Chapter 895: Super Ego

The initial moment?Embarking on the path of cultivation, making up for life's regrets, achieving a perfect Dao heart?

Everyone’s vision went black; they couldn't see anything in the utter darkness, as if divided in some cosmic tunnel. Faintly, they seemed to hear voices nearby."Do you think they will find their Super-Ego?""I don't know. If life could be relived, would they truly have no regrets?""The most difficult are those madmen who charge forward relentlessly.""What's past is prologue."

Age one.Mi'e Qi was born on a remote, ordinary planet, reportedly among the first group of settlers brought to improve the planet's ecosystem after environmental reforms. There was no high technology here; it was like ancient times.

Age ten.Mi'e Qi's family was very poor. He grew up in a single-parent household and never attended school, but he was exceptionally intelligent, educating himself through self-study.

Age eighteen.He surprisingly gained a minor reputation in the village and began teaching in the small community. To the villagers, he was an old-fashioned, rigid, and old-school teacher, always spouting grand principles, and often mocked by the villagers.

Age twenty-one.He lived in the barbarian mountains. Many bachelors in the village, unable to find wives, would descend the mountains with sticks, blocking roads, stopping carriages and merchants, and kidnapping any women they saw to take as wives. Unable to stand it, he spoke out, full of righteous indignation, but was beaten black and blue, urinated on by the strong villagers, and became the laughingstock of the entire village. Here, teaching was a contemptible profession.

Age twenty-seven.He decided to try his luck in the city. He found a room in a dilapidated building, hoping to find work. At that time, many boxing gangs and clubs controlled the entire county. This building was controlled by a mid-sized boxing gang, who forced girls to serve clients there. The room doors were often left open. Whenever he passed by, he would hear the boisterous shouts of men, the sounds of card games, and see women lying on beds, their eyes hollow as they stared blankly at him from outside the door. Those eyes were filled with despair.

Within half a month, he met a girl named Al, who had been oppressed for several months, and he fell in love with her. One day, seeing Al being humiliated, he finally couldn't hold back. He rushed forward, pointed at the gang members, and sternly rebuked them. As a result, he was knocked down, beaten black and blue, and mocked. Moreover, that very night, a drunken brute drugged him and, with a sneer, threw him beside Al, saying, "Aren't you full of righteousness and morality? Let's see if you can resist now." He endured the most horrific night of his life. Al also committed suicide. He wept bitterly. Just like that, he went from being the village's laughingstock to the laughingstock of the entire building.

Age twenty-eight.He spent a year enduring the ridicule of the entire building. Then, Iron Fist, the leader of the boxing gang, found him. "We're no longer doing business in this building. We're opening a 'Red Mansion' in the city center, going high-end, catering to the wealthy! The girls can't be illiterate; we can't afford scholars, so I'd like you to teach them some basic knowledge so they can pose as ladies!" He refused and left the building immediately.

Age thirty.A man found him and gave him an assessment: "E-level assessment, the lowest grade. You've been exiled to the frontier to govern a continent. Currently, you are the 731st prince." It turned out he was of the Til Empire's imperial bloodline. The royal tradition was to send all infants to various locations at birth and bring them back at age thirty for an assessment of their life potential. He received the lowest assessment.

Age thirty-one.He arrived on a continent and began living a noble life he couldn't have imagined before. He married a beautiful woman and had children, but he could never forget Al. He couldn't forget that woman. He had nightmares countless nights. All of them showed him looking through the doorway from the building corridor, hearing card games and men shouting inside, with Al lying on the bed, her eyes hollow, staring blankly at him from the doorway.

Many times, he thought: If only he had been a bit more capable, a bit smarter back then... His fate might have been different. He would have had no regrets. But there was no way to regret it now. He began studying technology, transforming the entire continent into his ideal nation—without war, without oppression, incredibly peaceful... He was still his stubborn self. However, his technological talent still shone through. He managed the entire continent perfectly, leading to the emergence of various high-tech innovations.

A princess of the Empire, Nashar, found him. She was a formidable woman, the most competitive princess in the entire empire. "I've seen your resume. You are kind, stubborn, and talented. Would you like to join me and help me contend for the throne?" He followed Nashar.

