Author's Preface
Following the instructions through the communication bead, Mark continued running for a long while, making several twists and turns before finally reaching a clearing where he stumbled into what looked to be a public park.
Silver Oak Park.
The name was carved into a weathered wooden post near the entrance.
Tall oak-like trees stood throughout the park like dutiful soldiers. Beautifully crafted benches, each with its own artistic style and shape, sat beneath softly glowing street lanterns.
The lighting was different too, Mark noted. The lanterns were low and squat, unlike those lining the main streets, standing less than three meters tall. Stranger still, no two gave off quite the same light. Some burned with a warm orange glow; others shone bright red, pale pink, or a brilliant white. Together, the colors mingled beneath the canopy, washing over the trees and finely carved benches until the entire park felt almost unreal. Mark found himself staring before he even realized he'd stopped.
"Beautiful, huh?" A hand settled gently on his shoulder, pulling him from his reverie.
"What was all that about?" Mark asked at once. He didn't bother specifying what he meant. He wanted answers to everything.
"Well..." Leaf began as he walked beside him. "It's because once Qi, the breath of the world, flows through your meridians, it inherits your own unique properties. When Qi exists freely in the world, it's docile, nourishing, and, more importantly, harmless."
As he spoke, he guided Mark deeper into the park until they found an empty bench beneath a lantern whose light resembled a miniature sun. They sat. "Once it becomes part of a living being, however, it also becomes part of who they are. By default, it protects its owner by destroying whatever it comes into contact with. Learning to change that fundamental nature of Qi is one of the prerequisites for becoming a healer, an alchemist, a formation engineer, and many other professions."
Understanding flashed across Mark's face. Even so, it did little to overshadow the sheer excitement shining in his eyes. "That was fucking invigorating. I am actually a superhero now..."
His voice dripped with genuine disbelief.
Only his father knew it, but the reason Mark had joined the military, later became a police officer, and eventually a detective, had begun with a childhood obsession with comic books and superheroes. They weren't the only reason, nor even the biggest one, but they had planted the first seed, the desire to become someone useful. For most of his life, his greatest role model had, somewhat embarrassingly, been Peter Parker.
"Okay, I understand." Mark nodded, though his attention had already shifted to the man beside him.
It didn't take a detective or a flying wizard to realize something was wrong.
Leaf's breathing was labored. Even the short walk to the bench had seemed to strain him, and the color had drained so completely from his face that he looked almost corpse-like.
"What's wrong with you?" Mark asked, urgency creeping into his voice.
If the previous incident had taught him anything, it was just how little he understood this world. There were countless subtleties to simply existing here. If the man beside him suddenly disappeared, Mark had little doubt he'd soon follow.
"I am not as strong as you think I am." Leaf closed his eyes, steadying his breathing before continuing. "I awakened an ability called Heaven's Gaze some time ago. It allows me to see the karmic threads connecting people, but it drains me greatly. I already used it once to find your location, and that was my limit for the day."
Understanding dawned almost immediately.
'He must've used it again earlier.' Mark thought. Feeling somewhat guilty, he scratched the back of his neck and coughed. "My bad. I didn't know about this whole unique Qi thing."
Leaf immediately raised a hand to stop him. "No," he corrected. "It was my fault. I was just excited by the thought of seeing someone experience Qi for the first time that I didn't think the situation through." His eyes opened, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his lips as he looked at the man beside him. "We did great, all things considered."
Mark blew air through his nose in amusement, and a smile found its way onto his face. "That is true." Then he watched Leaf suddenly materialize a round object out of thin air before popping it into his mouth. "What's this..." he demanded in disbelief. "What did you do just now, and why does it suddenly smell like the damp earth of a forest after heavy rainfall?"
Leaf's eyes had closed again at some point, digesting the pill as it melted on his tongue. A surge of pure vitality erupted within him, flooding his body like a mighty river breaking through a dam. A verdant aura spread through his meridians, carrying with it boundless vigor.
"This," he informed, leaning back against the bench with his eyes still closed, "is a healing pill called Forest Vein, but I imagine that's not exactly what you're curious about."
He opened his palm, and a metallic dark-brown cube appeared out of thin air. It was made of interlocking sections surrounding a hollow center.
"Do you see the ring on my finger?" he asked. "It's a storage ring. It lets you store objects in a separate dimension and retrieve them whenever you want."
Mark's mind was blown for the umpteenth time that hour. As amazed as he was, he was also becoming numb to it all.
"Good lord..." he muttered helplessly. "Even that is possible?"
As if finally remembering something important, he asked, "So this ability you mentioned, that's how you could tell that the captain was called Geng Yu, and that he had a prior relationship with old Mark?"
"I can momentarily tap into the karmic threads bridging people and glimpse the memories contained within those relationships," Leaf explained, before a sudden frown colored his expression. "Something peculiar happened, however. Usually, karmic threads connect two people, but the one between you and Geng Yu was severed."
"Severed?" Mark repeated, unable to understand. "Didn't you just use it?"
"Yes," Leaf continued. "Severing a karmic thread isn't something anyone can do. Only those at the Saint Realm, and even then, only the most talented among them who have touched upon the Laws of Causality, can sever a karmic thread. This one wasn't even severed." He hesitated. "It'd be more appropriate to say... unanchored."
By the end, even his own voice carried uncertainty.
"Hmm..." Mark hummed, unsure what to make of it.
'What kind of conversation even is this?' he mused helplessly.
"Wait." Leaf shot to his feet, realization dawning across his face as he stared down at Mark.
