Chapter 1: Chapter 1 : At the Dawn of Antiquity

Chapter 1: At the Dawn of Antiquity

Li Jun had already been staying in the hospital for a very long time.

He had contracted a strange illness, suffering nightmares day after day, dreaming that from the depths of the universe a meteorite was heading toward Earth.

The reason it was called a nightmare was because, as time went on, the dream grew longer and longer.

At first, when he dreamt, he would watch the meteorite for a day or two, then for seven days, ten days. Everything within the dream was so unbearably real that when he woke up he felt even more exhausted.

“What exactly is it?”

“Why is it coming toward Earth, will it bring disaster to the Earth?”

“Is it here to destroy the world?”

This exhaustion deepened day after day, as though it would continue until the meteorite reached Earth, or until the day it destroyed everything.

“Hah!”

Once again, Li Jun awoke from a long dream. The moment he opened his eyes, he saw a large group of medical staff approaching to examine him.

Li Jun looked around. He could see the beds neatly lined up in front, behind, and to the sides of his own, with one slumbering figure after another lying upon them.

These were people who, like Li Jun, suffered from the same symptoms. They dreamed the same dream. From the day they fell ill, they were judged as potentially carrying some infectious disease and were brought here to be quarantined.

Suddenly, a patient beside Li Jun let out a sharp scream.

“Ah!”

Then Li Jun saw, right before his eyes, the man’s body arch into the shape of a shrimp. Veins bulged across his face, and those veins blackened, spreading from the corners of his eyes until they filled every part of his body.

By the time the medical staff rushed to the man’s side, he was already dead.

His death was utterly miserable, his eyes staring fixedly at the heavens.

As though able to pierce through the ceiling.

To see that meteorite traversing among the cosmic stars.

His mouth hung wide open, as if voicing the same question within Li Jun’s heart.

“What exactly is that meteorite?”

This was not the first, nor would it be the last.

One after another, patients in the ward died, with not even the cause discovered.

At first, Li Jun lived in a spacious hall, but later he was moved to a smaller ward, and then to a single room.

One day, he faintly overheard that among all who had contracted this strange illness, he might be the only one left alive.

This sudden “epidemic” had begun mysteriously, and now seemed about to end in the same haze of mystery.

Li Jun said nothing, never once expressing the fear in his heart, but that fear still clung to him, haunting his every step.

As he watched the rows of beds, once packed tightly like chess pieces in their grid, be gradually removed until only a sparse dozen remained, and even hearing rumors that he might be the sole survivor—

Death, that formless thing, seemed to take on substance before his eyes.

Li Jun could clearly hear the footsteps of the Black and White Impermanence, and the King of Hell calling his soul from behind him.

Li Jun felt he would not live much longer.

He was afraid.

But he could not resist.

That day, he dreamt again of the meteorite.

At that moment it was already very close to Earth. Li Jun had a premonition—it was about to fall.

In his dream, he murmured faintly.

“It’s falling.”

“It’s about to fall.”

“It has reached the end.”

At that very moment.

The monitor suddenly gave a sharp alarm. A group of medical staff burst in through the door.

They saw Li Jun’s body begin trembling violently, veins bulging one after another across him, black lines spreading from the corners of his eyes to his whole body.

“Loss of consciousness, no spontaneous breathing, carotid pulse absent!”

“Ambu bag with high-flow oxygen, prepare the defibrillator.”

“V-fib! Prepare unsynchronized 200 joules!”

“Continue chest compressions! Keep frequency 100-120! Continue compressions, maintain frequency 100-120!”

“Sinus rhythm restored…”

Li Jun could not hear their voices. He was completely immersed in the vision of the meteorite, unaware that he had walked at the edge of death.

When he woke, it was already early dawn.

The sky outside was still pitch black.

With the nurse’s help, Li Jun slowly sat up. Someone switched on the light. He turned his gaze toward the midnight outside the window.

He saw his own reflection on the glass. The deep darkness outside made the window into a natural mirror.

At first, he was simply looking at himself in the mirror. Then he shifted his gaze slightly elsewhere, but in the next instant his eyes snapped back, fixed again on his reflection.

