Wen Jingzhi went to clean the house where Shu Xin had once lived.
He felt certain that they would meet again someday, so he planned to come by and tidy the place from time to time. He would also pick a few wildflowers from the roadside to add a touch of color to the room.
It was nearly evening by the time Wen Jingzhi left.
As he walked home, he suddenly realized that something was wrong.
Why was it so quiet?
At this hour, people in town would usually be getting ready for dinner, and all kinds of sounds should have filled the air.
People calling their children home to eat, complaining that the food was terrible, washing clothes, arguing—along with the cries of chickens, ducks, cats, dogs, and every other kind of animal.
But now, everything was as quiet as an abandoned city.
“Third Uncle! Third Uncle, what happened to you?”
Wen Jingzhi hurried over and helped a man who had collapsed by the roadside to his feet.
But then something horrifying happened.
“Run... run...”
As soon as Third Uncle finished speaking, the flesh on his body seemed to vanish. His skin rapidly withered and crumbled away, leaving behind nothing but a bare white skeleton.
Wen Jingzhi was too shocked to speak.
“No... Father, Mother, Aunt, Uncle!”
Wen Jingzhi ran home as fast as he could.
Even if he had to die, he wanted to die together with his family.
The closer he got to home, the more skeletons he saw. They wore familiar clothes and lay collapsed by the roadside, in chairs, and even at the dinner table.
He saw his sweet, well-behaved little sister. A tiny flower still rested on her little skeleton—the one he had given her earlier that day.
He saw his younger brother, who was always crying, curled tightly in the arms of a female skeleton.
A crunching sound came from beneath his feet. Wen Jingzhi lifted his leg and saw a skeleton that had fallen apart.
“Waaah... Father, Mother, Big Brother...”
A sobbing voice drifted over.
Wen Jingzhi immediately pushed his way through the sea of bones and saw a dazed young girl crying on the ground.
It was his younger female cousin.
“Cousin!”
The girl looked up and saw Wen Jingzhi. At once, she began to cry even harder.
“It’s all right, it’s all right. Your cousin will protect you.”
Wen Jingzhi had no time to ask why she had survived. He quickly picked her up and started toward home.
But he was afraid that she might be caught up in whatever was happening to him, so he considered hiding her somewhere safe.
“Brother, don’t leave me.”
The girl seemed to sense his hesitation and clung tightly to his hand.
“I’m not leaving you. How about this? Go hide in the room of that older sister we rescued before, all right?” Wen Jingzhi crouched down and spoke to her gently. “You’re a big girl now. I still have to see if anyone else survived, understand?”
Only then did the girl slowly loosen her grip.
“Brother, you have to come back.”
“Don’t worry. Don’t worry.”
Wen Jingzhi forced a smile and patted her on the head.
“You remember the way, right?”
“I remember.” She nodded.
Only then did Wen Jingzhi feel reassured.
The two of them went their separate ways. He was almost home.
“Ah—!”
Suddenly, his cousin’s scream came from behind him.
Wen Jingzhi hurriedly turned around and saw a tall, strikingly handsome young man driving a knife through his cousin’s body.
“Brother… run.” His cousin’s voice faded almost instantly.
Wen Jingzhi stared blankly at the man holding the knife as he walked toward him. In a daze, he murmured, “Uncle?”
The handsome young man stopped at once.
After a long while, a smile slowly appeared on his face.
“Jingzhi, you and my sister are the only two people who recognized me at first sight. Don’t I look good now? Don’t I look so much like my sister?” Fu Ge raised a hand to touch his face.
But he had forgotten that he had just killed someone. His hands were covered in blood.
In an instant, several streaks of blood smeared across his face, making him look like an evil ghost crawling out of hell.
“Y-you… why…” Before Wen Jingzhi could finish, his vision went black. As he lost consciousness, he seemed to hear his uncle sigh.
“Why did you come back? Wouldn’t it have been better if you’d just run?”
When Wen Jingzhi woke again, he found himself lying in his mother Fu Lan’s arms, in the courtyard of their home.
The yard was now filled with the bones of countless relatives, piled together so densely that he could not even tell whom they belonged to.
Besides Fu Ge, there was one other person in the courtyard: his aunt, Wen Jingshu.
