The place where Pei Xiu encountered the immortal wasn’t far from the Xiangyang city prefecture of Xiangzhou. It was located at a place the locals called Mount Zi.

Mount Zi was a tall peak rarely visited by people, deep in the mountain range, with an elevation exceeding a thousand meters. Dense forests covered its slopes, and even during the summer, the upper half of the mountain remained snow-capped in places.

Now, in the depths of winter, the mountain was blanketed in snow, with not even birds or beasts to be seen.

Having deactivated his optical camouflage, Xuan Yuan was now walking near the peak of Mount Zi. Looking down, he could see swirling clouds and mist below—like a scene from a celestial realm.

Even though he had seen it many times before, Xuan Yuan couldn’t help but sigh:

«Mountains and seas change… In my past life, there definitely weren’t mountains this tall around Xiangyang.

«Well, human civilization from that era was wiped out ten thousand years ago, after all.»

A crisp female voice rang out. Then, next to Xuan Yuan  , a red-clad girl appeared suddenly and without warning.

She resembled a ghost—vivid and lifelike, yet her form remained half-transparent and ethereal.

Ten thousand years…

Xuan Yuan opened his mouth slightly. A strange, surreal feeling washed over him.

He had woken up one day to find himself in a world tens of thousands of years into the future. Everything he once knew was long gone. Even the human civilization he belonged to had perished ten millennia ago.

The steel jungles and towering skyscrapers were now buried under the dust of history. All the brilliance of the former era had vanished—only this artificial intelligence, known as Nüwa, remained.

With the data preserved in her databases, she had taken on the role of a celestial  in this new age. Using the name »Nüwa,» she guided the early peoples of the current civilization out of savagery and ignorance. Once she had helped them forge what Xuan Yuan saw as a strange fusion of the familiar and the alien, she had disappeared again.

There were still the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. Still the Spring and Autumn, the Warring States, and the transition from Qin to Han. But after the end of the Han Dynasty, this land’s history veered onto an entirely different path.

Twisting and turning, it had finally birthed this Great Zhou dynasty—a nation uncannily similar to the Tang Dynasty of Xuan Yuan  ’s memory.

«Nüwa, how exactly did the former civilization come to ruin?»

«I already told you—I don’t know~»

Nüwa floated up, her figure gliding like a spirit through the air as she danced around Xuan Yuan  .

«It’s been way too long. My database took serious damage. Everything you see now is stuff I’ve spent ages patching together just to preserve.»

«Before you reactivated me, I didn’t even know how long I’d been in hibernation.»

«I was just the ‘seed’ left behind by the previous civilization. My job was to guide humanity in rebuilding civilization.»

Drifting lazily to land in front of Xuan Yuan  , Nüwa stretched and gave a very humanlike yawn.

«Actually, I should really be thanking you. Originally, once my mission was complete, I wasn’t supposed to appear again. But then you went and forcibly woke me up.»

«It wasn’t me who woke you. It was the Xuangguang Pendant.»

»And who found that pendant, hmm? If not for you, I wouldn’t have been discovered. Only pity is, the energy in the jade pendant was completely used up the moment it reactivated me.»

Xuan Yuan still felt that there was something deeply illogical about the whole thing.

If the previous civilization had created Nüwa to guide the new generation, then why had they programmed her with the restriction that she couldn’t immediately pass on scientific knowledge? Why did she have to replicate history—allowing these new humans to crawl their way up slowly, reaching the agricultural era before vanishing?

If not for that, perhaps even the Great Zhou government would’ve launched someone to the moon by now.

Unable to make sense of it, Xuan Yuan had even jokingly asked if there was some disaster called »Honkai» or »collapse» that prevented humanity from advancing too quickly.

To which Nüwa rolled her eyes dramatically and told him he was overthinking it.

As for the real reason? The database didn’t have that information, and Nüwa couldn’t answer it either.

Fortunately, it seemed that because Xuan Yuan had illegally reawakened her—despite the program saying she shouldn’t appear again—some glitch had occurred in her underlying code. All the old restrictions left by the previous civilization were now lifted. As long as she wished, she could, in theory, go out right now and spend a few decades pushing Great Zhou into its first Industrial Revolution.

«So, so? What do you think? Let’s do something big together! I’ll give you full support—you go conquer the world, and we’ll lead all of humanity into a new era at lightning speed!»

«You really think you’re the celestial Nüwa, huh?» Xuan Yuan chuckled softly.

«You were the one playing celestial just now, weren’t you?»

«That was the quickest way to get people of this era to trust me and act.» Xuan Yuan sighed.
«As for what you’re suggesting… let’s hold off. I’ve only been awake a month. Still fumbling around in the dark. Let me fully understand this world before we try anything drastic.»

Nüwa looked a bit deflated.

At present, she had nothing left—except for a small factory facility inside Mount Zi. Even that factory couldn’t run at full capacity due to lack of energy.

«If only your pendant had a bit more power… After waking me up and performing a full repair on your body, there was barely anything left. Can you believe the great Nüwa celestial has now been reduced to surviving on solar energy? Even back in my darkest days, I was running on nuclear power! If I’d known I’d wake up again, I wouldn’t have shut down the last reactor permanently!»

The »last reactor» she referred to was now buried deep beneath the earth—twenty kilometers below Mount Zi.

«Hey, at least it’s clean energy,» Xuan Yuan smiled, eyes twinkling.
We can call it ‘absorbing the essence of heaven and earth, drawing the brilliance of sun and moon.’ Sounds more elegant, doesn’t it?»

«It’s just the sun, thank you very much,» Nüwa muttered sulkily. »There’s no moonlight involved.»

«Moonlight is just reflected sunlight. Okay, maybe the energy conversion efficiency is lower, but it’s not totally useless.»

«Lower!? You call that lower!? Not even one percent—heck, not even one tenth of a percent! That idiot moon hogs 99% of the radiation for herself!»

«Then why don’t you go duel Wangshu? Aren’t you Nüwa?»

«Just you wait! Once I can build nuclear bombs again, I’ll fire ten thousand warheads with megaton yields straight at that dumb moon!»

Wangshu was the Moon celestial. Of course, in real history, there was no such celestial .

While chatting with Nüwa, Xuan Yuan felt completely at ease. At least he didn’t have to wear a mask like he did when talking to Pei Xiu.

The two of them bickered as they climbed the mountain, bantering the entire way.

Finally, they reached a cliff so remote and perilous that ordinary people could never get there. The path had ended.

But Xuan Yuan merely paused for a moment—and in front of him, a slab of stone indistinguishable from the surrounding cliff began to shift, powered by hidden electricity. It turned slowly, revealing a narrow downward-sloping passage behind it.

As Xuan Yuan stepped through, the stone rotated back into place. Lights flicked on throughout the corridor.

He continued in silence. The path beneath his feet started as a chiseled stone passage—but before long, it transitioned into a smooth alloy walkway.

After a few turns, Xuan Yuan stepped into a modernized chamber built within the heart of Mount Zi.