"Of course," he cried. "You're not Mark Robinson. You're Mark Robinson."
"What?" Confusion spread across Mark's face.
"What I mean is..." Leaf looked at him intently. "The old Mark died. You're a new consciousness inhabiting his body. It's reflecting exactly what that karmic thread was doing, approaching, then pulling back, over and over. Because you are you... But you're also not."
As though another thought had struck him, he tapped his storage ring with a strand of Qi. A dull flash followed, and a rough wooden tablet materialized in his hand.
Its surface was the hue of sun-baked earth. The edges were uneven and jagged, as though it had been split directly from a larger trunk rather than carved by hand. Fine winding grains ran across its face, and beneath the lantern light they seemed to ripple ever so slightly.
"Remembrance Sandalwood Tablet," Leaf stated as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world.
He sat back beside Mark, closed his eyes once more, and raised the tablet between them.
At first, Mark couldn't make heads or tails of what was happening, but he caught on the moment the old piece of wood stirred to life.
The tablet gave a low hum. A faint bluish glow seeped from its edges before spreading inward until its center suddenly came alive.
He saw a scene from a first-person perspective, a scene he knew well.
The body of the stranger whose flesh he now inhabited stood surrounded by six guards. Civilians wandered the streets. Children ran through the crowd. Restless beasts moved between them all.
Most importantly...
The golden threads.
"Jesus..." he muttered beneath his breath.
Leaf, his eyes still closed, recounted calmly, "Those are the karmic threads."
The scene shifted toward the thick, golden, tentacle-like strand.
"That's what I was telling you about. See?"
Mark nodded.
"Is this how you see the world?" he asked. "That is insane. But what did you mean exactly by I am me, but also not me? I understand the words, but what does that imply for this power of yours?"
Leaf let out a long sigh before slumping weakly against the bench. "It means I was planning on using Heaven's Gaze to tap into your karmic threads and see the people connected to you. Maybe I could've found who killed you and why. That was the only way to prove your innocence now that you came back to life, and the rest of your team was murdered."
"I see." Mark nodded slowly before another thought surfaced. "Couldn't I have just stayed there waiting for the guards to arrive? I could've said I was attacked and didn't remember anything."
Leaf froze like a deer caught in headlights.
A tense silence followed.
"No, wait!" he blurted. "Although I admit I hadn't really given it much thought... now that I do, it's not feasible." He shook his head. "They wouldn't have believed you, and this isn't exactly like your Qi-devoid world. There are several ways to read the memories of both the living and the dead. What would've happened if they saw your memories...?"
"True," Mark conceded. "It'd also raise a lot of questions for whoever killed the original Mark. I'm sure they'd be terrified when they learned of it."
Then another idea occurred to him. "Can't we try it?"
"Try?"
"The memories," Mark emphasized, pointing at the still-glowing tablet. "Maybe they wouldn't be able to see my memories, but the memories are still stored in the brain inside this skull."
"It won't work." Leaf rejected the idea immediately. "You still don't realize how quickly physical matter changes in this realm. The moment you descended into this world, your body conceived its own breath of Qi. No two people in existence share the same Qi, and that would've immediately altered your brain."
He stretched out the tablet. "Here. Try it yourself."
"How?"
"It's easy. I've already erased my imprint. Just touch it with your Qi, and it'll establish a spiritual connection. You'll sense a bridge between the two of you. Feed it Qi while recalling your memories."
The Remembrance Sandalwood Tablet hummed to life once more.
The first scene it displayed was Mark watching his old partner Linda betray him, the massacre in the living room, and finally the dead teenage girl beside the digital tablet.
Leaf snatched the wooden tablet away almost immediately, erased Mark's imprint, and changed the subject. "As I said, it's not really working. We need to go now."
"Wait." Mark stopped him before he could stand.
"I feel like I'm still missing something."
"Such as?"
"I don't know..."
"All you need to know for now is this." Leaf stood up and looked down at him. "You have one of the biggest secrets in the world inside of your brain, you are very, very weak, and you're in a precarious position where a group of powerful people is looking to read your memories." His expression grew even more serious as he mentioned that. "The situation couldn't be more dire, but there is still a way to come through it unscathed."
"Find evidence to exonerate Old Mark, my current identity, and I'll be safe?"
"Not quite." Leaf smiled. "Remember, the most dangerous thing in your possession is your memories. You might not realize it because you haven't been here for long, but memory reading is very common in the Guards' Office. Fortunately, this is a world of cultivators. People are strong, and because of that, their voices are heard. They can't simply intrude into the deepest parts of who you are without sufficient reason. Our main goal right now is exactly that."
Mark's eyes flashed as his head slowly nodded, and he rose to his feet. "I see," he replied. "Find enough evidence to put me in a position where I can refuse to have my memories read."
"Yes." Leaf returned the nod with an approving glance. "We need to make some final preparations before looking into the Dark Roots gang. That's the only clue we have."
As they walked out of the beautiful park, Mark hesitated. "What if..." he began, "there isn't any?"
Leaf, understanding his point, answered with a cheeky smile, "You'll cross that bridge when you need to."
Hearing the subtle meaning behind his unlikely partner's words, a self-deprecating smile found its way onto Mark's face. The shift from "we" to "you" was loud.
"Now," Leaf added, "we need to get you battle-ready for what's to come, but we'll need a safe place, and I've prepared exactly that."
Mark, however, wasn't completely reassured. Something tugged at the back of his mind.
'I am missing something here...' He thought.