That night, Duan Junyi who had just arrived in this world was brought back to Fuweimen by Sang Hua.
The sect leader and various elders of Fuweimen instantly discovered that Duan Junyi was an undead spirit who had occupied the body of someone who had just died.
“Is the xianxia world really this mystical? They can tell with a single glance.” Inwardly muttering a critique of the poison-milk novels he had read in the past where souls replaced inside shells usually went completely undetected, only for his own transmigration to be recognized instantly—Duan Junyi complained to himself.
“He is an undead spirit! Sang Hua, how could you bring an undead spirit back?” Xi Heng’s voice carried a chilling edge that caused Duan Junyi to instinctively tug at the hem of Sang Hua’s robes, hiding behind Sang Hua’s back.
It was Sang Hua who had brought him here, and among all those people in the grand hall, only Sang Hua treated him with absolute gentleness.
Having transformed into a child, Duan Junyi’s height didn’t even reach Sang Hua’s thighs. As he shrank back behind Sang Hua’s spine, his tiny frame completely concealed itself beneath the sweep of Sang Hua’s robes.
Faced with these people’s reactions they seemed intensely, intensely resistant to undead spirits, Duan Junyi nervously raised his head to observe Sang Hua’s reaction.
Though he had no idea how he had inexplicably revived from the dead and transmigrated into this world, it was Sang Hua who brought him back. With these people holding such strong aversion toward him, if Sang Hua harbored that same aversion, would he end up abandoning him as well?
He was currently nothing more than a child’s body with zero understanding of this world, and worse still, this world also harbored zombies. If Sang Hua gave up on him, his second death wouldn’t be far off.
Regarding Xi Heng’s interrogation, Sang Hua appeared entirely unconcerned. Lowering his gaze accidentally, he caught sight of the child’s timid and anxious expression.
“Don’t worry.” Realizing the child’s distress, Sang Hua intentionally crouched down, soothing him in a gentle tone: “Since I brought you back, I will not leave you without a place to call home.”
At this, Duan Junyi gripped the fabric of Sang Hua’s robes even tighter, refusing to let go. Sang Hua took his tiny hand to reassure him, then stood up and addressed Xi Heng: “Sect Leader Senior Brother worries too much. He is merely a child; goodness and wickedness lie within the human heart. If one’s heart turns toward goodness, he will naturally never commit acts that bring calamity to the world. Right now he is merely an infant, with not a soul left in the wide world; if we leave him to fend for himself, it would be no different from abandoning him to death.”
“If Senior Brother remains uneasy, then let him enter my discipleship. From this day onward, I shall personally instruct and guide him. As long as I draw breath, I will never let him step onto a crooked, demonic path.”
Persistent under Sang Hua’s unwavering stance, Xi Heng dissatisfied though he remained in his heart ultimately tacitly acquiesced to Sang Hua keeping Duan Junyi on Yujin Peak.
The reborn body possessed tiny arms and legs, allowing Sang Hua to scoop him up easily with a single arm and carry him back to Yujin Peak.
Prior to this, Sang Hua had never taken in a disciple; Yujin Peak had been inhabited solely by him. Vast groves of peach blossoms surrounded an exquisite courtyard, with a murmuring stream and rustic bridge winding before the gates, lending the place an exceptional elegance.
Placing Duan Junyi down before the courtyard, Sang Hua pointed toward several empty rooms and said: “I have only you as a disciple, and the two of us are the only inhabitants of Yujin Peak. There are plenty of vacant rooms; just pick whichever one you like and settle in.”
Failing to receive any response for a long while, Sang Hua crouched down and, seeing Duan Junyi’s deeply troubled expression, asked softly: “Are you unhappy? Are you still thinking about what happened at the village, or do you not want me to be your master?”
Regarding the village slaughtered by evil spirits, Duan Junyi felt entirely detached from it. The moment he arrived in this world, that village was already overrun entirely by zombies; what occupied his mind had nothing to do with the village itself.
Shaking his head, Duan Junyi murmured in a small voice: “I am an undead spirit, someone who should have died in the first place. I can tell that they all view me as a harbinger of disaster. I’m afraid that one day, you might abandon me too.”
