At that moment, Fang Yun mysteriously saw a white-surfaced card, made of a paper he had no idea what it was.
Along with this strange object, he saw a purple crown imprinted in the center, so bright it looked alive.
"A letter?" He froze, trying to understand what it was. But after a long while, he couldn't think of anything except what he remembered from the novels he had read.
"Golden finger… is this my cheat?"
With that thought, Fang Yun's heart raced. "Could I finally solve my problems?"
He wasn't sure, but since he had the chance, why not seize it?
"Grab it," Fang Yun murmured, and in the next instant he merely thought of seizing the card.
Though he had no physical body, he mysteriously felt he could obtain the card with just his will.
And it worked. The moment he decided to pursue it, his consciousness moved, and he felt himself drawing closer and closer to that mysterious card.
The nearer he got, the faster his heart pounded. When he was only ten centimeters away, overjoyed that he might finally grasp it, a sudden pressure descended.
"What?"
Fang Yun was caught off guard, feeling his body pressed down as if gravity had increased fiftyfold.
"Damn it!" he cursed, watching himself forced away from the card. With each passing second, he sank further under the crushing weight.
Fury rose within him. At that moment, he was seething.
"My chance, my future—I must have it!" he roared, struggling madly in the dark space of his consciousness, where the only light was the purple glow above.
"Rise!"
Fang Yun fought like a madman, like a dying man lost seven days in the desert, seeing water at the brink of death.
Seconds passed…
And at last he managed to move, floating upward toward the crown of light, even as he felt his soul fading.
"If I keep going, will I die?" A flicker of fear crossed his mind, but it quickly vanished.
What difference was there between dying here and watching his clan sink into misery?
And cultivation—
Why not strive to become something more than human?
With those thoughts, Fang Yun no longer cared for his life and pushed on.
Until the very last shred of his soul, he didn't stop. Just as he was about to completely dissipate, his finger touched the card.
The instant he did, the purple crown flared with dazzling brilliance, and the darkness turned into a blinding violet light. After that, his mind was swept away.
...
In reality, Fang Yun opened his eyes in confusion, not understanding what had just happened.
"Did I succeed?" That was his first question. To confirm, he closed his eyes and tried to see the card.
To his surprise, it was there—but now completely blank.
"Huh?"
The sight left him even more puzzled.
"Did I risk my life for nothing? Sacrificing myself for this?" Fang Yun's face darkened at the thought.
"Hahahah!"
Unable to stay silent, he burst into laughter. His laughter was sinister—the laughter of someone who had lost everything.
It went on for minutes, until Fang Yun could no longer hold back his rage and rushed toward the card.
This time there was no pressure, no resistance. He reached it instantly and, seizing it in anger, returned to reality.
"Piece of trash card!" Fang Yun snarled, hurling it onto his bed. But the instant the object touched it, the bed vanished.
"What?? It devoured my bed?"
He froze in shock, then panicked as he found himself falling through the air.
"This is bad—" Before he could finish, his back slammed against the floor.
Paah!
Fang Yun's mouth fell open but no sound came out. Blood trickled from his wounds, his whole body numb, as if pierced by a thousand needles.
Luckily, the fall hadn't been from too great a height. Otherwise, he might have been critically injured—or dead.
"I hate this damn card!" he cursed.
After groaning in pain and swearing, Fang Yun struggled to his feet and staggered toward the card lying on the floor. He crouched, picked it up, and the moment he raised it, he saw his bed imprinted on its surface.
"What the hell? A storage item?" Fang Yun guessed, drawing on his knowledge from novels.
"No… impossible. It's just a card." He shook his head, dismissing the thought, and began experimenting.
The first test was to try retrieving the bed. The moment he thought of it, the bed reappeared.
"My bed!" Fang Yun rejoiced. In his current situation, losing his bed would have been terrible.
But just as he celebrated, the bed began to make a strange noise.
"Is it going to explode?" Fang Yun's joy turned to disbelief, then fear. Instinctively, he dashed out of the room. The instant he escaped, the bed collapsed, sending wooden shards flying everywhere.
Clash!
Fragments slammed into the walls, which cracked and then crumbled.
Seeing this, Fang Yun wanted to cry. His room had been destroyed.
As he wallowed in misery, a message suddenly surfaced in his mind:
[You engraved a broken bed onto a card and activated the attack: Rotten Wood Rain]
"..."
Fang Yun ground his teeth in fury after reading that.
"Damn card!" he cursed again. Soon after, he heard hurried footsteps, making him turn his head to see the butler rushing toward him.
"Young Master, are you—" Fang Zhao stopped mid-sentence when he saw the ruined room. "What happened here?"
He asked in shock, staring at Fang Yun, whose back was smeared with blood.
"I don't know. I was sleeping, then suddenly saw a flash. I think some cultivators accidentally cast a spell here," Fang Yun replied, stroking his chin as if puzzled too.
It was a lie he made up. After all, how could he admit he had destroyed his own room… with a bed that came out of a card?
Unaware of the truth, Fang Zhao grew furious. "Those bastards! Casting spells carelessly without regard for human life—they should be punished by the heavens! What if the Young Master had been killed?"
Just the thought made him angrier.
Fang Yun, watching his reaction, smiled faintly and after a while said, "Uncle Zhao, that's life: utterly unfair. We mortals are like pigs waiting to be slaughtered at any moment—whether by a stray spell, by offending a cultivator by accident, by becoming blood bags for demonic cultivators, or food for beasts. That's our fate. The only way to change it is to become a cultivator… but how easy is that?"
As he finished, Fang Yun looked at Fang Zhao expectantly. He hoped that the man who had served the Fang family for decades might know a way to free him from human limitations.
"Young Master?" Fang Zhao was taken aback by these words, but then a smile appeared on his face. "You've grown."
"Oh?" Fang Yun's ears perked up at that.
"Could it be that today… I'll finally learn about cultivation?"
His anticipation soared to the heavens.
To be continued…