Chapter 1901 — 1901: Triggered Memories

'Huang Xiao Li? What is she doing here? No… more importantly, why is her family alive?!' Yuan stared at Huang Xiao Li as she chatted with her family, a bright smile on her face.

"Xiao Yang? What's the matter? Why did you suddenly stop moving? Do you see a bandit again?" Elder Sun asked when she noticed his weird behavior.

"Please give me a moment."

Without elaborating further, Yuan left Elder Sun's side and approached Huang Xiao Li and her family.

Huang Xiao Li and her family stopped when he suddenly stood in their path.

"How can we help you?" Huang Xiao Li's father, Huang Chen, stepped forward and asked.

Yuan swallowed nervously and spoke, "You don't recognize me?"

He turned to look at Huang Xiao Li, who also wore a puzzled expression on her face, almost as if this was their first time meeting each other.

'Did Tian Yang never meet them in this world?' Yuan pondered this possibility.

'Maybe they don't recognize me because of my short hair…'

Yuan looked behind him to see Elder Sun staring at him.

'What will happen if I reveal myself as Tian Yang here?'

Suddenly, Huang Xiao Li's body trembled, and her expression changed.

"T-Tian Yang?" she muttered in a low voice.

Yuan's eyes widened as he snapped to look at Huang Xiao Li, who appeared to be confused by something.

Huang Xiao Li held her head, wincing as if experiencing a headache. She staggered slightly, struggling to steady herself.

"Xiao Li?! What's wrong?!" Her family's voices rose in alarm, their expressions tightening with concern.

Huang Xiao Li didn't answer. A moment later, she slowly turned to face them, her eyes wide with horror.

"W-What? Father? Mother? Brother…?" Her voice trembled. "W-Why are you here? I thought you were dead… These memories—what is happening to me?!"

A sharp pain seized her, and she collapsed to her knees, a piercing scream escaping her lips.

At the same moment, her family members also stiffened, their eyes clouding over. At first, they merely looked dazed, but within seconds, confusion twisted their faces, mirroring her torment.

"What's going on?! I swear we were trying to escape that sea demon when it—!" Huang Chen exclaimed.

"What the hell is going on…?" Yuan could only stand there and watch with a dumbfounded look on his face.

Suddenly, the ground trembled, a faint vibration that quickly intensified into a violent quake. The very air seemed to shudder as deep fissures split across the earth. Above, the sky itself began to crack, jagged lines spreading like shattered glass, as if the fabric of reality was beginning to unravel.

"What is happening?!" Elder Sun rushed to his side and asked while the other onlookers went into a frenzy.

"I don't—"

In the midst of Yuan's speech, his words faltered as an unsettling silence fell over the world. The once-present sounds vanished in an instant, leaving only an eerie stillness. Even more unnerving, everyone around him stood frozen in place—motionless, as if time itself had come to a standstill.

"This is…" Yuan recognized this phenomenon, as he'd experienced something similar three years ago.

Sure enough, a moment later, the Sect Leader of the Immortal Monastery appeared before him like a ghost with a deep frown on his face.

"It's you again! What the hell did you do to mess with my world like this?!" The Sect Leader questioned him in anger.

After snapping out of his daze, Yuan said, "I don't know. They started freaking out when they saw me, and then the world started shaking."

The Sect Leader turned to look at Huang Xiao Li and her family before approaching them. He placed a finger on their forehead and began reading their memories.

"I see what happened here," he mumbled a moment later.

"What happened?" Yuan asked.

The Sect Leader pointed at him and angrily responded, "Your face—that's what happened!"

"My face? What are you talking about?" Yuan pretended to be ignorant.

The Sect Leader scratched his head in annoyance and said, "There's too much to explain. I don't feel like telling you."

Yuan narrowed his eyes and said, "Then answer this question. Is this world just an illusion of the past, or is this a real world?"

The Sect Leader also narrowed his eyes and responded, "That question will cost you a million points."

"Put it on my tab," Yuan answered without delay.

The Sect Leader looked around them and, after a moment of silence, spoke, "This is a real world. The people here are also real."

"I know I brought this up myself, but how is that even possible?"

"This is all I am willing to answer for now. If you want to know more, ask me again once you become a Core Disciple and earn more points."

"I will rewind this world's time by one minute… to before you met them. This time, stay away from them—unless you wish to bring ruin upon this world and everyone within it."

With those ominous words, the Sect Leader raised his hands, tracing intricate gestures in the air. A strange force rippled through reality, and, just as he had declared, the world responded.

The flow of time reversed. People who had been frozen in place now moved once more, but instead of moving forward, they were going backward, as if the world itself was being rewritten.

"I will not warn you again. If you trigger their memories again, I won't hesitate to toss you out of this world myself," said the Sect Leader before unpausing the time and disappearing at the same time.

"Xiao Yang? What's the matter? Why did you suddenly stop moving? Do you see a bandit again?" Elder Sun repeated what she said a minute ago.

Yuan didn't respond and stood there in silence to digest what had just happened. A few moments later, he spoke in a low voice, "Sorry, it's nothing… I thought I saw someone I knew."

"Is that so? Then let's get going."

Yuan nodded and followed her outside the city, passing Huang Xiao Li and her family without even glancing at them, treating them as if they were strangers.