“It really works?!” The Sword Spirit excitedly flew several circles around Shu Xin.
After consuming the powder made by grinding up the Peace Talisman, Shu Xin’s body seemed to have been completely remade.
Her originally damaged dantian and meridians appeared to have regained a source capable of producing new blood, and they had begun slowly repairing her battered body.
She had been injured far too severely, however, and still needed some time to recuperate.
Even so, anyone with eyes could see that Shu Xin’s health was improving day by day.
Thank the heavens—its Swordmaster really wasn’t fated to die.
Aside from the Sword Spirit, Wen Jingzhi was the happiest of all.
These days, whenever Shu Xin had nothing to do, she would tell Wen Jingzhi stories. They included, but were by no means limited to, Sun Wukong battling a hundred thousand heavenly soldiers and generals; domineering CEOs declaring, “The weather’s getting cold—it’s time to destroy the Wangs”; The Count of Monte Cristo patiently enduring humiliation before taking revenge; overpowered protagonists rapidly leveling up; and tales of her own love-hate entanglements with several men.
Her stories covered every possible genre, and their developments were always beyond anyone’s expectations. Not only was Wen Jingzhi, a country bumpkin who had never seen the wider world, utterly captivated—even the Sword Spirit listened with rapt attention.
These stories were far too fascinating!
In such an atmosphere, Wen Jingzhi and Shu Xin naturally grew closer and closer.
At the same time, Shu Xin’s body was visibly recovering.
“Sister, look!” Wen Jingzhi came running over, carrying a wooden sword. In front of Shu Xin, he brandished it fiercely for a while. “Am I a martial arts prodigy? Can I become an immortal just like you, Sister?”
Watching his childish, make-believe swordplay, Shu Xin forcibly suppressed her laughter. “You could be considered a martial arts prodigy. But you probably won’t be able to become an immortal.”
“Why not?” Wen Jingzhi asked curiously.
Shu Xin couldn’t bring herself to tell him outright that he had no spiritual root, so she put it more tactfully. “An immortal’s lifespan is different from that of a mortal. If you wanted to become like me, you would suffer injuries like mine—and you might even bring trouble upon your family. You could go into seclusion today, and by the time you emerged and came to your senses, several decades might have passed. By then, your parents might already be gone.”
“Oh. Then forget it.”
Wen Jingzhi thought about it seriously, then decisively gave up on what might have been a promising career as an immortal.
“That’s it?” Shu Xin asked, unable to resist probing further. “You might only ever meet one immortal in your entire life—and that would be me.”
“Being an immortal isn’t all that great. I’d rather stay with my parents. Being a mortal is pretty good too.” Wen Jingzhi considered it carefully before shaking his head. “Sister, you should be the immortal. Become a good one, and in the future, go save the people who are harmed by wicked immortals.”
The sincerity and kindness of youth were revealed without reservation in that moment.
Shu Xin had already lost most of her hopes for this world.
Ever since she had transmigrated here, almost everything she had seen was a living hell.
Cultivators had neither responsibility nor a sense of duty. Mortals had neither freedom nor the ability to determine their own fate. Everyone could only drift with the current in this world where the strong preyed on the weak, struggling desperately to survive.
When simply staying alive was already a luxury, who could demand that these people still uphold benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and faith?
More than once, Shu Xin had felt that this world was rotten to the core. It would be better if it were destroyed.
But now, as she looked into Wen Jingzhi’s innocent eyes and saw the paradise-like town of the Wen clan, she began to hesitate.
If she truly bore heaven’s mandate to change this world, then perhaps, as more paradises like Wen Family Town gradually appeared, kind-hearted people would slowly become more numerous—and the world would change along with them.
Her inner demons vanished completely.
Shu Xin merely stood there in a daze for a moment, yet her cultivation realm had already begun to loosen.
The Sword Spirit froze.
Perhaps its new Swordmaster wasn’t so bad after all.
By evening, Wen Jingzhi would return home to spend time with his parents.
This time, however, an argument had erupted in the family—a rare occurrence.
