Chapter 677 A Message Across Time

The Jiangnan region of the Great Ming Dynasty solidified naturally within a dream.

Wei Yuan looked at the unfamiliar yet familiar gray-robed youth, who also smiled at Wei Yuan. Then, with his right hand behind his back, possessing a gentle and refined air, he leisurely said:

"We meet again... Wei Yuan."

He paused, a hint of a smile on his face.

"Or rather, the future me."

"..."

Wei Yuan surveyed the surroundings, casually sitting down in a convenient spot.

He silently counted numbers in his mind.

Five, four, three.

Two, one...

Almost there.

Then, as expected, the gray-robed man spread his hands, smiled, and blinked.

"Ah, were you startled? Hahaha..."

"Or, future me, did you guess my current state and are waiting for this lingering true spirit of mine to explain everything?"

He smiled slightly and sighed, "Indeed, the me you see now is just a wisp of true spirit I left on Guangxiao. It can naturally trigger when the time is right, but to trigger this spirit, you need to remember some things, otherwise... it would just be meeting without recognition."

"Since you can see me, it means you should have remembered a lot."

Wei Yuan muttered to himself, "Just as I thought."

It would be too lame if a person didn't even know when they were lying.

He knew exactly what this gray-robed youth was going to say.

He had to admit.

He knew himself far too well.

This youth before him could be compared to a videotape left by Wei Yuan of the Ming Dynasty, or those so-called "time capsules," burying things you wanted to say as a child, forgetting about them for decades, and then digging them up.

The gray-robed youth, with his hair tied up with a jade hairpin, scratched his head and said with a carefree smile:

"Originally, I wanted to pretend to be a great senior or something. Even if we communicated through dreams or phantasms, having my own consciousness and being able to communicate with someone across the ages, I should have been able to scare you stiff."

"But then I thought about it, you are me, and I am you."

"Once you regain your memories in the future, the things you remember will probably make me so ashamed that I'll want to bang my head against the wall, or just jump into a well and start the next life, so never mind."

"Ahem, it's not that I'm worried about being utterly humiliated, but this kind of thing, like recording things every day to trick my future self, is really boring, so I'll just say it directly—of course, I think you've already anticipated it."

"There's a great calamity in the human world, and I, we, are already in trouble."

"Trouble to the point where I have to find a way to pass the message to my future self..."

The gray-robed youth's expression gradually turned serious, and he looked at his own palm, pausing before saying:

"In this life."

"...I have forgotten everything."

"But I also remember many things, those... too many chaotic images, making it impossible for me to tell which things are real and which are false, let alone confirm which experiences in those memories happened first and which happened later."

"Only one thing I still remember firmly... I have to change something."

"Because in my mind, I still remember a book."

Wei Yuan closed his eyes.

Was it because of Xuanzang's Buddhist empowerment that his true spirit memories were restored, and because there were too many past memories, remembering them all at once caused a huge impact on his soul, leading to memory confusion and loss?

And that book...

Wei Yuan and his Ming Dynasty self spoke together, one voice deep, the other tone slow:

"The Tui Bei Tu." (Push Back Diagram)

The gray-robed youth smiled and said, "I don't know if you still remember, but it seems that Yuan Tiangang and Li Chunfeng told us about the importance of this book. I personally watched the completion of this scroll. After I woke up in the chaotic world, I wandered through this battlefield. Well, you are me, so you know."

"When memories are chaotic, our personality would definitely not believe these things."

"But in the end, when I saw that even the former beggar had become the emperor, just as recorded in the *Tui Bei Tu*, I slowly began to believe it. So, I decided to do some things, and at that time, my memory was even worse than it is now. I had forgotten a lot of things."

"In the end, I only remembered that I had to complete four things."

He held out his fingers, "First, to heal Chang Yuchun when he was in his prime."

"So that he wouldn't be ambushed at his peak and die from Xiejia Feng (armor removal wind)."

"I did it."

