Agony.
It was as if every bone in her body was being crushed inch by inch, as if her internal organs were being roasted alive over raging flames.
The last thing Lin Wan felt was the sticky warmth of blood splattering across her face—and in Bai Chen's always affectionate peach-blossom eyes, there was now nothing but undisguised icy killing intent… and even a trace of disgust.
"Why…"Her throat made a rasping sound, but she could no longer form a single complete word.
Her vision rapidly blurred, darkened. Her consciousness sank into an endless, frozen abyss.
...
Noisy.
So noisy.
A buzzing sound, like hundreds of flies holding a meeting right beside her ears.
And there was shaking.
Violent, rhythmic shaking, rocking her already muddled brain until it felt like a pot of boiling paste.
Something felt wrong…If she was dead, could she still get motion sickness? Was the Underworld's escort service really this terrible?
Lin Wan struggled to lift her eyelids, which felt as heavy as a thousand jin.
Blurred light flooded in, stabbing her eyes painfully. It took several seconds before she could adjust, and her vision slowly cleared.
What she saw was not the gloomy Yellow Springs Road, nor mountains of knives and seas of boiling oil.
It was… an old wooden ceiling, slick with aged grease. Beneath her was a hard wooden board, creaking in a steady rhythm.
She jolted upright!
The sudden movement sent a wave of dizziness crashing over her, nearly knocking her back down.
She hurriedly grabbed the wall beside her. The icy touch made her shiver. Looking around, she realized she was inside a crudely built horse-drawn carriage, swaying forward. Across from her sat two men in coarse cloth clothes, chatting loudly and laughing as if no one else existed, their spit flying everywhere.
"Hey, did you hear? That one… you know, our Yunmiao Sect's old ancestor, the Lingxi Sword Venerable, Xiao Ji—he's fallen!"The tall, skinny man lowered his voice, but his tone was still filled with barely concealed excitement.
"What? For real?" The dark, fat man widened his eyes, the half-eaten flatbread in his mouth forgotten. "Didn't they say he'd already reached Half-step Jinxian?"
"Absolutely true! The news came back to the sect last night! They say he died horribly—fighting the Demon Venerable's remains in the Extreme North Ice Plains. Heaven and earth were torn apart. In the end, they both perished together—nothing left, not even a complete corpse! Tsk, tsk…"
"My heavens… won't the whole sect explode?"
"Explode? Please. You know what kind of temper that guy had—always alone, always looking down on everyone. He barely showed up once every few hundred years. Hardly anyone in the sect even knew him. If he's dead, he's dead. What really matters is that a bunch of top-tier resources and positions just opened up. Those elders and true disciples are probably secretly laughing themselves awake…"
Lingxi Sword Venerable… Xiao Ji…
Fallen…
Those two words struck Lin Wan's foggy mind like twin bolts of thunder, blasting her soul apart.
She stared down at her hands.
They were a young girl's hands—slightly rough, dirt still stuck beneath the nails, but whole, alive, brimming with vitality.Not the ruined, bloody stumps she remembered, with their tendons cut.
She frantically touched her face, her arms, her chest…
Warm. Real. Her heart was beating powerfully in her chest.
This was not the Underworld.
She… wasn't dead?
No—something was wrong. She clearly remembered how Bai Chen's poisoned sword had pierced her dantian, shredded her jindan, how her life force had drained away, how bone-deep cold and despair had swallowed her whole…
Then now…
A thought, absurd yet the only possible explanation, burst forth like a poisonous shoot breaking through soil—
She had been reborn?!
And she had returned… returned to the moment when Xiao Ji had just fallen?!
Thump!
Still weak and reeling from the shock, Lin Wan failed to keep her balance and slipped off the hard wooden bench, her knees slamming into the carriage floor with a dull thud.
The noise finally drew the two men's attention.
The tall one glanced at her in disgust and nudged her with his foot."Hey! You crazy girl, what are you doing? We're not even there yet—trying to kneel and beg for money already?"
The fat one snorted."Probably heard that Sword Venerable died and thought the sect would fall into chaos. Scared stupid. Look at her—what a joke."
Their filthy words poured into her ears, but Lin Wan didn't react.
She just lay stiffly on the cold, rough wooden floor, her whole body trembling uncontrollably.
Not because she was afraid of these vulgar mortals—
But because the memories of her past life were crashing into her like a tidal wave!
