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"Chen Moqing! You colluded with the demon race, slaughtered over five hundred members of the Haoran Sect, and are condemned by heaven and earth! Even ten thousand deaths would not atone for your sins!"

"The Grandmaster has already announced to the world that you are expelled from the sect! There is no place left for you in the Nine Thousand Prefectures, why have you not surrendered to your fate?"

Atop a ten-thousand-foot-high cliff, a biting cold wind howled, snapping pines and cypresses.

Chen Moqing held a frosty longsword, his dark hair like flowing clouds, crimson robes billowing in the wind. He stood at the edge of the abyss, his expression unchanged.

Someone high above in the clouds, filled with righteous indignation, shouted: "Pitiful Junior Brother, even when he was ill, he pleaded for mercy on your behalf, yet you crippled his spiritual veins with a single sword strike! The Grandmaster expended his heart's blood and countless rare treasures to barely save him, and he still hasn't woken to this day!"

"Oh?" Chen Moqing raised a slender eyebrow, "He's not dead yet?"

"You show no remorse at all!"

"Even if Junior Brother received favor from the Grandmaster after joining the sect and his talent was no less than yours, you shouldn't have acted so viciously out of jealousy!"

"And the five hundred righteous exemplars of the Haoran Sect! What did they ever do to offend you that you would bring such a calamity upon them!"

"The once serene and noble Eldest Senior Brother, how could you have become so deranged and inhuman!"

A thousand pointing fingers, a multitude melting metal. Chen Moqing stood alone with his sword, his posture unbent, like a blood-stained green bamboo piercing through rock on a sheer precipice.

Someone stepped forward from the crowd. Adorned with a sword crown and wearing white robes, he stood with his hands behind his back, looking down from a high position, taking in Chen Moqing's pale, exquisitely cold face beneath his dark hair and the slender line of his waist within the crimson robes.

His words were earnest: "Senior Brother, here are only fellow sect members, no outsiders."

"You can submit to execution, or you can choose another path."

Chen Moqing thrust his sword tip into the ground, using it to support his body. He slightly lifted his eyelids, looking toward his Second Junior Brother, "I'd like to hear the details."

Gongsun Bushi spoke gently: "Cripple your spiritual veins, sever your limbs, spare your life, and make you our cultivation vessel."

The peerless young generation's number one swordsman who once roamed freely across the Nine Thousand Prefectures, reduced to a cultivation vessel beneath them, never seeing daylight...

"Out of regard for our sect ties, we will naturally protect your safety."

A forbidden morsel to be tasted by all sect members, of course it must be hidden deep within the forbidden grounds, unknown to outsiders.

Chen Moqing smiled.

His smile was like melting ice and snow, light illuminating countless rivers, stirring the hearts of several present.

Everyone heard his laughing words: "Alright."

That voice, slightly hoarse from months of relentless pursuit, remained as clear and serene as bamboo after rain—just like when they first entered the sect and first met this Eldest Senior Brother who descended from the clouds to guide their way.

Gongsun Bushi's Adam's apple bobbed slightly.

A fierce wind swept by, the sound of swords arose.

Tens of millions of sword energies sharply interwove, crisscrossing and howling. Dazzling sword light, brilliant as the rising sun, radiated in all directions, piercing through the layered clouds, blotting out the sky.

"Not good! It's the Myriad Phenomena of the Heavens Array!!"

Gongsun Bushi hurriedly retreated behind the crowd, the smile on his face completely shattered.

—The myriad phenomena of the heavens, all become a net. Those who fall into the net, all turn to dust.

The sword array personally created by Chen Moqing, the head disciple of the Tianshu Sect's Master. With this array, he sealed demon gods, suppressed the demon abyss, and became renowned across the Nine Thousand Prefectures in a single battle.

And with this same array, he slaughtered the Haoran Sect, staining green mountains and long rivers with blood; the sanguine aura within a radius of hundreds of miles could not be cleansed for thirty days.

Amidst the roaring wind and sword sounds, panicked cries erupted everywhere. Everyone was horrified beyond measure. They had never imagined that one day, Eldest Senior Brother would use the Myriad Phenomena of the Heavens Array against them. Even more unthinkable was that Eldest Senior Brother, clearly already severely injured and at the end of his rope, still had the strength to turn the tables from such a desperate situation!

Chen Moqing stood alone on the cliff's edge, his hands overlapping on the hilt of the sword plunged into the ground. The biting wind whipped his blood-red robes, outlining a tall, straight figure like a sharp sword pointing straight at the heavens. Beneath his flying dark hair, his eyes were lightly closed, fresh blood rolling from the corners, sliding down his cold, bloodless face.

