I Was the Sun Before I Became an Immortal

Si Chen had gotten lost in Wanji Mountain.

In the mountains, time loses all meaning — he never could have imagined that getting lost would cost him two full years.

At first he tried diligently to memorize the paths, but soon realized it was all wasted effort.

This godforsaken place — every mountain looked exactly the same, and the mist rolled in without warning. His usual method of navigation, "just walk whichever way looks right," had completely failed him here.

He truly could not find his way out!

Sometimes he was certain he had been walking in a straight line, only to circle back and find himself at a spot he had marked before. Staring at the notch he had carved into a tree, Si Chen could only gaze silently up at the sky.

Fortunately, for a Cultivator, two years was not such a long time.

The twelve-year-old boy of years past had grown into the appearance of a fourteen or fifteen-year-old. His features had filled out, shedding much of their childish softness and gaining a certain clean handsomeness. His plain blue-grey cloth robes swayed gently in the mountain breeze, lending him a touch of the graceful bearing befitting a young Cultivator.

His Storage Ring held everything he needed, so food and clothing were never a concern.

What surprised him most pleasantly was that Wanji Mountain was extraordinarily lush with vegetation. The effects of cultivating the Yimu Everspring Art here were several times faster than anywhere outside — at the very least.

Since he could not leave, he settled his heart and treated Wanji Mountain as a place of cultivation.

By day he wandered freely, sensing the vitality of the land; by night he found a safe spot to sit in meditation and regulate his breathing. His days were simple, yet full.

* * *

On this particular day, Si Chen was sitting beside a stream, absorbing the faint Spiritual Energy contained within the water.

Suddenly, a deafening, terrifying roar erupted in the distance. Immediately after, the earth began to shake violently. Swaths of forest in the distance toppled, and clouds of dust surged into the sky.

Such a commotion would have sent any ordinary person fleeing in terror.

Si Chen, however, was not frightened in the least — in fact, his heart leapt with delight.

He had been wandering this wretched place for two years. Aside from a few low-ranking Demon Beasts with no spiritual intelligence, which he had dispatched without a second thought, he had not encountered a single living thing capable of speech.

From the sound of it, this commotion seemed like a couple of big creatures brawling. Perhaps one of them would know the way out?

He suppressed his aura, flickered his body, and shot off toward the source of the noise.

The closer he got, the more terrifying the sounds became.

Thunderous booms, roars, and the crashing of splintered trees all blended together. The air was saturated with wild surges of demonic power — far beyond anything he had encountered before, even stronger than Lü Yan back in Wanggu City!

Si Chen concealed his aura entirely and landed beside a massive ancient tree, peering forward.

Below, on a stretch of devastated open ground, two enormous creatures were locked in a fight to the death.

One was a colossal bear, standing upright as tall as a watchtower. Its fur was black as ink, its muscles knotted and immense — each swipe of its paw sent tremors through the earth.

The other was a giant tiger with crimson pupils, its body crackling with dangerous wind blades. Every roar it let out snapped the surrounding trees clean in half.

What struck Si Chen as even stranger was that these two great demons were hurling human words at each other even as they fought hard enough to shake the mountains.

"You mangy fleabag! You stole my egg — I'll crush your eggs!" The mountain-shaking bear drove the thunder tiger back with one paw, its voice like a muffled thunderclap.

"Fuck you! You're the one who tried to steal my egg! If I don't beat the shit out of you today, then I haven't done my job!" The crimson-eyed tiger leapt nimbly aside and fired back with a wind blade.

The two traded insults with ferocious intensity. Their vocabulary was rich and their street-market energy was so thick it could have rivaled any fish-market brawl in the human world, leaving Si Chen blinking in bewilderment.

The object of their dispute was a massive, fire-red egg rolling back and forth on the ground, completely unharmed. Its shell bore natural, mysterious patterns.

Both Demon Beasts had clearly fought with everything they had. New wounds kept appearing on their bodies — bear fur was sliced off in clumps all over the ground, tiger hide was torn open in bloody gashes — yet neither would yield. Every collision unleashed a terrifying shockwave of energy.

Finally, after one last brutal, unadorned collision, both beasts exhausted themselves completely. With a tremendous crash, their massive bodies toppled to the ground simultaneously, shaking the earth beneath them.

The dust settled. The two once-invincible Demon Beasts lay sprawled on the ground.

They were covered in wounds from head to tail, their auras reduced to a pitiful flicker. Even standing was beyond them. All they could do was glare at each other and continue trading the filthiest curses imaginable about each other's ancestors going back eighteen generations.

"You… you just wait…"

"Wait… wait for what, I'll… get up and kill you right now…"

"I'll… chop off your bear paw…"

"I'll… gnaw off your tiger sinew…"

They struggled, each trying to gather the last of their strength to deliver a killing blow.

The bear demon suddenly heaved up its massive paw and slammed it down toward the tiger demon with the last of its strength — but its power was spent, and the palm-force veered off course, crashing hard into the edge of the clearing.

Boom!

The shockwave rolled outward, and by sheer coincidence, it sent the fire-red egg — which had been rolling around on the ground — flying into the air.

