"I once read a sentence in a book," Gu Xu said to the Snow Maiden beside him as he walked down the bluestone streets in the city, "A person has to die three times in his life.

"The first death is when our heart stops beating and our breathing dies, which is death in the biological sense.

"The second death is when we are buried, and people come to our funeral dressed in white, and they officially declare that we no longer exist in this world, and that all our social relations are gone.

"The third death is the last person in the world to remember us, completely forgetting us, so that we really die, and we have nothing to do with this world.

"That's a lot of fun. I experienced my third death before I had experienced my first death. Now it looks like I didn't exist in this world at all."

The Snow Maiden listened to him expressionlessly, nodding her head lightly from time to time.

At this time, the two of them were in Liangzhou Mansion.

This was the gateway to the northwest of the Great Qi Dynasty. Out of Liangzhou, it is the territory of the barbarian people outside the Saiwai.

Gu Xu never imagined that after being wanted by the imperial court, he would one day be able to walk on the street swaggering and unabashedly.

He was replaced by a thief named "Li Batian" as the protagonist of the wanted list—in each portrait, the bearded middle-aged man silently examined the passers-by with a fierce look.

As for the Snow Maiden, she still wears a veil and hides her long snow-colored hair in a wide-brimmed hat.

She was born with a fairy appearance and peerless independence, but now that her black hair has turned silver-white, she is even more intimidating and unforgiving.

If it appears on the street, it must be the walker with a mustache under it, and the young man taking off his hat and hat.

Even if he became a passer-by forgotten by the world, Gu Xu didn't want to attract too much unnecessary attention.

"But I remember you." As soon as Gu Xu's words fell, the Snow Girl looked at him and said seriously.

Gu Xu smiled faintly.

Truth be told, he doesn't know why Snow Maiden still hasn't forgotten him when the whole world has severed the causal connection with him.

With a shallow understanding of the way of cause and effect, he guessed that it might be because he had been with Snow Maiden for the past few days, which made it difficult for the side effects of the mask to take effect.

It may also be because he and the Snow Maiden have already built a connection at the level of the gods through the Thrilling Pen - this kind of causal connection based on the famous artifact of the Great Wilderness is difficult to erase easily.

Of course, it may also be because the Snow Maiden recognizes him by neither his appearance nor his name, but by his smell and intuition.

She is indifferent and detached from the whole world. Only Gu Xu is the only special existence in her eyes.

She's like a balloon string.

When Gu Xu was about to float away from this world, she, as the only fetter, tied him tightly to the ground.

However, at the same time, Gu Xu's heart was also full of confusion.

He felt that this kind of spell that completely erased a person from history was too amazing—something that even a saint and a strong man could not do.

It shouldn't be just a side effect of a mask.

If you take a painting as an analogy -

The function of the mask itself to hide its whereabouts is just a child's random graffiti; But this "side effect" is the hand-me-down work of a famous master.

When Luo Chuan handed over this mask to him, he didn't think too much about it because he was in a hurry to flee for his life.

But now, the more he thought about it, the more he felt that something was wrong.

In addition, he knew that Luo Chuan was not good at the way of cause and effect - of course, it could also be that Luo Chuan had been hiding his knowledge of the way of cause and effect from the outside world.

"Could it be that Luo Si wants to help me break through the fifth realm in this way?" Gu Xu frowned and guessed.

The cultivation of the fifth realm, called the "Meng Po Pavilion", requires the monks to break the shackles of the world and move towards the transcendent realm.

In order to break through this critical realm, the ancestors came up with a variety of methods – such as the masochistic retreat and penance practice of Lin Shan Monastery

, such as the sword of the Sword Pavilion travels all over the world, and the most widely used "Seven Feelings" in the Great Qi Dynasty.

However, when Gu Xu was pondering what method he should use to break through the realm, the side effects of the mask took effect.

He didn't need to meditate on how to get out of the red dust.

He has severed the causal connection with the world.

His True Yuan aura then skyrocketed—he was about to rush straight into the boundary of the Fifth Realm at a speed of a hundred meters.

He planned that after leaving Liangzhou and leaving the border of Daqi, he would find a safe place to break through the fifth realm.

Although he was now in a state of being forgotten by the world, he did not dare to guarantee that a strong person like Emperor Tianxing would also be affected by the side effects of the mask.

There is never too much such thing as strength.

…………

In fact, in the corner that Gu Xu couldn't see, there was another person - a ghost to be precise, who had not been tampered with by the mask and affected his cognition.

"It's amazing!"

At the same time, in the shadows under the eaves on the other side of the street, the white-bearded old man in a dark blue robe looked at Gu Xu and the Snow Girl who were getting farther and farther away, and sighed.

"You say, if we cast this causal spell instead, would we be able to achieve the same effect?" The emaciated storyteller next to him pondered for a moment and asked.

"It's hard," said Whitebeard after a moment's thought, "the way we hide is by erasing our names with the way of cause and effect, so that the world will forget us before we know it.

"But our spells can't change the objective facts. For example, when people turn to the material that records us, they still recall our existence.

"Gu Xu is different this time.

"The spell on the mask not only modifies people's memories, but also changes objective things - I can't do it, change thousands of wanted portraits for people overnight."

"I didn't expect Luo Chuan to have such a ability!" The middle-aged man performing the rat show said with deep emotion, "If he really did all this, then his strength should be far beyond the Seventh Realm, and he doesn't know anything about the way of cause and effect like the outside world knows—"

"-It doesn't have to be Luo Chuan's doing," Whitebeard interrupted him, "Maybe some strong man we don't know attached a spell to the mask and gave it to Gu Xu through Luo Chuan."

"Then what is the purpose of this strong man?" The middle-aged man frowned, "If he just wants to help Gu Xu escape, then there is no need to go to such great lengths."

"I don't understand it either," said the whitebeard elder with a slight shake of his head, "but for now, we don't need to think about the thoughts of that mysterious powerhouse, let's take care of our own affairs first!"

As he spoke, he pulled out the plain wooden hairpin from his sleeve again.