Wen Jingshu still clutched a blood-red pearl tightly in her hand.
“Brother, Sister-in-law, I don’t want to hurt you,” Wen Jingshu said, her face full of reluctance despite the icy cruelty of her words. “But the Old Ancestor said that he only wants the true secret treasure of the Chun Clan.
“Everyone in Wen Family Town is dead now. Those who didn’t carry the family bloodline were all slaughtered by Fu Ge as well. Now, only our family remains in the entire town. As long as you hand over the treasure, our whole family can become immortals—young and beautiful forever, living together for all eternity. Isn’t that far better than being mortals who live and die in the blink of an eye?”
“I’ve told you countless times—there is no such thing as a secret treasure of the Chun Clan!” Wen Fan roared. “We have long since become ordinary mortals. Apart from being born with a trace of spiritual roots, we have nothing else. You’ve gone mad, Jingshu. Those immortals have completely bewitched your mind.”
“I’m not mad! You’re the ones who are mad!” Wen Jingshu flew into a rage. “What’s wrong with wanting to walk again? What’s wrong with Fu Ge wanting his looks back? You’re healthy, happy, and blessed with a perfect family—of course you don’t think there’s anything wrong with any of this! Let me tell you, I’ve had enough of this kind of life. You won’t talk, is that it? Fine.”
“Fu Ge, drag that bastard over here.”
“I want him to taste what it’s like not to be able to walk. Cut off his legs!”
Fu Ge remained perfectly composed. Right in front of his sister Fu Lan, he forcibly dragged Wen Jingzhi over and raised the knife without a moment’s hesitation.
Wen Jingzhi bit down hard on his own arm, the pain so intense that he nearly cried out.
“It’s okay, Mom. I… I don’t hurt.” He would not look at his legs. “Mom, don’t cry. Crying isn’t good for the baby. I got used to this when I was little.”
Fu Lan held him in her arms and wept until she was drenched in tears.
“Fu Ge, how did you become like this?”
“Sis, he isn’t your biological son. You’ll have a real child of your own soon.” Fu Ge’s voice was low and measured. “I have a woman I love, too, but she’s an immortal, while I’m just an ugly mortal. I want to have a life like yours and brother-in-law’s—is that wrong? Sister, tell me where the Chun Clan’s secret treasure is. Otherwise, your beloved Jingzhi will die from blood loss.”
“There really isn’t one.” Fu Lan let out a despairing roar. “If we had it, we would have given it to you long ago!”
“Jingshu.” Wen Fan reached out and tugged at Wen Jingshu’s sleeve. “Your elder brother may not have done everything right over the years. But Jingzhi and your sister-in-law aren’t members of the Wen family, and she’s pregnant. It’s all right—I can give up the child in her womb. Then they won’t be descendants of whatever Chun Clan you’re talking about. You all know that, don’t you? Especially Jingzhi—he doesn’t even have a spiritual root. Please, let them go first, all right?”
Wen Jingshu merely looked at Wen Fan coldly and turned her head away slightly. “Elder Brother, the Old Ancestor said that no one in Wen Family Town—not even a dog—is to be allowed to leave alive.”
Wen Fan fell into utter despair.
“Elder Brother, I’ll ask you one more time. Do you truly not have the Chun Clan’s secret treasure?” Wen Jingshu asked again, as though urged on by something.
“We truly don’t.” Wen Fan crouched down and pulled his wife and child into his arms.
If they were destined to die, he would choose a better way to die.
Fu Ge and Wen Jingshu seemed to be waiting for some command.
After a long while, no one knew what they had heard, but both of them nodded.
Then Fu Ge and Wen Jingshu walked toward them.
“I’m sorry, Brother.” Wen Jingshu let go of his sleeve and closed her eyes, as though she couldn’t bear to watch. Yet the blood-red bead in her palm suddenly began to glow.
The flesh and blood on Wen Fan’s body were forcibly sucked away by the bead. In no time, he had been reduced to a skeleton.
Around the blood-red bead, a hazy blue-green radiance appeared, seeming to brim with boundless vitality.
Wen Jingzhi had been slashed more than a dozen times.
It seemed his attackers wanted to make him cry out in pain.
