Chapter 1

“Senior Sister? Senior Sister, what’s wrong?” A concerned voice sounded beside me.

I opened my eyes with a start. I was sitting beneath the crabapple tree in my courtyard. My youngest junior disciple stood before me, holding that familiar jade bottle and wearing a gentle smile.

I stared at the bottle, my body trembling slightly.

I had died. The pain of blowing myself apart still lingered in every meridian. There was no mistaking the feeling of my soul being torn to pieces.

Yet here I was in my own courtyard. The familiar furnishings and the faint scent of crabapple blossoms overhead seemed real enough.

Had I been reborn, or was this an illusion?

Stranger still, a stream of comments scrolled across the air before my eyes.

[AAAAH, I’m so excited! Here for this iconic scene. Our obsessive puppy is about to drug the heroine. Next up: sex, sex, and more sex.]

[She really is the most beautiful woman in the cultivation world. That face, that body! And with looks like those, she’s an ice queen who cares about nothing but cultivation. No wonder the male leads all want to conquer her.]

[Our two-faced little junior disciple is finally baring his fangs. He’s practically driven himself mad. Come on, say the famous line: “From now on, Senior Sister will have eyes only for me.”]

[After Puppy broke their agreement, he thought he could keep her all to himself. But the Demon Lord found him soon enough, and he had to share her. Poor baby.]

[My favorite ship in the whole book. Go, Puppy!]

I forced down the turmoil inside me. Not long after my junior disciple poisoned and imprisoned me, that man from the demonic sects had found us. These comments matched my past experiences exactly.

“Senior Sister.” His voice brought me back. “Are you feeling unwell?”

One look at that revolting face brought back the hatred and terror branded into my soul.

A cultivator’s life was long. I could no longer remember how many years I had spent in that humiliation. The suffering had seemed endless. I could neither live nor die.

I had never understood why he would do that to me.

Master and I had saved him from a demonic beast while traveling. He owed me his life. Impressed by his aptitude, Master had taken him as a direct disciple, but she had no desire to raise a child. I was the one who had brought him up.

Before joining the sect, he had nearly died. He was timid and sensitive, suspicious of everything in the world. I had patiently helped him overcome it, little by little.

When he was young, a demonic poison had left him dying in a secret realm. I had risked my own life, sword in hand, spending three days and nights there to find the herb that would save him.

I had held nothing back in teaching him and had never mistreated him. I had fulfilled every duty an elder disciple owed a younger one. Because he had joined us so young, I was closer to him than to my other junior brothers and sisters.

And I had raised an ungrateful wretch who would murder his master and violate the woman who had brought him up.

Seeing my icy expression and distant manner, he looked hurt.

“Why won’t you speak to me, Senior Sister?”

He gazed at me pitifully, like an abandoned puppy. When I still ignored him, he held out the jade bottle, his eyes red.

“Senior Sister, these are Essence-Consolidating Pills I refined from fire-jade lotus. They’ll help you recover sooner.”

He had a gift for alchemy and had often refined pills to aid my cultivation. That was why, the first time, I had swallowed one in front of him without the slightest suspicion.

[Why won’t she take it? He’s so upset he’s about to cry. My heart hurts.]

[Tears are a man’s best dowry. Our girl’s eating well.]

[Out there, our first male lead runs an assassin organization and kills without blinking. In front of his senior sister, he’s a sniffling, manipulative puppy begging for affection.]

[Her reaction makes me so angry. She’s his whole world, and she’s always this cold. She drove him into helping the Demon Lord and the others poison her.]

I drove him to it?

What a joke.

Everything he had, he owed to Master and me.

Only after he came of age and reunited with the Nangong family did I learn that he was the illegitimate son of their patriarch, whose cultivation clan was based in Yunzhou. With Master and me behind him, he had avenged his mother, displaced the legitimate heir, and become the family’s most prized young master.

Backed by the Taixuan Sect, the Nangong family had gradually grown into the most powerful clan in Yunzhou.

Drawing on both the sect’s influence and his family’s, he had established Shadow Tower. Operating between the immortal and demonic factions, he recruited talent without scruple. In less than a century, it had become the world’s foremost assassin organization.

That was precisely why the Demon Lord had approached him with Soul-Eroding Powder, a poison that dispersed a cultivator’s cultivation.

Everyone in the cultivation world knew my entire family had died at the hands of demonic cultivators. From the day I began cultivating, I had sworn to eradicate the demonic sects and protect the people.

He had used my influence to avenge his mother, then joined forces with my enemies to poison me.

And so many people adored this ungrateful beast.

I took the bottle, pulled out the stopper in front of him, and poured a pill into my hand.

His smile deepened.

The comments scrolled faster in their excitement.

[Puppy’s about to get himself a wife.]

[My first erotic novel! I’m so excited.]

[Hurry up and swallow it. Get to the sex. Lots and lots of sex.]

A moment later, my expression changed. A terrifying pressure erupted from me, forcing him to his knees and pinning him there.

“What have you given me?”

I fixed him with a gaze as sharp as a sword. The rage and murderous intent in it could almost have flayed him alive.

Caught utterly off guard, he stared at me. The color drained from his face. He could not understand how I had found out.

“Senior Sister, what’s wrong?” he asked tentatively.

Beside me, the Qingluan Sword rang as it left its sheath. It swept straight at him, trailing fierce sword energy. The blow forced the protective treasure Master had given him to reveal itself.

He stared in disbelief at the jade pendant shattering in midair.

I meant to kill him.