Age 221.Soon, vast resources were allocated to him. He fully displayed his talents, quickly revitalizing an ancient divine arsenal. He transformed both himself and Nashar into deities and mass-produced divine confidants.

Age 240.They overthrew the youthful and vigorous Emperor Til. Princess Nashar ascended to the throne, becoming the new Emperor Til, while he completely abandoned any claim to the throne and became the Chief Scientist.

Mi'e Qi, now accomplished and famous, sat on a cliff at the science institute, staring blankly at the sky. "I always feel an inexplicable unease, as if I'm waiting for something... expecting something?"

Age 241.He began to pursue that inexplicable feeling, researching parallel universes and multi-dimensional timelines. However, just a few years into his research, a mysterious woman found him. "Another version of me from another universe, you are truly incredibly weak." This woman was incredibly beautiful, breathtakingly so.

The entire empire was shaken."Enemy attack?""What kind of empire is this? It's similar to ours; unimaginable?"Behind this woman stood an endless fleet of high-dimensional warships."You are another me from a parallel universe?" Mi'e Qi also rose into the air. The two stared at each other from a distance. They had a vague but strong feeling that only by absorbing every parallel version of themselves could they form their true self. The countless versions of oneself in the multiverse, merged together, constitute the Super-Ego.

The two floated in mid-air, gazing at each other across the distance."Shall we talk?" the woman said.Mi'e Qi smiled. "Indeed, we should talk."

The woman said, "Do you know where our destinies diverged? Do you remember when you were twenty-eight? When Iron Fist, the leader of the boxing gang, came to ask me to teach at his 'Red Mansion,' I accepted. I went to teach there because I wasn't as weak as you; I wanted to save those girls!"Tears suddenly welled up in Mi'e Qi's eyes. "You succeeded?"The woman merely smiled, sighing with emotion, "Yes, I succeeded. I slowly gained their trust, and one day, I seized the opportunity to release all the girls. I covered for them, but I didn't escape myself; I was caught.""You..." Mi'e Qi was speechless."Although it was a primitive planet, they supposedly acquired some special technology for sex-change operations. So, I became a woman, replacing the girls I had released. Because I was skilled in music, chess, calligraphy, and painting, I became their top attraction, generating even greater value for them... After a few years of living hell, when they were off guard, I secretly contacted a wealthy client. He genuinely fell in love with me, and I used his power to dismantle the entire boxing gang. I took over their operations and gradually came to rule a nation."

"At thirty, my assessment was A. I then climbed steadily, becoming the seventeenth princess. However, my A-grade assessment never gained His Majesty's approval; he despised my past, considering it a disgrace to the Empire... But I ultimately seized power and became the new Emperor Til."Mi'e Qi remained silent.

The woman opposite continued: "But every day, I have nightmares. I see those men on top of me, and I'm terrified. Sometimes I selfishly think that if I had been a little more cowardly back then and simply ran away, instead of going to the Red Mansion to teach, trying to save those women, I would surely have been very happy. I had an inexplicable premonition that the universe is plural, infinite... so I used the nation's full power to travel through parallel universes and found you." The woman stared at him. "But I thought your life would be good, yet I never imagined it would also be a continuous nightmare, so unsatisfying! What exactly was I envying?" She let out a cold laugh.

Mi'e Qi looked at the woman before him, utterly speechless. Sometimes, a single choice can determine two vastly different fates.

Mi'e Qi was silent for a moment, then said, "Both of us are full of regrets in life. We both believe we made the wrong choice back then, which led to today's regrets and endless nightmares, forming a knot in our hearts... Perhaps if our choice back then had been braver, and we had saved Al, we wouldn't have..." Yes. That woman, with her helpless, vacant, ashen eyes, lying on the bed and staring helplessly at him from the doorway—that scene was unforgettable for a lifetime, becoming an eternal thorn in Mi'e Qi's side. Nightmares for countless years.

*Click.*At that moment, a man emerged from space, his face revealing an incredibly eerie and sinister expression. "I am Mi'e Qi, the Thirteenth Prince. At age thirty, my assessment was SSS-grade, and I was almost certainly the Emperor's designated successor. And I saved Al... Are you two envious of my life now?" A strange, malevolent smile curved at the corner of his mouth.