Journey to the West: Treasure Vase of the Great Dao

At the sight of the Portrait of a Beauty, Lu Yu suddenly felt a wave of drowsiness, and his eyes involuntarily shut tight.

Annoying noises filled his ears, as Lu Yu opened his eyes and reached for the mobile phone next to his pillow.

Turning on the screen, it displayed 7:45 AM sharply.

His head, still fuzzy, snapped to clarity, and he slowly realized he was late for work.

He sprang out of the warm bed, dressed at lightning speed, washed his face, brushed his teeth, and then started running like the wind.

On the busy streets filled with vehicles and crowds, Lu Yu sped ahead, yet his heart was filled with doubts, feeling his life shouldn't be like this.

Luckily, the dorm where Lu Yu lived was close to the company. With a desperate run, he managed to arrive at the company on time.

The company's glass reflected his image, a middle-aged man beginning to put on weight, his once fresh-faced appearance matured by the years, his once lithe body beginning to accumulate fat, life seeming perpetually dissatisfying.

The burdens of life exhausted him physically and emotionally; every day was filled with endless work and ceaseless obligations. Lu Yu suddenly asked himself, is this the life he had anticipated?

Soon, Lu Yu was called over by his chubby supervisor and was harshly scolded for not satisfying a customer during yesterday's drinking session.

That plump face trembled constantly in front of Lu Yu, with saliva nearly splashing onto Lu Yu's face.

"You trash, are simply a disgrace to the company. You should be thankful that the company took you in, otherwise you'd be starving to death," he said.

The fat supervisor continued his so-called art of speech, but Lu Yu's mind had already drifted elsewhere.

The scene before him felt so familiar, yet so strange; that moment, it seemed two souls resided in Lu Yu's body.

One said this was how he truly was, that this was the real him.

The other argued strongly that this was not the real him.

For some reason, an impulse surged through Lu Yu. He grabbed the water glass from the desk and threw it at the fat supervisor's face, a piercing scream echoing through the entire company.

Having done this, Lu Yu felt refreshed, and his heart seemed to recall something.

However, immediately afterward, the scene shifted, and Lu Yu found himself sitting at his office desk, surrounded by colleagues looking at him strangely, many whispering behind his back.

Soon, with a face full of anger, the fat supervisor approached Lu Yu, towering over him, and said, "Lu Yu, you are fired."

Lu Yu felt neither sadness nor happiness, always feeling out of place in this world. Although it was all too familiar, and everything seemed like his own experience, it felt like watching a TV drama, capable of eliciting certain emotions, yet knowing what is fake will ultimately remain fake.

Then, the surroundings changed again, and Lu Yu seemed to be back at his own home, a beautiful woman angrily scolding him.

Her emotional state made her charming face appear somewhat ferocious. In her words, Lu Yu was a worthless, irresponsible scumbag.

"Let's divorce!" the woman coldly dropped these words and strode away, Lu Yu watching through the home's window as she got into a luxury car and drove off.

"When did I get a wife?" Lu Yu murmured to himself; it seemed that his memory lacked any trace of the wife who had just appeared.

Immediately the scene changed again, and Lu Yu arrived on a bridge. Below the bridge, the turbulent river waters flowed eastward, and not far away, a terrified shout could be heard, "Someone is going to jump into the river!"

Lu Yu stared blankly at the bustling crowd in the distance; it took him a while to realize that the person they said was about to jump was himself.

He then smiled and slowly walked down from the bridge, as if he had learned something new.

This time the scene did not change. He walked slowly along the riverside, not knowing for how long. Then, Lu Yu came across a young man fishing.

For some reason, no matter how hard he tried, he could not see the young man's face clearly.

Compelled as if by some spirit, Lu Yu sat down beside the young man but said nothing, quietly watching him fish.

A breeze swept over the river, rustling the willows along the bank.

"Would you like a cup of tea?" the young man suddenly asked, his voice echoing as if from the Nine Heavens, resonating deep within Lu Yu's heart.

"Tea?" he murmured to himself.

At that moment, the image of a tea tree illuminated by the Light of Merit flashed through his mind, and the sound of the Great Dao echoed in his ears.

"Who are you?" Lu Yu asked in amazement.

"Who I am is not important; what's important is who you are," the young man said softly. Although his face could not be seen clearly, Lu Yu could distinctly feel his smile.

"I, I am Lu Yu!" Lu Yu replied, but at that moment he suddenly realized something.

"Ha ha, I am Lu Yu, Lu Yu is me, in the past and in the future," Lu Yu suddenly laughed heartily.

At that moment, he finally understood the young man's meaning. Due to reincarnation, Lu Yu always faced contradictions in his cognition, unable to truly unify the two lives' memories of Lu Yu, relying mainly on memories from his past life while diminishing the consciousness from his reincarnation.

This normally posed no problem, but if his cultivation reached higher levels, the discord of the mind would become a fatal flaw. Stay updated through My Virtual Library Empire

This manifestation in the dream was due to the deep-seated fears in Lu Yu's heart, only subdued by the Innate Spirit Root that suppressed his Fortune and Destiny, preventing him from sinking into them; otherwise, he would have become a puppet, controlled by others for life.

At that completely lucid moment, Lu Yu realized who had orchestrated everything. Only the Lord of the Heavenly Demons, who contended with the Buddha Ancestor, possessed such ability, facilitated by the medium of the Portrait of a Beauty.

Meanwhile, as Lu Yu stood there stunned, a pitch-black figure slowly emerged from the Portrait of a Beauty.

Shrouded in black aura, his features and attire indiscernible, this figure seemed to encapsulate all the evil of the world.

"Why exactly, how could a person who has not yet generated the Five Qi face toward the elements defy my control, relying merely on an incomplete Innate Spirit Root?" the shadow murmured in astonishment.

In his understanding, Lu Yu should not have been able to break free from the world he had crafted: a world built upon the deepest fears in Lu Yu's heart. Even he, the Demon Lord, was unaware of all the details of this world, which made it seemingly invulnerable — countless so-called great figures had been silently infected by his tactics.

"I must see why exactly."