The Door of Hope

How many past events can be revisited? How many missed opportunities can be rewritten? How many endings can be redrawn?

Every heart harbors regret, yet the past cannot return, cannot be repainted—that is what makes regret so hard to let go of.

Now “Return” lay before them, and no one could remain unmoved. Faced with the chance to erase regret and alter the grievances of bygone days, they were all stirred, all longing to change the regrets of the past.

The mysterious old farmer—his battle prowess shook the heavens. But in the last age of civilization, he had not been able to join the final doomsday battle, a loss that left him restless for ten thousand ages, his heart filled with too many regrets. Without hesitation, he chose to go back a thousand years and fight that final decisive battle.

Though history was unchangeable, he still chose this path. Perhaps he believed the meaning of that battle outweighed his very life.

“Is it really possible?” Jin Sanyi seemed deeply moved, his body already trembling.

“Whether the past can be redone—you must try it yourself to find out.”

“Then I’ll go back to the past!” Jin Sanyi rarely grew serious. He murmured, “When I think back to those days, my junior apprentice sister was in her prime, her beauty unmatched under heaven. How did she suddenly marry that wretched old man? And soon after, she died suddenly…”

The usually carefree Jin Sanyi rambled on, plagued by hesitation and hope. In the end, clutching the Doomsday Heavenly Halberd, he charged into the gateway of “Return.”

Fatty Zhuge also stepped forward and muttered to himself, “I want to go back to the past and control my appetite. Since childhood, if I’d managed myself properly, would I still be this fat? By now I’d be holding a feather fan, wearing a scholar’s cap, elegant and refined, romantic and free…”

“My treasure, why aren’t you going yet?” Lan Nuo asked Keke.

The snow-white little beast tilted its head and thought for a moment: “Actually… I don’t have many regrets. I’ve eaten so many spirit treasures, slept for so long, and now I’ve seen Mommy again…”

Keke’s mother laughed softly, yawned, and struggled to fight off sleep. “I’ll send my treasure in so you can settle the regrets of those years.”

With that, she carried Keke toward the door of light and sent the snow-white little beast into “Return.” Though the little beast grumbled, it still charged into the past.

Then Ah Bing and Dugu Shanshan and the others also stepped into “Return.”

Only Xiao Chen and Keke’s mother remained on the scene.

“Why don’t you go in? Don’t you have any regrets?”

“No one alive can be without regret. But a person can’t always live in the past.” Xiao Chen said this calmly.

If he said he had no regrets, that would be impossible—on the contrary, he had far too many. But even if he went back to the past, the most important things could not be changed.

Since he could not alter history, only his own experience, then going back to the past would only mean reliving the same regrets once more.

“What is born can no longer be changed. Rather than cling to an illusion, it is better to be thoroughly free. I do not believe the past can be revisited.”

As Xiao Chen spoke, the images of many people inevitably flashed through his heart: his parents, Qingqing, Ruoshui, his childhood friends, his fallen friends… Too many people and events. But those regrets were fated never to change. Walking that road again would only add sorrow.

As for his own experiences, there was nothing worth correcting or altering. He did not want to be branded by the past.

“You are very clear-minded. Don’t you want to try at all?”

“I want to try, very much. But I know it cannot change. Still, I want to ask: that door of light called ‘Hope’—can it really lead to the future?”

“You have your eye on ‘Hope.’” Keke’s mother, her waist-length water-blue hair shimmering with a soft radiance, yawned lazily. “The Door of Hope is far more volatile. If you want to go in and disturb the future, I’m afraid you might… push yourself toward death. But since the door is named ‘Hope,’ it naturally holds immense benefits. I had planned to take my treasure through it myself. Since you’ve raised it, I can tell you: if you have enough fortune when you enter, you can borrow five hundred years from the heavens…”

Though Keke’s mother spoke casually, Xiao Chen was shaken to the core. Five hundred years… if he had five hundred more years, the significance for him would be immeasurable.

“The past will never return. To cling to it too stubbornly only adds sorrow. I do not wish to ‘return.’ Instead, I would rather cherish hope and look forward. For that reason, I will walk into ‘Hope.’ That has more meaning. What I need now is power, not to relive ‘the past’ once more.”

Xiao Chen walked forward resolutely and decisively. Passing by “Return,” he came directly before “Hope.”

“I won’t stop you. But I must tell you: it is best not to charge around recklessly. The safest course is to find the five-hundred-year opportunity and cultivate in stillness—do not break formation.”

Keke’s mother spoke flatly. On the golden sand, she yawned with infinite laziness, then lay back languidly on a rattan chair.

Xiao Chen did not look back. He stepped into “Hope,” and with a flash of light, he vanished completely.

“Kill—!”

“Kill—!”

On the vast earth below, smoke and fire covered everything. Was this the future?

Mountains and rivers were shattered, the land lay ruined, the city was overgrown with spring grass—all was desolation.

Just then, Xiao Chen felt a tremendous force seemingly tugging at him.

Before long, he passed over a battlefield… a lone figure, a solitary silhouette fighting in blood against enemies on all sides, withstanding the Ancestral God weapons that came from every direction.

Brilliant light blazed! Killing intent soared to the heavens!

“That is…”

Xiao Chen was greatly shocked, but the immense force dragged him onward, crossing space, crossing time, until he vanished from that vast battlefield.

In the distance, a colossal city appeared, towering in the clouds, majestic as if eternal and imperishable. Before it, all living beings in the world seemed tiny.

If it was not a city, it was more like a great life-form that stood above the world.

“That is… Heavenly Emperor City!”

The colossal city was none other than the Heavenly Emperor City that once stood in the Southern Wastes of the World of Immortality.

Xiao Chen was stunned. And now he was rapidly approaching it.

“The Heavenly Emperor regrets… the Heavenly Emperor regrets…”

A vague, ethereal voice echoed endlessly within the city, filled with despair and unwillingness. Yet the city was empty—its former inhabitants had long since vanished.

“What happened in the future? Why has Heavenly Emperor City flown into the clouds? The Heavenly Emperor regrets… Is there really a Heavenly Emperor? What does he regret?”

Xiao Chen was seized by a massive force and swept into the heart of the city.

“The Heavenly Emperor regrets… the Heavenly Emperor regrets…”

As Xiao Chen flew in, the ethereal, despairing voice gradually faded and then vanished entirely.

Inside the majestic city that stood in the clouds, it was empty. Only Xiao Chen stood alone at its center.

“What power brought me to Heavenly Emperor City?”

In the vast, empty city, only Xiao Chen’s voice echoed thunderously—no other sound remained.

“What is that?”

Xiao Chen’s expression shifted abruptly. He suddenly noticed that somewhere in the empty city, a giant pile of skeletal remains had appeared, entirely petrified—a Stone-Man skeleton!

A chill ran through Xiao Chen; he felt that he had vaguely grasped something.

“The Heavenly Emperor regrets… The Heavenly Emperor regrets!”

Just then, the vague, despairing voice resounded again, enough to make anyone’s hair stand on end.