“Brother, Sister-in-law, I heard from a traveling peddler that if you walk for half a month to the largest city nearby, there will be immortals there selecting disciples. If I’m chosen, my legs can be healed.” Wen Jingshu’s face was flushed with an unnatural excitement, and her eyes shone brightly. “The peddler said that a simpleton from the neighboring village had been mentally deficient since childhood. After being selected for having a spiritual root, he took a single pill and became a normal person.”
Over the years, Wen Jingshu had hated her naturally frail body more times than she could count. She couldn’t walk and had to rely on a wheelchair. Whenever the weather turned windy or rainy, she would often become so ill that she could barely get out of bed.
She would gladly trade twenty years of her life just to experience the feeling of walking freely.
“Jingshu, I know you want to recover as quickly as possible. I’ve already been looking for a reliable physician for you. Besides, an immortal’s pills come in many varieties, and not every one of them is effective.” Wen Fan tried his best to persuade her. “But as for cultivating immortality—forget it. Have you forgotten the ancestral rule of Wen Family Town? It’s the most important rule of all. If anyone wants to cultivate, they must be expelled from the Wen clan. They must change their name and appearance, and every trace of their former identity must be erased. Everyone in Wen Family Town would have to move elsewhere because of you. From then on, we would be separated by the ends of the earth, and we could never see one another again.”
Wen Family Town had moved several times because members of the clan had repeatedly wanted to pursue cultivation.
But the ancestral rule could never be changed.
“Why do we still have to obey this so-called ancestral rule?” Wen Jingshu rarely lost her temper with Wen Fan. “Sister-in-law, don’t you want Fu Ge to regain his appearance too? One of us is crippled, and the other is ugly. Are we supposed to wait until you’re old and make Jingzhi take care of the four of us old fogeys all by himself? When that happens, what good girl would ever want him?”
Fu Lan clenched her teeth, but she still stood firmly beside Wen Fan. “Jingshu, you only see the benefits of cultivation. Why don’t you look at how many cultivators actually meet a good end? Have you forgotten what Jingzhi looked like when we first found him? He became that way because of an immortal.”
Wen Jingshu looked at the couple in disappointment.
“Yes, yes, yes. You’re always right. I…” Wen Jingshu was about to continue, but then she noticed Wen Jingzhi standing awkwardly in the doorway and immediately fell silent.
“Jingzhi, you’re back.” Wen Fan called him over for dinner, sighing again and again.
“Dad, Aunt has always wanted to be able to stand and walk. If she could recover, she wouldn’t care whether she cultivated or not.” Wen Jingzhi thought of Shu Xin. Perhaps that sister had a way to help his aunt and uncle recover?
“I know.” Wen Fan shook his head. “But how could cultivating immortality be so easy? Among ten thousand people who attempt it, there might not even be one who succeeds. Of all the people from our town who pursued cultivation and were expelled from their families, not a single one survived.”
A cultivator with a single wood spiritual root, born a commoner—
the moment such a person entered the cultivation world, they would be nothing more than meat on the chopping block.
Those who wanted to seize bodies and those who craved flesh and blood were everywhere.
How much scheming and cunning could the people born in a secluded paradise like Wen Family Town possibly possess? They could not even survive their first ten years.
After witnessing the fates of so many former clansmen, everyone in Wen Family Town came to hold the ancestral teachings in even higher regard.
“As for me, I’d still rather stay by Dad and Mom’s side. I don’t want to cultivate immortality.” Wen Jingzhi hugged his parents and smiled. “Aunt will come around once she’s thought it through.”
“I hope so.” Wen Fan was clearly troubled.
Wen Jingzhi had no choice but to return to his room.
Before he could reach it, someone knocked on the front door.
Who could it be at this hour?
Wen Jingzhi hurried over and opened the door, only to find an extremely beautiful woman standing outside.
Still, in Wen Jingzhi’s private opinion, Shu Xin was even prettier.
How should he put it? It was simply intuition. Although the woman before him appeared gentle, Wen Jingzhi still sensed something strange about her.
“Excuse me, does Fu Ge live here?” the woman asked in a soft voice.
“You’re looking for my uncle?” Wen Jingzhi had not expected her to be there for his uncle and was momentarily stunned.
He discreetly sized her up.