Myriads of sword lights reflected upon him, shaping him into a peerless, cold and aloof god of slaughter.

Under this rending heaven-and-earth killing array, all living beings were like ants; the positions of the hunters and the hunted were instantly reversed. These proud elites, terrified out of their wits, had no courage to resist. Unanimously, they summoned all their innate divine abilities and life-preserving methods, desperately trying to escape this utterly hopeless deathtrap.

From beyond the high sky, descended a sword aura as vast and majestic as an ice waterfall.

The Myriad Phenomena of the Heavens Array, which in its prime was unmatched by anyone, now had its core practitioner already at the end of his strength. Under this full-power sword aura strike, the array lasted only three breaths.

The sword array shattered. Countless sword lights dispersed, like heaven and earth unleashing a torrential downpour, drenching the sheer cliff in a deluge.

Chen Moqing bled from all seven orifices, slowly raising his head. Those eyes, like cold iron soaked in night rain, pierced through the high sky. Within them was no fear, only mockery.

"What a pity."

His derisive laugh was drowned in the descending ice-waterfall sword light.

The second sword aura vibrated, severing all his spiritual veins and crushing his sword path foundation.

The third sword aura horizontally cleaved him at the waist, severing all four limbs.

The cliff collapsed, the earth shattered, mountains crumbled. He no longer had the strength to hold his own sword. 'Chenjie', the companion of many years, slipped from his hand. His nearly formless body plunged straight into the deep valley.

The final sword aura, right before everyone's eyes, pierced directly through his chest, churning his heart to pieces, extinguishing his soul—thus, all life force was extinguished.

The mangled body of this number one of the younger generation across the Nine Thousand Prefectures transformed into a rain of blood pouring down. Before it could even fall into the bottomless deep chasm, it was scattered by the raging wind.

Soul and spirit extinguished, no chance of reincarnation.

The clouds lingering around the high cliff dispersed, revealing the boundless deep valley below. Countless crimson restrictions swam through the air, engulfing the entire valley in bloody light, rendering it dark and indistinct.

A figure bearing a sword stood in the air, pausing above the deep valley.

"Grandmaster!"

"Sect Leader!"

An invisible, oppressive force swept through; everyone bowed their heads, none daring to look up.

A white-robed figure, like a white-haired immortal from the Tianshan Mountains snow realm, gazed down into the deep valley. Frost and sword energy swirled around him as he uttered two indifferent words: "What a pity."

Gongsun Bushi respectfully bent at the waist, his fingers beneath his robes clenching slightly.

What a pity...

With Senior Brother's innate foundation and talent, had he become his cultivation vessel, he could have surely helped him ascend to great heights.

What a pity...

Knowing his intentions, knowing that he had repeatedly risked discovery by the sect over these past months to send messages, yet never received a response.

Had he been willing to look back, how could he have come to such an end.

Flying crane messages soon spread, and the entire cultivation world knew—

Several months ago, the criminal Chen Moqing, who colluded with the demon race, harmed his fellow sect members and slaughtered all five hundred-odd members of the Haoran Sect, was executed by his Grandmaster—the Tianshu Sect Leader, Yu Bai—in the northern border of Zhou Country, with not even his bones remaining.

The fall of the foremost prodigy who once roamed freely across the Nine Thousand Prefectures brought little regret from many. In the Tianshu Sect, everything proceeded as usual.

After all, they still had another prodigy, a sword path genius whose talent was said to be in no way inferior to Chen Moqing—the closed-door disciple of Yu Bai, the Junior Brother whom even Chen Moqing was said to have envied.

The sect's future remained brilliant and glorious.

Only occasionally did someone raise the possibility of Chen Moqing's revival, which was quickly dismissed with ridicule.

It was true that Chen Moqing was indeed the number one of the younger generation in the cultivation world, the first to reach the great perfection of the Nascent Soul stage before a hundred years of age. In the battle at the Demon Abyss, he even broke through to the early Soul Formation stage, following the youngest Nascent Soul with becoming the youngest Soul Formation cultivator, his talent was outrageously, shockingly prodigious.

—However, his Grandmaster Yu Bai was the undisputed foremost sword cultivator, at the peak of the Mahayana stage.

Yu Bai's sword was named 'Yanluo'. When Yanluo calls the roll, there is only death, no survival. A single sword strike was enough to annihilate the soul and sever reincarnation. Yet Chen Moqing endured a full four sword strikes from his own Grandmaster, truly a testament to the depth of their master-disciple bond.

