...
Morning.
It was another winter. Heavy snow fell from the sky over the Great Li Dynasty like shredded cotton, drifting down in flurries.
A hundred and ten years had not brought much change to this dynasty.
In the cities, the bluestone streets were swept clean. The shops on both sides had removed their door shutters early in the morning. The piping hot steam from buns mingled with the white breath exhaled by mortals, infusing the mortal world with a warm, lively atmosphere of daily life.
Su Yueli wore a loose cloak that concealed her blue and white long dress as she walked through the crowd.
She did not deliberately ask about the rising geniuses of the current cultivation world, nor did she pay any mind to the immortal disciples flying on their swords.
To her, having fully recovered from her injuries and attained the strength of the Thirteenth Realm, these immortal masters—who seemed so high and unreachable to ordinary people—were nothing more than wild grass destined to wither at any moment in the vast river of time.
Instead... she simply walked in a certain direction, guided by the somewhat blurry memories in her mind.
Fengling City, a long time ago, was a gathering place for the mortal merchants of Great Li.
It was also one of the few places in her life that had ever felt warm... yet it was also an incredibly absurd starting point.
In a corner of Fengling City's South Street, there was an abandoned temple that had long since fallen into ruin.
The temple's plaque had long rotted into wooden mush, and half of the roof had collapsed, crushing the clay statues inside.
Heavy snow drifted through the hole in the roof, draping a white blanket over the dry straw and several frozen, stiff skeletons.
Those who died in the heavy snow were all homeless beggars and refugees.
In an immortal cultivation dynasty like Great Li, a mortal's life was not even worth a single Grade One healing pill.
Standing at the entrance of the ruined temple, Su Yueli stared at the skeletons, yet it felt as if the letters from hundreds of years ago were echoing in her ears.
Shen Qing'an... that extraordinary merchant of the mortal world.
Hundreds of years ago, Su Yueli was just a mortal girl without Bone Talent, struggling to survive in the mud.
In a world where even drinking water could get a person killed by the shockwaves of fighting immortals, being unable to cultivate meant being nothing but livestock to be slaughtered at any time.
To help her step onto the immortal path, Shen Qing'an had carried a ragged bundle and come to Fengling City all by himself.
He spent a full twenty years working from dawn to dusk, bowing and scraping in various taverns and shops, enduring the cold shoulder of the world, just to save up a sum of money that was astronomical in the eyes of mortals.
Then, he presented this money to the cultivators.
The high-and-mighty Blue Moon Sect disciples in their gorgeous robes looked at this calloused, shivering mortal as if he were the most amusing plaything in the world.
Yet... Shen Qing'an believed until his dying breath that he had bought her a grand path to heaven.
He had no idea that he was merely a laughingstock for those immortals to gossip about over tea.
“The immortal path...”
Standing on the steps of the ruined temple, Su Yueli watched the remains slowly being buried by the wind and snow, her heart as tranquil as an ancient well.
Back then, she had knelt on one knee in the snow, holding Shen Qing'an's cold body, her heart filled with a chaotic mix of emotions.
She had also seen the cruelest truth of this world.
It was from that day on that she completely abandoned all thoughts of cultivating immortality.
Since the immortals would not give her a way to live, she would use her own two bare fists to forge an unreasonable path as a Ji Dao martial artist.
Now, she was already in the Thirteenth Realm...
Outside Fengling City, in an extremely remote, rocky wild hill.
The wind here was fierce, and the snowflakes stung as they pelted her face.
Su Yueli trudged through the rocks, her feet sinking deep into the snow, before finally stopping in front of a low mound of dirt that was almost level with the ground.
Hundreds of years had passed, and the tombstone she had personally carved out of dark iron rock back then had long been eroded by the wind and snow, its characters completely unreadable.
Only a bare, cracked piece of bluestone remained.
The soil on the grave had mostly collapsed as well. If not for her exceptional memory, she would never have been able to find this spot in the middle of nowhere.
Su Yueli knelt down and stretched out a fair hand, gently brushing away the accumulated ice and snow from the bluestone.
“Shen Qing'an, I've come to see you.”
Su Yueli stared at the bare bluestone, her voice sounding somewhat ethereal amidst the howling wind and snow.
“I'm very powerful now.”
“I didn't use those immortal methods, yet I still live longer than any of them. I've kept the jade slip you begged for back then.”
She pulled the yellowed, rough, discarded jade slip from her sleeve and placed it beside the tombstone.
“Everyone related to the Cangyun Sect, I've already sent them down to accompany you.”
“Back then, I said if I became an immortal, I'd take you flying and give you pills. I can fly now, and I have pills, though... they are a bit different.”
As she spoke, a trace of bleakness flashed across her eyes.
“However, there is one thing I must confirm with my own hands.”
“Your younger brother, Shen Huai'an.”
The wind and snow seemed to grow heavier.
Shen Huai'an, Shen Qing'an's biological younger brother.
She had to get to the bottom of the destruction of her village and the death of her master, Lu Chen.
“I must avenge Master.”
“If what happened back then was indeed orchestrated by Shen Huai'an behind the scenes...”
She paused, her right hand gently stroking the divine weapon Xiaohei at her waist.
“I will show no mercy.”
“Even if he is your biological brother, I will still use my fists to pound him into meat paste.”
This was the karma of a long-lived being.
Repay kindness with kindness, and avenge grudges with vengeance.
She had spent a hundred and ten years in seclusion; her Ji Dao physical body in the Guiyuan Realm was certainly not meant for reasoning with these cultivators.
Now, Shen Qing'an's grudge was settled. As for the ancestor who had almost forced her to remain at the Cangyun Sect, that was a personal vendetta.
That could be dealt with slowly.
Right now, she needed to find an opportunity to break through to the Fourteenth Realm as soon as possible and march upon the Blue Moon Sect.
To search for... the truth of her master Lu Chen's death back then.
Half an hour later.
Su Yueli tidied up the grave before finally turning to leave.
The hem of her long dress fluttered gently in the wind and snow.
Su Yueli took a step forward, walking through snow that was half a foot deep. Yet, bizarrely, not a single footprint was left in her wake.
With her essence, energy, and spirit completely contained in a state of No Leakage, even this world could not leave a single trace upon her.
The wind and snow grew wilder, completely burying the ruined temple and the solitary grave.
Meanwhile, the Ji Dao God of Death, wearing her ghost mask and blue and white long dress, had already set off on the road to the Blue Moon Sect.
Those who deserved to die would not be allowed to live.
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