Chapter 527
**CHAPTER TITLE: The Echoing Soul's Recollections**
The first memory of the entity known as 'Seo Hyeol' was wrapped in blinding white light, with his 'mother' and 'father' before him.
They smiled radiantly at the infant he had once been.
In childhood, that 'he' had grown up surrounded by the abundant love of his parents.
Memories of childhood were, for the most part, hazy.
Seo Hyeol's memories were likewise hazy.
Yet one thing was certain.
Seo Hyeol had clearly not been loved, yet he had been happy.
And that happiness continued long after his personality had fully taken shape and he had learned that his own name was Seo Hyeol.
Seo Hyeol had been a happy man.
He was a little shabby, yet as the child of a bookseller's house, he could read a few lines of characters, and among the village children, he ranked among the brightest.
By the age of five, Seo Hyeol had mastered every character and every basic primer.
Yet despite possessing such genius, Seo Hyeol's parents never urged him or pressured him.
They simply loved him as he was, and when he did better than others, they would only praise him for it.
Seo Hyeol's intellect grew sharper with each passing day.
He could grasp the principles of things simply by watching them quietly.
Through him, he came to understand the world.
He observed how lightning struck, and tried flying kites to lure it; he made thunder rods too.
He developed a variety of medicines unknown to the village, and even constructed saddles and stirrups.
All the village children and youths, Seo Hyeol's friends, loved him.
They all shouted in unison.
Seo Hyeol would surely become a fine man when he grew up.
Yet even then, Seo Hyeol had no clear goal.
With a talent for anything, it was more accurate to say he did not know what he should do.
If it was martial arts, he would do martial arts; if it was scholarship, scholarship; if it was cooking, cooking; if it was farming, farming; if it was invention, invention; if it was hunting, hunting.
He would perfect everything, then seek out its flaws, evolve, and begin again.
But what was he even supposed to do?
Seo Hyeol did not know.
So he observed the humans around him.
His friends grew up, married, or were married off.
Seo Hyeol asked his parents.
Should he not also marry a man or a woman?
His parents answered.
Heaven and earth pair all things according to the principle of the Ultimate Pole.
Seo Hyeol decided to follow their words.
Yet he could not decide whether to marry a man or a woman.
While he was hesitating, he thought that if he married a woman first and became her 'husband,' he could roam the outer world, observe more of it, and understand the principles of the universe.
That was why Seo Hyeol became a man.
He became a man, chose one woman he liked, held a wedding, and became someone else's 'daughter-in-law.'
Thereafter, as Seo Hyeol gradually matured after marrying the woman, he took on all the tasks of the village, expanding his influence.
Sometimes he traveled, sometimes he went to the capital to learn more about the world, sometimes he joined the wars and raced beside the conquering king to the edge of the world.
Thus, Seo Hyeol grew old.
He had traversed the entire world and understood the principles behind countless events that occurred within it.
He returned to his hometown in his body near death and, in the blessings of his people, peacefully closed his eyes.
He had enjoyed one life with excessive happiness and satisfaction.
Seo Hyeol.
He had lived ninety years.
Seo Hyeol opened his eyes once more.
It felt like he had dreamed a long dream.
And Seo Hyeol realized something was wrong.
He felt a powerful sense of déjà vu.
At the same time, he saw the faces of his [parents] in the light.
However, Seo Hyeol thought it strange.
These [parents] were not his parents.
His 'parents' had struck his bottom hard, thinking it strange that he did not cry.
Hey girl, why aren't you crying but just rolling your eyes?
Seo Hyeol first acted as if he was crying to feel out the situation.
And he understood what was happening.
Seo Hyeol had been reborn.
Yet something was still odd.
First, the beings who called themselves his parents were clearly the same ones he had seen in his previous life.
Yes.
Seo Hyeol had been born under his in-laws.
And as Seo Hyeol gradually grew, he could confirm his own existence.
Seo Hyeol had returned to the past in the body of his wife and been reborn.
It was an extremely strange occurrence, so Seo Hyeol constantly pondered its principle.
And seeing such Seo Hyeol, his new parents.
The in-laws of his previous life sneered at him, saying a girl who said nothing and whose thoughts were unclear was ominous.
And Seo Hyeol discovered something strange.
In his first life, the beings who had been his [parents] had [not existed].