Li Jun’s expression turned shocked, for in that instant he discovered—when his gaze had shifted, his pupil had split into two.

That sight reminded Li Jun of cells or viruses dividing under a microscope.

He questioned within: “What’s wrong with my eyes?”

At that moment, a voice spoke from near the door of the ward.

“Double pupils!”

“Some say it is the mark of one born extraordinary. Others say it is a disease.”

“But the latter is only because they’ve never seen what true double pupils look like. Like frogs at the bottom of a well, how could they know the vastness of the heavens and earth?”

Li Jun instantly turned his head. The speaker was a Daoist priest.

He wore a splendid Daoist robe, held a horsetail whisk of white jade, and wore a crown that bound his long hair. Sitting there in this modern hospital room, he seemed utterly out of place.

The Daoist was exceedingly handsome. Perhaps because of this, Li Jun sensed a deep arrogance from him.

Seeing Li Jun look over, the Daoist deliberately rolled his eyes, and another pupil split out, as if to show him intentionally.

It was double pupils.

“See?”

“We are both people of double pupils, beings who do not belong to the mundane world.”

“Only, I was born extraordinary, while yours came after birth.”

“Do not worry. With double pupils, you will not die. The ones who die are all ordinary mortals who cannot break through the barrier.”

Li Jun had not even felt a shred of joy before the Daoist’s words again filled him with deep dread.

The Daoist did not wait for Li Jun to respond before asking:

“How far is that stone from Earth now?”

Li Jun finally spoke: “You know what it is?”

The Daoist said mysteriously: “Of course I know.”

Li Jun asked him: “What’s happening outside? Has anyone started to deal with it? I feel it’s almost here.”

The Daoist laughed, looked at Li Jun, and asked:

“You’re worried it will fall to Earth and cause disaster, just like those disaster films?”

Without waiting for Li Jun’s answer, he affirmed:

“You needn’t worry at all. You’ve misunderstood something.”

“But since you now possess double pupils, I can tell you some things.”

Li Jun guessed: “Why? Because all of this is just an illusion we people share? A kind of special group hallucination?”

The Daoist shook his head. He stood up, walked past the bed, and gazed out the window at the starry sky.

“No, no, no. What you see is all real.”

“But it is not the present. Long ago, tens of thousands of years in the past, that stone already fell upon a place on Earth. What you see is but a shadow from the age of myth.”

Then he revealed a truth to Li Jun: “Someone has been creating people like you across the world in vast numbers, with the purpose of finding the meteorite’s traces.”

“Only, most people cannot endure until the final scene. Unable to bear it, they die suddenly.”

“Currently, all nations are investigating the culprit behind this. But now, we need you to help us with something, and ask for your cooperation.”

Li Jun more or less guessed: “What is it?”

The Daoist said: “Describe the ancient images you saw last night in your consciousness. As long as you help us complete this task, we will give you targeted rewards. Money, we can easily provide as much as you want. Even whatever you wish to pursue afterward, we can help make it happen.”

For someone like Li Jun, who had always been an ordinary man, there seemed nothing more tempting than this.

Wealth and career—the former could lift a man from poverty, the latter could let him achieve his ideals, his life’s pursuits, and earn the admiration of all.

At least at this moment, Li Jun could not transcend above money and fame.

The Daoist saw the flicker of desire in Li Jun’s eyes, so he quickly questioned him further, even taking out diagrams for comparison, asking Li Jun to draw what he had seen.

The Daoist knew much. From Li Jun’s drawings, he was even able to calculate how many days remained before the “ancient shadow” in Li Jun’s consciousness would reach Earth.

“That should be in four days.”

The Daoist was thrilled, as though he had been searching for this meteorite’s trail for an untold length of time.

Another day passed.

As soon as Li Jun fell asleep, the “ancient shadow” the Daoist spoke of appeared once more within his consciousness.

The scene was so real. He drifted through the vast universe, wandered among the stars, heading alone toward that sole destination.

But knowing it was a vision from the past, he no longer felt such panic or fear, but instead quietly admired that breathtakingly beautiful scene.

