Chapter 1

“Since the first time I saw you on the streets of Xian Kui, someone told me that Miss Liuyu is the most distinguished young lady of the Yinshan clan, and there is a vast difference between people like us and someone of your status. In my youth, I scoffed at such things, but after seeing you for the first time, I understood what the phrase ‘golden branches and jade leaves’ truly means.”

“Yinshan Liuyu, you too have had such a fallen day.”

The snowstorm in Xian Du Yu Jing had lasted through the night, and the snow in Wu Ying Mountain had piled up three feet deep.

Liuyu was trapped in the soft snow, and the fatal wound at the half-inch mark of her heart bled profusely, soaking the earth beneath her.

She slightly moved her eyeballs, her gaze passing over the bloodied tip of the sword in the hand of the young man in black clothing, and then toward the figures behind him.

From the South Land Kunwu, East Extreme Yang Valley, and West Border Yu Yuan—numerous talented younger generations from the prominent Xian family of the Great Chao Dynasty had arrived. Their figures stood in the bleak snowstorm, forming a dark mass.

Liuyu glanced over briefly, and among them, she recognized several familiar faces of those who had once flattered her in her youth.

“What’s the point of saying such useless things?”

A young woman from the crowd coldly interrupted.

“Yinshan Liuyu, you know how powerful the legalists’ criminal techniques are. Before Yan Wushu takes action, I advise you to hand over the whereabouts of Tan Ning. The Zhong Li family will ensure your safety.”

“She won’t confess.”

The young man in black crouched beside Liuyu, his fingers lightly gripping her soft neck like a spring duck, carefully observing the twisted and hideous scars on her face.

“To prevent Young Master Zhang Hua from using this marriage to control the old ministers of the Yinshan clan behind Tan Ning, Liuyu, who loves her beauty, was willing to disfigure her face like this. It shows she never intended to return alive.”

Though he said this, the next moment, Liuyu felt a sharp pain explode within her.

The sword energy that had pierced her heart rushed through her internal organs, like countless blades stirring her flesh and blood, leaving her in excruciating pain. She clenched her teeth tightly, but her body uncontrollably trembled violently.

“But I am quite curious.”

A voice from above carried a trace of amusement.

“Back in the days of Xian Du Yu Jing, who didn’t know? Since Tan Ning was adopted by your parents, you and she have been like water and fire. For the sake of Jiu Fang Zhang Hua, you two constantly fought over him—today, you came to steal the marriage, perhaps there is a bit of selfishness in you as well?”

Lying in the cold bloodied water, Liuyu looked through the white mist of her breath toward the distant foot of the mountain where Xian Du Yu Jing stood.

She had grown up during the peak of the Yinshan clan’s glory.

Her father, Yinshan Ze, was the second son of the Yinshan clan, known as “The Most Charming in Xianjing, and Young Master Ze Alone Claims Eight Douts.”

Her mother, Nangong Jing, although born into a declining noble family, was powerful and decisive. With her husband’s support, she first seized control of the clan leader’s power, then expanded the clan’s wealth, recruited retainers, and ultimately helped the Yinshan clan stand out among the many noble families of the Great Chao Dynasty.

The efforts to cultivate Liuyu with the strength of the entire clan did not disappoint.

She opened her Qi Sea at five, entered the Ling Yong Academy at thirteen, and by the age of sixteen, she was crowned first in the Ling Yong Immortal Dao Conference.

On the day of the Xian Kui parade, the Xuan He led the way, Zi Luan followed, Bai Yu Tong played the flute, and even the young emperor from Zhong Zhou came to visit, all of them gathered around her in admiration. The number of family heirs surrounding her chariot was almost beyond count.

The most prestigious of families, the noblest of ladies, Yinshan Liuyu was born without knowing the hardships of the mortal world.

Before the fall of the Yinshan clan, she had only one regret in her life.

—That she couldn’t drive away her annoying younger sister, Tan Ning, from their home.

The Tan family were vassals of the Yinshan clan, and Tan Ning was the daughter of a loyal servant.

From the moment Tan Ning and her mother entered the house, everyone expected Yinshan Liu Yu to treat the loyal family members with respect, to show the grandeur of their noble status.

