My Childhood Friend Traveled Through Time 500 Years Before Me

1,

When the car came hurtling toward him, the only person Jiang Zhi worried about was his childhood friend, Qin Xu.

Neither of them had ever been loved by their parents. They had relied on each other for years and had long since become indispensable to one another.

But unexpectedly, he didn't die. When he opened his eyes, he was standing on an old-fashioned street. Before he could figure out what was going on, he noticed the notice board by the roadside.

A fresh issue of the Cultivation World Daily was posted there. A brief missing-person notice took up half the page, written in simplified characters:

"Jiang Zhi, find a way to leave a drop of blood on my name. I'll come find you. Don't be afraid of the pain. I'll buy you candy."

It was signed Qin Xu.

Jiang Zhi stood there stunned for a long while, then followed the instructions, biting his finger and dropping a bead of blood on the name Qin Xu.

Nothing happened. Someone nearby noticed what he was doing and scoffed. "That search notice has been posted for hundreds of years. Do you really think the Sword Venerable is looking for a green boy like you?"

Hundreds of years? The Sword Venerable?

Before Jiang Zhi could process any of this, the skies churned. He looked up and saw Qin Xu tear through the air and pull him into a fierce embrace.

2,

After Jiang Zhi died, Qin Xu lived for only one more year. Once he had sent the driver responsible to prison, he set a fire, then carried Jiang Zhi's ashes into the flames.

But he didn't die.

When he opened his eyes again, he had arrived in an unfamiliar world where everyone sought the path to immortality. Legend said that immortals lived as long as heaven and earth.

Qin Xu had no attachment to life, but he couldn't let go of Jiang Zhi.

He had transmigrated. Was it possible Jiang Zhi had transmigrated, too?

Clinging to that thought, Qin Xu traveled all across the Nine Provinces. Before he knew it, he had become the youngest Sword Venerable.

But even after five hundred years, he still hadn't found Jiang Zhi.

He had given up hope and was about to go search for Jiang Zhi in the underworld when the ward he had left in the Cultivation World Daily all those years ago was suddenly triggered.

He tore through the air and found Jiang Zhi standing bewildered by the roadside, wearing his school uniform and looking just as he did in Qin Xu's memories.

3,

Jiang Zhi didn't know how to cultivate. At his age, it was already late to begin drawing spiritual energy into his body. But he wasn't worried, because the greatest genius in the Nine Provinces was going to teach him personally.

Qin Xu sat behind him, half-embracing him. His cool fingertips rested on Jiang Zhi's dantian, guiding a strand of pure, gentle spiritual energy slowly into his body.

"A-Zhi, can you feel it? Just like this."

Jiang Zhi shivered at the chill of Qin Xu's fingers and couldn't calm himself. He hesitated, then asked, "Qin Xu, do other masters teach their disciples this way?"

As soon as the words left his mouth, a weight settled on his waist. The hand that had been lightly pressing his dantian now clamped around him, and a solid, powerful body pressed against his back.

A hot breath brushed his ear. The man's voice was low and calm, yet somehow unsettling. "A-Zhi, am I just anyone?"

Jiang Zhi shivered and sighed silently.

After five hundred years apart, Qin Xu seemed to have gone mad.

Reading guide:

* A possessive, obsessive, fatherly childhood-friend gong with severe trauma, and a gentle, resilient, healing shou.

* Qin Xu and Jiang Zhi.

* They were the same age before transmigrating. Afterward, the gong is several hundred years older than the shou. Older, fatherly gong. The leads belong to each other, no exceptions.

2026.04.24

Theme: Stay together and stand by each other, leaving no regrets in life.