Chapter 391: Mysterious Heavenly Fate Scripture

“Fellow Daoist Li Fan, are you alright?” Qi Buyi and the others noticed Li Fan’s sudden pale face and asked with concern.

Li Fan forced a smile. “Perhaps I’m getting old, and I’m not quite used to the lively atmosphere here. I suddenly feel a bit unwell.”

Hearing this, Gu Youguang felt a bit guilty. “I wouldn’t have disturbed your rest if I had known!”

Li Fan waved his hand slightly. “Brother Gu, please don’t mind. I’ll be fine after resting back home.”

Xiang Liu and Gu Youguang nodded repeatedly.

Before leaving, Qi Buyi looked at Li Fan and suddenly asked, “Can you tell me how you maintained such an optimistic and fearless state in the past few years, even though you knew your time was running out?” Xiang Liu and Gu Youguang also looked on with considerable curiosity.

Li Fan paused slightly, then calmly said, “Treat every day as your last, and then don’t be afraid of death. That’s all.”

A strange light flickered in Qi Buyi’s eyes, and he slowly nodded. After a moment, Qi Buyi spoke again. “Next, before the grand competition concludes, I will arrange a slightly less demanding but still extremely important task for you regarding the construction of the Spirit-Locking Array. It’s what you deserve, I suppose.”

Li Fan showed no excitement on his face, merely saying blandly, “Thank you, Senior Qi.” He then bid farewell to the others and returned to his rented courtyard in the Dao Discussion Tower.

In the secret chamber, Li Fan sorted through the experiences of his clone that had suddenly reappeared in his mind. He also recalled the countermeasures his main body had taken earlier. He took out the blank jade slip from his storage ring, and as expected, its recorded content had now been restored.

When his clone, Xiao Fan, and Han Yi left the Myriad Immortals Alliance headquarters, they decided to travel together to Yuandaozhou. It was then approaching Anchor Year 29, and the “Ten Lost Years of Yuandaozhou” incident was about to occur. To test the extent of the influence of the entity lurking above Yuandaozhou, Li Fan inscribed this matter onto a jade slip using a secret code known only to himself. For comparison, Li Fan also inscribed the characters “Dao” and “Yuan” on two separate blank jade slips.

It was just as Li Fan had predicted. As time entered Anchor Year 29, Li Fan unknowingly lost all memory of Yuandaozhou and everything related to it. Even the existence of his clone within Yuandaozhou was overlooked by himself. Not only his memory, but the records on the jade slips also became blank. Only the two characters “Yuan” and “Dao” that were inscribed separately remained.

“Cannot be recorded, cannot be recalled…” Li Fan’s expression was extremely grave. “If I hadn’t been unable to condense a clone, it would have been extremely difficult to notice anything amiss. Yet even so, despite knowing that something was wrong, I still couldn’t recall anything about Yuandaozhou. Until now, Anchor Year 39… The vanished Yuandaozhou has reappeared on the land. In fact, even though I now know what happened to the clone, the clone itself couldn’t perceive any of this…”

At the same time, in Yuandaozhou:

“Fellow Daoist Xiao Fan, what’s wrong?” Han Yi asked, looking back at Xiao Fan, who had suddenly stopped, with some surprise. At this moment, they were heading towards a Tiandu ruin. According to legend, in ancient times, Tiandu hung high above the nine heavens, hailed as the source of Daoist methods and the head of all sects. Later, for unknown reasons, Tiandu fell to earth, forming more than a dozen ruins within present-day Yuandaozhou. Their objective on this trip was one of them.

Han Yi had a premonition that a great opportunity might be awaiting them on this journey. Thinking of this, he glanced at Xiao Fan again. He thought to himself, “This person’s luck is obscure and hard to discern. According to the ‘Tianyun Sutra,’ it’s either that his luck is too strong, beyond my current ability to distinguish; or his luck is too weak, almost non-existent, which is why it’s indiscernible. Given that he obtained the Longevity Fruit of Rebirth, which extends life by three hundred years, it’s definitely the former. Perhaps I can borrow some of his luck on this trip.”

The ‘Tianyun Sutra’ was the cultivation method he practiced, created by an extraordinary individual who observed the divine abilities of the ancient mystical beast, the Heavenly Fate Profound Bird. It was also why he was able to win the top prize in the divination game and begin cultivating the Tiandu Huayu Pill from the Blue Feather Treasure Box.

The ‘Tianyun Sutra’ possesses numerous profound and wondrous uses, but its most core aspect is the ability to control one’s own luck. According to the scripture’s description, a living being’s luck is not constant but constantly interacts with the outside world. If one cannot control their own luck, it will continuously diminish through one “good fortune” after another. By cultivating the ‘Tianyun Sutra,’ one can ordinarily converge their luck, preventing it from being wasted on unnecessary matters. Then, at critical moments, they can unleash the accumulated luck all at once, allowing them to achieve a state where their wishes almost invariably come true.

Of course, side effects are unavoidable. After such an outburst, a long period of decline will follow. During this period, it’s as if even drinking cold water would cause problems; everything goes wrong. The solution is to find a person with strong luck and stay by their side, borrowing their luck to avert misfortune.

Xiao Fan, the clone, could not, however, know Han Yi’s thoughts. The moment the ten lost years were restored, the experiences shared from his main body during that period instantly flooded his mind. Yet, his senses did not perceive any missing time. The disorienting sense of dislocation caused by this immense contrast made the clone feel very uncomfortable. However, the clone did not reveal this in front of Han Yi. He maintained a composed expression and flew to catch up.

“It’s nothing, just suddenly remembered some old things,” the clone said. With that, he looked up at the sky, his expression unreadable.

“Oh? Fellow Daoist Xiao has been to Yuandaozhou before?” Han Yi asked with some curiosity.

“Heh, that was a long time ago.”

Amidst their casual conversation, the two, each harboring their own intentions, proceeded towards the Tiandu ruins.

Meanwhile, Li Fan’s main body in Tianchenzhou, after experiencing the clone’s feelings, also fell into contemplation. “Although it temporarily vanished, its influence remains. This is reflected in the beings within Yuandaozhou, who are completely unaware that ten years of their lives were swallowed. Even when the clone already knew the established fact, it couldn’t detect anything unusual. The power to distort perception is formidable to this extent. The reason I could quickly perceive it wasn’t because I had escaped its influence, but because my perception is based on the experience of having ten years swallowed in my twelfth life, not this current life. Although its power is strong, it cannot penetrate through time.”

Thinking of this, Li Fan exhaled a deep breath. The lingering shadow it had cast in his heart slowly dissipated. “For now, it seems there won’t be any major problems as long as I erase the traces it left on me.”