Chapter 3 - In this life, I'm known as Jiang Han once again
Mist appeared before his eyes, the mist of chaos.
"This is?" Jiang Han's eyes sprung open, only to see what seemed like a thick mist present in his surroundings, basically being able to see anything clearly. However, the tactile sensation of reality caused his heart to skip a beat.
A fleshly body. He has a fleshly body!
Although he was imprisoned in hell for 90 thousand years, he had to endure the pain and torture of being ground up. For every single day he spent in there, he had to experience the pain of his fleshly body being smashed and destroyed. However, how could that fleshly body constructed from the aggregation of spiritual power be compared to a real fleshly body?
"I've really reincarnated!" Jiang Han made his verdict.
Upon entering the cycle of reincarnation, his spiritual soul appeared to have already descended right to this place.
The dark revolving magical powers present around him blocked all vision from seeing through them.
"Logically, the fruits of karma from my past life should be broken after drinking grandmother Meng's soup, and I should have lost my memories. However, why am I able to remember my past life?" a chill surged through Jiang Han's heart. "Could it be that the owner of that purple blood had done something about this?"
"Whatever. So what if he had done something? What can I do about it? Regardless of how poor the situation is, it can't be worse than my last life, right?" thought Jiang Han, shaking his head as he suppressed this chain of thought.
"I don't know how long it'll take before I'm truly born." thought Jiang Han.
At this moment, he was still within his mother's womb. His body has yet to develop fully, while his sea of consciousness has yet to fully form. Despite having the strength of his spiritual soul, he was utterly unable to radiate his spiritual sense out, and was even unable to control his body.
After reincarnating, what's left of his powerful spiritual soul was just a sliver of a spiritual glow remnant.
"Without any spirit and form. Is this initial form of a spiritual soul?" with a thought, Jiang Han used his "heart" to observe his spiritual sea of consciousness, only to find that the divine soul that he had condensed, which was close to the realm of a Yin God, had already dissipated away.
"According to the legends of the Nether Realm, an Initial Yuan state is equivalent to an Innate state of a human. If one can converge one's thoughts and mind, one could establish a saint-like foundation for one's spiritual soul, allowing one to make preparations when one treads on the path to sainthood."
The Nether Realm was the world of spiritual soul cultivators. Ghosts and spiritual souls do not possess fleshly bodies, and thus was cut off from the Martial Dao. Having stayed in the Nether Realm for a 100 years, Jiang Han naturally knew the cultivation arts for spiritual souls.
"Regardless of the legends of the Initial Yuan State is accurate or not, I'm now in this state. It seems that the only thing I can do is to condense my spiritual soul to past time here." as Jiang Han thought about this, he could not help but laugh softly.
"Soul Condensation, Visualize!"
"With a thought, a Spiritual Soul Cultivation art appeared in his mind. 《Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva Visualization Art 》.
Having served for 100 years as a ghost soldier, although Jiang Han had only guarded the black stone bridge, he was able to obtain an orthodox and widely transmitted Spiritual Soul Cultivation Art of the Nether Realm. As for its ranking, this art could only be considered as staple goods.
"Having been circulated for countless aeons, at the very least, its safe to cultivate it." thought Jiang Han with a faint smile.
Although some powerful cultivation arts would lead astonishing effects, these would only apply to specific individuals within the population. The widely circulated cultivation arts for the general masses would need to fulfil the important prerequisite of being safe to cultivate.
At this moment, he was just an unborn fetus. His brain has yet to fully develop, his sea of consciousness has yet to fully expand. Therefore, safety was the utmost concern for him now.
"This is just an ordinary Visualization Art. However, the past 90 thousand years of my life will be my faith!" thought Jiang Han as he closed his eyes.
If not for him continuing to cultivate this art for 90 thousand years, his spiritual soul might have long been crushed and extinguished.
"Humm!"
A figure of an all merciful and compassionate buddha surfaced within his heart. This Buddha held a golden scripture in his left hand, with his right forming an upright palm. One could seem to see the myriad of worlds present faintly behind him, radiating with endless radiance.
The tranquillity of one's heart like the surface of a mirror!
The hearts of ordinary humans were capricious, and were not easily compose themselves. However, having experienced the thousands and millions of pain and torture within the depths of hell, his heart had already become incomparably tough and tenacious. With ease, his heart had already turned composed, before entering the Soul Condensation State.
The so-called geniuses in the world would treat such a state as the pinnacle of all states. However, after spending 90 thousand years, living for one day at a time, even the most ordinary of Spiritual Soul Cultivation Arts would not be inferior to those exceptional god tomes in Jiang Han's hand.
Within his sea of consciousness, under the various kinds of mysterious energies pouring in, that hazy and dispersed spiritual soul intent of his started to slowly condense together. As for that dark mist in the surroundings, it had continued to flow in, causing Jiang Han's developing sea of consciousness to become increasingly vast and exuberant.
Time continued to elapse!
Great Zhou Calendar, Year 8982, winter.
Yanzhou, Jiangbei County, Hongcheng, Jiang family mountain villa.
At this moment, within a vast courtyard in the villa, many people have gathered within. Dressed in various beautiful garments and armour, all of them were waiting in silence.
Among their midst was a white-robed youth. Possessing an extraordinary air around him, he appeared exceedingly calm and tranquil. Seating on a stone chair within the courtyard, he was currently reading through a thick book.
"Zheng'er, is he born?" said a sturdily built old man dressed in a bearskin coat as he walked through the courtyard door with a wide smile.
"Father, shouldn't you be preparing for the grand ceremony?" slowly standing up, the white-robed youth reveal a sliver of a faint smile. Although his wife was currently in labour, he did not show any anxiousness in his actions.
