Chapter 2: A Distant Past
.
Hm?
Zhu Rong heard a series of noises, and soon regained consciousness as he opened his eyes.
'What happened to me?' he thought, still confused.
The last thing he remembered was being slapped to death by an otherworldly beauty, in what he initially believed to be heaven,
but why would a beauty hit him for no reason?
'Nah, no way someone would hit this handsome face,' he told himself as he moved his gaze to the side, to examine the area he was in.
He was sure that after that final strike from the heavens, he would've been dead, and yet here he was, still fully conscious and free to think , something he didn't believe was possible if you were dead, right?
"Though I have to admit she really looked like her..." he muttered as the refined face of a woman started to appear in his mind.
Just as he was recalling who that figure resembled, he was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of footsteps.
"Oh? You've finally woken up.
Seriously, how do you always manage to end up like this? I feared this time you'd kicked the bucket for real."
A somewhat hoarse male voice rang out.
He immediately shifted his gaze and instantly spotted the person who had just spoken.
It was a man of medium height, slightly hunched forward, leaning on a wooden cane.
His face was lined with several wrinkles, and a long white beard hung from his chin, at least a dozen centimeters long.
'Him…'
Seeing who had just spoken, Zhu Rong's eyes widened as a name escaped his lips.
"Old Song?"
"Hm? Old?
You little b*stard, I've still got a thousand years ahead of me. I'll probably still be here guzzling wine surrounded by beauties while you'll be rotting in a grave somewhere…
Actually no, wouldn't surprise me if you ended up in the belly of some beast," he said as he raised his hand and got lost in his thoughts for a moment.
"..."
Zhu Rong's face twitched at those words, and for a moment he was tempted to get down from the bed and give him a couple of smacks to wake him up.
'Sh*t, it's really him… but how?
I'd heard he died more than three centuries ago,' he immediately thought, confused by the situation.
Only then did he realize something.
'This place… could it be the Qingyun Academy?'
He hadn't noticed it before, but now as he looked around the place again, he realized this infirmary was all too familiar , and how could it not be?
After all, he'd spent way too much time here when he was a student at the academy.
But his surprise at seeing this place wasn't because he recognized it, but because this place shouldn't have existed in the first place.
After all, the academy had been destroyed a long time ago.
Back then, a beast tide led by a Beast Lord had marched through the entire forest at the foot of Mount Chijin, destroying everything in its path.
That beast tide was so disastrous that a third of Lushan Province had been overwhelmed by them.
It was known that Lushan Province was one of the three great provinces of the Tianguo Empire, and as such, it wasn't a weak province at all.
So when word spread that a beast tide had razed a third of it to the ground, the entire empire was shaken.
The situation was so dire that the imperial palace had to mobilize a sizable force to contain it.
In the end, the beast tide was exterminated, though not without heavy casualties, and it was discovered that the cause of it all was a Beast Lord who had reached the final stage of the Spirit Realm,
a stage that only a few experts in the entire empire had ever reached.
Needless to say, the incident sparked no small amount of panic.
In the end, the empire decided to create an Extermination Army whose sole duty was to eliminate any beasts that surpassed a certain stage, to prevent similar disasters from happening again,
though this had the complete opposite effect.
He shook his head as he thought of those sad memories from a distant time, then turned his gaze to the side where there was a mirror of miserable size, just big enough to see his own face.
"So… I've really gone back in time?" he murmured lightly, as a series of emotions appeared in his eyes before vanishing again.
***
While Zhu Rong was coming to terms with reality, in the residential area of the academy reserved for the instructors, a woman with a refined appearance was sipping a cup of tea while being served snacks by a maid.
From the woman's appearance one could tell that she held a position of certain prestige within the academy, but no one would expect that the same composed and refined woman was currently invoking the wrath of god in her mind.
'This time he's crossed the line.
Just wait until classes start, I'll make sure his life becomes a living hell,' she thought furiously.
Liang Yuexin was the second-born daughter of the heir of the Liang family, one of the four main families of the city of Qiyan, the capital of the Lushan province.
She had always been pushed to the side because, although her talent was above the norm, it was inferior to that of her older brother, who took all the attention of both the clan and their parents.
She thought that once she entered the academy, she would be able to cultivate in peace and reach new heights, but who would have ever imagined that all of this would be hindered by a descendant of one of the rival families?
Her father, who was next in line for succession, in order to obtain the support of the Zhu family and secure his place on the throne, gave her in marriage to one of the descendants of the rival family, so as to create an alliance through marriage.
And not just anyone , but the talentless son of one of the elders of that family.
From the difference in age to that of talent, everything about that boy was below her standards, but unfortunately for her, she had no say in the matter.
This was a humiliation she was not willing to endure, so instead of staying there with her hands tied cultivating and waiting for her life to be arranged by her family, she decided to become a professor at the provincial academy.
Being one of the main members of the Liang family, as well as a talent in cultivation, she had no problems entering the academy, and given her progress, from then on she would only rise higher and higher, reaching a point where no one would dictate her life.
But unfortunately for her, only a few years after she became an instructor, her fiancé also joined Qingyun Academy.
The thing in itself was nothing unexpected, since he had reached the age of sixteen, and as such, it was time for him to join the academy, but from then on, her life became much harder.
Just thinking about how that boy had tormented her since then made her head smoke with rage.
Without realizing it, she had begun to tighten her grip on the handle of the porcelain cup, which showed visible cracks on it, cracks that soon began to spread.
Crack!
Just as she was about to take another sip of spiritual herbal tea to calm her mind, one of the cracks finally gave way, and a small greenish stream came out from it, ending up staining her clothes, from her chest down.
"…"