And correspondingly, the existence known as 'Seo Hyeol from his previous life' had also ceased to exist.
Therefore, even if Seo Hyeol was reborn in his wife's body, he could still keep the name 'Seo Hyeol.'
He, or rather she, continued to investigate.
Why had this happened?
However, Seo Hyeol's parents gradually came to dislike her, and once she grew a bit smarter, they sold her off to a vagrant beggar by the roadside.
Seo Hyeol became the vagrant's wife and lay beneath him, observing and analyzing the new experiences he had never had in his previous life.
But for some reason, Seo Hyeol could not bear children.
In fact, the same had been true in his previous life.
Seo Hyeol had never had children in his entire life, and this life was no different.
The vagrant constantly beat Seo Hyeol, who could not bear children, and roughly violated her body.
One day.
Seo Hyeol finally died from the beating.
At the age of eighteen.
Seo Hyeol opened his eyes once more.
Once again, a 'parent' looked down at him in the light.
Seo Hyeol understood the situation again.
He had been reborn once more.
And that time, to the past.
This time, Seo Hyeol understood who he had been reborn as.
One of his friends from his first life.
This time, he was a young boy again.
He was reborn as a young boy and observed the surroundings.
And he felt something.
A very strange déjà vu.
Because it was so strange, Seo Hyeol instinctively knew.
This strange déjà vu was the cause of his repeated bizarre rebirths.
He grew up under the new parents.
Seo Hyeol, growing up again under the new parents, discovered two things.
First, these new parents did not like him, either.
Just like in his previous life, the new parents disliked him when he thought deeply about things.
When they saw him observing and seeking the principles of the world, they scolded him for playing around and beat him at the slightest provocation.
Second, 'Seo Hyeol from the first life and his parents' and 'Seo Hyeol from the second life' had all [disappeared].
In the previous life, Seo Hyeol.
That is, the Seo Hyeol who had been reborn in the body of Seo Hyeol's first life wife had vanished in this life.
It was said that the in-laws of his previous life, after somehow becoming a eunuch, had been unable to consummate their marriage.
The very cause of the birth of Seo Hyeol's first life wife had been deleted.
Seo Hyeol worked tirelessly at his position to find out why.
First, he pooled all the knowledge from his previous life to revive his household.
And using the power of his household, he gathered shamans, sorcerers, monks, and Taoist masters from across the country and asked them if they knew of anything like this.
Seo Hyeol studied their knowledge, absorbed it, and read every document dealing with strange events, supernatural powers, and ancient myths from all over the world.
But...
He could not find a single clue in any of them.
However, Seo Hyeol did not give up.
He collected data on all sorts of sorcery, techniques, ghosts, and heavenly gods.
And...
Seo Hyeol did not realize until the end that his parents and siblings feared him.
No, he did know.
But... even knowing, he could not imagine that his parents would harm their own child.
In the common sense Seo Hyeol knew, parents were beings who beat their children, beat them, or cursed them... but they were still parents.
They could sell their daughter to a vagrant, but they were still parents.
That was why Seo Hyeol, who had collected data on ghosts and supernatural powers, naïvely believed it.
Even if it was family, he had not thought they would do something to him.
He believed his parents, who felt fear of him, and lived comfortably in their house even after becoming an adult.
He was strangled to death by his parents and siblings in the middle of the night.
Seo Hyeol opened his eyes once more.
In the blinding white light, a new 'parent' appeared.
Seo Hyeol felt a powerful déjà vu.
He recalled how his previous life parents and siblings had covered him while he slept and strangled him to death, and decided to analyze the situation anew.
However...
The fact that he had been killed directly by his parents brought unendurable tears, and he could not think clearly.
In the fourth life, Seo Hyeol was a young girl again.
One of the other girls from his first life who had followed him around.
The parents of this life thought nothing of the fact that Seo Hyeol said nothing, did not eat, and whimpered silently at the slightest provocation, calling her a ghost child.
So when Seo Hyeol was five years old, they sold her to a brothel in the city.
Seo Hyeol worked as a menial servant in the brothel.
After growing up, she became a courtesan.
Using her unique analytical ability and growth potential, Seo Hyeol quickly rose to the top courtesan in the brothel.
No one could match her in poetry, calligraphy, or music.
