The moment Fu Xingyun uttered the command “kneel,” Qin Zhizhi’s knees instinctively went weak. With a soft thud, she dropped directly onto the prayer mat.
Only after kneeling did she suddenly freeze. Looking up at Fu Xingyun beside her, she saw his sharp profile, his high-bridged nose, and his tightly pursed lips. Her heart was a chaotic mix of shock and confusion.
Fu Xingyun swept a glance over her: “Do you know what to say now?”
She did.
Qin Zhizhi lowered her head: “I, after I woke up, I found myself in the body of Qin Zhizhi, the daughter of the Wudu City Lord.”
In a halting voice, she recounted everything she had experienced since waking up. She explained how she had been rescued from the black market by the Heguang Sect, how she had crossed paths with Xie Yutai, and how she had ended up at the Heguang Sect.
Fu Xingyun stood quietly beside her, remaining silent the entire time.
Once she finished, Qin Zhizhi could no longer suppress her curiosity: “Senior Brother, how did you recognize me?”
Hearing her question, Fu Xingyun finally moved. With a grand sweep of his hand, the curtain behind Qin Mingxiu’s portrait fluttered without any wind, revealing a dimly lit Soul Lamp tucked away in the depths of the room.
Every core disciple of the three great sects, six factions, and twelve cities possessed a Soul Lamp in their respective sects, usually kept in the safekeeping of their masters. If a Soul Lamp went out, the master would know immediately that the disciple had perished, even if they were thousands of miles away.
Qin Zhizhi naturally had one too, and her Soul Lamp had always been in Fu Xingyun’s possession.
On the day of the alliance grand ceremony, Jiang Yuanzhi had led an attack on the Guiyuan Sect, catching everyone completely off guard. In that critical moment, a cry had gone up that the bride was dead. At that instant, Fu Xingyun had nearly gone mad with grief and rage, wishing he could tear Jiang Yuanzhi to pieces. However, having been affected by the Qi-Dispersing Powder, he could barely exert his formidable cultivation and could only watch helplessly as Xie Yutai was taken away by Jiang Yuanzhi.
Before Xie Yutai departed, Fu Xingyun had seen Qin Zhizhi lying in her red bridal robes in the grand hall. Her eyes were tightly closed, blood stained the corner of her lips, and her breath was entirely gone.
Yet, just the day before, she had been so happy. Smiling with crescent-shaped eyes, she had tried on her new bridal gown and pulled at his arm, asking joyfully:
“Senior Brother, do I look pretty in this?”
Recalling this, Qin Zhizhi lowered her head, a complex wave of emotions flooding her chest.
“But when I returned to the sect, I saw that your Soul Lamp was still lit,” Fu Xingyun said, taking a deep breath to steady his emotions. “Though it was incredibly dim, it was indeed still burning.”
“Could Zhizhi still be alive? But that was impossible. I clearly saw her body, she was dead through and through.”
Qin Zhizhi: “…”
“Senior Brother, I highly suggest you choose a different phrasing.”
Hearing someone describe her own corpse as “dead through and through” sent a shiver down her spine, making it sound like a ghost story.
Seeing that she still had the heart to joke around, Fu Xingyun glared at her fiercely before continuing: “I sat before your Soul Lamp for an entire night. Weak though its flame was, it never went out.”
“In that moment, I realized that as long as the lamp remained lit, there was still hope. Qin Zhizhi had to be alive somewhere, and I would eventually find her.”
Qin Zhizhi sniffled: “Senior Brother, sob sob sob…”
She was profoundly moved.
“I didn’t expect to actually find you,” Fu Xingyun sneered. “Honestly, I might as well have beaten you to death on the spot.”
Qin Zhizhi: “Wait, what?”
The warmth of her tears instantly froze in her eyes, choking her emotion right back down.
“Why didn’t you send word to the Tiantong Sect at the first opportunity? Do you not trust me, or do you not trust the sect? To think you actually chose to hang around with Xie Yutai again!” Just mentioning this made Fu Xingyun’s chest tighten with anger.
First time, second time… it was always Xie Yutai. Fu Xingyun gritted his teeth in sheer frustration.
The moment he had seen Qin Zhizhi sitting on the ground, flashing that awkward smile at him with a look of instinctive closeness and reliance in her eyes, he had known instantly.
This was his Zhizhi. This was Qin Zhizhi.