Moreover, the place of his fall was the northern border where the Demon Emperor fell five thousand years ago, a place where fierce, baleful aura had not dispersed for millennia. Even Body Integration stage mighty experts dared not venture deep, fearing they would not return.

Without a doubt, Chen Moqing was certainly, irrevocably dead.

—Seven days later, deep within the valley, Chen Moqing awoke.

He lay on a patch of barren grass. Severed limbs, connected by red branches, slowly pieced themselves together. Missing parts were filled by newly sprouting branches. His bloodless, deathly pale skin was covered with patterns of red branches, like a wilted red lotus.

A tattered crimson robe, soaked through with blood—who knew how many times—soaked until it was red verging on black, the original crane-patterned, sky-blue color long since indistinguishable.

Excruciating pain wracked his entire body; the agony of a thousand blunt knives flaying him could not compare to even one ten-thousandth of this pain. Yet it did not make Chen Moqing shed tears. Those eyes, grey as haze, stared at the blood-red sky. After a moment, he slowly, soundlessly, smiled.

Returning from death, of course, was not due to some supreme luck or the pity of the Heavenly Dao*. It was a contingency he had prepared long ago.

—The Withered Wood Revival Decree.

*t/n; In the xianxia world, Heavenly Dao is the celestial system of rules, karma, and natural order that governs the cosmos/universe.

A command talisman lost for tens of thousands of years, rumored to have been created by the first immortal in the cultivation world to ascend to heaven, possessing the ability to reverse life and death, change fate and destiny.

Three years ago, he had replicated it.

Before slaughtering the Haoran Sect and piercing his Junior Brother's heart with a sword, he had already inscribed this decree into his own body.

No spring is seen until the brink of death.

A cold rain drifted down in the northern borderlands, a place where baleful aura had accumulated for millennia. Every single raindrop transformed into a sharp blade scraping across his skin, opening long, bloody gashes.

Unable to move, Chen Moqing quietly closed his eyes, allowing the tens of thousands of raindrops to become descending sharp knives, cutting layer upon layer of bloody wounds on his body, slowly peeling off strip after strip of skin and flesh, until red-branch-entwined white bones were exposed.

Freshly seeping blood once again soaked the white bones and ink-black hair, misting in the rainwater, spreading out like a melted landscape ink painting.

In all the vastness of heaven and earth, only he was there, alone listening to the wind and rain.

He murmured in a low voice: "Mother, I want to eat osmanthus cake..."

The osmanthus tree in front of their home, consumed by raging fire.

The several thousand households of the entire city, all extinguished in a single night.

Before his eyes, a bloody tide seemed to surge; the stench of blood assailed his nose. Chen Moqing vomited large gouts of scarlet, mixed with shattered flesh and remnants, almost retching out his internal organs.

Only when the blood within his body had nearly drained completely did new red branches carve themselves into the pale skin of his chest, climbing along the defined muscles of his abdomen up to his chest, like a red lotus blooming from flesh and blood, finally stopping a few inches from his heart.

His limbs already restored, Chen Moqing forcefully swallowed the bloody taste in his throat, endured the dizzying, world-spinning agony, turned over, and sat up cross-legged on the spot, focusing on his breath, drawing in air.

The once spirit-energy-filled spiritual sea had become a barren, dead land. The clearly visible foundation of his sword path had also been utterly destroyed.

Those born with cultivation aptitude naturally possess spiritual roots. Different qualities of spiritual roots determine different cultivation paths—spiritual roots with three paths or fewer are considered low-grade aptitude; four or five paths are medium-grade; six or seven paths are high-grade; eight to nine paths are superior-grade; those with ten-path spiritual roots are once-in-a-millennium talents with perfect aptitude, destined prodigies fated to reach the pinnacle of their path.

—Once, there was a person born with twelve-path sword spiritual roots, the first genius to appear in the cultivation world in tens of thousands of years. His name was Chen Moqing.

Cultivation completely lost, it could be rebuilt. But the four sword auras Yu Bai struck down with full force had thoroughly churned his sword path spiritual roots to pieces. Once spiritual roots are destroyed, they cannot be reshaped. The cultivation world's number one sword path talent would henceforth have no possibility of setting foot on the sword path again.

Chen Moqing's mind was like a mirror, undisturbed by ripples.

The world has countless paths; not necessarily only one path can be taken.

From just moments ago, he had realized that the countless baleful auras here contained vast spiritual energy. For cultivators, these baleful auras would directly damage their spiritual roots, like an incurable, ultimate poison, corroding the spiritual sea, eventually resulting in total loss of cultivation and death.

Coincidentally, his spiritual roots were now all destroyed, his spiritual sea already ruined, and he also could not die.

