Away from Sorrow - Chapter 1

1.

I would never forget that bone-deep agony.

My primordial spirit shattered. My immortal meridians severed.

My senior brother held the divine sword that marked him as sect leader and laughed without restraint.

“Little Sister, you dwell on hatred day after day, never learning the meaning of forgiveness. A feud should not extend to the children, yet you murdered the innocent with your own hands. Now that I have become sect leader, I cannot allow a scourge like you to live!”

With that, he drew upon his years of cultivation to lay a curse on me.

I would never enter the cycle of rebirth again. I would fall forever into Avici Hell, the hell of unending torment, and suffer every imaginable agony.

That was my last memory before my consciousness faded.

2.

“Miss Song—Immortal! My father killed your family! It had nothing to do with me! Please spare my life, please…”

Shen Shuyi’s pleas rang in my ears again.

But I had killed her. Hadn’t I?

As my senses slowly returned, I began to grasp a seemingly absurd truth.

I had been reborn.

Back on the day I slaughtered the Shen household.

Of its eleven members, ten had already died by my sword. Only Shen Yuan’s beloved third daughter, Shen Shuyi, remained. They had hidden her in a cupboard, hoping she might escape.

But years of training in the immortal arts had sharpened my senses far beyond those of ordinary people. Finding her had taken no effort at all.

She knelt on the floor, staring at the blood all around her. At first, she had shown some backbone, cursing me for my cruelty. But when I pointed my sword at her heart, her spine bent. She begged on her knees for mercy.

In my previous life, I had cut off her head without a moment’s hesitation and sent her to the King of Hell.

What I had never imagined was that my senior brother, Fang Wenzhou, would judge me vicious for it—a woman who wantonly slaughtered innocents. Above all, I had killed Shen Shuyi, whom he believed good and kind from the bottom of his heart. That was why he had taken my life so brutally.

Now, given a second life, I faced the pleading Shen Shuyi and once again severed her head without hesitation.

Her screams stopped in an instant.

Hot blood spurted out. Some splashed across my face, searing hot, yet still not as hot as my heart.

Years of hatred, brought to an end by my own hand.

The satisfaction was immense.

Shen Shuyi’s head rolled across the ground, gathering dust, stripped of the beauty it had possessed in life. It rolled all the way to the feet of the late-arriving Fang Wenzhou.

He looked down. When he recognized the face, his eyes widened abruptly.

“Little Sister, you…”

His grip tightened on his sword. He seemed to be fighting for control, but he could not conceal his shock or fury.

I pretended not to notice and continued wiping the blood from my blade at my leisure.

Feeding my Water-Cleaving Sword with my enemies’ blood really did make its spiritual energy more abundant.

I turned to him with an unrestrained smile.

“Senior Brother, I’ve finally avenged my family. Aren’t you happy for me?”

Fang Wenzhou pressed his lips together, apparently weighing his words.

He was wary of me. Now he hated me too. Yet he still had to court my favor.

He struggled to contain himself.

But in the end—

Just as in my previous life, his anger slipped through.

“Little Sister, I know how long you have yearned for revenge. But Shen Yuan was the one who killed your family. Killing him alone would have been enough. Why drag innocent people into it?”

In my previous life, the overwhelming grief and joy of finally taking revenge had left me emotionally exhausted.

I had no wish to argue with him.

I had merely said flatly, “They all deserved to die.”

There was nothing wrong with that statement.

Shen Yuan had been nothing but a beggar. Penniless and gravely ill, he should never have survived that winter.

My parents had been too kind to see the wolf beneath his skin. They had even given him food and clothes.

Yet greed had taken hold of him, and he murdered eleven members of my family!

Innocent? What did innocent mean?

Who among us had not been innocent?

My little sister had been only three, sweet and adorable. She had offered Shen Yuan the cake in her hand. He had impaled her on a spear, pierced her belly, and left her to bleed to death!

Had she not been innocent?

Mother was pregnant, my unborn brother already at full term. Our entire family had been looking forward to his arrival. Yet Shen Yuan had taken his blade and brutally cut open her belly!

Had my mother not been innocent?

My family had died such terrible deaths. Had they not been innocent?