"Kid, let this old man make you a moon." At this moment, Ye Xiu, under the power of the Underworld, had transformed into a child of about six years old!

He stared with a hint of arrogance at the even smaller friend beside him, or more accurately, at the cookie in his hand, shouting, "Give me this cookie, and I'll give you a moon in return, how about that?"

"..." The little boy was slightly startled. Before he could react, the cookie in his hand was snatched away by this fellow. It must be said that although Ye Xiu was small now, he only remembered possessing immense power, but exactly what that power was, nobody knew.

"Crunch!" It was a very crisp chewing sound. Then, when the cookie was handed back to the smaller child, good heavens! What was originally a round sun was indeed now just a slight, insignificant crescent moon.

"Waaah!" The little child burst into loud sobs. This was the appropriate reaction for his age. A perfectly good cookie had been eaten by Ye Xiu, who had turned into a six-year-old. Damn it.

"Ye Xiu! You're bullying the little ones again!" A beautiful young woman in uniform rushed out of the house, directly grabbing Ye Xiu by the ear. "I don't know why you feel the need to bully smaller children. Do you think you're so tough? Or do you think you're better than everyone else?"

"What the hell are you common people!" Although Ye Xiu was just an ordinary child, he fundamentally felt like a being of immense power, so everyone else was nothing!

This kind of orphanage teacher couldn't be fooled so easily. However, this beauty was also beginning to feel that this kid Ye Xiu was different from the others, though she couldn't pinpoint exactly how: "Ye Xiu, stop messing around. A kind lady is coming to adopt you; you can finally have a home!"

A home? What was the point of a home! Ye Xiu had no expectation for a home. A person who felt from childhood that he was destined for great achievements, what use was a home?

Another kind woman. How kind could women who come to the orphanage to find children really be? Ye Xiu was almost tired of the people who came saying they wanted to adopt him; most of them probably hadn't done good deeds in their past lives, which is why they couldn't have children now.

"Hello, Miss Ji Jiang, this is the child I mentioned to you. He seems a bit different, but also quite annoying," the teacher said. She was quite familiar with Ye Xiu; this guy was practically the star of the entire orphanage.

"En, it's him," the woman dressed in white gently crouched down. Her eyebrows were captivating, always giving off a sense of familiarity, yet mostly shrouded in mystery.

This was their first meeting. Ye Xiu didn't feel shy; he stared intently at the woman named Ji Jiang. The look in his eyes felt familiar, yet how could he, a mere six-year-old child, have any impression of a mature woman? It was truly strange.

"Ye Xiu, I feel like I've seen you somewhere before," Ji Jiang had the same feeling. She touched Ye Xiu's head and smiled, "Will you come home with me? I came specifically to take you back."

Ye Xiu felt no fear. Hearing such words, he also sensed a strange fate between them, a connection veiled in a haze that he couldn't quite grasp.

Thus, Ye Xiu left the orphanage at the age of six. He followed behind Ji Jiang, this 'big sister' in snow-white clothes, an entity both strange and familiar to him. He couldn't quite grasp it, only vaguely feeling that this path was where his journey truly began.

Years later, Ye Xiu lived with Big Sister Ji Jiang.

Ji Jiang's care for Ye Xiu went beyond that of a mere sister. Clothing, food, shelter, and travel were never concerns. She insisted he call her 'Sister,' and this sister was usually a woman of few words. She often liked to watch Ye Xiu, sometimes with fear in her eyes, sometimes with joy.

Ye Xiu was no longer the Ye Xiu known as the Grim Reaper; he was just an ordinary person. He disliked causing trouble for Ji Jiang, nor did he enjoy studying. The only odd thing was that Ji Jiang never seemed to need to work, yet constantly made him study something called the "Nine Palaces Bagua."

Furthermore, in school, he was required to study the histories and military treatises of various dynasties. Though he didn't fully understand them, those military books looked fascinating, igniting a stirring in his blood just by reading them. Who knew what use learning this stuff would be?

"Sister, why must I study these things?" Ye Xiu only asked this question once.

"It will certainly be useful," Ji Jiang always affirmed her words. She stroked Ye Xiu's cheek with one hand, while her other hand gently touched her own snow-white neck. There, resting there, was an emerald-green phoenix, named "Cang Feng," appearing as an extraordinarily mystical ornament.

...

Time flew by, and many years passed. For Ye Xiu, life was largely spent immersed in volumes of The Spring and Autumn Annals, The Warring States Period, and The Twenty-Four Histories. Along the way, he had haphazardly won a few free-fighting championships, and that marvelous, strange "Bagua" actually became a divine weapon for the 19-year-old Ye Xiu to charm girls with.

"Hubby, quickly calculate another divination for me! I feel like things haven't been going smoothly lately," a very radiant girl chirped, leaning close. She was Ye Xiu's first love, a university classmate named Mei Yi, who felt both familiar and strange to Ye Xiu.

