The Unfettered Immortal - Chapter 1

“Wait!”

I admit it. Hearing that made me panic.

And I had something to say.

“What if I really am her?”

I’d spent three hundred years hunting those demon seeds, working from dawn till night, battered by wind and dust.

I was in rags from head to toe. Admittedly, I looked rather shabby, but surely no one would bother impersonating me like this?

And another thing—

I stared in disbelief at the man on the dais.

White sect robes. Hair secured with a jade crown. A strong, impassive face and eyes full of veiled coldness.

Excuse me, fellow cultivator, but who were you?

Where was the gentle, good-tempered junior brother I remembered?

As soon as I spoke, all the disciples around me gave me pitying looks.

Someone whispered in the crowd.

“Oh dear. This one’s an idiot.”

“Didn’t she ask why the sect leader put up a reward of over a million spirit stones for Shao Hongning before she came to claim it?”

Over a million?

My hand trembled. So our bond as fellow disciples meant that much to him?

I was rather moved.

The whispering continued.

“Shao Hongning is the one person he can never forget, the one he thinks about day and night, desperate to get his hands on—”

At that moment, I heard Chu Wuji give an even colder laugh. Brief and utterly devoid of warmth, it made me tense instinctively.

“If you really are her, all the more reason to cut you into a thousand pieces.”

“His sworn enemy!” the crowd finished.

Well.

I didn’t dare move now.

The spirit beast hidden on my person gloated.

“Didn’t you say Chu Wuji was the junior brother who always listened to you and cared for you most?”

“So in your family, listening and caring mean cutting you into a thousand pieces? Quite a cutting sort of affection.”

Vile little creature. What a poisonous tongue.

But I hadn’t lied.

Three hundred years ago, Chu Wuji really had listened to me and cared for me more than anyone.

There was a simple reason for that.

I was the one who’d brought him home.

Naturally, Master had handed him over to me to look after.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t exactly a saint.

He was quiet, gentle, and easy to push around. I was happy to take advantage.

So most of the time, he followed me everywhere, sorting out awkward dealings with other people or tending to my daily needs.

If it concerned me, he refused to leave it to anyone else.

Had propriety between men and women not stood in the way, he probably would have insisted on washing even my changes of clothing.

Master used to tease me.

“Anyone who didn’t know better would think you were the junior sister and he was the senior brother.”

“What other senior sister has it as easy as you?”

Thoroughly drunk, I turned to tease Chu Wuji, tilting my head with a smile.

“Does that mean I ought to call you Senior Brother? Senior Brother Chu?”

I’d only meant to have a little fun with him. For some reason, though, his face went bright red. He stammered a helpless, quiet surrender.

“Senior Sister.”

Then he looked up at the old man, perfectly serious.

“Master, you’re being too harsh. Senior Sister has done more for me than I could ever repay. I’m already content if I can ease her burdens even a little. Senior Sister is…”

He pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

“Wonderful.”

I laughed triumphantly, twirling my sword as I called to the old man.

“Hear that, old fellow? My junior brother is the sweetest, most sensible disciple there is. Stop trying to drive a wedge between us, or I’ll smash up your medicinal garden!”

Master stroked his beard, laughing as he scolded me.

“You ungrateful brat. Compared with you, what disciple in the world isn’t sweet and sensible?”

I couldn’t blame him for saying it.

Ever since I’d embarked on cultivation, which cultivator in the world hadn’t cursed my name?

Again, there was a simple reason.

Hongning of the Shao family had been born to cultivate.

She entered the Dao at seven, began refining qi at eight, established her foundation at eleven, and broke through to the Golden Core realm at sixteen. Nascent Soul at thirty; the Grand Ascension realm at ninety-eight. Talent like hers came along once in ten thousand years.

She cultivated the Dao of Freedom all her life: carefree, unrestrained, beholden to no one.

The Heavenly Dao lavished its favor upon her. Advances that left other cultivators struggling for every inch came as easily to her as eating and drinking.

It was enough to make anyone envious.

Worse, she acted decisively, unpredictably, and entirely as she pleased.

That year, she caught the young master of Xuanwu Sect stealing someone else’s opportunity and nearly murdering them to silence them. She ran him through.

Two years earlier, she’d encountered the eldest disciple of Thousand Cranes Sect slaughtering an entire village of mortals for a single spiritual herb. He, too, met her blade.

Sect after sect came knocking, demanding an explanation.

As Fanyun’s sect leader at the time, Master had no choice but to defend his disciple through a splitting headache.

Yet even someone like that, on a certain day in a certain place, could look at the only boy left alive in a village, reach out a hand, and tilt her head.

“It’s a big world out there, and I could use a servant. Want to come with me?”

Chu Wuji was that boy.