Ye Jian's Journey

"Brother Ye, can I hold him?" Meng Li asked with a smile.

"Of course, brother. Here." Ye Jin replied while handing the tiny Ye Jian to Meng Li. While holding him, Meng Li smiled at the boy. He wanted to talk with him now that he had the chance, but it wouldn't be possible for at least a few years... It was quite a shame. However, Meng Li was more worried about whether the boy would behave like the cliche main characters, who try to hide the fact they were reincarnated or something... Well, at least in such a poor household he wouldn't need to worry if he couldn't cultivate since there was no expectation, Meng Li mused silently. The baby in his arms remained silent, staring at his face with his big eyes. Meng Li couldn't help but want to tease him a little.

"Are you confused, little guy?" he asked with a smile. Despite the question being something a normal person could totally say to a baby, to a confused person who was suddenly reincarnated, such a question would be like a bolt out of the blue. As he expected, the previously silent and motionless baby staring at him suddenly shook slightly and started staring at him even more intensely. Meng Li chuckled at the baby's change. However, that was the extent of communication he was capable of at the moment, so there was no hope to continue talking. As such, he handed little Ye Jian back to Ye Jin, who looked at the baby with love in his eyes. He didn't notice the change in Ye Jian when Meng Li talked to him. Ye Jin took the baby and walked back into the room, presumably to hand the little guy to Xie Ja. Hopefully he would get over the embarrassment of breast-feeding and not starve to death.

With everything taken care of, Meng Li left and headed to his own house. After about a month of gathering herbs, Meng Li grew bored of the occupation, so he decided to stop. However, he would need to find another alibi... Ye Jin was a good friend, and would definitely worry about him if he suddenly stopped trying to earn money. Meng Li was unfortunately unable to find a solution, so he decided to take care of problems when they appeared.

He returned to his small house and made himself a cup of tea after adding some wood to the fire.

'I should probably help with little Ye Jian when Ye Jin is out gathering herbs.' he thought.

****

As Ye Jian took his last breaths, he glanced at the hilt of a familiar sword sticking out of his chest. It was on the right side of his chest - right in his heart. Not many people knew he was born with the rare condition of having the heart on the right side, but his best friend of many years, Wang Tao did. In fact, he previously shared many secrets with his brother, and Wang Tao shared his secrets too. However, at his dying breath, he was no longer certain the things he knew about Want Tao were true. After all, the one who stabbed him was Wang Tao.

"Sigh... I really shouldn't have trusted that bastard." Ye Jian couldn't help but swear. After he said that, he coughed up a mouthful of foul blood. The sword had stabbed through his lung too. He normally wouldn't have cared about such small injuries - even if he was stabbed in the heart, he would be able to escape with his cultivation at Origin Soul. However, that traitor Wang Tao used a secret art when he stabbed him - he had sealed his cultivation, soul, and poisoned him. The blood coursing through his veins was full of a poison aimed at his soul, and within his head, his soul was wrapped up in many black chains, with barbs sticking in and sucking out its' power. After all, even if he lost his entire body, he would be fine if his soul escaped, but this time, Wang Tao ensured he would die with his demonic arts.

It's funny to think that he had travelled with that man for thousands of years, journeying across the cosmos as adventurers, sharing life and death, and yet he didn't even know that the man studied demonic arts. Ye Jian didn't consider himself as a good person - he had killed many people in his long life, and he would've accepted the fact that Wang Tao practiced demonic arts. And yet, Wang Tao still maintained his righteous attitude, even trying to stop him when he massacred his enemies' clan to avoid leaving behind any danger to himself. And now, he lay here, merely nourishment for the demonic lily growing on his chest.

The blood he had coughed up previously had disappeared - it was absorbed by the lily. Although he didn't knew what it was, Ye Jian could sense its' nature after the few hours of seeing it absorb his blood and the soul power the curse absorbed from him. The lily replaced his heart after it was stabbed - it pumped his blood with its' roots, which were speared into his chest around the hilt of Wang Tao's sword. The blood it pumped contained a powerful poison and curses which only strengthened the restraints on his soul which Wang Tao placed. The lily grew, its' dark lustre growing increasingly more vibrant as his own soul dimmed.

It was the end - even if someone miraculously saved him right now and removed all of the curses and restrictions surrounding his soul, he would still be doomed. The poison of the lily had penetrated into his soul, corroding and changing it. It was incurable with what Ye Jian had - it could probably still be cured, but the cost was several times what he would get even if he sold himself into slavery. And even so, after he was cured, his strength would massively deteriorate, to the point where even normal Nascent Soul cultivators could kill him easily.

"Ha... I didn't think I, Ye Jian, would end up like this." Ye Jian laughed at his state. He coughed up more blood, but he didn't care at this point.

