Extra's Strategy: Cultivate Protagonists, Become Invincible

"Grandpa Jin, what happened to the orphanage behind your shop?"

The old man inside the shop looked up at Han Xuhan with a confused expression. Han Xuhan’s heart clenched as he interpreted the gaze he was facing.

There was no sign of recognition in those eyes, those eyes that had looked at him with affection for as long as his native self could remember, belonging to the man who had been the grandfather figure of the entire orphanage for a decade.

"Orphanage? Where?" Craning his neck around, the old man peeked behind his shop and stared at the empty field there for a second. His face remained puzzled.

"Young man, I think you’ve got the place wrong. There’s no orphanage around here," he said as he looked back at Han Xuhan.

"Ah, my mistake, then," Han Xuhan muttered as he turned to leave. Guts tightening, his mind compared the eerie similarities between the disappearance of Pine Town and the orphanage repeatedly.

"Wait a second, kid. How did you know my name? I haven’t seen you around here either. A foreigner, aren’t you?" The old man asked loudly.

He didn’t answer. He quickened his pace instead, tracking down another familiar little building on the same street.

"Aunt Jing, do you recognize me?"

"...Are you new to the town, child? Did you visit my restaurant before?" The proprietress in the soup-stained apron asked back, mirroring old man Jin’s confusion.

Han Xuhan continued to move without answering.

"Baldie Zhao, you remember this town ever having an orphanage?"

"What? Orphanage? There used to be one, years ago. Didn’t the chief get the governor’s permission to use that building as his guesthouse? It’s just outside the town’s gates, near Lao Meng’s rice mill."

"Not that one, Baldie. There used to be one behind Grandpa Jin’s shop, remember?"

"...Who are you calling a Baldie? Do I know you, punk?"

Every answer he got further darkened Han Xuhan’s thoughts. After going through the entire area, the senior brothers and sisters helping him investigate also returned with dazed faces. Sitting inside the open field, they arranged their discoveries to make sense of the situation.

"First of all, no one remembers an orphanage ever existing here. To them, the area there has always been empty, and nobody is sure who owns the land there."

"Secondly, even though Junior Brother Xuhan has interacted with the folks in the neighborhood for his entire life, they don’t recognize him. This means... whoever is behind this, they know about junior brother Xuhan’s existence, directly or indirectly. They’ve made sure to wipe off any memories the townsfolk have involving junior brother as well."

"Thirdly, any physical evidence of the orphanage’s existence, such as the sales records of nearby shops, wholesalers, and the customer lists of the town’s public services, has been removed. I’ve even checked the property deeds, and no traces of the orphanage exist in them."

"For now, the only conclusion seems to be a large-scale memory erasing spell, as well as some incredibly detailed process of obliterating any clues related to the disappeared elements. The depth of this technique... might not be below the Soul Reformation realm!"

"I have a different theory. Are we sure that only Brother Xuhan’s memories are untouched and accurate? And that everyone else’s memories have been changed? Is there a possibility that the truth is the opposite of what we’re thinking?"

"Are you saying that Junior Brother Xuhan has the wrong set of memories?"

"Well, yeah. Who doesn’t know that junior brother has suffered some spiritual complications due to his er... reincarnation, was it? Everyone in the sect knows..."

"I disagree. In cases of having wrong or influenced memories, it would be normal for junior brother Xuhan to not remember things from his past, or have vague memories. Why would he remember something extra instead?

"Judging by how many details he can recall, his entire past before entering our sect is tied to this orphanage. How could it all be fake?"

"That’s why I said that he, or this neighborhood altogether, must have been affected by a Mystic Spell above the Soul Reformation realm!"

Listening to the senior disciples debating, Han Xuhan didn’t rush to provide his own insights. But his mind wasn’t idle.

He was sure that the set of memories inside his native self’s mind wasn’t fake. He wasn’t 99% sure...

’Pine Town and Green Curtain City... In both cases, I have memories of a place that used to exist, but now doesn’t, be it in present reality or in past history.

If a Mystic technique caused them to disappear, then I must have escaped the reach of that technique. But more importantly, could these two incidents be linked?’

Han Xuhan’s eyes narrowed into slits as he considered the possibility of an expert taking revenge for the Pine Town incident by destroying his ’home’.

’No, that can’t be. The plot of land where the orphanage used to be has definitely been unoccupied for at least a couple of months, judging by the height of the grass and weeds. When Pine Town was wiped out, the land it left behind was absolutely devoid of anything like this. Clearly, that town had been erased right before we escaped from the Holy Land of Laws.

If erasing the orphanage was an act of revenge, then the culprit would make sure that once I returned, I’d be able to link the clues together instantly, letting me suffer. Casting a spell to make the grass grow artificially and hide the time of the disappearance would be counterproductive in that case.’

He could conclude that the erasure of the orphanage had happened before the erasure of Pine Town. That meant it had nothing to do with him. Then why...?

He was the only orphan to enter a proper sect from this area. The orphanage didn’t have any enmity with anyone influential enough to hire a powerful cultivator, either.

The cultivator who had done this definitely didn’t hail from an orthodox righteous sect. The backlash would be too harsh, not to mention that this region was under the control of Crimson Snow Sect.

Was it a so-called demonic cultivator? Since when were demonic cultivators so high profile? Did they not fear Crimson Snow Sect’s wrath?

"Junior Brother, did you hear me?"

The pointed question, followed by the pat on his shoulders, brought Han Xuhan out of his thoughts. He realized that the entire group of senior disciples was now staring at him, wide-eyed.

"What’s wrong?"

Senior Brother Lin said in a low voice, "There are only two possible conclusions.

"Firstly, you have to consider that your memories might be wrong. In that case, you must return to the sect and seek help from the Elders to address whatever complications might have arisen in your mental world, polluting your memories."

Before Han Xuhan could shake his head, Senior Brother Lin’s voice went lower and more tense as he continued, "The second possibility is that your memories are correct, and everyone else has been affected by a Mystic technique capable of not just altering memories at a massive scale, but also reality itself.

"Such a technique... Do I need to explain how powerful the caster might be?"

Han Xuhan shook his head, a trace of fear rising in his heart.

"Indeed, if the second possibility turns out to be the truth, the fact that you’re not affected by the technique could make the situation very dangerous for you.

"What if your arrival here alarms the culprit? What lengths could they go to ensure that the last traces of the orphanage are erased from our reality?"

Senior Brother Lin’s countenance became grave. "In that case, you must not spend another moment in this town. You need to escape as quickly as possible! The only place that can protect you from such an expert is our sect!"

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