But Wen Jingzhi did not make a sound. In the end, he fell silent for good.
“Jingzhi, there was no way you could have survived.” Only after Fu Ge was certain that Wen Jingzhi was dead did he finally breathe a sigh of relief. “A child like you is simply too frightening.”
“Husband… Jingzhi…” Fu Lan had barely cried out when a blade pierced through her back and emerged from her chest.
A mother’s blood splashed across Wen Jingzhi’s face.
It was warm, too.
“Sis, I’ll try to make this as painless as possible for you.” Fu Ge spoke with complete sincerity.
Fu Lan’s stomach rapidly deflated as well, while a stream of blue-green vitality seeped out and flowed into the blood-red bead.
Out of the corner of her eye, Fu Lan seemed to notice something. As she collapsed, she shifted her body slightly, positioning herself directly over Wen Jingzhi’s chest.
There was a red knot there, faintly glowing with light.
Wen Jingzhi knew that his body was already dead.
Yet, for some unknown reason, he could still hear the voices around him, as though his soul had left his body. He could still see the faces of his enemies.
Wen Jingshu and Fu Ge had clearly been ordinary mortals before, yet now they could fly like immortals.
High in the sky, he could even see a woman in white bowing humbly before the statue of an old man as she spoke.
“Old Ancestor, Wen Family Town has been destroyed. Wen Jingshu cultivated a forbidden art and successfully gathered the spiritual-root vitality of all descendants of the Chun clan. Fu Ge has also killed every outsider in Wen Family Town.”
Wen Jingzhi had seen this person before.
It was Murong Yan.
In her arms, she held an azure lamp without a flame.
“I have already renewed its wick for you,” a voice came from within the statue. “So long as members of the Murong clan remain, and the blood of the Murong family is used as lamp oil, the Everlasting Azure Lamp can be restored.”
“Thank you, Old Ancestor. Thank you, Old Ancestor. The Murong family is finally saved.” Murong Yan kowtowed again and again.
If the Everlasting Azure Lamp could never be restored, the Murong family would be carved up by others within the Longevity Dao Sect. She herself would likely meet a grim fate as well.
Compared with that, the Old Ancestor giving her a chance and asking her to carry out such a trivial task was simply too easy.
Before long, Wen Jingshu and Fu Ge joined Murong Yan.
Murong Yan seemed somewhat embarrassed to look at Fu Ge’s face. She lowered her head shyly.
With a casual flick of their fingers, they cast a spell that set the entire residence ablaze.
Then they vanished without a trace.
Wen Jingzhi’s soul could only stare blankly at the sky, occasionally looking back at the entirety of Wen Family Town.
Overnight, this place had become a living hell.
It was even more cruel than the Blood Demon Kingdom where he had once lived.
Were those people immortals?
Why? Why would they go this far?
Auntie, Uncle... why had they suddenly become like this?
Wen Jingzhi did not understand.
He hated them.
He hated them!
He wanted to kill every one of those immortals who stood so high above everyone else.
Did mortals deserve to die? It had been that way in the Blood Demon Kingdom, and it was still that way here. The moment he managed to live a slightly better life, these immortals came to destroy everything he had!
Kindness, justice—they were all fucking nonsense!
There was no place in this world that was a true haven!
As long as these immortals remained alive, a casual wave of their hands could destroy the efforts of thousands of people over hundreds of years in a single town.
He wanted to kill them.
Kill them all!
Endless fury swallowed Wen Jingzhi whole.
It was as though he had been split in two.
One half was his body, being consumed by raging flames. Yet the red knot over his chest still struggled to give off a faint glow, preserving the last trace of his life. But it did nothing to lessen the agony wracking his body.
The other half was his soul, drifting across the entire town, unable to find even a single soul from his own clan.
The fire burned for three days.
Shu Xin arrived directly at dawn on the third day.
With a casual gesture, she extinguished the flames throughout the town.
Wen Jingzhi could even see that a formidable sword was following at her side.
【Wonderful, boy. Your soul is still intact.】
【Shu Xin, Shu Xin—hurry and save him. The boy is still alive.】
Shu Xin’s hands trembled slightly.