"Second, to reverse the rebellion of the Prince of Yan, Zhu Di, which I am currently attempting."

"Third, to go to Yingtian Prefecture before the fifteenth year of Hongwu to cure Empress Ma and the Crown Prince of their ailments."

"Fourth, to prevent Liu Bowen from slaying the dragon, or to appear at a crucial moment and have Liu Bowen go to the frontier to slay the poisonous dragon outside the pass. In the end, I chose the second path. When I left this wisp of true spirit, I was still in Jiangnan. After a while, I might go to find Liu Bowen."

"According to the *Tui Bei Tu*, finding these four nodes should be able to bring Shenzhou back on track as much as possible in this century and try to prevent a tragic massacre. However, I later discovered that things are not that simple, which is why I chose to leave this message."

The gray-robed youth's expression was solemn as he slowly said:

"There is a great enemy."

He changed the subject and asked:

"If it were you now, how would you choose to resolve the Prince of Yan's calamity?"

Wei Yuan pondered to himself, "The Hongwu Emperor has a fierce temperament, and the Prince of Yan's position is special. If I choose to secretly remove him, it will inevitably lead to a series of even greater consequences. Besides, I can't bring myself to do such a thing as killing people to change the future, so I choose to turn big problems into small ones, and then turn small problems into nothing."

"It's like dismantling a house, first removing the load-bearing pillars, and it will collapse without being attacked."

The remnant image left by the gray-robed youth paused and sighed, "I don't know what you chose."

"It's unwise to move the Prince of Yan. I plan to remove the load-bearing pillars under him first."

"The black-robed prime minister recorded in the *Tui Bei Tu*, Daoyan."

"I calculated his location, so I disguised myself as a traveling doctor and came to his family's clinic, successfully staying there. I personally witnessed his birth. His aptitude and bones were unparalleled, but his soul contained a hint of tyranny and a military air of slaughter."

"Unfortunately, I ultimately couldn't bring myself to kill him, so I chose to spend some time slowly influencing his character. I had already succeeded... his fate had changed, and it indirectly reversed the Prince of Yan's uprising, but later I discovered that his fate had turned back again."

"I asked him again and again."

"He told me that he saw a stone tablet, which wrote his fate, saying that Yao Guangxiao would become the only person in Buddhism to enter and leave the world like the Confucian scholars, to be appointed as prime minister and general, to change the sky and transform the sun, and to be passed down to later generations under the name of the black-robed prime minister. He was very excited, but I sensed something was wrong, something very wrong—"

"Someone wants to turn my changed fate back to its original state."

The gray-robed youth said:

"It's roughly equivalent to me wanting to treat someone's illness, but someone is poisoning them at the same time."

"I heal one person, and he poisons the next."

"Some existence is constantly influencing these fates, guiding Shenzhou towards that ancient calamity. And now, I am in the dark, and that enemy is also in the dark. I change one node, and he will also notice and then turn that node back."

"This won't work. I decided to find a way to lure him out, or at least... figure out some things."

"But I don't know if I can survive after figuring these things out... I probably won't survive. Throughout history, those who know too much die miserably, and even the memories of seeing that scene will be erased."

"So I must find a way to preserve the things I find out, to ensure that after I wake up in my next life, well, that is, the current me, you, can remember, at least leave some clues."

"In fact, I'm worried that if I use items to contain these things, it will be noticed."

The gray-robed youth said gently, "So, I chose... you should also know."

Wei Yuan instantly understood, because this youth was his past self. It could probably be compared to a videotape left by his past self. The two had the same thought patterns, and if it were him, when losing his memories, facing a great calamity, and not being able to easily trust true spirit items.

If he were forced to the last step, he would probably find a familiar person to store the true spirit aura.

And if this person were his friend, he would also be noticed by the enemy in the dark.

So the one carrying the true spirit message must be the enemy.

The gray-robed youth sighed softly, "Tell me, when forgetting the past and memories are chaotic."

