All Novel

Bai Zhi is only an herb-gathering mortal until the spoiled disciple Cui Fuling burns her family alive and an immortal sect dismisses their deaths as the loss of mere insects.

Forced into the very sect that protects her enemy, Bai Zhi awakens a sealed Chaos Spiritual Root and endures every humiliation while secretly sharpening her sword.

When she returns as Xie Zhi, lost daughter of the legendary cultivator Xie Lan, a stolen poisoned herb and a forbidden master-disciple romance become the weapons that bring Spirit Sword Sect to its knees.

But revenge is only the first step, for ascension reveals that her missing parents—and enemies from an even greater world—are still waiting above.

After my Senior Sister died, Master brought back a Seductress Spirit.

The Seductress Spirit looked exactly like Senior Sister, only far more alluring.

Seductress Spirits were wanton and wicked by nature. All she had to do was crook a finger, and my senior brothers would slip in and out of her bedchamber night after night.

She had stolen Senior Sister’s face and used it to do every filthy, degrading thing imaginable. I hated her to the bone.

But when I went to kill her, she took out a plum candy and spoke in a voice gentle enough to bewitch me:

“Since I’ve already used this skin, I have to fulfill its original owner’s dying wish.

“Seductress Spirits have their own rules. But do you want to avenge your Senior Sister with your own hands?”

Just before the bridal sedan entered our gates, my elder sister suddenly changed her mind.

She ripped the hairpins and ornaments from her head and hurled them at me along with her round silk fan.

Before the assembled guests, she accused me in a shrill voice.

“Shen Zhi, stop putting on those seductive airs!”

“You needn’t waste any more effort trying to seduce His Highness the Crown Prince.

I’m giving this marriage to you!”

With those few sentences, I became a shameless woman who had tried to seduce her own brother-in-law.

The looks in the ladies’ and young misses’ eyes gradually turned knowing.

I staggered back in disbelief, tears spilling down my cheeks.

Choking on a sob, I asked, “Has your heart perhaps been captured by another man, Sister?”

“If so, our entire household ought to enter the palace and plead guilty, begging His Majesty’s forgiveness.”

“How could we play at swapping sisters for their marriages and commit the crime of deceiving the emperor?”

After our entire household was seized, My Lady became pregnant with our enemy’s child.

“What does a mere blood feud over a murdered father amount to?”

Faced with my disbelieving question, she gently stroked her swollen belly.

Her face was full of happiness.

I was a male celebrity drowning in scandals.

Online, people said I had schemed my way to the top. They said my private life was filthy and promiscuous.

My family said I was jealous of the adopted son they had taken in, that I had racked my brains trying to ruin him.

My friends said I was two-faced and treacherous, not someone worth getting close to.

Even my fiancé believed I could never compare to my younger brother, who was generous, graceful, kind, and innocent.

If that was how it was, then I would leave your world behind.

I was never meant to be defined or controlled by anyone.

I’ve spent five years trying to win Shi Juan’s heart.

As long as he proposed to me on my birthday, I would have been allowed to stay in this world.

But I waited until the early hours of the morning, and only then did the System’s voice finally ring out.

[It is all over.]

[Shi Juan’s “white moonlight” returned today. He has been with her this entire time.]

After staying by my side for so long, the System decided to grant me one final request.

It would let me choose the manner of my death.

Fine. Since I have to leave sooner or later anyway…

I want to die right in front of Shi Juan.

I want him to kill me with his own hands.

And then, I want him to regret it for the rest of his life.

The day she died, a heavy snowfall blanketed the capital, sealing the city gates.

When the eunuch came to report the news, I was drinking in Noble Consort Liu’s palace.

I simply said, “Understood.”

It wasn’t until that cup of plum blossom wine-the one meant for our reconciliation-seared through my chest that I finally understood.

She had waited ten years, but she was never waiting for me to have a change of heart. She was waiting for me to die with her.

On the day of Zhou Huaian’s engagement, a reporter held up a microphone and asked for my thoughts.

He was a man of high standing, a true blue-blood from the Imperial Wall Base in Jingcheng.

During the eight years I spent with him, no one ever approved of us.

Every time his mother saw me, she referred to me as nothing more than an “actress.”

His circle of friends would advise him behind my back, “She’s just a minor star. It’s fine to keep her around for fun.”

And Zhou Huaian? He would toy with his lighter and joke, “What are you worried about? It’s not like I’d ever marry her.”

I looked into the camera and said slowly, “Though we aren’t close, this is good news. I wish him a happy engagement.”

The video went viral online. Zhou Huaian boarded his private jet and flew through the night from Jingcheng to Shanghai.

After Pei Xingzhi had Li Pin beaten to death with rods for the sake of the Noble Consort,
I was ill for three months.

When I recovered, it was as if I had become a different person.

I no longer racked my brains to win his favor, no longer grew jealous over which concubine’s palace he would dine in that day. I became cautious, careful, and obedient to the rules.

When Pei Xingzhi summoned me again to attend his bed,
word came from Changchun Palace that the Noble Consort was having a nightmare and wanted him to keep her company.

In the moment of hesitation before he could decide, I had already fetched his cloak for him and fastened it in place, speaking softly:

“The roads are slippery in the snow, Your Majesty. Please watch your step.”

Pei Xingzhi suddenly seized my hand, his voice slightly hoarse. “You’re not going to ask me to stay?”

I smiled gently. “I would not dare sway Your Majesty’s will.”

After all, every time I tried to keep him before,
he had never stayed.

While sorting through my mother’s belongings, I found a crumpled notebook tucked under her pillow.

Four words were scrawled unevenly across the title page: “The Kill List.”

The first name on the list was the obstetrician who had delivered me.

The date noted beside it was the day I was born.

The second name was my father’s.

The date was the day he died in a mining accident.

The third name belonged to a stranger.

The date noted was yesterday.

The police told me that this person really did die yesterday, but my mother was buried over a month ago.