memories bled into my dreams.”

“Other worlds?” Jiang Li frowned. Daoist Dongxu clearly wasn’t talking about the usual concept of multiverses.

“You mean parallel worlds?” Jiang Li recalled a hypothesis mentioned by Old Buddha Xumi.

Old Buddha Xumi once said that there might be other worlds exactly like the Nine Provinces. Whenever a decision has two choices—say, A or B—our world picks A, and a parallel world picks B. That’s where they diverge.

What Daoist Dongxu meant was: he’s still alive in this world, but in some parallel ones, he already died.

“Yes, parallel worlds! Human Sovereign, that’s the perfect term!” Daoist Dongxu slapped his thigh. He had long struggled with how to refer to those dream worlds. Now, Jiang Li had provided the answer.

Old Buddha Xumi’s parallel world hypothesis had no solid foundation, so he never made it public—only mentioned it to a few close friends.