My Longevity Simulation Chapter 1408: The Final Answer to the Mystery of the Immortal Ancestor

The thin, frail-looking little boy appeared to be no more than seven or eight years old. He was lying on the roof of a thatched hut, gazing up at the sky.

Hearing his mother's call, he was just about to get up when he accidentally lost his balance and fell straight from the roof.

Fortunately, he landed directly on a haystack below and escaped injury.

Goudan seemed to be accustomed to such things. He patted himself off, straightened his clothes, and ran toward home.

At the dinner table, his mother served Goudan food while scolding him.

"Did you go play at the eastern end of the village again? I told you to stay away from that madman!"

Goudan wolfed down his food and said indifferently, "I think Crazy Uncle is a good person. He's not nearly as frightening as everyone says."

Goudan's father was accustomed to keeping silent and had not spoken a word since the meal began. Upon hearing his son's words, he immediately put down his chopsticks and slapped Goudan on the head.

"What the hell do you know? Do you know what happened to all those people in the village who refused to believe in such things? Stay away from him when I tell you to!"

After that, Goudan indeed stopped openly going to Crazy Uncle's house.

But whenever he had the opportunity, Goudan would secretly bring some tasty food and go visit Crazy Uncle.

"Crazy Uncle" was the name Goudan had given him himself. The villagers simply called him the madman.

He was also a member of the village. His parents had died when he was young, and he had grown up eating whatever food the villagers were willing to give him. When he was young, he had been perfectly normal. But as he gradually entered middle age, he became increasingly deranged.

He often muttered strange words.

Things like, "I saw many versions of myself," and "I am not myself at all." Sometimes, he would even point at someone in the village and scream in terror, "Aren't you already dead?"

Strangely enough, eight or nine times out of ten, the villagers whom he cursed would suddenly die violent deaths not long afterward.

Immortals and gods truly existed in this world. The villagers firmly believed that the madman must somehow be connected to those mysterious and unfathomable powers. To avoid bringing further disaster upon themselves, the villagers decided to join together and drive him away.

However, there seemed to be something in the village that he cared about deeply. After sensing the villagers' hostility, the madman suddenly erupted and attacked them.

Goudan did not know exactly how many people died that day. Afterward, however, the villagers chose to avoid the madman entirely and keep their distance from him.

Only fearless youngsters like Goudan dared approach him.

The madman spent almost all his time in his family's dilapidated ancestral house. The place was dark and gloomy, cut off from sunlight. He would curl up in a corner and constantly mutter something under his breath.

At first, Goudan had accidentally wandered inside while playing hide-and-seek with his friends. The gloomy and terrifying atmosphere inside had frightened him.

However, when he heard the madman's muttering, something about it deeply captivated him.

Although he could not understand what those strange syllables meant, he found himself inexplicably drawn to them.

Only when the shouts of his companions repeatedly came from outside did Goudan reluctantly leave.

From that day onward, whenever Goudan's mind became hazy and distracted, the madman's murmuring would echo in his ears.

Finally, one day, Goudan could no longer resist the temptation in his heart.

He returned to the madman's little dark house.

This time, he even brought a roast duck as a polite gift.

Perhaps the aroma of the food briefly awakened the madman's sanity. The madman stopped muttering and unceremoniously snatched the roast duck away, devouring it ravenously.

After eating his fill, the madman, during one of his lucid periods, merely warned Goudan to stay away from him.

How could Goudan, having been tricked into giving away a roast duck, possibly be willing to leave?

He stubbornly stayed. He even began asking the madman about the strange phrases he was always muttering.

The madman remained silent at first.

Then, from among the ruins of the house, he rummaged out a pile of wooden tablets.

He told Goudan that these were ancestral tablets.

He himself did not know what he was saying when he went mad. However, this strange illness had accompanied their Xuanyuan Clan since ancient times.

Fortunately, only one person in each generation would suffer from this strange affliction. As the Xuanyuan clan gradually multiplied and spread, very few members still remembered this hereditary illness.

"Let this curse end here."

The madman placed the ancestral tablets on the ground in their proper order.