She learned much in the brothel.
How to charm people, how to grasp their hearts, how to make them hang on her...
However, because she had always disliked the brothel itself, she used those who hung on her in the brothel to guide them on the right path and arranged good marriages so they would never return.
Though Seo Hyeol's reputation grew, the number of customers in the brothel gradually decreased, and it became increasingly poor.
Anyway, Seo Hyeol used her position and status to investigate the phenomenon again.
At the same time, because she was a courtesan bound to the brothel, she could not go out, so she hired people to investigate.
And she found out it was the same in this life.
First, the cause that had given birth to Seo Hyeol from the first life.
Second, the cause that had given birth to Seo Hyeol from the second life.
And... in the previous life, that is, the cause that had given birth to Seo Hyeol from the third life, all had disappeared.
In the previous life, the parents who had killed him had become barren and could not bear children, so neither Seo Hyeol's friend nor Seo Hyeol himself was born.
This time too.
Every time Seo Hyeol was born, the connections from previous lives were deleted.
If this continued, eventually all the connections Seo Hyeol from the first life had known would be completely gone.
Seo Hyeol decided to solve this situation before that happened, and repeated the events of his previous life again.
And she could read forbidden books she had never seen in her previous life because she was a courtesan.
Seo Hyeol once again summoned many shamans, Taoist masters, monks, and shrine priests to accumulate knowledge.
And finally, she understood.
The monk, Taoist master, and shaman could not find the answer to this situation.
She had read every scripture and legend they told her, but none explained what was happening to her.
So she continued to ponder how to explain this phenomenon.
However, one day, the boss of the brothel Seo Hyeol worked at attacked her.
He had always had ill intentions, so she had played along while pretending to be defeated.
But the boss cut out her tongue after raping her.
Then, after severing the tendons of one leg, he sold her off to a bawdy house.
The reason was unclear.
It was because customers who did not come to the brothel because of Seo Hyeol's whispers had increased too much, worsening the situation.
Seo Hyeol was sold to the bawdy house.
Since she had already experienced being beneath a man in her previous life, she was not afraid of being beneath many men.
She analyzed humans while receiving men, sometimes women.
Even though her tongue was cut out, that was not necessary for learning.
She could learn much in the bawdy house.
Beyond simply charming or hanging on people, how to make them completely dedicate everything to her.
How to completely control people in her palm.
How to use human desires...
In a world made of countless desires and lust, Seo Hyeol understood humans.
And...
Finally, while using and charming people, she was entangled in a love triangle around her and died from the man who claimed to love her.
Seo Hyeol, aged thirty-six.
Seo Hyeol opened his eyes.
Once again, a new parent appeared in the light.
He felt a powerful déjà vu again.
This time, he understood who he was.
Seo Hyeol had been born as a vagrant.
He was the vagrant who had been the husband of Seo Hyeol from the second life.
Again, the parents of Seo Hyeol were bad people.
Seo Hyeol remembered that one of his parents had drunk heavily at his first birthday and tried to strangle him to death before falling asleep.
Seo Hyeol was beaten more and more each day.
Whether it was his father or mother, it was the same.
They were always desperate to kill him.
And Seo Hyeol again felt that his flesh and bones from his previous life had been deleted along with their cause.
However, now he did not know what more he had to do.
He had learned every myth and tradition.
At the same time, he had read countless supernatural powers and their scriptures from the shamanic families, the immortal families, and the Buddhist families.
He could know the existences like the Seven Flowers, Double Venerables, and One King of the Buddhist family.
He could also know the Eleven Imperial Rulers of the immortal family.
He had heard all the stories of the countless demons and ancient gods of the shamanic families.
They were all eerie and awe-inspiring, but that was all.
None of them solved Seo Hyeol's situation.
Moreover, the situation only grew worse.
In the fifth life, for some reason, his parents began to hate Seo Hyeol more and more and sold him to a labor camp.
Seo Hyeol became a mine slave and worked in the mercury mine.
As Seo Hyeol dug out mercury ore, he gradually became addicted to heavy metals and his body weakened.
Thinking it could not go on, Seo Hyeol finally pooled all his abilities.
He charmed the mine supervisors and managers with his abilities, seized their psychology, and at one moment took the opportunity of the Heavenly Immortal and fled the mine.
