Chapter 189: Inextricable Bond, I Am Not the Man I Once Was

Chen Changsheng walked forward, his gaze landing on the towering ancient tree within the lake.

He said, “Whether this Chen remembers the past or not, he likely wouldn’t be the heartless man Miss speaks of, would he?”

Whether forgotten or remembered, Chen Changsheng was always Chen Changsheng.

Vegetal Essence surged between the ancient trees, coalescing to form a woman clad in a pale yellow gown. A tear mole sat at the corner of her eye, her expression stern, radiating an aura that kept others at bay.

Chen Changsheng wasn’t wrong. He owed Hu Yu nothing. Not before, and not now.

Seeing that figure, Chen Changsheng frowned slightly.

A Remnant Soul…

Now a Remnant Soul, Hu Yu looked at Chen Changsheng by the lakeside.

Her cold eyes flickered angrily as she asked, “If your conscience were truly clear, why did you bother coming?”

Chen Changsheng said, “Within those unbroken memories of the past, perhaps lies the answer I seek.”

Hu Yu’s expression suddenly dimmed. A self-mocking snort escaped her as she lowered her gaze.

“So… it wasn’t me you came looking for…”

Hu Yu swayed slightly. She laughed coldly, stepping backward several paces.

With a scoff, she lifted her eyes to Chen Changsheng, filled with resentment and fury.

“So, you just came to sever it?”

Seeing her desolation, Chen Changsheng fell silent, watching her calmly.

Hu Yu gazed at him, her look seemingly crossing countless years of vicissitudes.

“Six hundred years!”

Hu Yu stared at him. “I waited for you for six hundred years… only for you to come and sever ties?”

She suddenly burst into laughter, wild and seeming almost mad, yet unable to mask her desolation and bitterness.

Chen Changsheng stood by the lake’s edge and said, “I often wrestle with the past. I often ask myself: is the me of the past really the same person as the me of now?”

“But the truth is, the Chen Changsheng standing here today is not the Chen Changsheng of those years gone by. I am not the man I once was. Therefore…”

“The man Miss waited for… might not be the Chen standing before you now.”

Hearing this, Hu Yu shook her head gently. “I don’t believe you!”

“I don’t believe you’ve forgotten it all!!”

“Over three hundred years… even just scraps of it…”

“Not even that?”

Hu Yu’s eyes reddened as she pleaded, desperate for an answer.

Chen Changsheng remained silent. Sometimes, no answer was the answer.

“Nothing?”

Hu Yu pressed her lips tightly, her form swaying. At that moment, her Soul became translucent.

As if it might dissipate at any second.

Chen Changsheng felt a jolt of alarm. He extended two fingers, sending a thread of Golden Light across the lake towards Hu Yu.

As the Golden Light entered her form, Hu Yu’s Soul gradually stabilized.

Her red-rimmed eyes wide open, she glared at Chen Changsheng and shrieked, “Get out!!”

Chen Changsheng didn’t move, only watched her calmly.

Tears fell as she cried with utter abandon.

Hu Yu’s words were choked and indistinct.

“Get out….”

She simply couldn’t accept this outcome. Having waited with hope for six hundred years, reaching the end of her Lifespan, fading into a Remnant Soul… only to be met with severance.

Chen Changsheng took a step forward. His foot touched the lake’s surface as he began walking towards the center.

Clad in a Blue Robe, he walked across without causing a ripple, coming to a stop before Hu Yu.

Chen Changsheng sat down, facing her. “Miss, what kind of reunion did you truly anticipate?”

Tears streamed down Hu Yu’s cheeks, her eyes locked on Chen Changsheng’s own.

“At the very least…”

Hu Yu sobbed, “…you’d say you remembered me.”

Chen Changsheng said, “This Chen does remember you.”

Hu Yu froze at his words, then shook her head, finding it bitterly laughable.

Chen Changsheng continued, “Truthfully, regardless of whether I had said what I said earlier, your reaction would likely have been the same. If you insist on pressing me, I have absolutely no explanation for those past events. Miss understands this better than I do.”

Hu Yu looked at him. The man speaking to her now was identical in manner to the one she’d known long ago.

Even though she could rationally separate ‘then’ from ‘now’, seeing him, hearing him, inevitably brought back memories of the man he once was.

Hu Yu said, “Even if you’ve forgotten, you’re still just like you were back then. Your mouth is full of reason and rules. Your eyes can hold the whole world… yet there’s no room in them for a particular person. It was the same for me. For Yu Xuan. For Zhu Qi…”

“The three of us…”

Hu Yu’s laughter was especially desolate. With a long sigh, she added, “…were merely living a dream.”

Chen Changsheng said, “Perhaps this too has its reasons?”

Hu Yu snorted coldly. “All living things under heaven have a bond, a connection with you. Wild grass by the roadside catches your eye. But me? I didn’t even rank beside that roadside grass. Less than any one of the teeming masses! What reasons? What excuses?”

Chen Changsheng fell silent once more.

He didn’t know those past events, but surely they were tied to the Mayfly Curse.

This path was destined to be lonely. No one could walk beside him to the end. Thus, everything inevitably became fleeting as smoke, giving rise only to these unresolved bonds.

Chen Changsheng wondered, if it were him back then…

The outcome might have remained the same.

Chen Changsheng sighed. “Miss, it would be better if you saw things clearly.”

Hu Yu stopped crying. She turned her head away, her emotions slowly settling.

Her heart often grappled between reason and emotion, but facing Chen Changsheng, she always ended up discarding the emotional side.

Hu Yu understood clearly: no matter how desperately she raged, the man hearing these words now was not the Chen Changsheng of her memories.

Hu Yu drew a long, shuddering breath, the light fading from her eyes.

She murmured softly, “Enough…”

When she looked at Chen Changsheng again, her expression was calm. “Whatever you wish to ask… ask it.”

Chen Changsheng paused upon hearing her, feeling unsettled once more.

Here he was, insisting he was no longer his past self… yet here he was, seeking answers about that past self.

Tangled within the threads of Karma, he suddenly felt confused about the definition of ‘self’.

Ultimately, he hadn’t managed to reconcile with himself.

Chen Changsheng remained silent for a moment, consciously pushing aside the turmoil and entanglement in his mind. He opened his mouth and asked, “Tell me… how the past me… met you back then.”

Hu Yu paused. “Start from the beginning?”

Chen Changsheng nodded. “From the very beginning.”

Hu Yu drifted into recollection. She thought for a long while, her mind traversing those ancient, weathered years, finding herself once more.

“One winter… snow fell upon the Mortal World…”

A young red fox was found on a heavy snowy night by a Green-Robed Gentleman. He took her back to a little courtyard called the ‘Southern Garden’.

The red fox had been saved. And thus, an inextricable bond formed with the gentleman.