Chapter 2: Dream

The morning passed, and the afternoon hours gradually slipped away. Gazing at the red clouds slowly staining the horizon, watching the fiercely burning clouds in the distance, Su Xuan thought of the people fighting hard on the far-off frontiers.

Perhaps they were only two or three years older than him, yet they shouldered the fate of humanity.

That air of melancholy entranced many of his classmates from afar. Students from the photography club secretly raised their cameras, snapping a few shots with clicks and clacks, marveling at the beauty of the person and the scenery.

Su Xuan shook his head, ignoring them as he walked home.

Unfortunately, Su Xuan was perhaps a direct victim of the Dark Abomination disaster. His parents, and his older brother, had all thrown themselves into the Land of Chaos one after another. Five years ago, the dreadful news arrived: his father and mother had both been sacrificed in a major battle, leaving only his older brother behind.

That day, his older brother, draped in mourning clothes, walked slowly from where the bloody sunset fell. He held two golden nanmu wood caskets, silent and wordless. Behind him, two squads of soldiers in black uniforms followed in silence. Su Xuan, in a daze, followed his brother into the cemetery to bury their parents.

The next day, his brother changed into a gray military uniform and set off for the Land of Chaos. In the five years that followed, he had only returned once.

As a descendant of martyrs, even if his Phantom Soul met the combat standards and reached the combat index, he was eligible to refuse enlistment.

But Su Xuan would not, nor was he willing to, live a safe and peaceful life in this sealed-off, protected world. He wanted to see the place for which his parents had sacrificed themselves, to see what it was like.

For this, he worked hard; he was self-disciplined. It was just that heaven, taking pity on the Su family, seemed to wish for a spark to be left behind.

The day he awakened his Phantom Soul three years ago was June 11th, 7017. The reason he remembered this date so clearly was because he had died on June 11th in his previous life. After finishing the college entrance exams, he had let himself go wild and died from drowning.

Other people’s Phantom Souls were things like swords, guns, books, tigers, or even indescribable, abstract things of unknown nature, but he had never heard of one being a person.

More importantly, the one he had awakened seemed to be female, a girl who looked very much like him, and it exhibited a feminine fluctuation.

What did this mean? In an era where observing the yin-yang fluctuation of a Phantom Soul was more convincing than a direct XY chromosome test, having a feminine Phantom Soul meant that even a male was female.

So Su Xuan was very nervous now, extremely nervous. That sense of pressure intensified with each passing day. He had been a man for two lifetimes and had yet to taste the sweetness of a girl, and now you’re telling me I’m not actually a man?

‘If I get found out during the test, my reputation will be ruined! I won’t have a chance to pick up girls anymore. Not only will I not have a chance to get girls, I might even be… d*mn it all!’

At first, Su Xuan didn’t believe it. ‘Could your Phantom Soul really affect my body in reverse?’ But during the summer vacation after his awakening, before high school started, he used his Phantom Soul to cultivate, and then things went wrong.

He became sentimental and melancholic. Seeing women’s clothing actually gave him an urge to try it on. Then, every morning when he woke up, little Su Xuan was no longer so eager to report for duty.

At that time, Su Xuan still thought it was just temporary, just a side effect of awakening, and didn’t pay it too much mind, even making all sorts of excuses for himself.

One day, he placed an order online: a JK uniform, a sailor uniform, black stockings, lipstick, a wig… When Su Xuan recalled that day, his heart filled with embarrassment. He didn’t know if he had been bewitched that day, but using the makeup knowledge he had acquired over half the summer, wearing the newly received women’s clothing, mixing a few bottles of perfume to create an alluring scent, he went out in high heels.

He reveled in the possessive gazes of passersby. That thrill was as addictive as opium.

By the Nanjiang River, he met a street photographer who took a few photos of him, one of which was the very picture now in his wallet.

The photo in his wallet now served as a reminder for Su Xuan.

Every time he was tired and wanted to borrow the power of his Phantom Soul to cultivate, he would look at this picture.
He had painstakingly broken free from that obsession; was he really going to fall back into it?

To become someone he didn’t even recognize?

No, absolutely not.

The efforts of three years must not go to waste.

But the most crucial matter at hand was how to get through the test in a month.

“Ah! This is too hard! I can’t solve this problem!”

Su Xuan raged impotently in his heart.
Why was he so unlucky?

Not only did he not receive any help from his Phantom Soul in cultivation, but he was also at constant risk of having his very nature altered.

Lost in thought, he soon arrived back at his residence, which was in a residential complex not far from the school, about two kilometers away, a twenty-minute walk.

“Click!”

The door was pushed open.

Dim light, a familiar layout, a familiar scent.

He closed the door and walked towards the bedroom.

The house was not small, about a hundred square meters, with three bedrooms, one living room, two bathrooms, and a kitchen.
But in this hundred-square-meter space, living alone felt a bit lonely.

He turned on all the lights, filling the space with brightness, and turned on the TV, filling it with sound.

But the liveliness still didn’t come.
There was only himself, all alone in this space.

Cultivation became the only choice to relieve the loneliness.

At night, dance music started playing outside.

Indeed, no matter which world it was, the aunties were just as enthusiastic about square dancing.

But Su Xuan didn’t feel annoyed.
Their sons and daughters were perhaps thousands of miles away, guarding humanity.

And this noisy music could provide a bit of precious liveliness to this quiet room.

He took out a jet-black crystal, and a mystical aura filled the space.
This was an energy stone used for cultivation.

These stones were forged through special means from a special energy block produced exclusively in the Land of Chaos.
Without that kind of energy block, it was impossible to manufacture them.