“Why, Sword Spirit? How could they be so ruthless? These people had long since become ordinary mortals!”
【But they do have a trace of wood spiritual energy.】The Sword Spirit replied, 【The tiny bit of spiritual root, blood, and flesh left in the descendants of the Chun clan may not be of much use, but even the smallest amount is already an extraordinary divine medicine to an Earthly Immortal in their current state. Even if it could only extend their lives by a day or a month, it would still be an incomparable treasure.】
Besides, Wen Jingshu and Fu Ge had also been taken along.
【I looked into it. Those two weren’t chosen at random. They have the best aptitude and the finest spiritual roots in the entire Wen Family Town.】The Sword Spirit replied, 【I noticed it last time—the boy’s aunt and his father have the purest Chun-clan bloodlines in the whole town. As for Fu Ge, he was born with a physique suited to cultivation. Whether he’s used for body-snatching or as a cultivation cauldron, he would be ideal.】
Otherwise, how could they have survived?
Human lives had never been equal.
【As for him, he truly is nothing but an ordinary mortal.】There was no shortage of regret in the Sword Spirit’s voice. 【What a pity. Even after experiencing something like that, he was still able to keep his soul intact. That means his comprehension and willpower are both exceptionally strong. If he had possessed a spiritual root and been able to cultivate, he would certainly have been one in ten thousand.】
Right now, Shu Xin only wanted to bring Wen Jingzhi back to life as quickly as possible.
Many medicines could not be taken by mortals, but fortunately, with the Sword Spirit’s help, she could determine the proper dosage for Wen Jingzhi.
Her legs had been chopped off, and her face had been burned.
It didn’t matter. Shu Xin could find countless medicines and use precious heavenly treasures to restore Wen Jingzhi completely.
But the human body could be repaired. What about the heart?
The moment Wen Jingzhi finally opened her eyes, Shu Xin knew that the boy who had once saved her—the boy who had told her that there were still more good people than bad in this world—had died completely in that fire.
No one could endure such a blood feud without wanting revenge.
“Sister, I want to cultivate. I want revenge.”
Sure enough, the first words Wen Jingzhi spoke were exactly those.
“Jingzhi, you don’t have a spiritual root.” Shu Xin still forced herself to say it. “I’ll send you somewhere safe and protect you from nearby. You can live happily as an ordinary person. I’ll help you rebuild Wen Family Town, all right?”
“Sister, I want revenge.” Wen Jingzhi repeated the same words.
“Sister, I know you’re very powerful. Please help me. Please, all right?” Wen Jingzhi pressed on.
【Kid, I know you can hear me, but there’s no point in turning to Shu Xin. Do you even know who your enemies are? They’re Earthly Immortals. Only they would need the flesh and blood of your entire Wen clan.】The Sword Spirit spoke without the slightest mercy. 【Let me put it bluntly: even with my help, Shu Xin would need at least a thousand years of cultivation before she could stand against an enemy like that. And during those thousand years, an Earthly Immortal could kill us at any moment. You’re only a mortal. What makes you think you can take revenge?】
【Listen to me, brat. I know you’re furious. But that is simply how this world has always been. In places you cannot see, countless mortals are devoured by cultivators. The difference between the immortal sects and the demonic sects is that the former eat people without being seen. Do you understand?】
Wen Jingzhi said nothing. He was not afraid of any of this.
“Since you’ve put it that way, Sword Spirit, do you really have a solution?” Shu Xin sighed and asked.
[I do, but it will be very, very difficult,] the Sword Spirit replied honestly. [I have a cultivation technique called Heaven-Stealing, Sun-Swapping. It is the purest form of demonic cultivation. It can enable ordinary mortals who are unable to cultivate to do so—but first, they must endure the agony of devouring another person’s spiritual root and cultivation. Ninety-nine percent of people cannot even survive the first trial. For a mortal body to forcibly absorb a cultivator’s spiritual root and cultivation is to gamble with one’s life.]
The Sword Spirit was not exaggerating in the slightest.
The greater the power, the greater the price.
If mortals wished to contend against Heaven, they had to wager their lives.
Without a spiritual root, they would have to seize one from another.