In her previous life, she had been the most insignificant of the Yunmiao Sect's countless outer disciples—mixed spirit roots, low cultivation, living cautiously with her head down. During a training trip down the mountain, she had encountered danger and nearly died at the jaws of a demon beast, when a passing cultivator had saved her.
In that fleeting moment, all she remembered was a tall figure, sword qi cold as ice, Yunmiao Sect's inner-sect emblem embroidered on his robes—and a clear, hanging jade pendant.
Later, she searched everywhere. All clues pointed to the sect's most brilliant and gentle senior brother—Bai Chen.
So she believed it.
From then on, she gave her heart to the wrong man. Like the dumbest gambler alive, she bet everything she had—stealing information for him, betraying her principles, taking the blame and punishment in his place, and even… under his honeyed lies, indirectly causing Xiao Ji to be disturbed during a critical moment of seclusion while healing. Surrounded by enemies, he fought to the death and was declared "fallen."
Only when she had lost all her value and was thrown away like trash by Bai Chen did she finally learn the truth from his cruel, triumphant boasting—
The one who saved her back then was not Bai Chen at all!
It was the very man she had never once looked at properly, the aloof and lonely Lingxi Sword Venerable—Xiao Ji!
Bai Chen had shamelessly stolen that life-saving merit!
And she, the world's number-one idiot, had not only mistaken her benefactor but had even helped her enemy kill the man who gave her new life!
Regret, guilt, and fury swallowed her whole, more painful than Bai Chen's blade through her heart.
"Uh… hngh…"A broken sob escaped Lin Wan's throat as her fingernails dug into the carriage floor, her knuckles turning white.
Tears poured out uncontrollably, heavy drops splashing onto the dusty boards and spreading into dark stains.
I'm sorry…
I'm sorry, Xiao Ji Xianjun…
I was stupid. I was blind. I was the one who killed you…
The carriage jolted violently and came to a stop.
The curtain was yanked open, and blinding sunlight poured inside.
The tall man barked impatiently, "We're here! The foot of Yunmiao Sect's mountain gate! Get off already! What bad luck, hauling some poor crazy girl…"
Lin Wan was shoved out of the carriage and stumbled several steps before barely regaining her balance.
The chilly early-spring mountain wind brushed against her face, carrying the scent of grass and earth—so real it made her heart tremble.
She looked up.
The towering gates of Yunmiao Sect stood before her, wrapped in clouds and mist, cranes crying in the air. White jade steps stretched upward as if leading straight into the heavens. Disciples in all kinds of robes came and went, some riding artifacts, others walking—a grand immortal scene.
Everything slowly overlapped with her memories.
She was really back.
Back to the moment when the tragedy had just begun.
Xiao Ji Xianjun… had just fallen.
His memorial tomb had not yet been built.
Bai Chen was still playing his flawless role as the perfect senior brother.
And she… still had a chance.
This time, she would never repeat the same mistakes!
The storm of emotions gradually calmed, replaced by a near-desperate resolve.
She didn't know how this had happened, or what awaited her.
But she knew she had to do something.
To make amends. To atone for her sins.
At the very least… she had to find Xiao Ji Xianjun's resting place, burn a stick of incense, kowtow a few times, and tell him she was sorry…
Then, no matter the cost, she would stop Bai Chen's schemes—even if it meant being shattered to dust!
She took a deep breath, wiped away her tears, her eyes turning resolute as she stepped toward the long stairway to immortality.
Just then—
A shriveled, wrinkled hand suddenly shot out from the side and grabbed her wrist!
The icy touch made every hair on Lin Wan's body stand on end!
She spun around in shock.
By a rock at the roadside sat a ragged old beggar, his clothes in tatters, gray hair matted into knots. He looked half-dead, as if he might stop breathing any second.
Yet the eyes peering out from beneath his filthy hair were strangely cloudy and strangely clear at the same time, carrying an indescribable eeriness.
His cracked lips moved, releasing a voice so hoarse and weak it seemed like a whisper—yet it was perfectly clear:
"Little girl…"
"Your forehead is dark, your karma tangled… disaster is about to fall upon you…"
"Listen to this old man's advice…That person's grave… you must not touch it, must not approach it, and absolutely… must not dig it up…"
Lin Wan froze.
Her blood seemed to turn to ice.
How… did he know?!