This was the energy source for which human warriors were willing to sacrifice their lives.

Energy stones stored a large amount of energons.

Energons were a special type of energy that emanated from the Land of Chaos after its birth.

There were also small amounts of energons floating in the air, but cultivating with the energons from the air was far too slow.
Compared to using energy stones, it was the difference between a snail and a cheetah.

Because his parents had both passed away, Su Xuan could collect four such energy stones from the government every month.
At his current stage, two a month were enough.

The remaining two could only be stored in a special wardrobe for later use.
And that wardrobe contained not only the stored energy stones, but also the women’s clothing he had bought back when he had lost his senses.

The market price of an ordinary energy stone was one to two thousand yuan, so for Su Xuan, the four free energy stones he received each month were a huge sum.
This benefit would disappear on his twentieth birthday.

Because he had too many energy stones, every two years or so, Su Xuan would mail the nearly fifty stored energy stones to his brother fighting in the far-off Land of Chaos, just hoping to help him a little.

Right now, that wardrobe held a year and a half’s worth of energy stones.

If Su Xuan let his Phantom Soul assist in his cultivation, he could consume ten energy stones a month.

But how could he do something that was like selling his soul!

Impossible.

Impossible in this lifetime.

Su Xuan had to show that detestable Phantom Soul inside him that even without its help, he, Su Xuan, could become a peerless powerhouse, a star of humanity!

But no matter how hard he tried, no matter how self-disciplined he was, his cultivation speed was only at an ordinary, mediocre level.

Although he had never truly seen how others cultivated or their speed, judging from various data, his own cultivation speed was just at a very common level.
And for someone with this cultivation speed, it was doubtful whether he could even join the army.

There were three important criteria for enlistment: one was the Phantom Soul, another was energon perception, and the last was energon affinity.

And the Phantom Soul greatly influenced both energon perception and energon affinity.

So the topic once again returned to this thing called the Phantom Soul.

“Oh my god, what am I going to do in a month!”

Su Xuan lay on his bed, letting out a helpless sigh.

With a heavy heart, he slowly drifted off into dreamland.

“Where… is this?”

A space with no up or down, no direction, just a vast, uniform whiteness all around.

Suddenly, a wisp of gray mist floated up, and a girl who was eighty percent similar to Su Xuan slowly approached him.

Instantly, Su Xuan became lucid in his dream.

He gained the ability to think independently and access his memories as if he were awake.

He also understood that he was in a dream right now and could wake up anytime he wanted.

But Su Xuan didn’t choose to wake up so quickly.

Instead, he looked at the girl walking towards him with a slightly grave expression.

She was his Phantom Soul.

Su Xuan had never heard of a Phantom Soul with such an independent personality.
She was almost like another person, or rather, another personality of his.
She was not a tool subservient to him, but another person who could bargain with him.

“I can help you solve the problem during the test.”

Her voice was pleasant, like a tinkling clear spring, making one feel a clear stream flowing through their heart.

“Haha, how? By announcing to the world that I’m actually a girl?”

Su Xuan laughed.

What a ridiculous statement, as if a feminine Phantom Soul could produce a masculine fluctuation.

‘Is it a disguise? Like makeup? As expected, all girls are good at this, no matter what kind.’

Just as Su Xuan’s mouth was full of sarcasm and his mind full of slander, he saw the girl pull a red blade, pulsating with an aura of ultimate masculinity and yang, directly out of thin air.

“Ah…!”

Su Xuan’s jaw dropped in shock.
He rubbed his eyes and pinched himself.
He wasn’t… he was dreaming, but this was too unreal.

This was something he wouldn’t even dare to dream of.

“But you have to agree to one condition! You must cultivate with my assistance for three hours every day.”

Seeing Su Xuan’s incredibly eager gaze fixed on the sharp blade in her hand, the girl laid out her terms.

“Impossible. Not even for a second. I don’t need your assistance.”

Su Xuan’s emotions flared.

This was a proposal that offended his personal dignity.

“Honestly, don’t you think it’s hard to achieve the desired results with just your own efforts?”

The girl frowned, seeming to disapprove of this willful, childish big boy.

“I can do it alone! I have no problem!”

“Then how long will you wait to avenge your parents? Until the end of time? For the sake of your so-called masculinity, you childishly refuse the help that could avenge your parents. Are you worthy of being their son?”

“But I can’t practice this kind of evil-warding sword art! The Su family line depends on me to carry it on!”

“Su Chen isn’t dead.”

“…”

Su Xuan was at a loss for words, but he really couldn’t take that step.

Once he agreed to her request, it would be like an ordinary person making a deal with the devil, only to be slowly devoured.

Su Xuan didn’t want to show up at his parents’ graves one day as a girl, holding a baby and saying, “Mom, Dad, your grandson is here to see you.”

But, if he didn’t use his Phantom Soul to cultivate, his dream of joining the battlefield and avenging his parents seemed forever out of reach.

As his parents’ son, should he really give up the possibility of revenge over something like this?

“Sigh, think whatever you want. You can be a coward for the rest of your life. Let me know when you’ve thought it through. If you agree, this sharp blade will be your Phantom Soul on the day of the test.”

Without giving Su Xuan a chance to speak, she vanished from the space.

In an instant, the desire for revenge, the pressure of the test a month away, and the determination to prove he wasn’t a coward made Su Xuan come to a decision.

“Three hours is too long. Two hours!”

Mustering his courage, Su Xuan uttered this sentence.

“As you wish…”

A vast and distant voice echoed from all around, a hint of ineffable excitement mixed within the seemingly indifferent words.

“Then one hour!”

Su Xuan continued to press for less time.

“Heh heh!”