The egg tumbled through the air in a wide arc, and with a soft thud, landed squarely in the arms of Si Chen, who had been watching the whole spectacle with great interest.

Si Chen let out a soft sound of surprise and instinctively caught the egg that had delivered itself to him.

The egg was warm to the touch. He could feel that the life energy contained within it was exceptionally pure and powerful — and moreover… it felt very comfortable to hold.

He had barely steadied it in his arms when both Demon Beasts froze.

They had been so completely focused on killing each other that they had not noticed a human nearby!

Seeing Si Chen cradling the egg they had nearly killed each other over, both beasts were so furious they nearly passed out. They struggled to rise, but collapsed helplessly, and could only bellow at the top of their lungs:

"Human! Put my egg down!"

"You little brat! How dare you take advantage — you're looking for death!"

Si Chen weighed the egg in his hands. He felt it was a fine thing, but he had no wish to take it for nothing.

Even if… it had delivered itself to him on its own.

So he rummaged through his Storage Ring and produced two bottles of "household medicine," tossing one to each beast.

"I'm not taking it for free. These — I'll trade you for it."

Both beasts instinctively caught the jade bottles that flew toward them. The stoppers were jostled slightly open by the impact, and an indescribable, rich fragrance of pills instantly wafted out — a scent that made every bit of demonic power in their bodies stir with excitement.

From just a single whiff, the searing pain from their wounds seemed to ease by several degrees.

Both Demon Beasts froze at the same moment.

This… what kind of person was this human?

These pills smelled like… they were worth more than both their lives put together?

The mountain-shaking bear carefully brought its nose to the mouth of the bottle and took another deep sniff. The wounds on its body began to stop bleeding at a visible rate. It stared wide-eyed at the crimson tiger beside it.

The crimson tiger did the same, its pupils filled with identical shock and bewilderment.

Where had this sucker come from? No — this was practically a Wealth-Scattering Boy!

Seeing that they had accepted the pills, Si Chen felt the transaction was complete and, with a clear conscience, carried the egg to one side and sat down on a clean rock.

He still needed to ask them about the way out.

The two Demon Beasts forgot all about trading insults.

In their eyes, the value of these pills far exceeded that of the mysterious egg.

They each swallowed their pills, and in less than half a day, their previously near-fatal injuries had recovered by seven or eight parts!

One had to understand — they were of the Demon Race, with powerful physical bodies that required enormous energy to heal. Ordinary pills had barely any effect on them. This was simply inconceivable!

From that moment on, the way they looked at Si Chen changed completely.

Even though they did not normally have much fondness for humans, right now they found this young man's clear features quite pleasing to the eye.

"Ahem… hey there, little brother!" The mountain-shaking bear rubbed its enormous paws together, lowering its voice considerably, afraid of startling this "God of Wealth."

"Just now… just now I was a bit loud, don't take it to heart, alright!"

The crimson tiger sidled over as well, swishing its tail and doing its best to look friendly. "Exactly, exactly! Little brother, you look like an honest sort! This egg… this egg was fated to be yours — it belongs with you!"

Si Chen found that communicating with the Demon Race was indeed far more relaxed than dealing with humans.

They were straightforward in their thinking — what they wanted, what pleased them, it was all written plainly on their faces. And they did not seem to have any intention of killing him and taking his treasures.

This gave him an immediately very favorable impression of the Demon Race.

He raised his head and asked the question that had plagued him for two years: "Do you know how to leave Wanji Mountain?"

Both demons froze again at the question.

The bear demon asked with some disbelief, probing carefully: "Little brother, you… you haven't been lost in this mountain, have you?"

Si Chen nodded candidly. "Mm. Been walking for two years and haven't found my way out."

Bear demon: "………"

Tiger demon: "………"

Lost in the outer reaches of Wanji Mountain for two years?!

The mountain-shaking bear and the crimson-eyed tiger exchanged glances, both at a loss for words.

Wanji Mountain was easy to get disoriented in, sure — but for a Cultivator who could fly, getting stuck for two years was a bit much…

Just how bad was this kid's sense of direction?

"Leave that little matter to your big brother!" The mountain-shaking bear thumped its chest with a resounding thump thump. "Once our injuries are fully stable, we'll take you out!"

The crimson-eyed tiger nodded vigorously in agreement.

Si Chen relaxed, then pointed at the fire-red egg in his arms. "This — where did it come from?"

The bear demon scratched its head. "Just a few days ago, it fell from the sky. Me and Old Cat both figured it was something good, and thought eating it might boost our cultivation a bit — that's what started the fight."

It said this as a matter of course. Such was the law of survival in the demon world — natural materials went to the strong. Competition there was far more naked and direct than in the human world.

Si Chen stroked the warm eggshell. If it had drawn two great demons into a desperate battle over it, this thing was probably far from simple.

He looked at the two creatures before him — who had just been trying to kill each other moments ago, and were now arm in arm discussing where to find something to eat — and felt that Wanji Mountain… perhaps wasn't so hateful after all.

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