Chapter 1

Chapter 1

On the day of the Immortal Sect Grand Competition, the area beneath the Cold Soul Platform was packed with people from the Thirty-Six Sects.

I was originally just there on orders to refine medicine for my fellow disciples and watch the spectacle on the side. Who would have thought that the person standing in the center of the platform would be the one I least wanted to see?

Gong Hegui, the Young Master of Zhen’e Palace, born with the Calamity Bone-a madman sword cultivator famous across the three continents.

And my senior brother, Jing Qingyao, was the Child of Destiny held in the palm of the Qingxu Sect’s hand. Everyone said it was only a matter of time before he reached the Ascension Platform.

The final battle between the two was so intense that half of the Cold Soul Platform was shaking. No one expected that just as Jing Qingyao was about to lose, a Soul-Extinguishing Arrow would suddenly shoot from below the stage, heading straight for a young child in the spectator stands. Gong Hegui turned and split the tail of the arrow with a single sword strike, but the Calamity Miasma snaked through the cracked shaft and bored into his heart meridians.

He collapsed on the spot, his chest feeling as if it had been hollowed out, blood staining the entire platform.

When a Soul-Extinguishing Arrow pierces the heart, ordinary pills are useless. The only way to save him was to use a source of identical spiritual breath to mend his heart.

Standing in the crowd, my mind went blank for a second.

The next moment, I had already rushed onto the Cold Soul Platform and pressed my hand over his nearly shattered heart meridians.

“Chu Liuying, have you gone mad?” my Master barked from below the stage.

Gong Hegui looked up at me. For the first time, those eyes that were always filled with cold mockery showed a hint of panic. “Get lost.”

I simply smiled. “You owe me one.”

With that, I raised my hand, pressed my fingers together, and forcibly cut open my own dantian.

Agony seared through my limbs like fire, and I heard a collective gasp from the surroundings. I forced half of my Golden Core out of my body. As it sank into his chest, a sudden burst of gold and red light erupted on the Cold Soul Platform.

The rift in his heart closed bit by bit, while I knelt in the blood, my vision fading to black.

Gong Hegui gripped my wrist so hard he nearly crushed my bones.

“Chu Liuying,” his voice was hoarse, “you’ve staked half your life on me.”

I was breaking into a cold sweat from the pain, but I didn’t forget to reply, “Remember to pay it back.”

That day, I saved my arch-nemesis with half a Golden Core, and in doing so, I turned myself from the most promising Alchemist of the Qingxu Sect into a cripple with unstable spiritual breath who could lose my cultivation realm at any moment.

No one knew that from that night on, I would occasionally hear another person’s heartbeat.

Steady, cold, and carrying a deeply suppressed pain.

Just like Gong Hegui himself.

I thought that sacrificing my core to save a life would at least earn me some sincerity from my sect.

As it turned out, I was overthinking it.

For the first few days, everyone in the Qingxu Sect treated me exceptionally well. Spiritual medicines were delivered to my courtyard like a flowing stream, and even the usually aloof elders would praise my “righteousness” upon seeing me. My senior brother, Jing Qingyao, dragged his sickly body to visit me, his expression tender as he personally placed a Qi-replenishing soup by my bed.

“Little Junior Sister,” he said, “by saving Gong Hegui, you have essentially saved the world.”

Listening to those words, I felt something was off.

It wasn’t until that night, when I was jolted awake by a sharp pain in my dantian, that I decided to go to the pharmacy to find some pain-numbing herbs. Passing by the Sect Leader’s hall, I heard someone mention my name inside.

“The Pure Spirit Pill Heart truly does merge with the Calamity Bone.” It was the Sect Leader’s voice, calm to the point of being cold. “Now that Gong Hegui is alive, the Formation Eye is half-complete. We just need to take Chu Liuying’s remaining half Golden Core and put it in the furnace to sustain Qingyao’s Life Palace.”

“And what about the girl?” an elder asked.

“She was born to be used by the Qingxu Sect,” my Master said indifferently. “To be able to die for the sect and the world is her blessing.”

I stood outside the door, my entire body turning cold.

It turned out I wasn’t a disciple, nor a pupil.

I was merely a Catalyst.

I suddenly remembered the favoritism the sect had shown me all these years, and how everyone had praised my extraordinary talent for alchemy since I was a child. It wasn’t because of how good I was, but because they had chosen my way of death long ago.

I took a half-step back and accidentally knocked over a Spirit Lamp under the corridor.

The hall doors swung open with a boom.

The next day, I was placed under house arrest in the back mountain’s Medicinal Spring under the guise of “stabilizing my spiritual breath.”

On the third day, my Master personally came to fetch me, saying he wanted to take me to see the Mountain-Protecting Formation left behind by the Ancestor.

I looked at the familiar cloud patterns on his sleeves and suddenly laughed. “Am I going to see the formation, or am I going to the sacrificial altar?”

Master’s expression remained unchanged. “Liuying, don’t be willful.”

I was escorted toward the Sect Gate by two Enforcement Disciples. From a distance, I could see dark clouds pressing down on the mountain, and a black Flying Ship was anchored upon the sea of clouds.

Gong Hegui stood at the prow, holding a scroll of a red-gold Marriage Contract in his hand. His sword intent was so powerful that the stone steps of the entire Sect Gate were trembling.

“Listen up, Qingxu Sect.” His voice wasn’t loud, yet it echoed through the mountains. “I have come today to collect Chu Liuying.”

“If you do not release her, I shall use this Sect Gate as the foundation for my Marriage Contract.”