Senior sister, stop working and go home for dinner.

Chapter 357 Time-Traces Ancient Jade

Chen Anran leaned against the door frame of Feng Xiaolu's room, looking at everything inside, which was excessively tidy.

The quilts were folded into perfect squares, the tabletop was spotless, and all the game consoles, tablets, and gadgets she used to love were carefully put into the camphor wood chest. The chest was closed and placed quietly in the corner of the wall.

Sunlight streamed through the windowpane, falling on the empty bed, where the warmth of her last embrace seemed to linger.

He neither left immediately nor went inside. He simply stood there, his gaze unfocused, fixed on the void.

Within his body, the massive and silent "Soul-Severing Reversal" formation pulsed slowly like another heart, silently controlling the life and death of the spiritual energy of this world.

This power was enough to drive any cultivator in the outside world mad, but at this moment it only made him feel cold and...empty.

When Huiming was found in the side hall, he was striking a wooden fish.

Chen Anran walked to Huiming's side, his voice hoarse, interrupting the rhythmic sound of the wooden fish.

"Buddha said all beings suffer, and liberation lies in letting go. But I..." He paused, looking at the flickering candlelight before the statue, "I can't let go. They shouldn't have ended up like this. Reincarnation...rebirth...even if there's only a sliver of a possibility, tell me, where should I look?"

Huiming stopped striking the door, and after a moment, he spoke: "Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. A true person must let go and look forward. I think your fellow disciples wouldn't want to see you like this either."

Chen Anran said, "This is not your Buddhist doctrine."

Huiming's fingers hovered above the wooden fish for a long time before gently landing on its smooth back, but he did not strike it.

"That's what they say to believers. It's a raft to ferry people across, not a lamp to find them."

The sound of the wooden fish drum completely stopped in the empty side hall.

Chen Anran stood there, looking at Huiming.

"A raft can ferry people across, and a lamp can guide the way," Chen Anran said slowly. "Huiming, I don't ask for a raft, I want a lamp."

Huiming remained silent for a long time.

So long that the candle wick popped open with a tiny flame.

Huiming said slowly, "Buddhist scriptures record the cycle of reincarnation and rebirth, and Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva vowed to deliver all sentient beings from hell. However, their disappearance is not an ordinary passing away due to the end of their lifespan, and they may not be included in the cycle of reincarnation."

He paused, looking at the unquenchable flame in Chen Anran's eyes, and finally uttered the cruelest possibility: "They can't be found, they can't be called back. Besides, even if there is reincarnation, after they've experienced one lifetime of reincarnation, will they still be the ones reincarnated then?"

The last glimmer of light in Chen Anran's eyes went out.

After a long while, without saying thank you or goodbye, he turned around and walked out with unsteady steps.

Huiming watched his figure disappear outside the palace gate, murmured a Buddhist chant, picked up the wooden fish mallet again, but hesitated to strike it.

The mountain path wound its way through the air. The morning mist had long since dissipated, and the bright sunlight shone down, yet it couldn't dispel the chill that enveloped Chen Anran. He walked slowly, each step feeling like treading on cotton wool, his steps uneven. The roadside vegetation and familiar scenery now appeared as blurry, meaningless patches of color.

After walking for an unknown amount of time, the imposing silhouette of the mountain gate came into view.

Lu Kong remained standing there, like a silent black stone monument. He saw Chen Anran, saw those eyes that had completely lost their luster, and saw that dejected body that seemed to have all its strength drained away.

Chen Anran didn't look at him, or even raise his eyes, and walked straight past Lu Kong into the doorway.

Lu Kong slightly stepped aside to make way, and stood respectfully with his head bowed. He offered no questions or words of comfort, simply fulfilling his duty as a "gatekeeper."

Inside the mountain gate, Chen Anran walked across the empty square, through the silent halls and corridors, and finally returned to his room.

The door closed gently behind me, shutting out the last ray of sunlight from the outside world.

Chen Anran did not light a lamp. He stood motionless in the darkness in the center of the room. Occasionally, the cries of night birds drifted in from outside the window, distant and indistinct, which only accentuated the deathly silence within the room, making it feel like a tomb.

He slowly raised his hand, looking at his palm in the faint moonlight filtering in from the window.

This very hand failed to hold onto the eldest senior sister, failed to protect the second senior sister, and ultimately, even the third senior sister...

Something is stuck in my throat; I can't swallow it down, and I can't spit it out.

No.

It can't end like this.

He closed his eyes and took a deep, almost greedy breath, as if trying to force the burning pain in his chest into his lower abdomen. When he opened his eyes again, there was no longer any confusion, only a kind of almost obsessive determination.

Consciousness sinks.

He passed through his spiritual platform and crossed his sea of ​​consciousness, stepping once again into that silent space that belonged only to him.

Museum of Evolution.

The main hall remained empty, the display cases standing silently, shimmering with a warm, gentle light. The Cold Light Soul-Stabilizing Ruler, the Hidden Cloud Flowing Light Robe… each completed item was displayed quietly, bearing witness to his journey. Those display cases still evolving flickered with light, like breathing.

Chen Anran's gaze did not linger on these familiar items.

He walked straight to the corner.

There were piles of "scrap metal" piled up like small mountains.

He searched haphazardly, almost brutally. Rusty broken swords, cracked jade pendants, bronze mirrors with blurred runes, intricately structured metal components with their cores burned out... He picked up each item, roughly scanning them with his divine sense, trying to find something that could evolve into something that could save his senior sisters.

No.

still none.

He was completely unaware that his fingertips were cut by the sharp edge of a fragment of a magical artifact, from which blood seeped.

The search speed increased, but the movements gradually became tinged with a desperate tremor.

"How could there be nothing... How could there be nothing at all..." he muttered to himself.

Is it really... that there's no other way?

Is this really the only outcome to accept, to guard this empty mountain, to guard this cold power that can control the spiritual energy of heaven and earth but cannot bring back loved ones, and to spend long and hopeless years?

No! He won't accept it!

Chen Anran suddenly sat up straight, his chest heaving violently, his eyes bloodshot. His gaze, like that of a trapped beast, swept across every corner of the museum, finally settling on a solitary display case on one side of the main hall, a case he had never fully understood.

The display case that shows the mysterious jade pendant.

He walked over step by step, his steps somewhat unsteady.

The display case glass remained pristine, its interior lined with dark velvet. The antique-looking jade pendant, with its warm luster, lay quietly in the center.

This time, the information floating above the jade pendant was no longer just partially displayed.

All the question marks have disappeared.

The clear words caught his eye and struck him hard in the heart.

Item: Time-Traces Ancient Jade (Damaged, Seal Released)

Status: Energy dormant, can be activated.

"Ability: Reversing Time. Flowing back the river of time, reshaping reality. (The size and number of items and people that can be carried during the reversal are determined by the wearer's spiritual energy strength.)"

"Warning: Reversing time is an act against the natural order. Going back will consume the ancient jade's essence and may trigger unpredictable causal ripples."

"Note: Its light is faint, yet it illuminates shadows of the past; its patterns are winding, subtly echoing paths of bygone days. The past cannot be changed, but the future… perhaps it can be pursued?"