But Yinshan Liuyu disliked her pretentious gentleness, hated how she secretly complained to her mother to get Yinshan Liuyu punished, and even more so hated how her mother, Liu Niang, had once tried to seduce her father.

So, when Yinshan Liuyu found out that Tan Ning liked her childhood sweetheart, she deliberately opposed her at every turn.

During their academy duels, Yinshan Liuyu made Tan Ning suffer a humiliating defeat in front of Zhang Hua; when Zhang Hua was injured, Yinshan Liuyu ordered her to run errands, making her feel distressed; when they were alone, Yinshan Liu Yu secretly cast a spell to knock over the inkstone, ruining the carefully selected new dress Tan Ning had spent several hours preparing.

She had once hated Tan Ning so much.

But in the end, when the Yinshan clan fell, those young noblemen from the immortal city Yujing, who had once flattered her, scattered like birds and sparrows.

She and Tan Ning, unexpectedly, became each other’s final reliance.

“—But, you wouldn’t still like Young Master Zhang Hua, would you?”

The voice of the young man in black held a strange pleasure, his gaze fixed on Yinshan Liuyu’s face, his words trembling slightly with excitement.

“That battle at Tianmen, it was you and Tan Ning fighting over Young Master Zhang Hua for so many years. This disciple, taught by your parents, using the swordsmanship they passed down, ended their lives.”

Snowflakes fell on Yinshan Liuyu’s gradually unfocused pupils, and a sharp buzzing sound filled her ears, drowning out the young man’s malicious whisper.

What faintly appeared in her mind was the chaos of the day the Yinshan clan was destroyed.

She had rushed from the far northern lands of the Nine Hells, only to find the Yinshan clan’s main house filled with corpses, their blood turned to soil.

And there, standing on the protective formation of the Yinshan clan, was Tan Ning, the lazy, petty younger sister who had always competed with her for her father’s affection. Her black hair, once like a waterfall, now turned silver-white as snow in the blink of an eye, and her beautiful face instantly aged into bark-like skin.

“Why did you only come back now!” Tan Ning cried with tears all over her face, shouting at Yinshan Liuyu in frustration. “Father and mother are dead! Everyone is dead! I couldn’t protect them! Sister! Why couldn’t I protect anyone?”

Yinshan Liuyu’s clenched teeth were like a dam breaking, blood gushing like a spring, filling her nose and choking her lungs, causing them to tighten sharply.

Perhaps it was because the grip on her neck loosened slightly, as if fearing she might die for real.

The cold mist entered her lungs, pulling her thoughts back to the snowy mountains of Misty Shadow.

The young lady who had just approached stepped on the soft, accumulated snow.

“Since you can’t get anything out of her, don’t waste time here. I’ll take her back to the Zhongli family, and you can all go back to report,” she said, looking down at the girl in the filthy snow with a furrowed brow.

“For revenge on the Yinshan clan, you hid for ten years, even when surrounded by countless immortal families, you fought back with your last breath. Who would have thought that in the end, you would waste everything to save a younger sister who was always at odds with you in your youth? Truly foolish—”

The young lady’s outstretched hand was stopped midway by a sword sheath.

The young lady narrowed her eyes.

“What do you mean by that?”

The young man in black grinned: “I caught her, so it’s not for the Zhongli family to take her away, right?”

“You caught her?”

The young lady seemed to find this amusing.

“The Zhongli family, seventy-nine people; the Xi family, fifty-eight; even the elites of the Jiufang family lost twenty-three. If we hadn’t forced her into a corner, would you even have been able to touch a corner of Yinshan Liuyu’s clothes?”

The young lady from the Zhongli family stared at him with a warning look.

“Don’t think I don’t know what filthy thoughts are in your head. Back in Lingyong Academy, no one even bothered to look at you. Do you really think that because you’re now a lapdog for the noble families and have gained some power, you can humiliate the eldest daughter of the Yinshan clan? Don’t forget, she has a demon-ghost husband in the Nine Hells.”

Yan Wushu’s expression stiffened slightly.

