“The intruder was a late-stage Foundation Establishment expert. He used a secret art to escape the White Bear, fled here, and crashed straight into the illusion barrier. Now, he’s dragged us in with him.”

Wang Hao narrowed his eyes, dissecting the situation with cold precision.

He set the wailing toddler aside and stepped into the backyard. There, he saw Ji Xiaotang. Time had been cruel; she was withered, her face a topography of deep wrinkles, leaning heavily on a cane as she hobbled toward the front courtyard.

“Old man,” she rasped, her voice trembling with the frailty of age. “Why do I hear our grandson crying?”

Wang Hao stood motionless. In this layer of the illusion, his spiritual power and Divine Consciousness were sealed. He was a mortal, bound by failing flesh. Trying to explain the metaphysics of recursive spirit-arrays to a senile woman would take a lifetime he didn’t have.

There was only one fast exit: the dreamer had to die.

“Forgive me, Maiden Ji,” Wang Hao whispered.

He raised his walking stick and brought it down hard on the back of her head.

Thud.

His aged body betrayed him. The blow lacked the force to kill. Ji Xiaotang stumbled, confusion clouding her milky eyes.

Gritting his teeth against the guilt, Wang Hao lunged. His gnarled hands wrapped around her throat. His arthritic knuckles popped as he squeezed, pouring every ounce of his fading strength into the grip.

Ji Xiaotang stared at him, her eyes wide with betrayal and disbelief, until the light finally vanished.

As she drew her last breath, the world fractured. Wang Hao, his mind already lucid, watched the reality constructed around their shared consciousness crumble into dust.

But just as he braced for freedom, the falling debris froze in mid-air. The environment swirled, knitted itself back together, and solidified.

Wang Hao’s memories blurred, rewriting themselves in real-time.

Sunlight hit his face. He was back on campus.

Sophomore year. He had spent the last twelve months as a desperate “lovesick lapdog,” sacrificing his dignity to trail after the campus goddess.

Today, the miracle had happened. She had asked him out.

Wang Hao spent an hour grooming himself. He put on his cleanest shirt, scrubbed his face raw, and pedaled his second-hand bicycle toward the girls’ dormitory with furious, joyous energy.

Ji Xiaotang was waiting downstairs. She wore modern clothes—jeans and a blouse—a sight that gave her a refreshing, exotic charm compared to the Daoist robes of his true life. She smiled when she saw him.

Wang Hao grinned like a fool and patted the back seat of his bike.

They went to the movies. They went jogging. Their affection spiraled into a fever pitch. Two months later, ignoring the landlady’s scandalous glare, they checked into a cheap motel room.

After graduation, they eloped. They moved to the city, grinding through poverty and hardship, but finding joy in their shared struggle.

Years passed. The grind of middle age arrived.

Wang Hao returned home after a grueling shift. The house was empty. Ji Xiaotang was gone.

On the dining table sat a box.

He opened it. Inside were stacks of old diaries from her college days. Curiosity got the better of him, and he began to read.

His face drained of color.

The entries were brutal. In her youth, she had despised him. She called him a “toad lusting after swan meat,” a “pest,” a “clinging nuisance.” Reading the insults, Wang Hao felt a phantom ache in his chest, a piercing sorrow that transcended the illusion.

But the entries stopped the day they got together.

Clarity pierced the fog of the dream. The pain was the key.

“I’m such a fool,” he whispered to the empty room. “How could a goddess ever truly look at me? It’s still an illusion.”

He closed the diary. Tears streamed down his face. “But it feels so real. I don’t want to wake up.”

The memory of his unrequited servitude had been buried deep in his psyche. Having the fantasy of a happy marriage shattered—even in a dream—tore at his heart.

The door clicked open.

“I’m back!”

Ji Xiaotang walked in, carrying a basket of vegetables. She froze when she saw him weeping in the living room. Her expression softened into genuine concern.

“Darling? What’s wrong?”

Wang Hao looked at her. He studied her face with profound longing, etching every detail into his mind.

“A dream is just a dream,” he murmured. “It is time to wake up.”

He walked over, took her hand, and led her to the balcony.

He pulled her into a tight embrace. Then, he vaulted over the railing, dragging them both into the void.

The world shattered and reformed.

Green Bull Market.

Wang Hao was eighteen again. Ji Xiaotang was his tenant.

