I Might Be a Big Shot — Chapter 28
Even though he was already used to Changkong Zhuoyu’s habit of putting anything good on himself, Li Xinglun still felt stifled. Changkong Zhuoyu’s imagination seemed to have no limits — this time he even crossed the boundary of gender. As his disciple, Li Xinglun couldn’t help but say to him, “Master, do you really believe you’re the heroines Li and Zhou? Your gender is completely different from theirs — doesn’t that feel awkward to you?”
To his surprise, Changkong Zhuoyu looked at him with a puzzled expression and said, “Disciple, for one who seeks to comprehend the Dao, the flesh is merely a vessel. Why should it matter?”
Li Xinglun was slightly taken aback by this.
“Before cultivating, who knows what their past life was?” Changkong Zhuoyu continued earnestly. “Perhaps it was just a flower, a blade of grass, a tree — not even human. So what difference does being male or female make?”
He placed a hand on Li Xinglun’s chest and said, “All things arise from nothing and return to nothing. You and I cultivate and seek Heaven's Order precisely so as not to be bound by it. We even aim to break through the heavens — what importance does the difference between male and female hold?”
“If I wish to be a man, then I am a man. If I wish to be a woman, then I am a woman. If I wish to be human, then I am born human. If I do not wish to be human, then even as but a wisp of spiritual energy between heaven and earth, I will not become human. All of it follows my heart.” Changkong Zhuoyu spoke.
His expression was earnest, his eyes clear and bright, as though he both cared about everything and nothing at all.
Listening to his words and gazing into those eyes, Li Xinglun suddenly realized something — his master might truly be the one who understood the Dao most deeply in this world. His mischief, his habit of claiming identities, his love of competing with others — these were all just surface. His master had comprehended the Dao to its extreme yet still retained a childlike heart.
The return to simplicity — a mental stage even ascended immortals could not easily reach — his master attained it with ease.
In that moment, Li Xinglun wanted to reach out and grasp Changkong Zhuoyu, but he didn’t dare, afraid that what he would touch would be nothing but a fleeting cloud.
Clad in white, Changkong Zhuoyu seemed as though he might let go of everything in this world and leave at any time.
Li Xinglun’s voice grew dry. “Master is right, but this disciple… may never be able to see through it in this lifetime.”
He had attachments — once it was revenge, but now it had gradually changed.
“No matter,” Changkong Zhuoyu said. “I will accompany you.”
Only then did Li Xinglun feel at ease, taking spirit pills and beginning to consolidate his cultivation.
Suddenly, a sense of panic arose in his heart — he wanted desperately to become stronger, strong enough to keep the person before him.
The days of cultivation passed quickly. When Li Xinglun opened his eyes again, another two months had already gone by.
During this time, Changkong Zhuoyu sparred with Sage Yipin almost daily, drawing out even those from Mount Shu who had been in seclusion for many years, just to watch a duel between the two strongest sword cultivators of the era. The sword intent of the two reached its peak — for sword cultivators, just watching them spar advanced one’s own cultivation.
That day, Sage Yipin sheathed his sword and sighed. “Changkong’s sword intent is unfathomable. This poor Daoist is no match for you.”
The Thorn Cutting sword buzzed in protest, but quieted under Changkong Zhuoyu’s gaze.
Changkong Zhuoyu’s power was truly unfathomable — he grew stronger when facing stronger opponents. Sage Yipin had no idea what level he had reached or how strong he could become. He only knew one thing — Changkong Zhuoyu’s strength was of the kind that unless you cultivated diligently, you wouldn’t even grasp just how strong he truly was. When one’s cultivation was low, one could still dream of one day fighting on equal footing. But after advancing and realizing the gap, one would understand the taste of despair.
At first Sage Yipin had suspected that Changkong Zhuoyu was Sect Master Yin, but now he began to doubt it. He and Yin Changkong were friends, but he had never known his old friend to be this powerful.
So Sage Yipin asked in detail about Changkong Zhuoyu’s experiences after awakening, and said directly, “Changkong, I don’t think you’re Sect Master Yin. Don’t rush to refute me — it’s not that I think your cultivation is low, but that I don’t believe Sect Master Yin could reach your level. Could someone grow so strong in just one year?”
“Well…” Sage Yipin’s reasoning was so sound that Changkong Zhuoyu had no reply.
Having already denied two of his identities, Changkong Zhuoyu looked displeased.
Seeing this, Sage Yipin quickly added, “Of course, it’s not impossible — unless Sect Master Yin had some extraordinary encounter.”
“What kind of encounter could make someone this strong in just a year?” Changkong Zhuoyu’s eyes lit up, clearly liking the idea.
“The Path of Reincarnation,” Sage Yipin said.
“What’s that?” A quiet voice asked from behind — Li Xinglun had appeared silently.
Sage Yipin cast a strange look at this disciple of Changkong Zhuoyu. Clearly just at the early Golden Core stage, yet his presence was so faint that a Great Ascension cultivator like himself hadn’t noticed him until he spoke.
Probably because Changkong Zhuoyu had taught his disciple some special technique. Given Changkong Zhuoyu’s strength, Sage Yipin didn’t think much of it. Little did he know that despite having followed his master for so long, this scammer of a master hadn’t actually taught him anything, only made him worry constantly.
