## Chapter 3: Return
Darkness did not claim Li Tianchen this time.
Instead, it shattered.
His consciousness slammed downward with terrifying speed, as if forcibly dragged through layers of time itself. Countless scenes flashed before his eyes—his rise, his fall, his betrayals, the endless ten thousand years of blood and solitude. Pain followed, sharp and disorienting, then abruptly vanished.
Li Tianchen gasped.
Air rushed into his lungs, thick with smoke, alcohol, and artificial fragrance.
Music thundered in his ears.
Laughter rang out.
His vision stabilized.
He was sitting on a leather couch inside a familiar bar, neon lights reflecting off polished glass tables. Bottles crowded the table before him. Across from him sat the same group of sycophantic friends—faces young, unlined by loss, still wearing expressions of shallow admiration.
Li Tianchen froze.
His fingers trembled as he raised his hand. Smooth skin. No scars. No immortal qi circulating in his meridians. No divine laws pressing upon his soul.
A chill spread through his entire body.
"I've… returned?"
Not rebirth.
Regression.
Time had reversed.
This was the night.
The night everything began.
---
His heart pounded violently, but outwardly Li Tianchen remained still. Ten thousand years of cultivation had honed his will to a terrifying degree. Panic existed—but it was locked behind layers of absolute control.
His gaze drifted toward the far end of the bar.
The young man was there.
Seated alone. Calm. Silent. A cup untouched before him. Exactly as Li Tianchen remembered.
The sight triggered an instinctive surge of killing intent.
Li Tianchen forcibly suppressed it.
In his previous timeline, this was the man he had humiliated. The spark that ignited the annihilation of the Li family. The invisible hand that toppled an empire overnight.
But now—
Li Tianchen exhaled slowly.
He would not repeat the same mistake.
Not again.
---
"Brother Tianchen! What are you staring at?" one of his companions laughed, following his gaze. "Just some nobody. Want me to call him over?"
Li Tianchen's eyes sharpened.
"No," he said calmly.
The word carried a weight that silenced the table.
His friends blinked, momentarily startled. The usual arrogance, the careless dominance—they were absent from his voice.
Li Tianchen stood.
"I'm done for tonight," he said.
Confusion spread across their faces.
"Already? The night's just starting!"
Li Tianchen ignored them. He picked up his coat, draped it over his shoulders, and began walking toward the exit.
Each step felt surreal.
The world was the same—but he was not.
---
As he passed the stranger's table, Li Tianchen did not look at him.
He did not provoke.
He did not sneer.
He simply walked by.
For the first time in two lifetimes, fate was denied its opening move.
Yet just as Li Tianchen reached the doorway—
He felt it.
A gaze.
Sharp. Calculating.
Li Tianchen paused, his hand on the door handle.
Against his better judgment, he turned his head slightly.
Their eyes met.
The young man was no longer calm.
His pupils had contracted, and a trace of unmistakable surprise flickered across his face—quickly masked, but not quickly enough.
Then something else appeared.
Regret.
Not fear.
Not anger.
Regret—as if something carefully arranged had failed to unfold as intended.
Li Tianchen's heart skipped a beat.
In the next instant, the expression vanished. The young man lowered his gaze, once more becoming an unremarkable stranger in a crowded bar.
Li Tianchen turned away and left.
But the image burned itself into his memory.
---
The drive home was silent.
City lights streaked past the window of the luxury car, yet Li Tianchen's mind was elsewhere—rapidly assembling fragments of memory, logic, and intuition.
Something was wrong.
In his first life, events had unfolded too perfectly. The precision of the Li family's collapse, the speed with which every escape route was sealed—it had never been the work of a single offended man.
It had been orchestration.
A long-prepared blade.
"That man…" Li Tianchen murmured.
He closed his eyes.
In his later lives, as an Immortal Sovereign, he had learned a cruel truth: true enemies rarely acted personally.
They used pawns.
---
Far away from the bar, in a quiet courtyard hidden deep within the city, the young man knelt.
Before him stood a middle-aged figure dressed in simple robes, his presence so restrained that it seemed ordinary—yet the surrounding air bent subtly toward him.
"Did you do it?" the man asked calmly.
The young man hesitated.
"No, Master," he replied. "He… left."
Silence fell.
The man's fingers tapped lightly against a stone table.
"A deviation," he said softly.
The young man lowered his head. "He did not act as expected. There was no provocation."
The man's eyes narrowed slightly—not in anger, but contemplation.
"Interesting," he murmured.
He turned his gaze toward the distant skyline where the Li family estate stood.
"No matter," he continued. "The justification already exists. His arrogance merely accelerates the process—it is not required."
The young man hesitated again. "Should we proceed as planned?"
"Yes," the man said without pause. "The Li family's influence has reached a point where it obstructs certain interests. Their destruction will be… reasonable."
Reasonable.
The young man clenched his fists.
"But Master," he said carefully, "if Li Tianchen does not offend us—"
The man smiled faintly.
"Justice is written by those who hold power," he said. "Whether he sins today or tomorrow changes nothing."
The conversation ended.
The young man rose, his expression conflicted.
He had been a pawn from the beginning.
---
Li Tianchen knew none of this.
That night, he returned to the Li family estate and stood alone on the balcony overlooking the city. The wind brushed against his face, grounding him in the reality of his second chance.
"I avoided the trigger," he whispered.
But deep inside, unease lingered.
The world had not rewarded him with peace.
It had given him time.
---
Li Tianchen returned to the Tianchen residence just past midnight.
The estate was as he remembered—vast, brightly lit, guarded by layers of security. Servants greeted him respectfully. His mother's voice echoed faintly from the living hall, laughing softly as she spoke with his father.
The sound struck him like a blade.
He stopped.
For a long moment, Li Tianchen stood motionless, staring at the warm light spilling from the doorway.
Alive.
They were alive.
His fists clenched, nails digging into his palms until blood welled. He forced himself to breathe.
Not yet.
If he allowed emotion to control him now, he would expose everything.
He entered calmly.
His parents noticed immediately that something was different.
"Tianchen? You're home early," his mother said, surprised.
"Just tired," he replied.
It was not a lie.
That night, Li Tianchen locked himself in his room.
He did not sleep.
Instead, he sat cross-legged on the floor, eyes closed, mind racing.
Regression was not mercy.
It was a trial.
He understood this better than anyone.
The enemy who destroyed his family had not disappeared. The chain of cause and effect still existed—only delayed, distorted.
The young man in the bar was merely a pawn.
Someone else had orchestrated everything.
Someone powerful enough to manipulate mortal fate while remaining hidden.
Li Tianchen exhaled slowly.
"In my previous life, I was blind," he murmured. "I thought strength alone was enough."
But ten thousand years had taught him otherwise.
Power without foresight was suicide.
This time, he would not provoke blindly.
He would observe.
Prepare.
Lay foundations long before the storm arrived.
His gaze hardened.
"The Li family will not fall again."
Outside his window, the city slept peacefully, unaware that destiny itself had subtly shifted course.
The game had restarted.
But this time—
The player remembered every move