It was not that he deliberately distrusted her. It was just that ever since his uncle had been burned, he had rarely interacted with women, let alone one as beautiful as this.
Wen Jingzhi’s first thought was that she was a swindler who had come to deceive his uncle.
“My name is Murong Yan.” The woman smiled faintly. “Tell him that, and he’ll know who I am.”
“All right. Please wait a moment.” Wen Jingzhi found the situation suspicious, but since she had come to see his uncle, he obviously had to inform him.
Wen Jingzhi ran to Fu Ge’s room. “Uncle, someone’s here to see you. She says her name is Murong Yan.”
The door to Fu Ge’s room flew open at once.
“She… Why is she here?” Fu Ge stammered, suddenly at a loss for words. “I… Tell her I’m not here. How am I supposed to face her looking like this?”
Wen Jingzhi found it even stranger. “Uncle, she’s very beautiful. How do you know her?”
“I… We’ve never met. We’ve only exchanged letters. She said that her family had fallen on hard times and that her ancestral treasure had stopped shining, which was troubling her.” Fu Ge spoke haltingly. “Good Jingzhi, just tell her I’m not here and help me send her away. And—and be polite, all right?”
“I know.” Wen Jingzhi nodded. “But, Uncle, you can’t avoid her forever. I think friends don’t actually care that much about appearances.”
“You don’t understand!” Fu Ge suddenly became agitated. “Look at the girls in town. They’re polite to me, but they’ve never truly seen me as a man! You’re still young. You don’t understand.”
“Jingzhi, once you grow up, girls will be lining up to court you. Maybe then you’ll understand.”
Fu Ge waved a hand, unwilling to say anything more to Wen Jingzhi.
Wen Jingzhi had no choice but to do as he was told and inform Murong Yan that Fu Ge was not there.
“I see.” Murong Yan sighed. “Then I’ll have to come another time. Oh, by the way, young man, take this.”
Murong Yan bent down with a smile and gently patted Wen Jingzhi on the head. Then she lowered her voice and said, “Is that gentleman hiding behind the pillar one of your household servants? This is a medicinal ointment from my family. It should help somewhat with burns.”
Wen Jingzhi turned around and discovered that his uncle had secretly come out to take a look, only to be mistaken for a servant.
“All right. Thank you, Sister.” Wen Jingzhi immediately thanked her and accepted the ointment.
Only after Murong Yan had left did Fu Ge emerge, looking utterly dejected.
At the same time, Shu Xin was struggling to pull the tassel from the Sword Spirit’s hilt.
[Awooo! Why are you taking my tassel? I’m already ugly enough as it is! It’s the only thing I have left that makes me look even slightly like an immortal!]
The Sword Spirit refused to give in.
Its blade was filthy and hideous, and it had no idea where its scabbard had gone. The only decoration it had left was this tassel.
“It’s been with you for so long. It must have absorbed quite a bit of your spiritual energy.” Shu Xin spoke with certainty. “My cultivation has loosened considerably. In a few more years, I should be able to break through Core Formation and become a Dao Infant cultivator. I can’t break through here in Wen Family Town, or I’ll draw the attention of other cultivators. So I have to leave. A life-saving favor must be repaid. I have nothing of value on me right now, so I can only ask you for help.”
[That’s nonsense! You clearly have spirit stones on you!]
“Mortals can’t use those.” Shu Xin was losing patience. “Give it to me nicely, and I can untie the tassel. If you keep resisting, I’ll have no choice but to cut it off.”
[Y-you!]
“Didn’t you say that, as my sword, you would go through fire and water for me? You’re making such a fuss over me merely pulling off your tassel. How can I trust that you’ll truly live and die alongside me?” Shu Xin pressed.
[I… You…]
The Sword Spirit hated how poor it was with words. It simply could not win an argument with Shu Xin.
In the past, it had only needed to fight. Even though it had many thoughts now, it had no idea how to express them verbally.
In the end, Shu Xin forcibly pulled the tassel free.
She unraveled it into strands of thread and used them to weave a beautiful knot.
The Sword Spirit was heartbroken over its tassel, but when it saw the knot Shu Xin had made, it was also somewhat surprised.
It had not expected its Swordmaster to be so skillful with her hands.