When it was his own turn, however, he placed only an empty wooden tablet.

Then, under Goudan's astonished gaze, every ancestral tablet spontaneously burst into flames without any wind. In the cramped wooden house, they were reduced to ashes in an instant.

Goudan then asked about the inexplicable deaths of the villagers.

Crazy Uncle revealed a pale smile.

"Deaths that are destined to happen. What do they have to do with me? When the rooster crows, the whole world becomes bright. Does that mean the great sun in the sky is really brought out by the rooster's crowing?"

"Goudan, you must understand. Everything in this world has already happened countless times. What is happening now is merely another rehearsal."

"For example, you..."

Crazy Uncle stared intently at Goudan.

Then, slowly, an expression of utter terror appeared on his face.

After the fear came, he once again began to lose his mind.

Before completely losing his sanity, he casually threw Goudan out of the door.

From that day onward, Goudan vaguely believed that some enormous secret was hidden within Crazy Uncle.

Although young Goudan could not understand what Crazy Uncle had said, he firmly believed that the secret hidden within him was very likely connected to the legendary immortals.

For this reason, Goudan went to great lengths to find out his real name from his father.

Xuanyuan Sheng.

Everyone in the village was surnamed Xuanyuan, but Goudan still thought Crazy Uncle's name was especially impressive.

As the days passed, Crazy Uncle's madness grew increasingly severe.

Even bringing food to comfort him no longer worked.

Goudan could only climb onto the roof of Crazy Uncle's house, close his eyes, and listen to the increasingly bizarre sounds coming from below.

Every time he listened to Crazy Uncle's eerie voice, which sounded terrifying to outsiders, Goudan slept exceptionally soundly.

This continued until Goudan was nine years old.

One night, a thunderous explosion suddenly erupted throughout the village.

The villagers were awakened and discovered that the explosion had come from Xuanyuan Sheng's house.

By the time everyone arrived, they found that, for some unknown reason, the entire place had already been reduced to a flat wasteland.

Crazy Uncle's death did not cause much disturbance.

In the eyes of most members of the Xuanyuan Clan, the disappearance of Xuanyuan Sheng, the troublemaker, was actually a good thing.

Only Goudan was deeply saddened by Crazy Uncle's death.

While no one was around, he secretly went to the site of the incident and searched carefully.

Unfortunately, apart from a single charred ancestral tablet, he found nothing else.

The wooden tablet had been burned until only one corner remained.

Goudan could not read, so he took it to an educated adult in the village and asked what was written on it.

Only then did he learn that it was the character "Hong."

"Xuanyuan Hong."

Goudan had an excellent memory. He vaguely remembered that when Crazy Uncle had arranged the ancestral tablets on the ground in their proper order, this particular tablet seemed to have been solemnly placed in the very first position.

Knowing that it was an ancestral tablet, Goudan did not dare keep it for himself.

After respectfully kneeling and paying his respects, Goudan set fire to the remaining wooden tablet and burned it completely.

Xuanyuan Village had lived in peace with the outside world since ancient times.

After Xuanyuan Sheng's death, the village returned to its former tranquility.

Goudan gradually grew older, and the villagers stopped calling him "Goudan."

Instead, they began calling him by his real name, Xuanyuan Tuo.

Xuanyuan Tuo's life followed the same path as everyone else in the village.

Planting, farming, harvesting. Getting married, taking a wife, having children.

Yet during his spare time, the strange murmuring of Crazy Uncle from his childhood would occasionally return to his mind.

No matter how much time passed, those mysterious sounds remained deeply engraved in his mind.

They never faded.

As Xuanyuan Tuo grew older, his life seemed to be moving toward its predetermined end.

Until the year Xuanyuan Tuo turned fifty.

Xuanyuan Tuo's son died from an illness.

His wife could not endure the pain of watching her own child die before her and passed away not long afterward.

In less than half a year, Xuanyuan Tuo lost two of his closest family members.

He was devastated.

He felt that life was no longer worth living and repeatedly thought about ending his own life.

But at the critical moment, the mysterious melody that had accompanied him throughout his life sounded once again.

It scattered the dark thoughts filling his mind.