"And also facing a desperate calamity, how should one pass down the message?"

"You can only find someone who is hostile to me, and this person had better be able to live for a long time."

"And coincidentally, Guangxiao is such a person... because he has already learned of his fate, and for some reason, I must reverse his fate, turning him from a black-robed prime minister into a free-spirited wanderer in the human world."

"Now he still wants to be my disciple."

"But, after I completely resolve the Prince of Yan's rebellion, he will probably deeply resent me. Holding onto this resentment, with the supernatural power of Buddhism, when I reincarnate again, I will surely meet him again, and then I should be able to remember these things."

The true spirit left by the gray-robed youth muttered to himself:

"An ancient calamity."

"No matter what the future holds, no matter what the cost, I must reverse all of this."

"Guangxiao is about to wake up. I can't leave too much information, I just say, future me, I will do my best to reverse Guangxiao's fate. If in your time, there is no so-called black-robed prime minister in history, then at least it proves that I succeeded."

"And after that, I will go to find Liu Bowen."

"If I am ambushed after meeting Liu Bowen, then it represents the enemy."

"Also, be careful of the Hetu Luoshu." (River Diagram and Luo River Writing)

The gray-robed youth's true spirit slowly dissipated, merging into Wei Yuan's body. Then, the gray-robed youth's eyes in the dream became stagnant and dull. Wei Yuan exhaled a breath, and his memories were restored—it was himself in the past, who had once tried to change certain things in order to reverse the great calamity.

But he encountered obstacles and had to risk trying to figure out who wanted to guide the calamity.

Who exactly is preventing him from changing fate?

Guiding Liu Bowen to slay the dragon veins...

Wei Yuan pressed his brows, and earlier memories emerged in his mind.

He did guide Liu Bowen to slay the dragon veins outside the pass.

But afterwards, he was also stabbed through the heart from behind.

It seems... he was still noticed after all.

Memories flew and shattered, making it impossible to remember anything else.

Wei Yuan sighed, then paused slightly, slowly recovering, and the intense sense of shame that accompanied the memories emerging in his mind made him want to bang his head against the wall, or just jump into a well and directly start the next life.

Past me!

Wei Yuan gritted his teeth.

Me! Me!

What was I thinking back then?

Why would I think that acting cool in front of myself would be a fun thing to do?!

Damn it, the shame of reading space literature from high school.

And in his memories, it was also the era of the Great Ming Dynasty.

Jiangnan—

Inside a pharmacy, the young Yao Guangxiao was sleeping soundly. Beside him, the gray-robed youth slowly retracted his finger from the young man's brow, a wisp of true spirit aura flowing. The youth, who had lost most of his memories, smiled slightly, wondering what his future self would be like when he recalled all of this?

It would probably be very pleasant, right?

Like discovering a diary he left twenty years ago.

Bringing that feeling of reuniting with his past self.

Yao Guangxiao woke up groggily, slowly looking at the sunlight outside. The bell hanging on the window rang incessantly in the wind. The wind sent the evening glow, and Mr. Gray Robe held a scroll in his hand, quietly looking outside.

At this moment, time seemed eternal.

The young man stayed for a while, then habitually asked as usual, "Mr. Yuan, can't you take me as your disciple?"

He had asked many times, and each time he was disappointed.

This time, Mr. Gray Robe actually agreed.

"Sure, I can."

"Huh? Huh? Huh?"

Yao Guangxiao was stunned.

Mr. Gray Robe smiled and said:

"However, you have to wait a while longer. I will definitely take you as my disciple in the future."

"I won't go back on my word."

"Okay!"

While the young man was cheering, he didn't realize that what the Mr. Gray Robe meant by "in the future" might be a very, very long time later, and the gray-robed youth smiled slightly, a sparrow gently landed on the scroll, the youth lowered his eyes, his temperament gentle and peaceful.

In the future, it might be three hundred years later, it might be five hundred years later.

In short...

I'm sorry.

Future me.