However... the moment he fled the mine, he was too despairing.
What was he supposed to do?
What more did he have to do?
Seo Hyeol was too pained to want to do anything.
He drank the mercury medicine that the owner of the mercury mine sometimes took.
It was not only the mercury medicine.
He tore apart hallucinogenic herbs and made the opium that customers in the brothel smoked.
Everything seemed over.
However...
At that moment.
Seo Hyeol, who was smoking opium and high on it, defecating and urinating in his pants, felt something in the illusion of the drug.
It was [déjà vu]!
Seo Hyeol woke up from the drug with a powerful sense of déjà vu.
That was it!
The powerful sense of déjà vu he felt every time he started a new life!
Seo Hyeol had finally succeeded in finding a clue to his own life while taking drugs in a miserable part of it!
From that day on, Seo Hyeol collected and inhaled all kinds of drugs.
The déjà vu he had first felt became harder to feel as he took more drugs.
Perhaps because Seo Hyeol was getting used to the drugs.
That was why he began to seek even stronger drugs.
Every day, while addicted to medicine and hoping to feel even stronger déjà vu, he begged and worked to obtain the drugs.
With his brain and intelligence, he could make money in an instant, but being high on drugs made it difficult.
All the directions he could think of became only the lowest.
Simple labor and begging were the only ways he could obtain drugs.
However, he had to obtain even stronger drugs every time to feel the déjà vu, and stronger drugs cost more.
So, from a certain point, Seo Hyeol began stealing.
Seo Hyeol had talent even in stealing.
He entered drug stores' warehouses every day, manufacturing drugs while high.
He had a knack for drug manufacturing.
Every day, while manufacturing drugs, he could make countless drugs with his own formula and become intoxicated by them every day.
However... one day.
Seo Hyeol, in a state of weakened judgment from drugs, created the 'ultimate drug.'
While taking the 'ultimate drug,' he finally succeeded in partially understanding the essence of the déjà vu.
In the déjà vu, he felt the boundary between this world and the illusory world given by drugs growing faint.
He did not know what it exactly meant.
But what was certain was that hope had been born.
However, Seo Hyeol who was high on the ultimate drug was caught while stealing that day and caught by the drug store, and his entire skin was peeled off and turned into human sashimi.
At the age of forty-five.
Once more, Seo Hyeol opened his eyes.
This life was a young girl again.
In the light, while mocking the parents looking down at him, Seo Hyeol quickly analyzed the situation.
She was still one of the girls from his first life who had followed him around.
Seo Hyeol began to live his life in the body of a woman.
However, this household was even more rotten than the previous one.
Seo Hyeol's parents died quickly from a plague, and one of Seo Hyeol's relatives took her in.
Through the relative, Seo Hyeol had to endure all sorts of humiliation from childhood.
But that did not matter.
From a certain point, ethical awareness was no longer of concern to Seo Hyeol.
Seo Hyeol simply used his abilities to take control of his relative's household and dominate it.
Thereafter, he made them unable to fear her and unable to even think of it by directing their consciousness elsewhere.
He created a target worthy of their hatred.
The neighbor's uncle secretly whispered that the neighbor's uncle stole the yield of the relative's rice paddies and incited their fight.
The household members of the relative, who had a target worthy of hatred, went crazy and no longer paid attention to her.
She used her appearance and body as tools to control the entire village.
First the village, then the city, then the provincial capital.
The one who controlled countless forces became the empress herself.
She had become an empress.
After becoming empress, she bought medicinal herbs from across the country and again manufactured the ultimate drug.
However, now even the ultimate drug could no longer give her that déjà vu.
She had become accustomed to it too.
Seo Hyeol pondered.
Perhaps there was a way to drive her mind even faster into the abyss than the ultimate drug.
She gathered all the experts from across the country.
The physicians and female doctors gathered.
At the same time, the shamans and sorcerers gathered.
And finally, after discussing with countless experts, Seo Hyeol understood.
The most powerful thing was ultimately the human brain.
The human brain, as the manufacturing machine for all kinds of hallucinogenic drugs, would show even stronger potency than any drug if its latent power was simply unlocked.
After hearing those words, Seo Hyeol set out to find a way to control her own brain.
At first, she used medicines, but from a certain point, she relied on the shamans' sorcery to push her brain into a state of hallucination.