Xuanyuan Tuo sat there in a daze for several days, and the grief in his heart gradually subsided.

He had no intention of marrying again or having more children.

Instead, another thought arose within his heart like a tiny flame.

Then, like a wildfire spreading across the wilderness, it grew uncontrollably.

Having personally witnessed the deaths of one loved one after another, Xuanyuan Tuo had gained a profound understanding of how fragile life was.

He was already more than fifty years old.

Perhaps it would not be long before he followed the dead into the grave.

The thought filled Xuanyuan Tuo with immense fear.

After going without food or water and sitting motionless for two days, Xuanyuan Tuo finally made his decision.

He would cultivate immortality and seek eternal life.

For an old farmer approaching fifty, seeking immortality and asking about the Dao seemed like nothing more than a complete joke.

Xuanyuan Tuo himself knew how absurd his decision was.

Therefore, he did not tell anyone.

He simply packed his belongings in silence, left Xuanyuan Village, and embarked alone upon the path of seeking immortality.

Fortunately, the Immortal Dao was flourishing in this era, and the immortals were not people who secluded themselves from the world. On the contrary, in almost every major city, one could occasionally see immortals soaring through the skies.

After enduring all manner of ridicule, Xuanyuan Tuo finally managed to find out the location of the nearest cultivation sect.

Guiyuan Sect!

After traveling through countless hardships, Xuanyuan Tuo finally arrived outside the Guiyuan Sect.

To his astonishment, several hundred people like him had gathered there. Most were children accompanied by attendants. Someone like him, with one foot already in the grave yet still dreaming of cultivating immortality, was truly one of a kind.

After making some inquiries, Xuanyuan Tuo finally learned why everyone had gathered outside the mountain gate. It was because the Guiyuan Sect had not yet reached the time for accepting disciples. The sect protecting formation was currently activated and enveloped the entire mountain range. This immortal paradise was completely inaccessible to mortals.

Xuanyuan Tuo then asked when the next disciple acceptance ceremony would be held. The answer was three years from now.

He had originally intended to obediently wait outside the mountain gate like everyone else. Yet for some reason, when Xuanyuan Tuo looked at the sect's protective formation, which everyone else feared like a tiger, he vaguely did not find it particularly frightening.

With his heart stirring restlessly, the usually bold Xuanyuan Tuo decided to take the risk and try.

As it turned out, things really were just as he had expected. He encountered no danger along the way and somehow, almost without realizing it, successfully walked all the way to the entrance of the Guiyuan Sect.

When he met an immortal cultivator, Xuanyuan Tuo was overjoyed. He wanted to join the immortal sect, only to be mercilessly ridiculed by the other party.

Fortunately, just as he was about to be forcibly driven away, an immortal cultivator surnamed Xu, perhaps taking pity on him, gave him a book containing an introductory cultivation technique.

The immortal cultivator also promised that if Xuanyuan Tuo could cultivate spiritual energy within a year, he could come back and find him.

Although this journey had not resulted in him formally becoming a disciple of the immortal sect, he had at least obtained an immortal cultivation technique.

Xuanyuan Tuo carefully kept the book close to his body, then bypassed the people who were still waiting outside the mountain gate. For the sake of safety, he even traveled a long distance to a mortal town farther away.

Xuanyuan Tuo himself could not read. In order to cultivate the technique, whenever he had the opportunity along the way, he asked others to teach him.

Although he was already old, his mind was not dull in the slightest. By the time he safely reached his destination, Xuanyuan Tuo could already recognize most of the characters in the introductory cultivation technique.

Without an immortal master to guide him, Xuanyuan Tuo could only study it by himself.

The Immortal Dao was profound and mysterious. Even an introductory cultivation technique was not something that an ignorant old mountain farmer who had never seen the wider world could successfully cultivate on his own.

Moreover, Xuanyuan Tuo was already at the age when one understood the Mandate of Heaven. He had long since passed the optimal age for cultivation.

On top of that, he still had to earn money during the day to maintain his basic livelihood.

In the blink of an eye, the one year deadline was almost upon him. Yet Xuanyuan Tuo possessed an immortal cultivation technique but had gained absolutely nothing from it.