[Even if he survives the first trial, every time he wishes to advance his cultivation in the future, he will have to devour another person’s spiritual root and cultivation—and endure every bit of that suffering all over again! Shu Xin, those who practice this technique usually end up taking their own lives.]
No one could endure pain without end.
Such torment would leave them neither human nor ghost. A drastic change in temperament was the least of it; more often, they would go mad, yet still be unable to escape the agony.
Thus, although this technique could allow mortals to defy fate and rewrite their destinies, it had been lost to history.
“I’m willing!” Afraid that Shu Xin would refuse on his behalf, Wen Jingzhi spoke at once. “I’m willing to try. I’m not afraid of anything.”
“Alright. I’ll go kill a demonic cultivator and take his spiritual root,” Shu Xin said immediately. “What kind of spiritual root would be best?”
[A single-element spiritual root would be best. His aptitude for cultivation will be better in the future as well.]
“I’ll leave at once.” Shu Xin touched Wen Jingzhi’s forehead. “Rest well. I’ll go make the preparations.”
It was as though a great weight had finally been lifted from Wen Jingzhi’s heart. Only then did he slowly drift off to sleep.
He knew this older sister was different from everyone else. If she said she would do something, she would certainly do it.
With that, Shu Xin took up her sword and headed toward a demonic cultivator’s lair she had passed earlier.
She was no saint, and this was not a world governed by law. Since the world of cultivation was one where the strong had the final say, then she, too, could use the sword in her hand to take another’s life.
Shu Xin moved quickly.
So quickly that the demonic cultivator had no idea why he was being attacked before he had already died beneath her sword.
The mortals who had been abducted by the demonic cultivator were deeply grateful. Some even wished to sell themselves into Shu Xin’s service as slaves, hoping for a secure life, but Shu Xin refused them all.
She could not afford to support them. Following her would only bring them greater misfortune.
Following the Sword Spirit’s instructions, Shu Xin carefully separated the demonic cultivator’s spiritual root from his body.
It was nothing more than a tiny cluster of blue spiritual energy.
So this was a spiritual root?
Shu Xin almost wanted to laugh.
Such a small thing was what separated mortals from cultivators, what had made this world so turbulent.
And yet, extracting it was even easier than killing a demonic cultivator.
[It would be best for him if he could not cultivate,] the Sword Spirit said earnestly. [He has no conception of the power of an Earthly Immortal. Even we would find it difficult to protect ourselves from an Earthly Immortal’s pursuit.]
“But if a person lacks even the courage and backbone to resist, then they are no longer truly human—they are merely animals that know only how to survive,” Shu Xin retorted.
【But that is how all mortals in this world live.】the Sword Spirit said, perplexed. 【They cannot defeat immortals, so they hide. Is that not the right thing to do?】
Mortals had short lives and little strength. Before immortals, they were as helpless as if facing a natural disaster. All they could do was hide, flee, abandon their homes and wander elsewhere—at most, they could blame their misfortune on fate.
“That may be true, but I do not like living that way,” Shu Xin said bluntly. “If people spend their entire lives yielding ground, one day there will be nowhere left to retreat to. If that is so, then what is the meaning of your existence? Should living beings simply surrender their lives beneath the oppression of earthly immortals?”
“A natural disaster? Hah! To mortals, cultivators truly are disasters that walk among them. But mortals, too, can move mountains, overturn seas, soar into the heavens, and delve into the earth. It is not that they lack the ability—they have simply been oppressed so deeply by cultivators that they have lost the chance to develop it.”
As it happened, in the world where she had been born, there had never been any cultivators.
She did not believe in such things.
The Sword Spirit stood frozen for a moment.
“You are a Sword Spirit. It is true that you need not concern yourself with the survival of humankind,” Shu Xin continued. “But you should know why you were born, and what you are meant to fight for.”
【I... I don’t know.】
“That is why all your previous masters failed,” Shu Xin replied calmly. “Killing alone is far from enough.”
The Sword Spirit did not know how to answer.
“Then could you please break yourself in two?” Shu Xin said. “An innocent man gets into trouble by possessing a priceless treasure—the fate of Wen Family Town has made that perfectly clear. We cannot defeat earthly immortals, but we can split you in half.”
“If this world is to change, then it will begin with you.”