“Never.” Explaining to him, Sang Hua said: “You are no harbinger of disaster. You are not the only person in this world to have returned from the dead. Long ago, when the founding patriarch of Fuweimen founded our sect and practiced divination through tortoise shells and oracle wands, he derived a prophecy: The end of days approaches, and the undead shall bring calamity to the world.”
“The so-called undead are simply souls of the newly deceased that encounter a stroke of fate, accidentally entering a newly deceased corpse and reviving through it. Such occurrences of fate are exceedingly rare, yet they do exist.”
“Precisely because of the founding patriarch’s prophecy, the worldly masses have always harbored biases toward the undead, deeming them inauspicious. But remember this: what determines goodness or wickedness is the human heart, not an illusory, ethereal prophecy. Being able to return from death is a matter of destiny; every single person who manages to come into this world possesses a reason for their existence. As the disciplinary elder of Fuweimen, the reason I draw breath is to exterminate demons and uphold the heavenly dao. Since the heavens have granted you a second chance at life, they must surely have a reason why they wish for you to keep living.”
Back in the former apocalypse, every individual fought tooth and nail using every conceivable means simply out of fear of death. He had never paused to ponder why he wanted to survive—simply because dreading death was a human instinct.
Noticing that hesitation still lingered within Duan Junyi’s expression, Sang Hua solemnly offered him a solemn guarantee: “I, Sang Hua, swear to you here: as long as you do not enter the demonic path in the future, your master will never abandon you! Should I break this oath, my soul shall plunge into the Nine Nether Underworld and never enter reincarnation!”
The oath of a cultivator, witnessed by the heavens above, reported to the nine-layered skies down to the netherworld below utterly devoid of falsehood.
From that exact moment onward, Duan Junyi’s soul drifting from another world finally found a place where it could securely anchor itself.
Though unfamiliar with this world, prior to the apocalypse in his former realm, Duan Junyi had consumed plenty of xianxia novels and historical-fantasy television dramas. Imitating what he had seen in the past, he solemnly performed a formal apprenticeship ceremony toward Sang Hua:
“Disciple Duan Junyi enters the discipleship of Yujin Immortal Venerable today. From this day onward, I shall strictly abide by the sect rules, exterminate demons and uphold the heavenly dao. Should I ever step onto the demonic path, may my body perish and dissolve, my soul plunge beneath the Nine Nethers, and may I never be granted salvation through eternity!”
Sang Hua was immensely gratified by Duan Junyi’s response, instructing him to pick a room in the courtyard to make his own.
Having never taken a disciple before, Sang Hua had zero experience in how to teach one.
Having lived on Yujin Peak for some time, Sang Hua deliberated before deciding to have Duan Junyi start by familiarizing himself with the sect rules, leading him into the study to copy out the regulations.
It wasn’t that Duan Junyi was unwilling to copy them; holding the thick volume of sect rules in his hands, Duan Junyi felt as though he were staring at heavenly scriptures, struggling mightily to identify a handful of characters he could recognize out of the dense sea of small seal script characters.
Noticing Duan Junyi’s look of utter struggle, and eyeing his childlike physique which stood roughly five years of age, Sang Hua realized belatedly: “It was my oversight. You haven’t reached the age of literacy yet; I will teach you slowly.”
Though Duan Junyi possessed merely a child’s physical vessel, his soul belonged to a normal adult. In his former world, he had completed nine years of compulsory education and graduated normally from university; mastering the simple skill of character recognition should have been well within his grasp.
Alas, the script utilized in this world was small seal script; he had encountered small seal script only a handful of times in the past, and not all small seal characters could be easily deduced via simplified characters. He could only look at Sang Hua with awkward embarrassment: “Master, I did study books in the past, but… right now, it seems I can’t quite recognize these characters.”
Far worse than merely “not quite recognizing them” copying books here required a writing brush. From childhood to adulthood, he had never once held a writing brush; even though he had watched how others held them, once the brush reached his own hands, it behaved with absolute, uncontrollable stubbornness.
