CHAPTER 882: CHAPTER 605: A DREAM OF YELLOW MILLET

The red-haired woman revived again.

Time seemed to rewind to three days ago.

Lu Chenzhou was still in the Kun Gu Realm.

"Another expert?"

Lu Chenzhou was perplexed and suspicious.

Obviously, he had fallen into an illusion.

The so-called three days were merely his mistaken perception.

"When did I fall for it?"

The most terrifying thing about a profound illusion was the blend of reality and falsehood, truth and fabrication—making it impossible to distinguish reality from fantasy, plunging the victim into self-doubt.

Lu Chenzhou looked toward the Martial Arts Tree.

[Blood Moon: Fifth Rank (45%)]

[Great Dream: Fifth Rank (27%)]

He stared at the red-haired woman before him.

"Fake!"

He launched a sudden punch, but saw the red-haired woman burst into mad laughter. With a casual palm, she dispersed his fist technique, and countless tendrils surged from her, coiling like tentacles.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Lu Chenzhou once again clashed violently with the red-haired woman, shouting sharply, "Who are you?" He was sure the person before him wasn’t a clone of the Blood Demon Grandmother. The enemy might use illusion to blur his sense of real and unreal, but he was certain they could never fabricate the Martial Arts Tree. The proficiency displayed on the Martial Arts Tree had increased after he swallowed the Blood Demon clone, so he must have been targeted by an at least Eighth Realm illusion master after he killed the Blood Demon clone—otherwise he couldn’t have fallen for this trap.

"I am the Blood Demon Grandmother."

The red-haired woman tugged with both hands, countless tendrils tightening, drawing Lu Chenzhou irresistibly toward her. Sharp claws dug into his flesh. Her crimson tongue slid out, licking her lips.

"Grandmother will savor you well."

Her tongue morphed into a scorpion’s tail, stabbing at Lu Chenzhou’s forehead, but it was blocked by a layer of sacred circular light. Lu Chenzhou activated the Kun Character Technique, qi-blood surging like dry tinder set ablaze, soaring from the Late Stage of Seventh Realm to the Peak of Seventh Realm. His spiritual power flared like an inferno. He channeled the Golden Light Spell with all his might, transforming into a towering golden figure. With a shake of his arms, he shattered the tendrils binding him, ten thousand rays of golden light stabbing outward into the void in all directions.

Crack—

The world shattered once more.

"My sister is dead." Shangguan Xue, draped in blue gauze, tears sliding down her cheeks, her gaze brimming with sorrow.

"Too fake!" Lu Chenzhou’s face darkened, his arm morphing into a bloody big spear, impaling Shangguan Xue straight through, then viciously tearing her in two.

He gazed at the shattering world around him.

"A dignified Eighth Realm, and all you dare do is play tricks—won’t you face me in open battle?"

The enemy’s mastery of illusion was formidable—at least Sixth Rank, possibly even Seventh. If it was only Sixth, with his Immaculate State of Mind and understanding of the Great Dream Dao, he wouldn’t have fallen so easily. Even if he slipped up, he could quickly break free.

Time passed.

The enemy’s illusion kept scrambling his memories, filling them with events that never happened—distorting his sense of self.

Once or twice was nothing, with little real effect, but if he couldn’t escape, and the confusion dragged on, when most of his memories had been altered, would he still be Lu Chenzhou? He might even be controlled!

This could be the gravest crisis he had ever faced, yet he hadn’t even seen his opponent.

In the blink of an eye, another three days in the illusion passed. Lu Chenzhou recited the Heart Sutra, staying vigilant. He hid his soul in the deepest part of his Spiritual Starry Sky, guarding against a potential body-seizing attack.

In endless battles, Lu Chenzhou sensed something slipping away. He saw memories, once sealed and now marginalized, crumbling and vanishing—fragments of his past flickered and shattered like a lantern carousel.

Replacing them were new scenes. In a vast and ancient wilderness, a boy named "Gu" was born in a tribe. His father was the tribal chief, and the whole tribe worshipped a magnificent giant bird—their ancestor. Lu Chenzhou felt the bird was familiar, but couldn’t quite recall why.

...

At the same time—

In a strange dimension, a thin, hook-nosed Daoist in a gray robe watched the Martial Monk trapped in an illusion by his divine skill, Yellow Millet Dream. Sweat beaded on his brow as he muttered incantations. One by one, feathers imbued with false memories emerged, laboriously penetrating the protective circular light, entering the monk’s body.

The Heavenly Gu Daoist had long been waiting.

He had sensed the Heart Emperor’s reincarnation when it arrived in the Kun Gu Realm, but had not acted immediately. Observing as the reincarnation body swept through both clones of the Blood Demon Grandmother, he abandoned direct confrontation.

Though his cultivation was Middle Stage of Eighth Realm, his combat prowess barely equaled the Early Stage of Eighth Realm.

Facing this opponent directly was far from safe.

Even a lion hunts rabbits with all its might.

So, waiting for his chance, he struck as Lu Chenzhou caught his breath after defeating the Blood Demon Grandmother, using his Seventh Rank Illusion Realm Dao and ancestral innate divine skill, Yellow Millet Dream, to trap Lu Chenzhou in the Illusion Realm.

Unlike cultivators, as a True Spirit descendant, upon attaining the Seventh Realm he naturally awakened his innate divine ability, which would evolve as he advanced—eventually reaching the Ninth Realm and becoming great divine power.

