The little fox was in human form and wearing a white silk dress. Her black locks floated behind her like the clouds, while her stunning face beamed radiantly at the new arrivals. As she stood here, it seemed like the very void shone with a special light because of her existence.

“You’ve come back too, milady!” Qing Han said merrily as she walked up to the little fox.

“Your… what?” The little fox blinked. Still caught up in the joy of seeing Lu Yun again, she was abruptly jarred out of her mood by a young girl using an unexpected honorific.

“Me?” the little fox didn’t understand.

Qing Han nodded.

“And whose lady am I? What makes you call me that?” she asked.

Qing Han looked back at Lu Yun.

“…I KNEW IT! You always had designs on me, kid! How can you face Qing Yu after this?!” The little fox glared hotly at Lu Yun.

“Hold on a second, I’m confused here too! What did you just say? My dao fruit?” Lu Yun quickly redirected.

The little fox refused to answer and huffed at Lu Yun, anger shooting out of her wrathful baby blues.

“Master, that’s your body… Or rather, your past life.” Qing Han tugged lightly at his shirt. “You and milady were married in your past life. You don’t seem to be dao partners yet in this life…”

So that was the past life the girl had talked about.

“You’re his disciple?” The conversation registered with the little fox and she pointed at the seated Lu Yun in the void.

He was the exact same as the current Lu Yun. Even the lingering energy ripples on his body were the same as Lu Yun’s.

“Yes, he’s my master.” Qing Han nodded lightly and looked back at Lu Yun.

“I see what’s going on here.” Lu Yun had connected some of the initial dots. “This is my dao fruit and who she sees as my past life.”

In order to form his dao fruit, Lu Yun had instilled a neutral chaos star with the six orders of the chaos and sent it back to the past through the river of time that the little fox tapped into. There, the chaos star had slowly grown into his past self.

Along the same vein, he’d created a future self derived from a karmic fruit.

It was readily apparent that his past self had succeeded and sat here as his dao fruit, waiting for the present day Lu Yun to arrive.

Lu Yun’s past self possessed all of his memories and feelings, making him a bonafide Lu Yun living in the past.

He was a Lu Yun so far removed from the present that time itself lost meaning. Life decayed, died out, and started anew. He was completely severed from any karmic ties to the present.

The only thing his past self had been able to do was to prepare himself to be a dao fruit and await the arrival of his present self. Apart from that, anything else he did would be obliterated by the passage of time.

While there was no time in the chaos, there were the even more terrible chaos tribulations. Tribulation after tribulation was enough to wipe the slate clean an infinite number of times over. The only thing left was this dead mythological realm.

“Your past self, not past life?” Qing Han blinked.

“Yes, he is my past self, one that I sent to the past.” Lu Yun smiled faintly. The Lu Yun that had existed in the past was indeed him—not a duplicate or replica, but a living, breathing him that had lived in the past.

He took in a deep breath, took a step forward, and walked toward his dao fruit.

“Wait!” The little fox suddenly interposed herself in front of him and regarded him with an unpleasant look.

“What is it?” Lu Yun widened his eyes.

“Explain first why she calls me that! Why does your disciple think I’m your lady!” she demanded relentlessly. There was panic and… a hint of anticipation in her eyes?

“I don’t know,” Lu Yun responded blankly. He looked dumbly at Qing Han. “Is this fox really your mistress? Do you not have any other masters?”

Qing Han finally grasped the situation at hand and chuckled with immense amusement.

“Nope! You’re my only master! You took me off the streets and raised me to adulthood!” she responded firmly. “She’s Mistress Tushan Miao.”

The little fox blushed furiously to hear her full name and renewed an intense glare at Lu Yun.

“Just one second!” Lu Yun smiled ruefully at the little fox. “You tell me first how you went back to the past and found me.”

The tables turned on her; Miao blinked rapidly and didn’t say anything.

“Well, I’ll know everything after I refine my dao fruit.” With a wry chuckle, Lu Yun walked toward his past self.

Expectation blossomed on Qing Han’s face. Once the current Lu Yun refined the dao fruit of his past self, the master who treasured her as the apple of his eye would return. He’d once told her that if one day, he did come back, she should take him to his body. He would really return then.

……

The Lu Yun sitting cross-legged in the air wore long ivory robes and didn’t seem more than eighteen years old. He looked like a young man, but one that was dead.

He hadn’t died to someone else’s hand or to old age, but had turned himself into a dao fruit after completing his mission and quietly awaited the arrival of his present self.

Hummm.

When Lu Yun walked within eighteen meters of his past self, an indistinct hue bloomed from his past self. It slowly faded away, revealing a scintillating star.

Currently peak peerless immortal, Lu Yun only needed a dao fruit to break through!

“Stay there, don’t come back yet!” the little fox spoke up. “It all depends on this step to see if the immortal dao can traverse the chaos.

"This realm is dead, it’s just a burial pit for an insane number of souls. That makes this part of the chaos, just a special part of the chaos!” She spoke at a rapid clip, highly concerned that Lu Yun would immediately dart into hell to ascend to dao immortal realm.

“I understand.” Lu Yun nodded.

Those of the mythological realm had cultivated the immortal dao, and the key to having the chaos creatures coexist with the worlds was also the immortal dao.

To send the immortal dao through the chaos!

That was what the immortals of the mythological realm had once attempted to do, but it’d been too late then. Their realm was bigger than the entire chaos and had almost swallowed the chaos whole.

It didn’t matter if the immortal dao traversed the chaos at that point in time.

But now, the worlds were uncommonly weak and the size of a grain of sand in the chaos. That made it the perfect time for the immortal dao to seep through.

……

Lu Yun became one with his past self, the resplendent chaos star. His cultivation level instantly rose to that of a High Immortal of the Great Firmament. At the same time—

Mount Xuanhuang, Dusk Province, the world of immortals!

Hummmmmmm.

A tremendous pillar of light rose from Mount Xuanhuang, pierced through space, and barreled out of the world of immortals. It streaked from the worlds straight into the chaos, into the body of Lu Yun on the other side.

Petals and light danced in whirling frenzy within the Tomb of Heaven and Earth.