Looking at him, Wan Qiao could immediately see he was considering something else. She sighed and sat down in front of him.
"Why are you so eager to return?" she asked curiously. Yan Xiaobao had told her everything about his adventures before. She knew it was because of his friends, but she didn’t understand why they were so important to him.
"You’ve even been betrayed by some of your friends before!" she pointed out, her expression completely bewildered. Seeing the confusion on her face, Yan Xiaobao couldn’t help but chuckle.
"They’re my friends," he shrugged and said. "Even though there’s a chance they might betray me. I would rather be betrayed than become someone who distrusts his friends and falsely accuses them. If I’m betrayed by friends, I’ll deal with it. But if I push everyone away from the outset, how could I ever succeed?"
Listening to the young man’s sentiments about his friends, Wan Qiao sighed and decided not to delve further into the topic. She chose to change the subject. "You said your Lower Dantian had nine caves, didn’t you?" Wan Qiao asked. Yan Xiaobao nodded. The conversation was about to turn serious, and he was eager to see where it would lead.
"How many of these caves are open, and what do they do?" she asked again. She knew she’d inquired about this before, but this time she wanted to focus entirely on the phenomenon. The caves were clearly a significant benefit to Yan Xiaobao. Anyone could see how much the first cave had already done for him, although it was unfortunate he dared not explore the others too freely.
Yan Xiaobao hesitated slightly before beginning to describe his internal life. "The first cave contains a beast core and red fog, tied to my red wolf self. You know it allows me to transform into a werewolf."
"The second is the blue cloud. It facilitates faster cultivation, and once I was even able to use it to absorb the energy of others. It’s incredibly beneficial in many ways. I’ve used it extensively before, but knowing that it could eventually carry another soul, I’ve refrained from relying on it recently."
"Next, in my Dantian, there’s a green pearl. The longer this green pearl grows, the more injuries I suffer. But it heals me as well. Unfortunately, it’s not very cooperative. Most of the time, it won’t assist me, and when it does, it decides how much help it wants to provide. If I take pills, it steals the healing properties from them and uses them to grow. But lately, it has stopped doing that. It seems unwilling to develop any further."
"The last open cave contains wings. These wings absorb Weiwei’s energy, allowing me to fly with them. I can’t use them often, but I suspect they conceal additional secrets as well."
Listening to all these descriptions, Wan Qiao nodded. Her eyes seemed empty, as if she were lost in thought. Her fingers gently tapped the armrest, and her lips were pursed. Yan Xiaobao knew better than to disrupt her contemplation and instead sat quietly in his chair, pondering the phenomena within himself.
He now understood that these phenomena were connected to his previous lives. They were echoes of who he had been before. However, the depiction of the red wolf in his Dantian Cave seemed somewhat amiss. Why did it have its own soul?
Suddenly, as though struck by lightning, everything became clear to Yan Xiaobao. The spirit inside his Dantian Cave wasn’t a soul—it was memories. Yan Xiaobao himself was the soul, and his soul couldn’t split into two. He would have noticed such a thing. Instead, he was shocked to realize that the red wolf represented memories of his past life.
Without wasting another moment, Yan Xiaobao entered a state of meditation, his consciousness appearing within the Dantian Cave and rushing toward the red wolf. Until now, Yan Xiaobao had never truly focused on the spirit within, but upon closer inspection, he could see the red body was connected intricately to the Dantian Cave. Reaching out his hand, he touched the red wolf, and as he did, images began to flicker before his eyes.
Some of the images were from his time as a young pup, born amidst the refuse around the rocks. His mother cared for them, teaching him and his siblings how to hunt.
As time passed, the cubs grew up, their bodies absorbing more and more of the Heaven and Earth Essence. They became stronger and more dangerous. As other beasts preyed upon them, their numbers dwindled. Even as a wolf, Yan Xiaobao had endured attacks from humans. While some survived by chance, as time went on, he grew increasingly powerful until he became capable of defending himself.
Time flashed before Yan Xiaobao’s eyes as he witnessed how the red wolf found a mate and had cubs of his own. With the wolves growing ever stronger, he fought tirelessly to protect his bloodline. Ultimately, he achieved unparalleled strength, reaching the pinnacle as an entity akin to God!
This beast, who once fought for survival every single day, suddenly stopped. No longer did he find anyone who could rival him. As time wore on, he suffered the loss of his cubs and mate. All of them died of old age, while he merely sat there, longing for the days of life-and-death battles he had once experienced. He returned to their home cave one day where his mate and pups had once waited for him to bring back food.
Yan Xiaobao lived through these memories, unaware of how much time had passed. It felt like an eternity, but even though it seemed immeasurable, it had raced by in an instant. At last, another God appeared—one who challenged the red wolf. The two fought fiercely. Day after day, they battled, reigniting the wolf’s sense of vitality once again.