When Snow Ends, Green Returns - Chapter 4

It also allowed the sect elders to select promising seedlings.

Yu Xuejin pitied him and recognized his extraordinary gifts, but some testing was still necessary. Talent, temperament, and strength were all indispensable, so he sent him to take the entrance examination.

The hero dazzled throughout the trials and finally succeeded in taking Yu Xuejin as his master.

Then began a million-character journey of leveling up, fighting monsters, and hiding strength behind a harmless facade. Along the way, he avenged the Ji clan and ultimately reached the summit of the Great Dao.

His shizun, Yu Xuejin, was more like a backdrop—or a convenient cheat. He was brought out whenever the hero needed him and shelved the rest of the time.

All focus and glory belonged to the hero.

When I landed inside the book, every member of the Ji clan was already dead. A group of black-clad men pointed their swords at the hero and let out the sinister cackles expected of villains.

The sight stirred very unpleasant memories.

Most of those men were at Foundation Establishment.

So was the hero, the only member of the Ji clan to have stepped onto the immortal path. Under normal circumstances, he could at least have put up a fight.

Unfortunately, he had been drugged. His cultivation was suppressed, his body limp and powerless, and he could only watch his blood relatives be butchered before his reddened eyes, utterly despairing.

When I arrived, I inherited his cultivation.

And because of my unusual constitution, the drug’s effects vanished from my body at once.

One against many? The advantage was mine.

I slaughtered every black-clad man.

The System told me to follow the plot and take the novel’s conveniently passing Immortal Venerable as my master.

I flourished my sword and looked down at the dead men strewn across the ground. Blood slid from the blade’s tip as I scoffed, “What Immortal Venerable? Not even a dog would bow to him!”

Then I saw Yu Xuejin passing by.

My eyes went wide.

S-so beautiful!!!

Without stopping to think, I slammed my palm into my own chest and clearly heard two ribs snap.

Spitting out a mouthful of blood, I collapsed in a miserable heap and reached pitifully toward him.

“Immortal… please save me…”

The Immortal Venerable: “???”

The System: 【…】

The dead men in black: “???”

I deliberately smeared dirt across half my face while raising the other, clean and lovely, toward him. Trembling amid a field of corpses, I looked pitiful, weak, and helpless.

The immortal stopped before me.

The wind lifted the hem of his robe, then let it fall.

I could not tell whether he was looking at me or studying the cleanly dispatched corpses on the ground—

Guiltily, I coughed again.

After an unknowable length of time, he bent down. His splendid snow-white robes were untouched by dust.

He extended a hand.

Palm upward, jade-like fingers open before me, he spoke with a voice as gentle as a handful of melted snow from a mountain peak.

“Can you stand?”

My throat suddenly felt dry.

“…Yes.”

I placed my bloodstained hand in his palm.

The immortal did not recoil.

His hand was warm and steady. With a gentle clasp, he helped me to my feet.

As I straightened, I deliberately swayed and leaned half a step toward his shoulder.

Yu Xuejin instinctively raised a hand to steady me without quite touching.

Once I had regained my balance, he asked softly, “What is your name?”

“Ji Huiqing,” I answered meekly. “Huiqing, as in the green returning to the spring grass and trees.”

He froze. A complicated emotion flickered through his eyes.

I was preparing to play on his sympathy. The original owner of this body had lost his entire family. Whether for the sake of the plot or my own desire to remain beside this immortal morning and night, becoming his disciple was my only path.

I already had a plan.

If Yu Xuejin refused, I would sit Tianheng Sect’s entrance examination and prove with my strength that no one was better suited to be his disciple.

“I am Yu Xuejin, master of… Clear Snow Peak of Tianheng Sect.”

He phrased it modestly.

But beneath heaven, who did not know Immortal Venerable Yu Xuejin?

Possessor of a Chaos Spiritual Root, his talent was unparalleled across the ages.

In ten thousand years, countless sects had risen and fallen, but Tianheng Sect, guarded by him, had always remained foremost among the cultivation world’s five great sects.

His cultivation, too, was the strongest of the age.

Yu Xuejin glanced over the corpses of the Ji family, and pity for me surfaced in his eyes.

He took out a handkerchief and gently wiped the blood and dirt from my face, then softly dropped a thunderbolt.

“Ji Huiqing, come with me.”

“From this day forward, I will be your shizun.”

I was blasted senseless. “??!”

The System: 【???】

The System shrieked, 【What the hell is wrong with Yu Xuejin? He may look gentle and good-tempered, but he’s proud to the bone. In ten thousand years, no one has ever caught his eye, much less been accepted as his disciple!】

【The hero in the original plot tried to become his disciple at this very moment, and Yu Xuejin rejected him without hesitation.

Only after the hero battled through every trial, took first place in the examination, and knelt at the foot of Clear Snow Peak for half a month—pestering him without end—did Yu Xuejin finally agree.】