“It’s just a legend,” Sage Yipin said. “Among the three great sects there’s a story that the mortal realm we know isn’t the original mortal realm.”
He began telling a story unknown to anyone in the cultivation world: “It is said that after the great ancient god-demon war, the mortal realm was completely barren — not to mention divided into Three Realms and Six Paths, it was a place where not a blade of grass grew. All living beings were dragged into the war, leaving no vitality in the mortal world. Before the goddess Nüwa mended the heavens, the mortal realm had already been devoid of life.
The ancient gods expended great power to create an artifact — the Time-Space Wheel. This artifact connects to the Path of Reincarnation, allowing one to return to the distant past. But it has a flaw: since it transfers souls through the Path of Reincarnation, all memories are wiped clean. Ancient gods, with their strong divine sense, might have resisted the cleansing of past memories, but we cultivators lack such power — using the Time-Space Wheel, we’d likely remember nothing.” {Implying the gods went back in time to the period when the mortal world was still alive.}
Hearing this, Li Xinglun suddenly felt the thumb ring on his hand grow hot. He inconspicuously covered his thumb, feeling the burning heat.
Changkong Zhuoyu, ever the storyteller, didn’t even wait for Sage Yipin to speculate before weaving the narrative himself. “So that’s it! Yin Changkong — that is, me — wasn’t missing at all. The Time-Space Wheel must have always been at Kunlun. After the Kunlun divine formation was broken, in order to overcome the mortal realm’s calamity, I activated the Time-Space Wheel and went back.
I became so powerful, and the cultivation world’s stages don’t seem to apply to me — could it be I returned to the era of the ancient god–demon war? Back then everyone cultivated divine power. After experiencing the war, my power grew so deep it couldn’t be matched by today’s cultivators. And my lack of memory is also because of the Path of Reincarnation.”
The more he spoke, the more convinced he became, not at all embarrassed about praising himself, even nodding in satisfaction.
Sage Yipin was utterly speechless. He continued, “But once you use the Time-Space Wheel, you can’t return. Moreover, there’s a drawback — the same world cannot have two of the same soul. If they collide, the weaker one’s soul is destroyed. If the past self dies, the present self ceases to exist. {Which makes one wonder how the ancient gods managed the feat, then. They would have destroyed their past selves, hence annihilating their current selves as well.}
If you really are Yin Changkong, you would’ve been destroyed before Yin Changkong was even born eight hundred years ago.”
Changkong Zhuoyu: “…”
Had this identity also been exposed?
For a moment, his gaze at Sage Yipin even carried a hint of displeasure.
At this moment, Li Xinglun reached out and ruffled Changkong Zhuoyu’s hair. “But if one of them slept the whole time, and stayed somewhere isolated from the mortal realm? Wouldn’t that avoid the conflict?”
“That…” Sage Yipin stroked his beard. “It might work.”
“Master, you were asleep at the bottom of the Soul-Breaking Gorge, and only woke up after Yin Changkong disappeared. Maybe that’s why. You probably knew something… perhaps left yourself some message before using the Time-Space Wheel and chose to sleep at the bottom of the Soul-Breaking Gorge until Yin Changkong left this world, and only then did your timelines fully overlap.”
“Sounds plausible,” Changkong Zhuoyu nodded vigorously. “So that’s it. That seems to be the only explanation.”
Sage Yipin also accepted this explanation, and looked at Changkong Zhuoyu with even more hopeful eyes. If Yin Changkong had really used the Time-Space Wheel and become Changkong Zhuoyu, then he might have found a way to resolve the mortal realm’s calamity in the ancient times — saving the world would depend on him.
But since Changkong Zhuoyu remembered nothing, it would have to wait.
However, that was impossible.
Back in their room, Li Xinglun immediately had Changkong Zhuoyu set up a formation to ensure no one could hear them, then said to him, “Yin Changkong definitely never used the Time-Space Wheel. That guess was wrong.”
“Why?” Changkong Zhuoyu was still immersed in his fantasy of returning to the ancient battlefield, but Li Xinglun popped his bubble.
“Because the Time-Space Wheel was never at Kunlun.” Li Xinglun’s expression grew cold. “In fact, the one who slaughtered the Li family might not have been influenced by demonic energy at all — it could have been anyone in the cultivation world.”
“What makes you think that?” Seeing Li Xinglun’s expression grow darker, Changkong Zhuoyu stepped forward and took his disciple’s hand, passing some warmth to him.
“They were right — ‘an innocent man gets into trouble by holding a treasured jade.’” Li Xinglun extended his thumb to show the green ring on it. “Because the ancient divine artifact, the Time-Space Wheel, has always been with the Li family.”
Changkong Zhuoyu stared at the seemingly ordinary ring.
“I didn’t know either — until just now, when Sage Yipin mentioned the Time-Space Wheel, and it reacted.”
Li Xinglun infused true essence into the ring, and a faint white light emanated from it, revealing a few small words —
‘Sun and moon cycle, stars shift and turn.’
~ Chapter End ~
😯
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