“Young Master, I am going out to buy teacups,” Luo Yao said.
“Mm,” Ding Nan nodded.
He happened to have things to attend to himself.
Luo Yao took her leave, and Ding Nan returned to his room.
He pulled open the bottom drawer of his dressing table and took out an exquisite small wooden box.
Upon opening it, a dull, matte, rounded Dark Jade Wushi Plaque was revealed, lying quietly inside.
This jade plaque, no larger than a thumb, had been by his side for as long as he could remember.
It was likely a protective talisman given to him by Ding Wen.
Ding Nan took the jade plaque and sat at the round table in his bedroom, placing the object down before him.
The jade plaque lay there silently as Ding Nan glared at it.
‘Could it really be this little thing?’
When he had first lost his Spiritual Qi, he suspected something was absorbing it.
He had even asked people to inspect his personal belongings, including this jade plaque.
According to the clan elders’ appraisal, this jade plaque was utterly ordinary.
In a way, it was even a subpar item.
Its material was the lowest grade of Southern Ink Jade.
That kind of ink jade was found in abundance in the riverbeds of the south, common as pebbles.
‘Tsk, it makes no sense. Could a powerful figure really reside in a jade plaque like this?’
To exist as a soul after death, one would need to be at least a Nascent Soul powerhouse.
Would someone capable of crushing the entire Ding Clan with a pinky finger have any reason to use such low-grade material?
He had once left this item with his father, but his Spiritual Qi had continued to vanish just the same.
Ding Nan stared at the jade plaque for a long while, a sense of desolation rising in his heart.
It was not as if his melancholy had appeared overnight.
Having lived two lives, Ding Nan’s mind was mature, but no matter how mature a person was, their heart was still made of flesh.
After being belittled and criticized for seven years, he was bound to feel somewhat depressed.
Much like a certain chatterbox sealed within a sword, he had grown accustomed to muttering to himself.
As Ding Nan lost himself in thought while looking at the jade plaque, a massive sonic boom suddenly erupted from the horizon, sounding like the roar of a supersonic fighter jet passing overhead.
Ding Nan jumped in startlement.
“Which powerhouse is passing by?”
Naturally, no one answered him.
Irritated, Ding Nan scratched his head.
He thought about putting the jade plaque away but felt too restless to tidy up, so he simply shoved it into his pocket.
The jade plaque dropped into his pocket and collided with several Spirit Stones, producing the distinct, smooth *clack* of stones hitting one another.
Ding Nan crawled back into his blankets.
He wanted to cultivate, but what was the point?
By tomorrow, he would just return to the peak of the third stage of the Body Tempering Realm.
With these thoughts, Ding Nan curled up and slowly drifted off to sleep.
He failed to notice that the Spirit Stones in his pocket were resonating with the jade plaque, emitting a faint glow.
The Spirit Stones grew dull, eventually turning into ordinary rock.
***
Ding Nan snapped his eyes open. Before him stood a library.
Inside a rectangular, corridor-like room were two rows of bookshelves.
Every shelf was packed with books as thick as half a dictionary.
Remembering he had been sleeping, Ding Nan easily dismissed his surroundings as a dream.
He walked forward slowly, looking left and right.
This corridor-like room had no windows or hanging lamps, yet everything was illuminated as if by an invisible light source.
Ding Nan could clearly see everything around him.
The dark gray walls were fine and smooth, looking as if they had been polished with sandpaper.
Approaching a wall, Ding Nan reached out to touch it.
It felt remarkably like glass.
Looking around again, he realized the narrow paths extending on both sides were empty.
The lack of windows made the space feel particularly oppressive.
Ding Nan had felt this kind of oppression before.
In his previous life, horror game videos based on the “Backrooms” template were filled with this exact atmosphere.
Thinking of this, Ding Nan felt his heart go cold.
He shook his head, telling himself not to overthink it as he walked between the bookshelves and back to the central path.
Ding Nan began to scrutinize the bookshelves.
The wood was common dark yellow planks, nothing special.
However, there were signs hanging on them for classification.
“Xishan Sect…”
“Duanmu Yuyan…”
“Frost Essence Severed Meridian…”
Ding Nan stopped in his tracks, staring at “Frost Essence Severed Meridian.”
He was confused.
Based on his understanding of dreams, a person shouldn’t dream of things they didn’t know, especially in a lucid dream like this.
He didn’t know who Duanmu Yuyan was, but it was a human name; perhaps he had heard it when he was a child.
But “Frost Essence Severed Meridian” was different.
Ding Nan was certain he had never heard of such a thing.
‘Could it be something left over from the novels I read in my past life? After all, things like frozen meridians or crippled pulses are old classics.’
His curiosity piqued, Ding Nan pulled a book from that shelf and opened it.
Instantly, a brilliant white light erupted from the pages.
Ding Nan could not help but close his eyes.
A moment later, the white light vanished. Ding Nan opened his eyes to see a mountain cave.
The cave was covered in icicles, and a little girl with white hair like weeping willow branches sat on a frozen rock, hugging her legs.
She looked up, her eyes dull as she stared at him.
That look was one of pure despair.
At the same time, a bone-chilling cold spread from his feet.
Ding Nan looked down and saw a layer of frost already covering his straw sandals.
His toes ached from the frostbite.
Ding Nan wanted to leave immediately, but his body did not move away.
Instead, it took a step forward.
His frozen feet crushed the ice on the ground, leaving behind a footprint of icy shards.
His mouth opened as if he were saying something.
Ding Nan could hear nothing.
Everything before his eyes began to drift away.
In the final moment, the last thing Ding Nan saw was the little girl’s eyes widening as they shimmered with tears.
Then, everything went black.
Ding Nan opened his eyes once more.
This time, he was truly awake.
He saw the white gauze canopy of his bed, dotted with old dark red stains from mosquitoes he had swatted in the past.
Outside the window, the glow of the sunset was just right.
Ding Nan was incredibly confused as to why he would have such a dream.
He sat up, feeling his head throb with heaviness.
Even though he had just woken up, he felt weak all over, as if his energy had been drained.
He wanted to keep sleeping.
At the same time, he felt a slight, needle-like tingling pain throughout his body.
He had no choice but to roll over sluggishly to find a more comfortable position.
As he turned, Ding Nan felt something like grit in his pocket pressing against his thigh.
Frowning, he rolled out of bed and pulled a small handful of sand and the jade plaque from his pocket.
Ding Nan recognized the grit—it was the sand produced after the Spiritual Qi within a Spirit Stone was completely drained.
At this moment, within the jade plaque, a few threads of Spiritual Qi were flowing.
Ding Nan realized there was something wrong with the plaque.
He opened his wardrobe and pulled aside a hidden compartment.
Inside the small hidden drawer were thirty Spirit Stones that looked like jade-like pebbles from the roadside.
Low-grade Spirit Stones.
These thirty low-grade Spirit Stones were his entire net worth, with a purchasing power equivalent to roughly three hundred dollars.
As a young master of the clan, he received an allowance of three hundred low-grade Spirit Stones every month.
When he wasn’t feeling depressed, he still worked hard at his cultivation.
Ding Nan took one out and pressed it against the jade plaque.
Instantly, an overwhelming wave of drowsiness washed over him.
He returned to his bed and fell back into a deep sleep.
Then, he saw the library once again.