"Wang Tao, you may have been my best brother, but I haven't told even you about this." Ye Jian had a final card up his sleeve. It was a special technique he encountered in a ruin. It was practically useless to the past him - it's only function was to use all the strength a cultivator had, all the power of the soul, and use it all to avoid the cycle of reincarnation. Even though its' function was extremely simple, it was still heaven defying. It allowed the most fundamental part of the soul to escape intact, avoiding being wiped by the emotionless cycle of samsara, only to be reborn as a completely different person. The cost was the caster's entire cultivation, but for some, it was still valuable.

However, Ye Jian wasn't counting on reincarnating with his memories - in fact, he doubted it would work. Although the ruin he found it at was much stronger than him, the owner of the ruin still wasn't strong enough to evade the laws of heavens. What Ye Jian wanted was what the technique called a 'side effect'. The explosion of a large part of the intact soul and the entire body. The problem Ye Jian when he realised that he wouldn't survive was that Wang Tao, being a ruthless bastard, sealed away the only chance he had of going out with pride - self-destruction. After Ye Jian realised that, he felt as though all hope was lost until he remembered about this technique which he had thrown to the back of his spatial ring. Fortunately, he skimmed the technique when he obtained it, so he wasn't hopeless. However, he still had to scour his memory for a few hours until he was certain that he had the complete method.

Ye Jian began to laugh as he made up his mind. His laugh started as a chuckle, before ending in a full blown roaring laugh. After some time, he stopped due to the fact that blood flooded his throat as a result of such a vigorous laugh. Ye Jian coughed it up, before hoarsely shouting.

"Wang Tao, even if you have killed me, I won't let your plans continue, you bastard!" his voice broke down at the end and he fell silent, beginning the special technique. The moment it was started, it was unstoppable - it was like swimming into a vortex. His meagre amount of remaining Qi spiraled into his soul despite the powerful restrictions. His soul also started to shrink, before turning into a point, radiating light more piercing than the sun.

As all of this was going down, Ye Jian heard a coarse laugh coming from the entrance to the small cave. Instinctively, Ye Jian knew it was Wang Tao.

"Ye Jian, you don't have the right to say that. You're already dead." those threatening words came from an individual who entered. Despite the lack of light, Ye Jian could still see him. It was a person dressed in long white robes, without many decorations. His long hair and fair face normally radiated a feeling of righteousness, but at the moment, the expression could only be described as demonic. The eyes had a crazy glint in them, and he rejoiced seeing Ye Jian on the floor, dying. However, as the technique condensed Ye Jian's soul into a point, Wang Tao's expression suddenly changed.

"Wait... No, how's that possible?!" at first, he was only confused, but then, he seemed to realise something. The curses restricting Ye Jian were all connected to him with Spiritual Sense - he could feel that all of Ye Jian's Qi had broken free and charged into his soul. The barbs on the chains restricting Ye Jian's soul were also forced out at some point due to the density of the soul. Right now, the curses were quickly deteriorating due to the blinding light radiating from the point which Ye Jian's soul had collapsed into.

At the last moment, Wang Tao could see Ye Jian's impossibly pale face suddenly change - his eyes snapping towards him, and his mouth curving into a grin. It was like he was mocking Wang Tao. In less than a second, a terrible power began to radiate from Ye Jian's body. If Ye Jian were to see it, he would be stunned, as the power emanating from his body was far greater than his self-destruction, even if he was at his peak.

"The power of laws?! Ho-" Wang Tao could only say a sentence before the power emanating from Ye Jian's body engulfed him. It seemingly stopped time within it, and Wang Tao's demonic face was frozen in a contorted expression of surprise. However, Ye Jian's body wasn't in its' original place anymore - it was condensed into a single point as well. Now, Ye Jian's essence was contained within a single point, and the immense power which had taken hold of the surrounding space seemed to disappear. However, everything in the space disappeared with it. Wang Tao's sword, the demonic lily, the cave itself, Wang Tao - everything in a hundred meter radius simply disappeared. The space itself - normally sturdy like a steel wall, not shaken even by an attack from an Origin Soul Cultivator at full power, couldn't withstand it. The only thing left was a hole in space - which was hurriedly replace. The sudden stretching of space itself to accommodate the huge gap caused an explosion to decimate another kilometre, leaving nothing behind. Ye Jian and Wang Tao were simply wiped out from the face of the world - Wang Tao permanently, and Ye Jian not exactly so.

When Ye Jian used the forgotten technique, he didn't even wish for such a result - at most, he wished to use the side-effect of the technique to destroy his body and leave the demonic lily unfinished. Maybe, if the explosion was slightly stronger than he thought, it would destroy the lily itself. Maybe even damage Wang Tao's prized sword. Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine that the final resort would kill Wang Tao entirely. What happened could be described as simply wiping the two's existence entirely.

Fortunately for Ye Jian, the technique was a success. An extremely small part of his soul, containing all his memories as well as his consciousness, was floating through the boundless cosmos. It was small to the point that 'tiny' couldn't be used to describe how small it was. It was abysmally small - even an electron microscope from earth wouldn't be able to realise its' existence. The speed at which the soul was floating wasn't slow, but it wasn't fast either. In the gigantic cosmos, it was negligible.