Unlike reality, in this timeline, they developed a mutual affection. They went from landlord and tenant to friends, and finally to Dao Companions.

They lived peacefully until the Beast Tide.

In the chaos, Wang Hao saw Wang Yanzhao unleash the Red Lotus True Fire. The familiar sight sparked a flicker of recognition in the depths of his soul. His true memories flooded back.

He returned home and looked at Ji Xiaotang. In this iteration, they were both cultivators, so their appearances had remained youthful.

A problem arose: She was stronger than him.

He couldn’t simply strangle her or drag her off a balcony. Attempting a violent exit would trigger her defensive instincts and likely get him killed.

He chose a gentler path. He spent days talking to her, using subtle bursts of his Divine Consciousness to stimulate her mind. Gradually, the fog in her eyes cleared.

The Green Bull Market fractured.

Eighty-one lives.

They cycled through eighty-one variations of existence. Most were happy. Most were filled with love.

The accumulation of memories was staggering. The image of the other person was branded into their souls, indelible and profound. They had lived a thousand years together in the span of a moment.

When the final illusion broke, they woke up in the real world.

They sat opposite each other in the dim light, silence stretching between them. They were back to reality, yet their minds were still adrift in the currents of their shared history.

After a long time, Wang Hao spoke, his voice hoarse.

“When I form my Golden Core, I will go to Giant Crab Island. I will propose to you.”

Ji Xiaotang looked down, her cheeks flushing a faint red. “It cannot be done. I am the Golden Core seed of the Ji clan. The Old Ancestor is aging. I must protect the family. I cannot leave with you unless… unless you marry into my clan.”

“If the Ji family lacks a Golden Core protector, I will simply raise another one for them,” Wang Hao said, his tone dripping with dominance. “But I am taking you.”

He had the farm. He had the resources. He only needed the Gold Essence Fruit tree, and he knew exactly where to find it once the beast chaos subsided.

To Wang Hao, this wasn’t a choice.

In the illusions, they had been husband and wife for millennia. They were soulmates—an “old married couple” in the truest sense. Even now, sitting apart, he felt he could reach out and hold her without a hint of awkwardness.

To deny this connection would be to sever his own Dao Heart. It would birth a Heart Demon that would inevitably destroy him at the Nascent Soul threshold.

Unless they practiced the Emotion-Severing Great Dao and killed each other to prove their resolve, they were bound. And even then, they knew each other’s secrets and trump cards too well to succeed in mutual destruction.

Better to accept it. To journey toward the Great Dao together.

“Well?” Wang Hao pressed. “Do you agree? I won’t make you wait long. Give me fifty years.”

Fifty years was tight for reaching the Golden Core, but feasible. His Qi was pure. With the Jasper Moon Fruits, he could power-level to the fifth layer of Foundation Establishment.

Ji Xiaotang lifted her head. Her eyes were pools of affection.

“Okay,” she whispered. “I will wait for you.”

Wang Hao leaned in and pecked her on the lips.

“You…” She started, surprised.

“We’re an old married couple,” he grinned. “What’s with the shock?”

“We haven’t formed our Golden Cores yet,” she scolded, though her voice lacked heat. “We shouldn’t do anything to damage our Primordial Yin and Yang.”

“I know, I know. After all these lives, do you still doubt me? I aim for the Nascent Soul, after all.” He smirked, inching closer. “I was just… looking for a little friction.”

“Hmph!”

Ji Xiaotang shoved him away, her face flushing with genuine annoyance.

The mention of their past lives had struck a nerve. In almost every incarnation, Wang Hao had been the one to kill her to break the loop.

One life stood out.

She was a princess. He was the Grand Tutor.

He had taught her as a child, and a deep bond formed. When the Emperor died and the realm fell into chaos, he rode out to war to defend the borders, while she remained in the capital to support her young brother, the new Emperor.

But once the throne was secure, her brother grew jealous of the Tutor’s power. He forbade their marriage and locked her in the Cold Palace.

She fell gravely ill.

News reached the border. Wang Hao’s hair turned white overnight from grief. The shock woke him from the illusion.

He led his army back, storming the capital and breaking into the palace.

Lying on her deathbed, she had wept, thinking he had come to save her in her final moments.

She didn’t know he had already woken up.

Wang Hao had burst into the room, saw she was dying anyway, and didn’t say a single word. He simply drew his sword and stabbed her to speed up the process.

She was still bitter about that one.