Yellow Millet Dream had ranked among the top three illusion-type great divine powers in the Great Wilderness Period, second only to the Heart Emperor’s Spring and Autumn Dream and the Ancient Mirage Dragon’s Mirage—it was the Gu Diao’s signature art.

Even the lesser version he possessed was enough to make short work of opponents in the same realm.

"No wonder he’s the Heart Emperor reincarnate. His heart realm already has some lofty qualities. I must go all out just to barely break through his soul’s defenses. I can’t tamper with his most crucial memories directly—if I trigger a strong struggle, he’ll be alarmed. I can only erode him little by little, like boiling a frog in warm water."

The Heavenly Gu Daoist was very cautious.

He muttered:

"Human memory has limits. To replace it smoothly, you have to start from the most peripheral parts. Cultivators’ capacity is strong, but 90% of their mental effort is devoted to cultivation, leaving only 10% to daily trivialities. Most think their cultivation memories are the most important, using all kinds of secret techniques to protect them. But in truth, those seemingly insignificant day-to-day trifles are the core of humanity, the source of the soul’s uniqueness. Losing them, a person becomes just another cultivation puppet, losing their self."

This is where Yellow Millet Dream excels—if you alter just that 10% of memories through illusion, the cultivator becomes someone else entirely.

They look alive, but in truth, are already dead.

"Forgive me—whether you’re the Heart Emperor reborn, or the so-called Lu Chenzhou, though there’s no enmity between us, I must save my father..."

The Heavenly Gu Daoist sighed softly. From this one’s early memories, he already learned the truth of his identity.

Lu Chenzhou.

He’d heard the name—said to be a formidable threat to the Evil Gods, and now the Military Leader of the Tianxia Civilization. He never imagined such a genius was so ordinary in his youth.

As a descendant of an Ancient True Spirit, his father a Ninth Realm Gu Diao, his mother an Eighth Realm mutant, he was born into the Sixth Realm, overlooking all beings.

Time passed.

After three months, the Heavenly Gu Daoist had rewritten all of Lu Chenzhou’s pre-high school memories.

As long as all those 10% "ordinary" memories were changed, Lu Chenzhou would become his puppet.

Once Yellow Millet Dream is cast, it cannot be halted—the caster and victim engage in a contest in the illusion realm until one side is defeated.

...

In the Illusion Realm,

Lu Chenzhou was still fighting.

He felt a hollow sense of fighting for no reason; countless fleeting figures in his life had dissolved into nothingness. Perhaps these people and events weren’t important, but they formed the foundation of his memory palace, the unique imprint of his soul. Now, that imprint was fading—becoming void.

"Chenzhou..."

Before him, a middle-aged man was dissipating, dying by Lu Chenzhou’s fist—his homeroom teacher from secondary high school.

Lu Chenzhou’s face was expressionless.

With this man’s passing, all Lu Chenzhou’s pre-high school memories were blown away like dust.

This rupture made him begin to doubt if he had ever had parents, or kin at all.

The only other set of equally vivid memories had him growing up in the Great Wilderness, a prodigy of the Ancient race, fighting Fierce Beasts every day, born with divine eyes and treasure bones. By ten, he possessed Seventh Realm Cultivation, smashing the Flood Dragon in the Great Marsh—a transformation of the Black Water Profound Snake—invincible in the world!

The sense of disconnection left him lost.

He wandered in the illusion, repeatedly reminding himself: this is an illusion, hold on to your heart... Yet with the Absolute Realm and Seventh Rank Dao suppressing him, even this became ineffective. Realizing this, Lu Chenzhou gave up futile resistance, instead conserving his strength, reciting the Infinite Spell and Golden Light Spell to shield his spirit. His Spiritual Starry Sky was calm as a mirrored lake.

He sat wearily in the starry sky.

It was impossible to know how much time had passed.

In his mind, the Martial Arts Tree, nearly nine million zhang tall, seemed to grow ever higher—perhaps prolonged tempering in illusion was having some beneficial effect.

"No matter how strong the enemy, even a Great Power or Evil God, their status can’t compare to the Martial Arts Tree. Otherwise, when the Witch invaded my Sea of Consciousness, they’d have discovered the Martial Arts Tree. So as long as I keep my mind firmly anchored to the Martial Arts Tree, and outlast the enemy, there’s still a slim chance of survival."

...

"What’s going on? I can’t access memories after October 1st, 2220 of the Tianxia Calendar. All memories before that account for less than one-thousandth of Lu Chenzhou’s life. Even changing them all won’t matter much. This guy is utterly martial-obsessed—aside from family and Martial Arts, everything else he can forget."

The Heavenly Gu Daoist’s face shifted slightly.

"Could it be—the data says as a youth, his talent was ordinary, but after high school he suddenly rose, the mainstream Tianxia view is he awakened his Enlightenment Saint Body in an instant, while the Forbidden Zone’s divine beings guess he’s the reincarnation of a Great Power or some old being of the Divine Court."

The Daoist’s eyes grew bright: "With only Seventh Realm cultivation, yet able to block my Seventh Rank Dao’s True Spirit Divine Power—he must have some Supreme Treasure or even Divine Artifact that conceals his fate. If I can seize this opportunity, saving my father would be easy—even avenge my mother!"