"Haha! Is that anything that's more important than the birth of my grandson? The grand ceremony in the villa is being handled by your elder brother. It's about time for him to get familiar with such matters." replied the old man with a free and easy laugh.
Hearing that, the white-robed youth gave a chuckle. As the 2 men chatted, the entire courtyard immediately turned silent, with no one daring to move even an inch. Clearly, these 2 men held extremely high statuses within this villa.
Just at this moment, the cries of an infant rang out from the many-layer wrapped house beside the courtyard.
Quickly, a female servant came out with an infant wrapped in towel, her face brimming with a smile. "Villa lord, 2nd master, this is the young master."
"How's Madame?" the white-robed youth smiled gently as he asked about his wife's condition.
"Madame's safe and sound, and is currently resting inside. You'll have to wait a while before you can enter, 2nd master." replied the female servant hastily.
"Oh, okay." the white-robed youth nodded his head slightly, before turning his eyes towards the infant in the female servant's embrace.
With a gentle move of his hand, an invisible ripple shot out from the hand of the sturdily built old man. Landing on the infant, he shot out of her embrace, before landing in his hands. Raising his head to look towards the little face of the infant, the old man could not help but smile as he said. "He looks manly. Not bad, not bad."
Tilting his head, the sturdily built old man looked towards a green-robed old man in the distance before saying, "Old Mo, go and allocate a reward of 5 Yuan Stones for each the midwives for today. At the same time, go and temporarily halt the sacrificial ceremony, and change it to a birthday ceremony, while giving all of the peasant households and servants in this mountain villa a day of leave."
"Congratulations, villa lord! I'll immediately go and handle it!" replied the green-robed old man with a smile.
After quite a while, the white-robed youth smiled as he said, "Father, let me have him. I'll bring him over to let Wei'er take a look."
"Ah, okay." replied the old man with a nod, before suddenly asking. "Zheng'er, have you selected a name for him?"
The white-robed youth gawked slightly, pondering slightly before replying with a smile. "He's called Jiang Han!"
In an instant, with a feeling as though the heavens and earth had rotated, Jiang Han knew that he has been born into the world.
"Wa! Wa! Wa!"
He desperately tried to open his eyes, though he felt his entire mind spinning in drowsiness. Unable to help it, he started to cry, an instinct present in all infants.
Only after quite a while did he manage to feel some strength come back to him.
Jiang Hao wanted to see the outside world. However, it was a pity that an infant's eyes right after being born were blurry, unclear, making it difficult for him to be able to focus on anything. What's more, he wasn't able to see anything over a certain distance away.
"Wei'er, he really looks like you!" a gentle, happy filled voice rang out by Jiang Han's ears, before a face subsequently appeared before him.
With such a close distance, upon rotating his eyes over, Jiang Han was finally able to get a clear picture of the face.
It was that of a male, with eyebrows as sharp as sword, while brimming with an extraordinary aura. Alongside these was a feeling that was hard to describe with words, the sense of being related by blood.
"Is he my father for this life? Nevertheless, he looks pretty young." after being born into this world, Jiang Han was gradually able to gain control over this body of his. As of now, with the strength of his spiritual soul, it wasn't hard for him to control this little, little body of his.
"What's the matter, Wei'er? Are you feeling alright?" asked the white-robed youth with concern as he sat by the side of the bed.
"I'm alright." a warm and gentle rang out besides Jiang Han's ear. "Let me see our child."
As sunlight reflected into Jiang Han's eyes, a face of a female with a gentle smile who clearly appears to be extremely youthful appeared before him. Her appearance wasn't of the exceptionally beautiful type that would cause the downfall of countries, yet the warmth and care present in her gaze caused Jiang Han's heart to be moved.
"Is she my mother?" a sliver of warmth flowed through his heart.
"In this life, I've treaded on the Jade bridge. From the looks of it, I should have been born into a wealthy family. However, the word wealthy is hard to quantify. Also, I still do not know about the specific details of my parents." thought Jiang Han as he pondered quietly.
"Wei'er, due to our meeting that year in the Han Mountains, I've decided to name our child Jiang Han!" the gentle voice of the white-robed youth rang out as he looked at his wife.
"Jiang Han? Is this fate? Or is this a coincidence?" Jiang Han pondered about this. He had an inexplicable feeling, as while would it be so coincidental for his name in this life to be the same as his previous one? Was all of these really being controlled by someone in the background?
"Since I'm unable to put up any resistance, may my as well accept it. Furthermore, it also saves me the trouble of changing it later!"
"Jiang Han?" the female nodded her head. Appearing to have remembered something, her eyebrows trembled slightly as she looked at Jiang Han. Due to him having just entered this world, he has yet to gain that smooth and glossy skin that was characteristic to children. "Child did you heard that? Your name is Jiang Han, your father is called Jiang Zheng, and mother's called Han Qingwei."
The female's voice was extremely soft, yet contained a feeling of warmth in it.
The youth's gentle voice rang out, now present with a warning tone. "Wei'er, please pay attention to your name."
"Okay, brother Zheng. I know. Over here, I'm known as Qin Wei." replied the female with a smile, as she gently rocked the infant in her embrace.
"My father's Jiang Zheng? And my mother's Han Qingwei, and is also known as Qin Wei?" although Jiang Han didn't quite understanding the meaning behind the 2 names his mother hand, the only thing he could do was to quietly remember it down.
The connection of bloodlines, and the intimacy shown from those gazes caused a sliver of movement to occur on Jiang Han's long frozen heart.