The Withered Wood Revival Decree; the price of reversing life and death was having no reincarnation, his soul forever falling into the Netherworld after death, enduring thousands of years of torment in hellfire, those red branches passing through his heart marked the moment of his demise.

—But before that, spring does not depart; he would not die, would not perish.

Chen Moqing sat cross-legged in the muddy ground, borrowing this heaven-and-earth-cleansing great rain to shatter bones and crush sinews, reshaping his spiritual platform.

Rain pooled into shallow puddles; mirrors large and small reflected the ink-haired, crimson-robed silhouette under the gloomy sky. Within the layered ripples, a pair of scarlet eyes opened.

In an instant, countless transparent raindrops froze, turning deep red, as if dragging the mortal world into a bloody Netherworld.

A pair of indifferent scarlet eyes pierced through tens of thousands of rain threads, illuminating the mortal world, stopping on Chen Moqing's face. They paused once.

Paused twice.

Paused three times.

The torrential rain abruptly ceased; a gentle wind arose, parting the dark clouds.

Cang Shun awoke from a long slumber; the first sight of the mortal world he beheld, was that person.

Features exquisitely beautiful, posture like a sword.

Injured and scarred all over, spiritual roots utterly destroyed.

...How could he be so grievously wounded?

Bullied by someone?

Those cold scarlet eyes narrowed slightly.

[Benzun*—]

*t/n; a formal self-address that usually used by deities or enlightened beings to refer to themselves in Buddhism and Taoism.

"Meow."

A soft call of a young beast.

Cang Shun: "?"

[Ben—]

"Meow."

"???"

The former Demon Emperor incredulously lowered his head to look at himself.

White.

Tiny.

A young beast barely two or three palms in size, cat-like yet leopard-like, with rounded animal ears, round scarlet pupils, a slender tail, fluffy and explosively messy snow-white fur, puffing up into a small, fuzzy ball.

The snow-white little beast wore an expression of utter disbelief, refusing to believe it, fuzzily chasing its own tail in a circle.

"Meow!"

Its call sounded milky-soft.

"......"

The former Demon Emperor decided to shut up.

Sitting on the ground huffily, its fur fluffing out even more, puffing up into a large, fluffy ball.

Getting soaked all over by rainwater.

Even more annoyed, it climbed up again, swiftly shaking its fur to flick off the water.

Busy in a flurry, not knowing what exactly it was busy with.

Chen Moqing slightly lifted his eyelids. His ancient-well-without-ripples eyes, dark and cold, reflected the small, circling young demon beast.

Noticing his gaze, Cang Shun turned its head, chin slightly raised, domineering and haughty, though it looked like a fluffy, snow-white little beast widening its round eyes, tilting its little head high.

Chen Moqing remained silent, closing his eyelids once more.

Cang Shun ambled unhurriedly to his side, circling around him as if having discovered a beautiful iceberg, occasionally moving closer, attempting to poke and prod with its paws.

"Meow?"

How come you don't even have spiritual roots anymore?

Who bullied you?

Whether Chen Moqing understood or not was unclear; his crow-feather-like eyelashes quietly lowered, remaining still.

The circling Demon Emperor noticed specks of mud had stained his fluffy white fur, and without a second thought, he rubbed against Chen Moqing's robe hem.

A faint fragrance drifted into his nostrils.

So fragrant.

Those scarlet eyes fixed slightly, reflecting Chen Moqing's pale, exquisitely beautiful profile, wet from the rain, with a few strands of dark hair clinging to it.

Cang Shun, without a word, moved a little closer, and again caught the subtle, lingering fragrance emanating from this young human cultivator, a scent not even the mud and rain could mask.

...Quite pleasant.

The snow-white little beast instinctively gave Chen Moqing's finger a nibble, leaving a tiny ring of teeth marks.

Chen Moqing: "......"

He gathered some strength for a moment, then opened his dark, unrippling eyes. Without a word, he picked up this small, inscrutably intentioned young demon beast.

Finding himself so easily lifted, the snow-white little beast's fur puffed up in alarm. He began waving his paws wildly, wriggling and flailing about, emitting loud 'Meow-meow!' sounds.

Utterly resembling an exploded cotton ball.

Chen Moqing took a bite.

Cang Shun: "???"

"Meow!!!"

– –

Author's Note:

Cang Shun: My wife kissed me the first time we met!

Cang Shun: My wife kissed me a bit hard.

Chen Moqing: ...

Cultivation Rank: Qi Refinement, Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, Nascent Soul, Soul Formation, Spatial Tempering, Body Integration, Mahayana, Tribulation Transcendence, Ascension.

–

TL: Muji

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