When he opened his eyes, he again saw the Daoist seated in the ward.

The Daoist: “How far from the ground?”

Li Jun answered with a description.

The Daoist stood, looking restless and impatient.

He said: “Then that means three days remain.”

Though he already knew how many days were left, he still had to ask Li Jun again.

As if learning the nearing of those days from Li Jun’s mouth allowed him to feel that he was indeed truly drawing closer to that meteorite.

Li Jun saw the Daoist’s anxious expression and suddenly asked a question he had wanted to ask yesterday.

“You said yesterday that people with double pupils are not mortals. What do you mean by that?”

“Could it be…”

“Besides ordinary people, are there truly cultivators in this world, even immortals?”

At that moment, the Daoist shed his restless state and once again revealed that mysterious air of transcendence.

“Not yet.”

“But very soon, very soon we…”

The Daoist paused, pointing at both himself and Li Jun.

“You and I—we will no longer be mortals.”

The Daoist looked at Li Jun’s double pupils, as though those eyes gave him a profound sense of recognition, like finding kin among the vast sea of people.

“You too. When the mythic age descends, you and I will both be reborn.”

Saying this, the Daoist referred back to yesterday’s matter.

“Although yesterday I spoke of rewarding you with money and offering you career support.”

“But when that time comes, such things as wealth and fame will no longer mean anything to us, nor will they be what we pursue.”

After the Daoist left, Li Jun took out a mirror.

He looked at his double pupils, recalling the Daoist’s words.

“Double pupils!”

The third day.

When Li Jun revealed that the “stone” was only two days away from Earth, the Daoist paced back and forth in the ward, too agitated to sit still.

His handsome face was filled with anticipation, longing, even a hint of hesitation.

Li Jun cautiously asked him: “If powers like those of immortals truly exist, why wait until later? You said they don’t exist now—what if they never existed at all?”

As the divine stone drew “closer,” the Daoist’s mental state grew increasingly unstable.

Hearing Li Jun’s doubt, he reacted as if someone had touched his reverse scale, and he screamed like a madman.

“What do you know!”

“What do you mean it doesn’t exist—it has always been here, always!”

“Only we cannot reach it.”

The Daoist’s grip on the whisk turned so tight that his knuckles went white, his brows furrowed hard.

“This world once had immortals, demons, Buddhas. All of it later vanished.”

“As long as we find that divine stone, or divine jade, the age of myth can begin anew.”

The Daoist then revealed another piece of information—within this stone seemed to lie a piece of jade.

Li Jun looked at him, and the Daoist looked back.

At this moment.

The Daoist revealed his deranged side, while Li Jun, lying on the bed, instead seemed the normal one, watching the Daoist rave and gesticulate.

“We could possess the power to soar through the skies and burrow into the earth. We could live forever.”

“We could ascend as immortals and become ancestors…”

Li Jun understood then: that stone was the source of power, at least tied to it.

But what shook him even more was the Daoist’s frenzied cries of immortality, of becoming an immortal ancestor.

Could mortals truly live forever? Truly cultivate into immortals?

The fourth day.

The Daoist arrived later than usual, but he brought explosive news.

“Based on the information you provided earlier, we’ve made a preliminary judgment on where the divine stone may fall.”

“Do you know where?”

“Can you guess?”

“Hahahahaha!”

Under the Daoist’s expectant gaze, Li Jun finally asked:

“Where?”

The Daoist answered with fervor: “Kunlun!”

Speaking that name made his own blood surge uncontrollably, emotions overwhelming him.

“I knew it!”

“Mount Kunlun!”

“It must have first fallen upon Mount Kunlun!”

On the fifth day.

As soon as Li Jun received the ancient vision again, he would know where the divine stone had landed.

Li Jun was taken from the ward to the top of a building behind the hospital. But when he stepped inside, the sight startled him.

He saw—

A Daoist altar had been constructed inside.

The altar rose layer by layer like a small mountain.

No doctors were in sight; instead, all were dressed in Daoist robes, lined solemnly beneath the altar with reverent expressions.

Not only that, but some were dressed as various gods and immortals, seated upon the middle and lower levels of the altar.

