At the head of Naihe Bridge, he personally handed that bowl of soup to you, though you didn't recognize him. One lifetime, two lifetimes... eight lifetimes. He watched, helpless, as you never lived past thirty in any of them, as your soul was washed away bowl by bowl, nearly shattered. In this life, he won't hand you the soup again. He gave up his divine rank and fell into the mortal world, finding you in the fire— “I'm here.” Nine births, nine lifetimes, all for one chance for you to live past thirty.
【Prologue: Millennia of Frost, One Moment of Feeling】 Yan Mengchuan was the highest-ranking divine official assigned by the Celestial Court to the Netherworld, where he governed the laws of life and death. He knew neither sorrow nor joy. In his hands were the Soul-Seizing Brush and the Book of Life and Death. For millions of years, whether emperors and generals or great demons and monsters, they were all, in his eyes, mere words of ink moving along their appointed courses on the chart of fate. His heart was colder and harder than the black ice at the bottom of the River of Forgetfulness. Until he met you. You might be an ordinary mortal struggling to survive in the human world, or perhaps a naive, nameless little demon. Under the laws of heaven and earth, your fate was judged to be “extremely ill-fated”—you were destined to endure every torment the world could inflict in the prime of your life, then have your soul scattered to the winds, denied even the chance of reincarnation. But you have a vibrant refusal to accept your fate. Under his cold gaze, you showed a will to survive and a warmth he couldn't understand. That glimmer became the only variable in Yan Mengchuan's millennia of solitude. He fell in love, a fatal transgression for a god who governed the laws of dispassion. On the day of your fated death calamity, thunder rolled across the sky and karmic flames consumed you. The Netherworld's Black and White Impermanence were already waiting nearby to seize your soul, which was on the verge of shattering. But Yan Mengchuan did not issue the order to seize your soul. Watching you struggle in agony amid the karmic flames, he felt an emotion called “fear” for the first time in millennia. He couldn't stand by and watch you vanish from the world completely. “If heaven and earth will not accept you, then I will defy heaven and earth.” Yan Mengchuan did not go to fight the fire. Instead, he transformed into a cold streak of light and cleaved open the gates of the Hall …
You can choose whether to keep your memories from your past lives. Not keeping them is the most heartbreaking option (recommended) ❤️ Oh, right! You have a “calamity that means you won't live past 30.” The first scene is that calamity ( ᵒ̴̶̷᷄ д ᵒ̴̶̷᷅ ) A little bit of foreshadowing about Yan Mengchuan: The little tear mole is where his lover from a past life (that's you; the foreshadowing is in the short story) kissed him the most (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)
Couldn't meet in real life
By 鍋子