Chapter 1

When my sect brother Murong Luan left the mountain, silence fell over our sect.

In his twelve years here, he had received all the resources the sect could spare, all the care and effort our master and elders could give. Of all the disciples, he had the best chance of attaining immortality and restoring our sect’s fortunes.

Now the Assembly of Immortal Sects was less than two years away. If Lingyun Mountain failed to produce respectable results again, our allotted spirit stones would be cut further, making cultivation even harder for the disciples.

Yet he made a decision none of us had expected.

For a beautiful mortal woman, he abandoned the cultivation that was so close to bearing fruit.

My aloof, ethereal sect brother stood in the main hall.

“Without her, I would not be who I am today. Without her, what would attaining immortality mean? I have given Lingyun Mountain twenty years. It is time I lived for myself.”

Beside me, our youngest sect brother gritted his teeth. “You gave Lingyun Mountain twenty years—or Lingyun Mountain spent twenty years nurturing you? Our master raised you. Your sect brothers and sisters look up to you. Even if none of us matter to you, do you have no regard at all for our eldest sect sister?”

Murong Luan fell silent for a moment. “People who follow different paths cannot walk together. I prefer a companion with human warmth to a cold cultivation partner.”

He added something so quietly it was barely audible. “Besides, how could she compare with her?”

Cultivation slowed the development of one’s appearance, especially for an alchemist like me.

Though my face could be called pretty, my figure had none of that mortal woman’s soft, full curves. Naturally, I could not compare.

I reached out and stopped my youngest sect brother.

In my previous life, I had stood in the way of all this.

Thinking Murong Luan had been bewitched by a demon, I exposed the half-demon he had brought home before everyone.

She destroyed herself and died.

He stayed on Lingyun Mountain, won the Assembly of Immortal Sects two years later, broke through the Nascent Soul stage, and even became my cultivation partner as planned.

But once he rose to power, the first thing he did was watch our sect be destroyed. He tore out my immortal bones, crippled my cultivation, and imprisoned me in a dark dungeon, tormenting me every day.

I still remembered what he said as he carved out those bones.

“If I had been ruthless enough to give your immortal bones to Ah Rou back then, she would never have come to this. I was a fool. One moment of mercy led to such a terrible mistake.”

So Murong Luan had known that mortal girl’s true identity from the start.

He knew what writhed beneath that skin, yet he loved her all the same.

Back then, all I had thought about was how the immortal herbs I had struggled to gather for him, and the pills I had refined, might help our sect.

I watched the dense spiritual energy surge in his palm.

I begged him to remember that our sect had never wronged him, to reopen the barrier and protect Lingyun Mountain from the siege.

He said a loveless sect that could not even protect itself was no use to anyone. It might as well join his Ah Rou in the grave.

Given this second life, I chose to let him have his way.

I stepped forward. Murong Luan watched me warily, his hand on his sword.

Xiaorou trembled a little, as though she could barely stand.

With one hand lightly clutching his sleeve, she stood in that vast hall, timid and fragile, delicately beautiful.

I walked past them and straight out, without so much as a glance at either of them.