[What kind of knot is this? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one like it.]
“The name of this knot is my homeland.” Shu Xin lifted the red knot in her hand and gave it a little shake. Her longing swayed along with it.
“I remember you saying that every part of you is a treasure. Your tassel should be enough to protect a mortal, right?” Shu Xin asked again for confirmation.
[Of course it is! Who do you think I am?] the Sword Spirit replied glumly. [As long as someone carries my tassel, even if they’re fated to die, it can keep them alive by a thread. It’s different from me. One of my former Swordmasters specially sought it out for me. It was a gift from a powerful immortal physician. The reason you survived those terrible injuries before was because of it. But too much time has passed, and it has already saved you once. It can only be used one more time at most.]
“Then that will do.” Shu Xin nodded. “If it weren’t precious enough, I’d feel as though I were taking advantage of them.”
Shu Xin placed the red knot on the table and quickly wrote down a few words.
[You’re leaving? You’re not going to say goodbye to that mortal?]
Only then did the Sword Spirit realize that Shu Xin was preparing to depart.
“Of course I am. You said that I’m the Chosen One. The longer I stay here, the greater the chance that another cultivator will discover me.” Shu Xin shook her head. “I couldn’t leave before, but now that I’ve mostly recovered, how could I possibly lead danger here?”
She liked this place very much. Perhaps she would return someday.
By the time she came back, Wen Jingzhi might already be a grown man with a wife and children.
That would be nice too.
If she could witness a mortal live out a happy and fulfilling life, it would do wonders for stabilizing her Dao heart.
[That child is definitely going to cry.]
“People always have to learn how to say goodbye.” Shu Xin sighed softly. There was nothing she could do. The more reluctant she was to leave this place, the more she had to go.
She had almost fully recovered. She could not stay any longer.
Leaving without saying goodbye was also a way to lessen the burden of parting.
“Let’s go.” Shu Xin gripped her sword. “Take me away from here.”
[All right.]
The next morning, Wen Jingzhi arrived at Shu Xin’s room full of excitement.
All he found was an empty room and a red knot sitting on the table.
“This red knot can save your life at a critical moment. Don’t miss me.”
That was the only sentence written on the table.
Wen Jingzhi’s face immediately fell.
“Sis, how could you be so heartless? You just left like that?” Furious, Wen Jingzhi threw the red knot onto the floor.
A while later, he dejectedly picked it up, patted it clean, carefully blew away the dust, and placed it against his chest.
Immortals were different from ordinary people like him.
In truth, he had vaguely sensed that once this sister recovered, she would definitely leave.
He just had not expected that day to come so soon.
Wen Jingzhi was heartbroken for a while and lost several pounds.
He did not have the ability to make an immortal sister stay, even though he had begun to like her just a little.
After all, there would never be another beautiful immortal sister with such a good temper—one who told him so many stories and never grew annoyed, no matter how often he talked about his family.
After leaving Wen Family Town, Shu Xin found a place to enter secluded cultivation, digesting the benefits brought about by the stabilization of her Dao heart.
Her cultivation rose directly from the early Core Condensation stage to the middle stage.
From the time she had crossed into this world and begun cultivating until now, only fifteen years had passed.
For other cultivators, fifteen years would not even be enough to reach the stage of questioning the Dao. Yet Shu Xin had continued to break through her own limits during those fifteen years. It was practically a miracle.
Even the Sword Spirit had to admit that, in terms of talent and Dao heart alone, this Swordmaster ranked among the top three of all its former masters.
After this period of secluded cultivation, Shu Xin seemed to have gained a new perspective on the world.
She no longer acted with the same passionate recklessness as before. Instead, she had begun to assume the worst of others and made a habit of preparing for every possible situation before taking action.
The Sword Spirit was utterly baffled by her transformation.
Shu Xin, however, took it in stride.
“It’s not that I don’t know how to do these things. I learned them just by watching back when I was working. I simply used to disdain such methods. I thought that with my own abilities, I could always carve out a place for myself. But the first fifteen years have already proven that this world can defeat me. Naturally, I have to change my approach.” Shu Xin spoke with complete confidence. “I want to see who comes out on top this time. I’ll think things through more thoroughly than those villains, be more cunning than they are, and show this world who the truly formidable person is!”