At first glance, it looked like the statues in a shrine.

Li Jun himself was changed into Daoist robes and seated atop the altar.

Below, the Daoists began chanting sutras. Smoke rose from the burners, incense spread through the room, making the scene appear all the more otherworldly.

Yet to Li Jun, the spectacle carried a sinister strangeness.

At the same time—

He began to doubt the true identity of the Daoist.

But once seated upon the altar, facing the sight below, Li Jun grew dazed, as if he truly had become an immortal, a Daoist Patriarch.

Soon.

The handsome Daoist he had seen before arrived as well. He brought doctors and instruments, preparing Li Jun to dream in a half-conscious state.

Everyone was already impatient, wanting to know at once from Li Jun’s mouth where the “divine stone” would fall.

Or rather—

Where the true Kunlun lay.

Wearing Daoist robes, seated at the top of the altar, Li Jun was connected to tubes and instruments, gazing dreamily outside.

Gradually, the outer world and his inner dream overlapped into a double vision.

Half awake, he entered the dream.

His consciousness roamed the seas of stars from ten thousand years ago, drawing closer and closer to the ancient land of wilderness.

Before his eyes, though, was still the 21st-century building, Daoists seated in rows below, chanting and worshipping.

At that moment, Li Jun felt a dislocation of time and space.

One self in the distant past, one still in the present.

Gradually.

The blue planet loomed larger.

He saw the meteor drawing near, piercing the atmosphere, plunging through layers of clouds.

And the land below finally emerged from the mist, revealing itself.

Though it looked somewhat different from today, its general outline was identical.

“This is the surface of ten thousand years ago.”

Li Jun’s consciousness carefully observed the primeval world, when suddenly he saw the Daoist appear before him, questioning him.

“Where did it fall?”

“Do you hear me?”

“Li Jun, where did the divine stone fall?”

As he spoke, the Daoist produced a map of the Kunlun range and its surroundings.

Li Jun stared straight ahead, his eyes fixed. The contours of the map gradually overlapped with the land seen from the meteor’s view in his consciousness.

He lifted his hand slightly, pointing at the map.

The Daoist’s face flushed red with excitement. He leaned in close, asking Li Jun.

“Where is Mount Kunlun?”

“Where is the true Kunlun?”

“Where are you falling now? Do you see it clearly?”

Li Jun’s fingertip edged closer to the correct spot.

But then, with the slightest slip—

It slid to another place.

And stopped.

The handsome Daoist cried out: “Found it!”

He raised the map high. All the Daoists rose in unison, bowing toward Kunlun.

“Boundless Heavenly Venerable!”

Meanwhile, Li Jun closed his eyes.

The vision before him vanished. His consciousness plunged fully into the scene of ten thousand years past.

———

Ten thousand years ago.

The primeval age.

Li Jun gazed down from above, the mountains growing clearer, the traces of rivers more distinct.

He became the meteor skimming across the heavens, and even saw the people of ancient tribes herding sheep, looking up in panic at the blazing star streaking through the clouds.

The meteor burned fiercely, scattering embers as it fell.

Then—

It descended upon a mountain, shattering earth and stone, leaving behind a massive crater.

Even now, Li Jun thought it was merely an ancient vision, that he was but a witness across the ages.

But as the snow melted from the peak, a lake formed in the crater.

That day.

The sun rose, its light shining on the lake’s surface, casting the reflection of the meteor.

Li Jun looked into the water. For the first time, he saw the shell of the meteor peeled away, revealing a divine stone two or three meters tall.

But more important than the stone itself was the jade within it—inside which was a human figure.

“There’s a person inside the jade?”

“Who is it?”

“An immortal?”

Li Jun was filled with wonder, for he was uncovering the secret of the beginning of myths and the age of gods.

But when he saw the face within the jade, his own face changed drastically, his heart shaken.

“How can this be?”

He saw himself.

The very same face, even the tiny black mole at his collarbone identical.

And as he made a shocked expression, the figure in the reflection made the same.

This did not seem to be some remnant shadow of antiquity.

He had truly entered the primeval age.

At the dawn of antiquity.

The beginning of myth.