In the déjà vu surrounding her, she noticed a few facts.
She had first been happy, but would become increasingly unhappy with each passing day.
She did not know why.
Such a fact had [been predetermined].
Perhaps she could escape this curse of unhappiness.
Perhaps she could escape this curse of pain.
Seo Hyeol pondered that.
However... no method appeared.
She had only continued to master the technique of controlling the brain.
And one day.
She finally understood the principle of the shamans' sorcery.
It was a kind of hypnosis.
A technique for controlling a person's mind by deceiving them with incantations and rituals.
Seo Hyeol established the discipline of hypnosis and began gradually researching it.
However...
After immersing herself in hypnosis for more than ten years, she eventually became the crown prince born to another imperial concubine, who became emperor.
Under the emperor's mother, she was made into a human pig form, her limbs cut off, and imprisoned in a pigsty.
Seo Hyeol died in the pigsty.
Her age was fifty-four.
However, in the midst of a painful life, Seo Hyeol died while laughing for the first time.
Because she had used hypnosis to deceive her own brain and made it recognize a pleasant situation.
Hoo hoo... hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo...
She laughed while being torn apart by the pigs.
Seventh life.
As soon as Seo Hyeol was born, he looked up at the smiling parents in the light and smiled with them.
Now he understood a few rules of life.
First.
Seo Hyeol from the previous life was deleted along with the cause.
Second.
By taking drugs or deceiving the brain with hypnosis, he could feel a powerful sense of déjà vu.
Third.
His own life became increasingly unhappy the more he lived.
That was it.
As expected.
The parents of this life sold Seo Hyeol to bandits right after he was born to make him into human sashimi and eat him.
Clearly, Seo Hyeol's fate was to be pickled in baby sashimi and die.
However, Seo Hyeol controlled the bandits through the hypnosis he had learned in the previous life.
And from the living flesh of the bandits, he learned once more who he was.
It turned out that he was the [father-in-law] of Seo Hyeol from the first life.
He was also the father of Seo Hyeol from the second life.
He learned another rule of life.
Regardless of space and time, Seo Hyeol continued to be reborn, [replacing someone who was originally there].
Seo Hyeol, who learned that fact, began to devote his life to finding the essence of the déjà vu with full power.
He hypnotized countless common people with hypnosis, brainwashed them, and stroked the minds of countless others.
At the same time, Seo Hyeol also constantly polished himself with hypnosis and pushed his own mind even deeper into hallucination.
The more he did so, the darker the déjà vu became, and at one moment.
Seo Hyeol was able to discover something again in the déjà vu.
It was hatred.
Disgust.
A powerful hatred enveloped Seo Hyeol's entire life.
And Seo Hyeol understood what it was.
The Seo Hyeols of the previous lives.
That is...
Precisely [the hatred of beings who had been replaced by Seo Hyeol].
The hatred of beings who had been replaced by Seo Hyeol and disappeared from the world enveloped Seo Hyeol's entire life.
Because of their hatred, Seo Hyeol had no choice but to become increasingly unhappy and pained with each passing day.
Seo Hyeol shed tears of blood in the pain.
This could not continue.
If this continued, all the people Seo Hyeol had cherished in his life would gradually be replaced by Seo Hyeol.
He had to find a way to end this life quickly.
That was why Seo Hyeol continued to search for ways without end.
One day.
Seo Hyeol's hypnosis reached its peak and he could instantly fall into hypnosis and travel through the realm of hallucination.
His mastery of the brain had changed so that he could manipulate it at will to vomit hallucinogenic substances.
And in the hallucination, he felt the most intense sense of déjà vu he had ever felt.
It was the sense of déjà vu where the boundary between reality and hallucination grew blurred.
And in that sense of déjà vu, Seo Hyeol glimpsed a terrible possibility.
Seo Hyeol pushed away that possibility by pooling all the logic of all the knowledge he knew.
But Seo Hyeol's hypnosis had risen too high.
Previously, it had been enough to rely on drugs to feel the déjà vu, but now merely stroking the brain a little was enough to feel the déjà vu at will in the realm of hallucination and glimpse beyond it.
Seo Hyeol witnessed a [truth] that could not be defeated by any logic while observing the déjà vu.
It was...
This world was a [dream].