He was a practitioner of law and punishment, ruthless in his methods, with no taboos. He rarely showed any sign of fear.

But how could he not be intimidated when the person she mentioned was Mo Lin?

Mo Lin, the demon-ghost who had risen in Zhaoye City 137 years ago, revered by demons and ghosts as their leader.

Demons and ghosts were neither demons nor ghosts, but bloodlines left behind from the evil beasts of four hundred years ago when they had mingled with the human race during the chaos of the Great Chao Empire.

These demon-ghosts, and their human mothers, had once been considered a disgrace to the Great Chao and should have been buried with that shameful era when the Zhaoye year began.

—Until a boundless ghostly fire reduced Zhaoye City, which had housed countless demon-ghost slaves, into a living hell.

Mo Lin, holding the head of the deputy city lord of Zhaoye, broke through the immortal families’ siege with overwhelming ghostly flames and established a demon-ghost stronghold in the Nine Hells of the North. From then on, he stood in opposition to the immortal families of the Great Chao Empire.

This humble, lowly demon-ghost had thus risen from the dark abyss of Zhaoye City to stand before the noble families of the immortal city.

Even the high-born Yinshan Liuyu of the Yinshan clan, during the negotiations between the two realms, had pointed at him from afar, willingly forming a marriage alliance with Mo Lin, agreeing to marry into the Nine Hells.

Yan Wushu’s eyes grew more sinister.

“I swore back at Ling Yong Academy, if I ever got ahead, I would never forgive those who trampled on my dignity. Her fate today is the retribution for her arrogance back then!”

The young man’s expression turned savage, almost mad, but Yinshan Liuyu, amidst that murderous gaze, smiled.

In order to infiltrate the immortal city Yujing, she had already disfigured herself. But that smile made Yan Wushu remember the first time he saw her, when she sat in the divine palanquin. The lazy satisfaction in her eyes, the golden butterflies embroidered on her skirt glimmering in the late spring sun, ready to take flight.

For a moment, as Yan Wushu’s mind wandered, Yinshan Liu Yu tilted her head and smiled at him.

“—Who are you?” she asked.

Yan Wushu’s pupils suddenly contracted.

“Yinshan Liuyu! You seek death!!!”

“Yan Wushu!”

Someone in the crowd shouted to stop him.

“Don’t forget the instructions from the domain leaders of every family! Yinshan Liuyu cannot die!”

Another voice added, “The attitude of Jiuyou is still unclear. At the very least, we must wait until Mo Lin officially revokes Yinshan Liuyu’s status as the Empress before we can kill her!”

Yan Wushu stared intensely at Yinshan Liuyu’s face, his eyes about to split with fury.

“I’ll imprison her as a puppet, make her a slave, a maid, so that she can neither live nor die! What can Mo Lin from Jiuyou do about it? Does he dare cross the Demon-Ghost Great Wall to take my life?”

Although he said this, the hand suspended in the air was still seemingly held back by an invisible pressure, unwilling to fall.

Yinshan Liuyu found it amusing.

She had been married to Mo Lin for a century, and everyone knew their relationship was cold. Ten years ago, when she left Jiuyou, she even destroyed their marriage certificate and announced to the world that they were separated, no longer involved with each other.

Even so, they still feared Mo Lin so much that they dared not kill her.

Just as Yan Wushu hesitated, Yinshan Liuyu, who had been lying in wait for a long time, seized the moment of his weakness. Without warning, she sprang from the snow and pounced—

“Watch out!”

Yan Wushu snapped back to his senses, realizing how careless he had been.

However, he wasn’t panicked, because he knew very well that Yinshan Liu Yu was at the end of her strength and could not possibly harm him.

—Or so it should have been.

At that moment, a chilling bell sound suddenly rang out from Yinshan Liu Yu’s arms, echoing across the Misty Shadow Mountain.

Ding-ling.

Ding-ling.

Accompanying the clear bell sound was a force descending from the heavens, one that nearly everyone present could not resist.

The force was the aura of a warrior’s Qi Sea.

Some, born noble like the disciples of the immortal clans present, would inherit their family’s unique “settled force”; others, like Yan Wushu, relied on their innate talent to create their own unique force.