"Calculate, calculate, calculate! What is there to calculate!" Ye Xiu was slightly impatient. His handsome, high-bridged nose was already capable of conquering many girls on campus. "Calculating one Bagua reading is mentally draining, you know. Do you think this is like your silly horoscopes or Tarot cards, something you just play with for fortune-telling?"

"Are you going to calculate or not? If you don't, watch out for what I do!" Mei Yi raised her left hand, her voice rising in pitch. "You won't calculate, will you?"

"What! What are you going to do if I don't?" Ye Xiu had already guessed what his mischievous girlfriend was about to do. Little girls like her only had so many tricks. "Hair gets long, insight gets short. What can you do to me, hahaha."

"Waaah..." Hearing this, Mei Yi instantly deflated. "This isn't fun at all. You don't even love me anymore, so what's the point of talking about the future."

Ye Xiu ignored his temperamental woman. Every time he extended his fingers to map out the positions using the Nine Palaces Bagua, he always felt uneasy. All that stuff he had painstakingly learned for over ten years—was it just for deceiving people?

Those damned mantras like "Qian as Heaven, Heaven Wind Gou, Heaven Mountain Dun, Earth as Earth Pi, Wind Earth Guan, Mountain Earth Bo, Fire Earth Jin..." he recited them countless times, but what was the use? He truly didn't know why Sister Ji Jiang made him learn these things.

University studies were tedious, excruciatingly so.

The military histories and records that Sister Ji Jiang showed him were actually quite useful. Studying Archaeology and Cultural Relics, he always managed to steal the spotlight in the professors' classes. Some things might not be useful now, but one could never tell about the future.

In short, there were many mysteries. Tomorrow was his 20th birthday, and Ye Xiu decided to go home to celebrate with Sister Ji Jiang. Firstly, he could ask her to clarify everything, and secondly, he genuinely liked being with his sister, even if the feeling wasn't quite that of a sibling, nor was it entirely romantic.

Fortunately, Mei Yi knew nothing of his background. Ye Xiu, having lost parental love from a young age, possessed not only more composure than his peers but also a deeper sense of suspicion; he would never easily trust anyone.

"Why are you going home again? I wanted to celebrate your birthday with you?" Mei Yi was like a child who would never grow up. "Tell me, do you like your sister more, or do you like me?"

"I'm going home to see my sister," Ye Xiu stated flatly. He admitted that whenever he mentioned Sister Ji Jiang, a strange emotion always surfaced. "You know my sister is very important to me. Please don't compare yourself to her, okay?"

"Sister is important, Sister is important! All you talk about is your sister. Go love your sister then, why bother playing house with me." Young girls seemed to get jealous so easily, which Ye Xiu found unreasonable. He usually preferred not to engage with such matters.

"Alright, I'm not joking anymore, I have to go," Ye Xiu coldly dropped the words and pulled his hand free from Mei Yi's grasp. "I have to catch a ride this afternoon, I'm going back to rest first."

"Go to hell! You clearly don't care about me at all!" Mei Yi turned and walked away. Her hair was the kind Ye Xiu liked—soft waves that felt wonderful to touch but offered no true pleasure.

"Sigh, women are such a headache," Ye Xiu felt a slight throbbing in his head. He was only a freshman in university and already facing so much trouble, primarily from matters of the heart. Given his personality, he could have easily broken up with Mei Yi, but there was an invisible force at play, something complicated and hard to sever.

Ye Xiu and Mei Yi had been classmates since middle school. At the graduation dinner, Mei Yi had gotten quite drunk and rushed straight to Ye Xiu, wrapping her arms around his neck, clearly intent on doing something. It turned out Ye Xiu was a fool, because now he knew what he should have done back then.

Mei Yi was indeed one of the top beauties in their middle school class. For her to just casually fall for Ye Xiu infuriated countless handsome boys to the point of spitting blood. But she also felt it was love at first sight with Ye Xiu, or perhaps 'destined for three lifetimes upon first sight.' She just liked him, for reasons she couldn't explain.

The summer wind was refreshing and cheerful. The shuttle bus drove fast. It had been almost a week since Ye Xiu contacted Sister Ji Jiang, and his heart was filled with excitement, wondering what his sister would have prepared for him.

"Click." Ye Xiu used his key to open the door and stepped inside. He and his sister lived in a small villa. He never knew where Ji Jiang got the money or what her job was, as no one ever brought it up.

Sister Ji Jiang lived on the first floor. Since it was close to the kitchen, she was always able to cook unexpected delicacies that Ye Xiu greatly enjoyed eating.

"Sister, I'm back! Are you there?" Ye Xiu shouted loudly, but there was no response from inside. He began to feel strange; his sister was usually here at this time.