“Your smile was hideous,” Fu Xingyun added, rubbing salt into the wound.
“Stop scolding me, stop scolding me,” Qin Zhizhi muttered dejectedly. “You can’t really blame me for this. When I first woke up, my head was spinning with how to escape. Troubles just kept coming one after another; I literally had no choice…”
This was the truth. Ever since she opened her eyes, one crisis had followed another, leaving her virtually no breathing room, let alone a chance to send a message to the Tiantong Sect. Moreover, she hadn’t known her Soul Lamp was still lit. If she had rashly sent a letter claiming to be Qin Zhizhi without proof, she would have been labeled a fraud or a soul-snatching demon, and no amount of explaining would have cleared her name.
“…And it’s not like I went looking for Xie Yutai on purpose,” she muttered softly.
“If you dare follow Xie Yutai again, see if I don’t break your legs this time!” Fu Xingyun roared, his patience pushed to its absolute limit. Could these two seriously not be kept apart?!
Qin Zhizhi shook her head frantically: “I won’t follow him, I won’t! Never again!”
She didn’t have a system forcing her to do tasks anymore, so why on earth would she keep clinging to him? However, Fu Xingyun’s attitude toward Xie Yutai seemed exceptionally hostile now it hadn’t been this intense in the past.
“Wait, Senior Brother, my Corpse-Anchoring Talisman hasn’t been unraveled yet!” Qin Zhizhi suddenly remembered this highly important issue. What was worse, she realized she had completely forgotten to ask Xie Yutai if he knew how to undo it!
So what on earth did I go to the Shapo Sect for? All that trouble for nothing.
Some people indeed possessed a head merely as an ornament, living their lives with supreme carefreeness.
“Undo it. It must be undone,” Fu Xingyun sneered ominously. “If it can’t be undone, I’ll make sure Xie Yutai experiences what it means to pray for life but find only a slow death.”
Qin Zhizhi reminded him: “But if you do that, I might die too, you know.”
Fu Xingyun narrowed his eyes: “What? You seem quite pleased to share such a life-and-death bond with him?”
Qin Zhizhi looked horrified: “Are you kidding? How would I dare?”
Fu Xingyun snorted coldly: “You’d better not.”
Qin Zhizhi: “…”
My previous efforts to woo the protagonist must have been too intense; Senior Brother has a massive misunderstanding about me.
Though she wanted to protest, seeing Fu Xingyun’s dark expression, she wisely chose to keep her mouth shut.
After a brief silence, Fu Xingyun was the first to speak: “Now that you’ve returned, stay properly by my side.”
“The Tiantong Sect will always be your home.”
Qin Zhizhi’s eyes welled with warmth, and she blinked rapidly to keep the tears from falling.
Home? Could a drifting piece of duckweed like her truly have a home in this world? A retreat, a hope, a harbor for her soul.
Did she truly deserve to have this?
“The Three Sects Grand Tournament is next month. When the time comes, you should go and test your skills.” Before Qin Zhizhi’s tears could even fall, Fu Xingyun’s next sentence instantly shattered the emotional atmosphere.
Qin Zhizhi looked utterly blank: “Huh?”
I literally just got back, and you’re already sending me out to fight?
The Three Sects Grand Tournament was a grand cultivation competition hosted alternately by the Guiyuan Sect, Tiantong Sect, and Shapo Sect once every five years. Generally, the younger generation of disciples from the three great sects, six factions, and twelve cities would participate, and any disciple at the Foundation Establishment stage or above could register. Based on their performance, the rankings would be updated. To be named on the list was to be recognized as an undisputed rising star of the generation.
Xie Yutai had occupied the top spot for many years.
Later on, they had simply banned him from entering because his presence was too demoralizing for the other participants.
But calculating the time, Qin Zhizhi realized something was off: “Wait, Senior Brother, has it really been five years?”
Only three years had passed since the last tournament. Such a premature scheduling was unprecedented.
Fu Xingyun fell into a brief silence, his eyes half-closed: “There is no more time.”
“Time for what?” Qin Zhizhi pressed, seeing his solemn expression.
“On the day Jiang Yuanzhi attacked the Guiyuan Sect, the monument ‘Sword Points to the Heavens’ in their back mountain collapsed,” Fu Xingyun said.
