Chapter 1
I died.
Then I came back to life.
The people who killed me were the very people who brought me back.
I looked at the heads of the righteous sects gathered before me, their hair and beards entirely white, and spoke my first words since waking. “Are you people out of your minds?”
They looked embarrassed. Maintaining their air of lofty propriety, they spent some time urging one another to speak.
In the end, they sent the kindly-looking head of Immortal Music Pavilion to talk to me.
“I see.”
“So you’re saying you killed me because I undermined Xie Lang’s devotion to the Dao.”
I folded my arms and looked at them.
“And you brought me back because Xie Lang turned demonic, and now he wants to slaughter every last member of your sects to keep me company in the grave?”
“Yes!”
Xie Biliu, master of the First Sword Sect, stepped out of the crowd and dropped straight to his knees. “Miss Luoluo, I am Xie Lang’s master, and I am the one who killed you. All of this is my fault.”
“I know the weight of my sins. I dare not ask your forgiveness, but the disciples of the immortal sects are innocent. They should not suffer for what I have done!”
“Miss Luoluo, I am willing to atone.”
With that, he raised a hand and struck his own spiritual core.
He spat out a mouthful of black blood with a wet sound, then wiped it away as though it meant nothing. “I have destroyed my cultivation. I am as good as a cripple now. If you will save our disciples, you may take my life whenever you wish.”
The others bowed to me in turn. “If you save our disciples, there is nothing you could ask that we would refuse!”
I said nothing for a moment.
“That sounds like a pretty good deal. I could be persuaded to help.”
“But… who’s Xie Lang?”
I remembered everything, except that I had no memory whatsoever of the Xie Lang who, according to them, would “slaughter the world for me.”
They told me that over the past hundred years, the immortal sects had found quite a few people to try to deceive him.
The most recent girl had been one of my own kind.
She looked almost exactly like me.
But Xie Lang had seen through her at a glance all the same.
With all my memories of him gone, it would be difficult to convince him I was real.
We would have to take it slowly.
And so I took up temporary residence in the First Sword Sect.
The Demon Lord was a tyrant, and the righteous sects had less and less room left to survive.
These days, the First Sword Sect could only cling to life in a perilous, remote mountain valley.
Fortunately, its young disciples were nothing like their sect master. They were quite entertaining.
Just now, for instance, they were all pulling out their best tricks to keep me from disturbing their senior brother’s secluded cultivation.
One appealed to my feelings.
“Miss Luoluo, I need Senior Brother to protect me. Please, spare my worthless little life!”
Another tried reason.
“Miss Luoluo, Senior Brother is the only disciple in a hundred years who has a chance of mastering the Sword of Supreme Detachment. Couldn’t we leave him in peace?”
A third took a different approach altogether.
“Miss Luoluo, is it just because Senior Brother’s handsome? I’m not bad myself! If you like, I can even put on that icy face of his!”
He had barely finished when everyone abruptly fell silent.
The inventive one hunched his shoulders. “Why do I suddenly feel a chill down my back?”
Smiling, I pointed behind him. “Because Icy Face is standing right behind you.”
“Senior Brother!” he wailed.
They scattered in every direction.
I couldn’t stop giggling. “Do those junior brothers of yours respect you, or are they afraid of you?”
“Miss Luoluo. My name is Shen Tang.”
The young man in white, a sword strapped to his back, ignored my teasing and bowed with perfect formality. “My master has ordered me to remain at your side and protect you.”
“Couldn’t I have one of your junior brothers instead?”
I had my reservations about this arrangement. “You don’t seem as much fun as they are.”
Shen Tang’s expression did not change. “I am stronger.”
“Are you stronger than Xie Lang?” I countered.
He was silent a moment. “Naturally, I cannot match the Demon Lord.”
“There you are, then.” I spread my hands. “Xie Lang was so strong, and I still ended up getting killed.”
“So I don’t like strong men. I like interesting ones.”
“I…” He hesitated. “I can learn.”
My eyes widened. “You… you can learn?”
He nodded solemnly. “I can learn.”
I burst out laughing. “No need. You’re quite good the way you are. Unique. Original.”
Shen Tang led me to his quarters.
The valley was treacherous, sheer cliffs rising on every side, their faces scored with countless fierce sword marks.
One had almost cleaved an entire peak in two.
Merely passing it left me struggling for breath.
“What powerful sword intent!” I clapped my hands in wonder. “Now I understand why your junior brothers are so in awe of you.”
“The Demon Lord Xie Lang left that sword intent.” Shen Tang’s features were cool and aloof. “The gulf between his attainment in swordsmanship and mine is impassable.”
My flattery had landed spectacularly wide of its mark. Even I felt a little awkward, and hurried to recover. “That’s only because Xie Lang has a hundred years on you. If you were the same age, who could say which of you would be stronger?”
He paused. A gleam passed through his long, graceful eyes, and the faintest trace of a smile escaped him.
His face, however, remained a picture of composure. “You flatter me, miss.”
Hmm. He didn’t quite mean what he said.
But then, most men were like that.
I praised him a little more.
Then I took over his cave dwelling without the slightest twinge of guilt.