A Lone Light in the Cold - Chapter 1

That day, I was standing at my own grave, mourning my idiotic past.

And wouldn’t you know it? He came again.

“Sword Venerable Qinghong.” I bowed obediently.

His gaze rested on me for only a moment before returning to my gravestone.

There was something in his eyes I couldn’t understand.

Oh, quit trying to look so profound, I snarled inwardly.

He laid a bouquet of snow-white camellias before my gravestone and said,

“Fuhan, I’m sorry.”

Before I could decide whether my ears had gone blind, he dropped straight to his knees in front of my grave.

Wonderful. Now my eyes had gone deaf too.

Whatever he was trying to accomplish, having my former mortal enemy kneel at my gravestone in repentance was certainly a curious feeling.

As my thoughts wandered, I heard him call my name again.

“Yu Jun.” His voice was low, with what sounded like a trace of anger.

Oh, no. Had he noticed something was wrong with me?

“Sword Venerable Qinghong.” I prostrated myself, looking meek and frail. What I was actually thinking was: One day, I’m going to kill you.

“Do you know what you’ve done?”

I went rigid, terrified he had recognized me as the enemy who was supposed to be dead.

My mind was racing to find a way out when Xie Qinghong asked,

“Why did you eat the offering fruit you were told to bring to Divine Lord Fuhan?”

What?

I’d considered every possibility, even the worst. If he discovered the truth, I’d just take him down with me here. It would only mean dying again.

And you wanted to know why I’d eaten the offering fruit?

I looked at the four characters engraved on the gravestone: Divine Lord Fuhan.

Was there a problem with eating fruit offered to myself?

Unfortunately, I couldn’t say that.

Because I couldn’t say it, I had the honor of going to the Hall of Self-Reflection, paying a fine of fifty spirit stones, and sweeping the cemetery for half a month.

I watched those fifty spirit stones leave my storage ring, my face a portrait of financial agony.

My hatred for Xie Qinghong climbed to new heights.

Still the same petty bastard!

Some people die and keep on living.

I was one of them.

In my previous life, my name was Xie Fuhan. Now it was Yu Jun.

Back then, I’d been the eldest senior sister of the Liuguang Sect, the greatest sect in the world. One stroke of my sword had astounded the cultivation world. Cultivators cherished me as their unforgettable first love, their unattainable ideal.

And how did that end? Those supposedly righteous cultivators hunted me down and killed me in the Demon Abyss. When I opened my eyes again, I was a lowly cleaning disciple.

The Xie in Xie Fuhan came from Xie Hao.

Humanity’s mightiest cultivator, the man who had fought his way from one triumph to the next and earned universal admiration.

With an overpowered protagonist for a father, I should have had a pretty good part in the story.

Unfortunately, I was only his illegitimate daughter. And my mother was a demon princess.

A member of the demon race. Anyone was entitled to kill them.

My mother’s mistake, and mine, was trusting Xie Hao, a creature lower than a beast.

To fulfill his family’s mission, Xie Hao infiltrated the demon realm.

I have no idea what damned charm he possessed, but he won the demon princess’s trust and worked his way into their inner circle.

Then I came along. Xie Fuhan.

While my mother was weak from childbirth, he killed her. In the chaos, he seized me, barely born, and escaped from the demons.

He stole my mother’s soul core, causing his cultivation to soar. He also stole the demons’ most treasured artifact, using it to make a name for himself among human cultivators.

All the world knew was that he’d killed the demon princess. He was humanity’s hero.

A cold smile touched my lips. The chill sank into my bones.

But I’d been far too young then. I knew nothing of those agonizing truths.

Xie Hao only told me that my mother had died young. He never told me she was a demon.

He did everything he could to conceal the things that made me different from other children.

I thought those differences were defects. So I worked harder to hide my “defects,” harder to cultivate, until I became the powerful, revered eldest senior sister of the Liuguang Sect: Xie Fuhan.

I thought he was a good father. Until the day I formed my soul core, and he led the world’s self-proclaimed righteous cultivators to slaughter me in the Demon Abyss. He cut out my soul core himself.

Just as he’d done to my mother.

The blade entering my flesh was cold. My burning heart crumbled into ash.

One detail worth mentioning: when Xie Hao escaped the demon realm and brought me back to the sect, he didn’t tell anyone I was his daughter.

He said I was a human infant he’d rescued from the demons.

And since I had no home, he adopted me.

Everyone praised his kindness and righteousness. Ha.

My mother’s soul core and the demons’ treasure made his cultivation skyrocket. Once he’d made his name among humans, he married Wang Yan, daughter of the Chixiao Sect’s leader. At the time, Chixiao was one of the four great sects.

They had a daughter, Xie Zhiyao, whom they treasured and spoiled from birth.