Cultivation

When I was sixteen, the Zhou Family bought me to be a breeder for their lame son, Zhou Yuqing, to bear him children.

Though the agreement was for me to arrive in June, I reported to the Zhou Family in March.

I did this for two reasons: first, to save my own family some grain, and second, to leave a good impression on my future master.

But Zhou Yuqing despised me for being a country bumpkin and called me stupid.

He said I wasn’t nearly as delicate or pretty as Miss Su next door.

Even as he shared my bed, he looked down on me for being dirty.

“You must bathe four times with green jasmine and white champaca, then comb your hair with osmanthus oil. Miss Su uses osmanthus oil-have you got that through your head? ”

“If you serve me well next time, this young master might just grant you a formal title.”

I nodded, scrubbing myself with a loofah until I nearly rubbed my skin raw.

Suddenly, someone grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and hauled me, dripping wet, out of the tub.

It was Madam Liu, the broker who had sold me. She was in a frantic rush as she dragged my naked, fragrant body toward the door.

“Good heavens! It’s all wrong, all wrong! It wasn’t the Zhou Family who bought you-it was the Zou Family!”

Five hundred years after my death.

The people who had once benefited from my kindness had long since forgotten me.

Only my sworn enemy crouched at my grave, huffing and puffing as he dug for three whole days.

And dug me out.

As twelve bolts of tribulation lightning crashed down,

I saw Ye Yu’s face-unchanged from five hundred years ago.

The moment he saw me, his face lit up with excitement. “Shen Xi, come fight me!”

My gaze drifted past his shoulder

to the nervous members of the Righteous Path hurrying over behind him.

Those people had once been my master and fellow disciples.

They were also the ones who had killed me back then.

At the sight of them, I suddenly clutched my chest and collapsed into Ye Yu’s arms while he was watching the show.

In a soft, delicate voice, I said, “Big brother, this freshly reconstructed body is still so weak. Be a dear and take care of those small fry for me, will you?”

In an instant, I felt the body I was leaning against go completely rigid.

When I lifted my head again, the arrogant, untouchable Demon Lord was blushing so hard he looked ready to burst into flames.

The Emperor demoted me from consort to maidservant and ordered me to serve the woman he had always held in his heart.

I nodded and agreed. Then, in the mirror, a line of text suddenly appeared.

“Seeing High Immortal Yunyao in such a wretched state is so satisfying.”

“She probably has no idea we’re all using the Heaven and Earth Mirror to spy on her while she undergoes her love tribulation, right?”

To serve as the Sword Sect’s Chief Disciple’s cauldron.

Wei Xun warned me coldly, “On the bed, don’t make a sound.”

I was too talkative, too noisy, too irritating. The moment I opened my mouth, I stopped sounding like the woman he loved.

But if I stayed silent, he would pinch my waist and say hoarsely, “You have no spiritual root, but you do have a gift for being a cauldron.”

“One round of dual cultivation can raise my cultivation by thirty percent.”

He did not know it was not because I had any gift.

It was because cauldrons like him…

I had two more.

When the Sword Venerable stood at the entrance of my Milk Tea Shop, sword in hand, the entire Sect thought he had come to demand an accounting for some grievance.

Only I knew that he just wanted to cut the line again for a cup of full-sugar milk tea with no ice.

But today, even the Demon Realm Young Master, the man destined to trample the Cultivation World underfoot a century from now, was standing behind him, clutching a queue number and waiting for me to call his turn.

Five years into my career, people called me pale, skinny, young-looking, and a fake-innocent schemer.

Meanwhile, my stunt double used me as a stepping stone to climb her way up, becoming wildly popular with an occult persona.

On shows, she told fortunes for celebrities, saying she had learned it from her boyfriend.

That boyfriend she kept talking about was the eldest son of a famous Occult Family.

But when she and I ended up on the same paranormal variety show, her talismans suddenly stopped working.

As for me, right in front of an audience of tens of millions, I took down a whole pack of ghosts with my bare hands.

“You want to be my nephew’s wife? Did you get my permission first?”

[Tales of mountain spirits and sea monsters no longer circulate in the mortal realm. As the gods who protect humanity begin to awaken, they seek offerings of incense.]

[Do not underestimate this fair night. Many pairs of eyes lurk in the darkness, watching.]

[Wake up, humans! A terrible, all-destroying day of doom draws near!]

…

One day, Xie Qingling wakes to a murmuring whisper in her ear.

Amid one mortifyingly theatrical proclamation after another, the revival of the ancient gods begins to unfold before her.

…

The Special Incident Response Department in Future City has a new member: Xie Qingling.

At first, Xie Qingling thinks she is just an utterly ordinary rookie in the Special Incident Response Department.

Her senior colleagues think so too.

To whip the newcomer into shape as quickly as possible, they decide to spar with her and put her in her place. Time to teach her a little about the real world.

Then they see her out on a mission, taking on a vicious ghost alone and furiously wrenching its head off. A Four-Way Crossroads Ghost is forced into child labor, a Rakshasa has its blade stolen, and a Painted-Skin Ghost has its skin torn off…

Her seniors: “…” Their confidence is in pieces!

Afterward, Xie Qingling still thinks she is just an utterly ordinary rookie in the department.

As a newcomer fresh out of school, she decides to take the initiative and ask her seniors for guidance. A little sparring should help her improve and learn what the real world is like.

Her seniors recoil, terror on their faces:

“She can twist a vicious ghost’s head off, and you call that a rookie?”

“She can stop ghost children crying, and you call that a rookie?”

“Please spare us, rookie!!!”

Xie Qingling’s work diary: A person mustn’t get too arrogant. Especially a rookie as young as me.

Her seniors and the ghosts: She seems to have no idea how terrifyingly powerful she is. Does she even know what arrogance means?

What she’s doing is called being humble. 🙂

Are all the rookies this terrifying now?

She starts by ripping vicious ghosts apart, and you’re telling me this is a fucking rookie?

What’s the real world like? The rookie IS the real world.

Hey, rookie! Veteran here. Carry me, please!

Within Huaxia, no god gets to sit idle. The righteous gods return to their places; demons and monsters are put to the sword.

My younger sister and I are quick transmigrators who can never agree on how villains should be handled.

She believes in saving them with love.

I believe in eliminating the threat before it grows.

When identical worlds put our methods to the test, she keeps offering the villains mercy—and keeps dying for it.

I kill them first, seize every advantage, and rise to the top in world after world.

After wandering the mortal world for more than six hundred years, I hear that a once-in-a-century sword prodigy has appeared.

The young man has also found a dragon that sounds remarkably like the one I lost long ago.

Cultivators from across the realm flock to the mountain, some to seek the dragon and the Dao, others to kill and seize treasure.

I am different.

After a long, dusty journey to the Sword Sect, all I want is to set up a little stall at the foot of the mountain and sell wontons.

The day my Senior Brother emerged from the Secret Realm, he brought back a Mermaid.

She was a pitiful, innocent creature, seemingly unable to care for herself the moment she left his side.

To protect her, he went as far as threatening to break our engagement, demanding that I show her more tolerance and understanding.

So, I granted him his wish. I called off the engagement and seized his opportunities.

I kicked him down from his position as the Mountain-Guarding Senior Brother.

They came to the Cultivation World to play at love and romance.

But I am different. I am going to achieve immortality.