Internally, Duan Junyi wailed in silent agony: Transmigrating into a child is one thing, but are all the skills accumulated over decades in my previous life going to be completely wasted in this new world as well?
Indeed, different eras, different worlds cognitive gaps existed everywhere. Even recognizing characters was an arduous struggle; all those novels and TV shows where protagonists transmigrated and instantly unlocked cheats were pure entertainment poison.
Fortunately, the spoken language utilized in this world was identical; otherwise, mere communication would have posed a barrier, rendering survival fundamentally impossible.
“You studied books, yet you don’t recognize characters?” Sang Hua found this genuinely incomprehensible.
The corners of Duan Junyi’s mouth twitched as he smiled dryly in response: “Master, the place where I used to live… the characters we learned were rather different from the ones you use. I can recognize a few of these, just not completely.”
Observing Duan Junyi’s awkward posture as he clutched the brush, Sang Hua let out a soft chuckle, stepping around behind Duan Junyi to wrap his hand over the boy’s, guiding him stroke by stroke: “It’s no matter; your master will simply teach you again.”
Standing pressed closely against his back, Sang Hua emanated a faint, delicate fragrance. Duan Junyi had rarely encountered perfumes or spices in his past life, unable to name the scent; he only knew that the aroma was exquisitely pleasant.
Though his body was currently that of a child, it did not signify that he was truly a child. Such intimate, close-quarters contact caused Duan Junyi’s heartbeat to race completely out of control, making his mind wander off through the entire process.
Even deep into the night, he found himself involuntarily drifting back to the subtle fragrance emanating from Sang Hua, along with the warmth radiating from the palm that had enclosed his hand.
His mind was utterly filled with nothing other than Sang Hua’s every smile and expression.
Sleep evaded him. His tossing and turning grew noisy enough that Sang Hua whose auditory senses were exceptionally sharp woke up and assumed he had suffered a nightmare, stepping over to check on him.
“What is it? Are you frightened, or did you have a nightmare?”
Duan Junyi curled his lip, thinking to himself that being frightened was impossible; even if a horde of zombies stood outside his door, so long as he locked it, he could sleep soundly.
Yet catching sight of Sang Hua standing right before him, a second thought struck him: in Sang Hua’s eyes, he was currently a child, and children acting spoiled was a matter of course. Thus, seizing the opportunity, he scrambled straight into Sang Hua’s arms, utilizing the soft, milky tone unique to children to whine: “Master, I’m afraid of the dark.”
“If you’re afraid of the dark, your master will light a lamp for you.” With a mere flick of his finger, Sang Hua ignited every candle in the room simultaneously, his tone brimming with boundless doting indulgence.
“I don’t dare sleep alone; I want Master to stay with me.”
Seeing Sang Hua spoil him to this extent, Duan Junyi pressed his advantage further, hugging Sang Hua tightly and refusing to let go. Blinking large, watery eyes with beseeching innocence as he stared straight at Sang Hua, he left the man utterly devoid of any means to refuse his request.
“Master is truly wonderful!” The ploy having succeeded to perfection, Duan Junyi felt incomparably delighted. Relying entirely on his current child’s body, he burrowed vigorously into Sang Hua’s arms, seizing the opportunity to steal a quick kiss against Sang Hua’s cheek.
Surviving the apocalypse, Duan Junyi had never imagined that someone would protect him when he faced danger, nor had he ever dreamed that someone would vow never to abandon him.
Living through two lifetimes, Sang Hua was the very first.
A person dwelling beneath freezing ice, once they experienced a shred of warmth, found themselves utterly reluctant to ever part with even the tiniest speck of that temperature.
Perhaps the moment Sang Hua flung open the cabinet door, or the moment Sang Hua swore an oath never to abandon him, or perhaps even earlier when Sang Hua guided his hand to teach him character writing feelings of an entirely different nature had slowly begun to sprout within his heart.
Perhaps Sang Hua merely regarded him as a little disciple, yet as he fell asleep feeling safe and secure within Sang Hua’s embrace, Duan Junyi knew deep down that he could never again treat Sang Hua purely as his master.