But there were rare geniuses who could not only create their own force but also seal it within a magical artifact, defying the laws of heaven and earth, using the force against others—

Like the Mountain Ghost Dragon Bell now floating from Yinshan Liuyu’s arms.

Yinshan Liuyu had never anticipated that the Mountain Ghost Dragon Bell given to her by someone would unknowingly contain a sealed force.

Unfortunately, with the arrow already nocked, she had no time to think further.

The crowd watched as the blood-stained young girl lunged like a wild beast fighting to the death. As the others were suppressed by the bell sound, she fiercely bit into the hunter who was several times stronger than her.

The sound of his crushed windpipe was only audible to the two of them, and in the next moment, blood sprayed from his neck artery, drenching the girl’s body like a torrential rain.

Crows flew over the dense forest, and the winds of Misty Shadow Mountain howled.

Everything happened in the blink of an eye, and the disciples of the immortal clans were dumbfounded.

They had been trained in the ways of Confucianism, Taoism, and weaponry since childhood, but they had never seen such disgraceful methods.

Especially not from Yinshan Liuyu.

The one once praised as “Wu E emerging from the gorge, Mu Nü walking on the waves”—Yinshan Liuyu.

The young man in black lying in the pool of blood looked ashen, his throat gurgling with unintelligible low growls, his legs kicking uselessly in the air.

But until his last breath, he never broke free from the force that the bell had imposed on him.

Yan Wushu was dead.

Yinshan Liuyu, too, could not hold on any longer and collapsed to the ground from exhaustion.

The young girl smiled faintly, revealing a row of bloodstained teeth.

After ten years of turmoil, what dignity was left to be concerned about?

Though she couldn’t remember who this person was, seeing the hatred in his eyes, she thought, “Let him die with me.”

Turning over, Yinshan Liuyu gazed at the distant city and towers.

The snowstorm was vast, and at the foot of Misty Shadow Mountain lay the Immortal Capital, Yujing—her most familiar place, the one she had longed for in countless midnight dreams.

But her parents were dead.

Her home was not there.

Feeling her life fading slowly, Yinshan Liuyu unexpectedly felt a subtle sense of regret.

—-

In this mortal world, a single wrong step leads to endless mistakes.

If, when she was young and impulsive, she hadn’t married into Jiuyou to defend Yinshan, perhaps she could have rushed to the aid of the Yinshan Clan when it was surrounded.

If, after marrying into Jiuyou, she had not let her inner turmoil cut her off from the world, perhaps she wouldn’t have been so blind to the situation of Dazhao, mistakenly taking enemies as trustworthy allies.

If, during the century of marriage with Mo Lin, she had truly looked at her demon-ghost husband—

Using the force as though borrowing a life, she never knew how much of that force she had borrowed, nor which hidden corner the demon-ghost who had died with it now lay.

Her last breath dispersed in the wind and snow of Misty Shadow Mountain.

Yinshan Liuyu gently closed her eyes.

Perhaps her resentment was too deep. Yinshan Liuyu found that after her death, her soul did not disperse. Instead, she floated down to the mortal world, carried by the wind and snow of Yujing.

She watched as people brought her corpse back to Yujing.

She saw Tan Ning and the old servant weeping bitterly upon hearing of her death.

She even saw Jiufang Zhanghua personally gather her body and inscribe a tombstone for her in a dark chamber.

There was one more person she did not expect to see.

—Mo Lin.

The demon-ghost Mo Lin, powerful and ruthless, able to turn clouds and rain with a single motion.

So much so that the immortal clans dared not face him directly. They built the Demon-Ghost Great Wall, forced him to swear an oath not to invade, and made him lead the demon-ghosts to stay north of the Great Wall in the northern wasteland of Jiuyou.

But on the day Yinshan Liuyu died, her soul witnessed him alone slaughtering the twelve generals of the Immortal Capital, killing over a hundred people from the Jiufang Clan, holding her corpse in a pool of blood from Xuanwu Dao, tears flowing like blood.

The husband who had always been distant and cold to her, with no extra feelings, died on the tenth day after her death.

Right before her tombstone.