A Lone Light in the Cold - Chapter 2

Speak of someone, and there they are.

“Disgusting. Who put these camellias here?”

A pretty young woman flicked the white camellias away from my grave with her sword.

I looked up, unsurprised, at that overbearing face. Xie Zhiyao, of course.

The flowers scattered beneath her sword energy, petals broken all over the ground.

Such lovely flowers. What a waste.

“I asked you a question.” Faint anger colored her face as she looked down at me.

“Xie Qinghong,” I said flatly.

Take it up with him. I’d like to do the same.

My little scheme came to nothing. The instant she heard who had brought the flowers, her expression changed.

Unable to vent her anger on Xie Qinghong, she could only glare at my gravestone, as if trying to burn a hole through the words Divine Lord Fuhan.

“Can’t you stay quiet even after you’re dead?”

I rubbed my nose and objected silently: I’m not dead.

Xie Zhiyao ordered,

“From now on, there are to be no offerings at Xie Fuhan’s grave. Understood?”

I couldn’t understand what terrible grudge she bore me that she wouldn’t let me rest even in death.

I didn’t want trouble. But I didn’t want to give in, either.

This time around, I hadn’t even managed to become an illegitimate daughter. I was just an underfed cleaning disciple assigned to the cemetery.

I had no fighting skills, and my body was scrawny. At mealtimes, I couldn’t compete with that crowd of useless gluttons.

Eating other people’s offerings might earn me retribution, but surely there was nothing wrong with eating my own.

If Xie Zhiyao stopped people from bringing offerings, what was I supposed to eat?

I lowered my head and pretended to know nothing about the grudges involved.

“Senior Sister Xie, Divine Lord Fuhan may have passed away, but she’s still our eldest senior sister. Withholding offerings from her grave alone would surely go against the rules.”

Xie Zhiyao’s face twisted. She raised her hand and slashed, sending a sharp blast of sword energy at me.

It knocked me to the ground and sent me skidding several meters. A sweet, metallic taste surged into my throat.

She stepped closer, her expression haughty.

“Is it within the rules now?”

My mouth twitched. She hadn’t beaten my face into paralysis. I was simply marveling at how feeble this new body was.

In my previous life, that limp little slash wouldn’t even have scratched an itch. Now it had nearly killed me.

Before I could work out how to handle her, my vision went black and I fainted.

When I opened my eyes, a cold, stern figure stood nearby.

Lean cheeks. A sharply defined nose. Xie Qinghong.

Alarm bells clanged in my head. What was he doing here?

“You’re awake?” a medicine boy asked beside me.

Xie Qinghong turned to look.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

No, I wasn’t.

Xie Qinghong wasn’t actually related to the Xie family by blood.

He’d been an orphan. Xie Hao discovered his extraordinary aptitude, brought him into the family, and admitted him to the Liuguang Sect. He hadn’t disappointed.

Mr. Overpowered Protagonist never backed a losing bet.

Xie Qinghong fulfilled everyone’s expectations, becoming a Sword Venerable while still very young. In my previous life, I’d managed to pick up the title “Divine Lord Fuhan.”

He was only fourteen when I first met him. We even got along peacefully for a while.

I hadn’t yet seen my overpowered father for what he was, and all I wanted was to be the best. But once I began making a name for myself in the cultivation world, Xie Qinghong apparently took the wrong medicine. He insisted on outdoing me at every turn. Or rather, on smashing my aura of genius to pieces.

His talent was absurd. He broke through the Life-and-Death Realm at only twenty, which was enough to astonish every sect in the world. But I knew something else: he’d done it in just three years.

Three years to break through the Life-and-Death Realm. I’d be afraid of spraining my tongue just making a boast like that. Yet he’d actually done it.

I wasn’t so small-minded that I couldn’t tolerate another person’s success. We’d been childhood companions, after all. I was happy for him.

Apparently, he didn’t feel the same.

Everything he did seemed designed to make me feel so inferior I’d quit cultivating. At the sect tournament, he even knocked me out of the ring with one finger.

Yes. One finger!

He didn’t even bother drawing his sword. The humiliation!

I doubled my efforts, only to find I still couldn’t beat him, no matter what I did.

I’d always considered myself exceptionally gifted. His talent was even more ridiculous. By now, I had no idea how powerful he’d become.

I imagined that on the day those righteous cultivators surrounded me in the Demon Abyss, he must have been standing to one side, secretly delighted.

“Why hasn’t she woken up?” Xie Qinghong’s cool voice asked.

Why haven’t you left? I thought.

A familiar medicinal fragrance drifted over. Martial Uncle Kunning of the Medicine Sect.

I could fool a medicine boy. I couldn’t fool him. I opened my eyes, pretending to be half dazed.

I struggled to sit up and sucked in a breath of pain. My insides felt as if they’d been wrung together.

I wanted to cry. Failing to beat Xie Qinghong was one thing, but now even that useless show-off Xie Zhiyao had beaten me this badly. How embarrassing.

“Sword Venerable Qinghong, Yu Jun is awake.”

Kunning’s voice held both affection and pity. He had barely finished speaking when Xie Qinghong appeared before me, his white robes spotless, his dark eyes without warmth.

“What happened? Who caused trouble at Divine Lord Fuhan’s grave?”

“Xie Zhiyao.” I looked up at him and gave a brief account. His brows drew tighter and his expression darkened as I spoke.

I was puzzled. He wasn’t actually going to confront her, was he? Why?

Xie Zhiyao was Sect Leader Xie Hao’s beloved daughter. She’d only injured a cleaning disciple. Xie Qinghong had no reason to offend her over something so minor.

Was it for Xie Fuhan, then? I immediately rejected the idea. Impossible. Deep down, he probably wanted to grind my bones to dust and scatter the ashes.

Still, the flowers and offering fruit he kept bringing me were suspicious. Had he finally grown a conscience?

No chance. If he had a conscience, he could start by returning the fifty spirit stones he’d fined me the other day.