As the premier sword-cultivator sect in the world, the Guiyuan Sect was one of the oldest and most powerful factions. This was not only because of their formidable sword cultivators, but also because they boasted the highest number of ascended cultivators among the three great sects, the most recent being the Ascended Immortal Xuetang, who had mastered the way of heartless sword cultivation.
Before Xuetang’s ascension, his sword qi had cleaved his mountain peak cleanly in two. One half, steep and precipitous with a bottomless abyss below, became the later Wenjian Peak. The other half was flatter and surrounded by green stone, becoming the back mountain of the Guiyuan Sect.
At the exact instant the peak was split, a massive boulder fell from the summit of Wenjian Peak into the back mountain. Imbued with residual sword qi, it resembled a long sword pointing proudly toward the heavens from afar. It was truly an awe-inspiring sight, and sword cultivators facing a bottleneck would often come here to comprehend the lingering sword intent of ascension.
This massive stone was called the “Sword Points to the Heavens,” also known by people of this era as the “Little Heavenly Pillar.”
When Ascended Immortal Xuetang ascended, he glimpsed the heavenly mandate and left behind a prophecy:
“When the Heavenly Pillar falls, the Lietian Rift changes. The Punishment of Xing Tian begins, and the Demon Seed emerges. Blood shall run like rivers, and millions of corpses shall lie.”
The “Heavenly Pillar” referred to the “Sword Points to the Heavens” monument, while the “Lietian Rift” was the treacherous area guarded by the Guiyuan Sect, rumored to seal an ancient demon. But as for what the “Punishment of Xing Tian” and the “Demon Seed” truly were, there were countless conflicting theories, and no definitive answer had ever been found.
Regardless, the message was clear: once the Heavenly Pillar collapsed and the Lietian Rift shifted, a grand catastrophe would sweep the heavens and earth.
And now, the Heavenly Pillar had collapsed.
Only now did Qin Zhizhi understand why Fu Xingyun said there was no more time, the cultivation world simply had too few capable talents to face what was coming.
Elder Yanchen of the Guiyuan Sect was a great Tribulation Transcendence cultivator, but he had spent centuries guarding the Lietian Rift, completely detached from worldly affairs. Below him were the sect leaders of the three great sects, all at the Deity Transformation stage, with Fu Xingyun being the youngest among them. Across all three sects, six factions, and twelve cities, there were only a few dozen cultivators at the Golden Core stage or above, mostly consisting of elders or city lords. The younger generation had simply not yet matured.
Only Xie Yutai was strong enough to shoulder such a heavy burden.
The others, such as Lu Yuandao, Jun Wuya, and even Pei Lanzhou and Pei Songzhou, were indeed gifted geniuses, but they were still young. Their cultivations hovered only between Foundation Establishment and Bigu, with none of them having reached the Golden Core stage. If the world had another hundred years of peace, it would surely welcome a golden age of cultivation, but they did not have that luxury.
The fact that Jiang Yuanzhi could lead an army of ten thousand demons to attack the Guiyuan Sect just for Xie Yutai was something the cultivation world could hardly match. Every young cultivator was the pride and joy of their respective elders; losing even one was a devastating blow.
The younger generation was still growing, yet a grand war was already fast approaching.
They needed rapid training and growth.
Whether the enemy of the cultivation world was the demon race or the impending catastrophe that would claim millions of lives, the burden was far too heavy for the current cultivation world to bear.
Qin Zhizhi mulled this over in her mind for a long time before slowly coming back to her senses.
If the system were still around, it would surely be screaming in her ear right now that the main plot of the novel had officially begun.
Originally, this had absolutely nothing to do with her.
She had zero concept of the main storyline, and the system had always emphasized that she only needed to complete her tasks and survive. But hearing Fu Xingyun’s words today, she realized that this must be the main plot that was set to unfold after her “death.”
In the future, Xie Yutai would undoubtedly go through countless trials, sweep away all obstacles, and lead the entire cultivation world to survive this grand catastrophe. At least, from his position as the protagonist, that was how things should go.
But as for the specific progression and details of the story, she was completely in the dark.
She suddenly felt a twinge of regret. Had she known, she really should have pried some plot details out of the system back then, rather than being completely blind now.
Qin Zhizhi let out a heavy sigh. After a moment of contemplation, she suddenly asked in a hesitant voice: “Senior Brother.”
Fu Xingyun: “Hmm?”
“You recognized me at first glance,” Qin Zhizhi hesitated. “Do you think, Xie Yutai recognized me too?”