Wherever there were people, there would be conflict.
Shu Xin had once believed that this was a xianxia world where one could freely indulge in heroic adventures and settle grudges with a sword. She had never expected it to be a place filled with laws that devoured the weak.
If one path was blocked, she would simply take another.
Did she not have years of experience being drawn—willingly or unwillingly—into countless workplace struggles? Was all the information she had absorbed really useless?
It was merely a matter of changing the setting.
Human nature was the same everywhere.
Once Shu Xin began changing the way she did things, she was immediately able to accomplish what she had failed to do before.
She not only employed these methods herself but also explained her reasoning to the Sword Spirit. A Sword Spirit that had originally been skilled only in combat was actually taught how to haggle, how to play dumb, and even how to spy on others.
The Sword Spirit suffered terribly, yet it also felt a strange sense of exhilaration.
This Swordmaster was practically driving it insane.
Two or three years passed like this. To the Sword Spirit, it felt as though centuries had gone by.
Then, one day, the Sword Spirit suddenly called out to Shu Xin.
[My sword tassel moved. It sensed a cultivator’s power.]
Those words alone caused Shu Xin, who had been engaged in a spell battle with a demonic cultivator, to erupt with astonishing strength. She cut down the pretentious demonic cultivator with a single stroke, then immediately took flight on her sword.
“Go faster. Take me to Wen Family Town.”
How long had it been?
Why had the sword tassel suddenly been activated?
She had clearly already left Wen Family Town.
Even with the Sword Spirit flying at its fastest speed, it still took several days to reach the remote region inhabited by mortals.
By the time Shu Xin arrived at Wen Family Town, all she saw was a sea of blood and bones scattered across the ground.
Not a single living being in the entire town had survived.
[It’s a bloodline forbidden art!]
The Sword Spirit drew in a sharp breath.
[Someone used their blood connections to drain all the flesh and blood from these people. Did someone within Wen Family Town cultivate this kind of evil technique?]
[Why are there wounds from blades too?]
[Wait, something’s wrong, Swordmaster.]
[Why is there still the trace of an Earth Immortal’s karma here?]
[I’m more familiar with Earth Immortals than anyone. I absolutely cannot be mistaken.]
Shu Xin had no time to listen to the Sword Spirit ramble. She immediately rushed to the home Wen Jingzhi had mentioned countless times.
All that remained was a heap of broken walls and ruins.
The entire residence was engulfed in raging flames.
Someone had set the place on fire.
[The sword tassel is over there.]
Shu Xin immediately formed a Water Element Art and summoned an entire river’s worth of water, extinguishing the blaze.
Then she plunged straight into the courtyard.
Dozens of corpses had been piled in the center of the courtyard.
They had been burned almost beyond recognition.
Shu Xin pulled away corpse after corpse.
Beneath the bodies of a husband and wife locked tightly in each other’s arms, she saw a youth curled into a ball. Both his legs had been hacked off, his body bore more than a dozen wounds, and half his face had been burned away.
The red knot at his chest gave off a faint spiritual glow, protecting the last breath of life within him.
Shu Xin carefully dug Wen Jingzhi out.
She realized who the couple was.
They must be the adoptive parents Wen Jingzhi had spoken of—the pair who had always treated him so well.
Shu Xin stared with difficulty at the couple’s horrific final moments.
All the flesh and blood had been drained from the man’s body. Beneath his remaining clothes was nothing but a complete skeleton.
The woman’s lower abdomen was slightly swollen. A blade had pierced straight through her chest, yet she still clung tightly to her husband and child.
Shu Xin stood frozen in place.
How could this have happened?
How could this have happened?!
What kind of person could be so cruel as to attack these mortals?
Holding Wen Jingzhi, who was barely clinging to life, Shu Xin quickly found an empty space and settled him there.
Only a few short years had passed.
She had imagined that, if they met again, she might watch from afar and wish Wen Jingzhi a peaceful life as an ordinary mortal.
She had never imagined that their next meeting would be like this—his home destroyed, his family annihilated, and every one of his relatives dead.