'Even if I manage to cultivate spiritual energy now, I will not make it back in time.'

Xuanyuan Tuo was almost completely despairing.

'Cultivation is simply far too difficult for ordinary people like us.'

He suddenly recalled the young immortal cultivator he had seen looking up at the city skies a few days earlier. Before even reaching twenty years of age, that young man had already been able to freely ride the wind.

How unfair was the Heavenly Dao!

Despair, jealousy, fear...

Xuanyuan Tuo collapsed onto the ground and gazed up at the heavens.

'Why can people in this world not all cultivate?'

'Why must such restrictions exist between heaven and earth?'

'You damn heavens!'

Such curses were exceedingly commonplace. At every moment, day and night, they were being uttered in countless places throughout the world.

Yet as Xuanyuan Tuo cursed inwardly, the familiar murmuring chant of his Crazy Uncle, Xuanyuan Sheng, once again rang beside his ears.

Only this time, it did not disappear quickly.

Instead, it repeated again and again until it completely filled his mind.

In a daze, Xuanyuan Tuo seemed to return to his childhood.

Within that gloomy little dark room, his Crazy Uncle stood amid a room filled with the memorial tablets of the Xuanyuan ancestors, a ferocious expression on his face.

'It has appeared again! It cannot be burned away, and its lingering spirit refuses to disperse!'

'Then let us die together!'

Suddenly, raging flames erupted from Xuanyuan Sheng's body.

He then charged toward the densely arranged ancestral tablets.

Dark flames gradually spread from Xuanyuan Sheng's body into those memorial tablets.

Amid Xuanyuan Sheng's maniacal laughter, the raging fire gradually devoured everything.

In the end, only one corner of the tablet bearing the name Xuanyuan Hong remained.

And then Xuanyuan Tuo found it!

[Xuanyuan Hong]!

The three characters appeared ghostlike within his mind. Their gilded color gradually seeped with droplets of blood-red.

Then they exploded with a bang!

Xuanyuan Tuo consequently fell unconscious.

When he awoke, he stared blankly at the sky, then looked at himself in the mirror.

Something seemed to have changed.

When he looked back at the introductory cultivation technique bestowed upon him by the immortal cultivator of the Guiyuan Sect, Xuanyuan Tuo suddenly found it incomparably simple and easy to understand.

In fact...

It was almost too crude.

Xuanyuan Tuo was no longer in a hurry to complete his cultivation and return to join the Guiyuan Sect.

Instead, he began pondering the question he had been thinking about before.

'Why can’t everyone in this world cultivate?'

Xuanyuan Tuo naturally knew that all things were born of Heaven and Earth, and that every person was different.

But was there some way to allow everyone in the world to cultivate, regardless of differences in innate talent?

The murmuring voice that had always accompanied him had already ceased to sound. For a time, Xuanyuan Tuo was somewhat unaccustomed to the silence.

At the same time, countless images began continuously surfacing in his mind.

Some were scenes of countless plants and beasts.

Some were faces that were both familiar and unfamiliar.

Others were fragments of conversations whose meanings he could not understand.

'How confident are you that you can accomplish this journey?'

'I can only do everything within my power and leave the rest to fate.'

'That does not sound like something you would say.'

'The difference in strength is simply too great. I can only risk my life in a final struggle.'

'Forget it. Go, then. I do not know whether this will bring fortune or disaster.'

...

Xuanyuan Tuo pressed his fingers against his brow.

It seemed that he had forgotten some extremely important mission.

The chaotic memories could not affect Xuanyuan Tuo's state of mind.

Instead, relying on the countless fragments of memories that had suddenly surged into his mind, Xuanyuan Tuo continued delving deeper into the question he had been pondering.

How could everyone cultivate?

More and more images surfaced in his mind, becoming increasingly chaotic.

Gradually, they pieced together the life of another powerful cultivator known as the Heavenly Doctor Venerable.

Yet through the obsession in his heart, Xuanyuan Tuo forcibly suppressed everything for the time being.

He continued thinking mechanically.

He sat moti