Trusting her father, she began explaining without reservation.
“Humans live between heaven and earth as if dwelling within a vast web.
“Every action and movement affects the people, events, and objects around them.
“Those who haven’t achieved transcendence inevitably remain subject to influence from other people, events, and objects.
“These interweave and interact, forming all matters in the world.
“Any event that occurs in the world inevitably leaves traces.
“By observing these various marks left upon the great web, one can comprehend all worldly affairs.
“This web is called the Heavenly Web of the Dao. The traces are known as Eroded Sigils of the Dao.”
As the young girl spoke, the doubts in Li Fan’s heart gradually resolved.
The ten years in Yuandao Province had been stolen during his twelfth lifetime.
He Xinxin was merely a Foundation Establishment cultivator. No matter how prodigious her talent, she absolutely couldn’t have pierced through Return to Truth to deduce events from nearly a hundred lifetimes ago.
Moreover, that unknown entity that had stolen ten years from him operated at an extremely high level of existence. By all reasoning, it shouldn’t be something He Xinxin could calculate.
Yet she had somehow detected clues.
This was because an apple that has been bitten... is different from a whole apple.
Similarly, any being whose time had been stolen by this mysterious entity would certainly differ from other normal beings; they would carry a unique aura.
Although Li Fan had returned to a point before the time theft through Return to Truth, he hadn’t completely shaken off its influence.
His previous complete lack of awareness served as proof.
He Xinxin’s Heavenly Web of the Dao hadn’t directly divined the existence of Return to Truth or that time-stealing unknown entity.
But by performing a divination on Li Fan, she had glimpsed traces of Its influence, thus reconstructing what had happened to him.
Li Fan even speculated that if He Xinxin performed a divination for any other cultivator in Yuandao Province, she wouldn’t obtain the same results as with Li Fan.
That was simply beyond what a Foundation Establishment cultivator could perceive.
Even with a half-Curio of Heaven, the Dao Pattern Compass, it wouldn’t suffice.
If one were to draw a comparison, the unknown entity that stole time was like a black hole silently looming over Yuandao Province.
At regular intervals, it devoured a decade of time from the entire province.
Under normal circumstances, its existence could not be directly detected through ordinary observation or divination.
But because of Return to Truth, Li Fan escaped from this black hole.
Yet the black hole’s influence remained.
Thus, Li Fan became like the distorted light around a black hole: through him, one could infer the truth of It stealing time from Yuandao Province.