Suddenly struck with such a heavy blow, the youth named Wei Li looked utterly horrified. Clutching his blood-soaked dantian, he felt the spiritual energy scatter from his shattered core, and he struggled to lift his gaze toward the beautiful girl gleaming under the moonlight. Her clothes were plain, her hair unadorned, yet her radiant presence was striking. Of course, if she weren’t holding a sword brimming with murderous intent, one might sigh that she was a delicate beauty.
But this beauty was clearly poisonous.
“You… you’re a cultivator!” Wei Li’s eyes burned with resentment. He had thought it would be as simple as a cat toying with a mouse, easily sweeping away the obstacle to his beloved.
He couldn’t understand how this girl, locked away in the imperial tomb with a life of hardship and barely any human contact, had managed to step onto the path of cultivation—let alone possess a spiritual weapon capable of wounding him.
What unsettled him most was that the true Yu Xian’er clearly had no weak cultivation. With a single strike, she had crippled his powers, yet she had hidden it all so well. If she were to reveal herself recklessly one day, wouldn’t others fall prey to her ambush as he had?
“You’re despicable!” he spat. “A cultivator pretending to be a mortal—too shameless!”
Wei Li had never met such a treacherous woman.
Yu Sangsang, however, acted as though she hadn’t heard a word. They say villains die from talking too much. But even heroes fall the same way. Chattering in front of an enemy was nothing but courting disaster.
Without a sound, her slender spirit sword swept forward once more.
As the blade neared the weakened youth, Wei Li’s terrified eyes suddenly flared with viciousness. With a furious shout, a talisman on his body burst into light, barely warding off the sword’s glow. His cultivation was broken, his spiritual energy beyond control—he was no match for Yu Sangsang.
That desperate surge of power was only enough for him to hurl a brocade pouch, snarling, “You forced me!”
Even he seemed wary of the pouch. Tossing it aside, he scrambled away, dragging himself across the ground.
Yu Sangsang quickly drew out a jade talisman for protection. But as the pouch opened, an ominous aura surged forth.
Black mist billowed out, thick and suffocating, carrying whispers that seemed to murmur from the abyss. The darkness spread, swallowing even the night itself.
Yu Sangsang froze for a moment.
“It’s all your fault. If you hadn’t tried to harm me… I wouldn’t have done this.” Wei Li’s voice trembled with fear—fear of the darkness itself.
Dragging his body, he left a trail of blood across the ground. His once-handsome face twisted into a mask of malice, as though he meant to heap all his unease and unknown sins upon Yu Sangsang’s shoulders.
By day, he had been proud and arrogant, but now he was reduced to a stray dog, howling as the black mist surged forth, rushing straight toward Yu Sangsang.
The protective jade talisman flickered with light, yet the mist seemed utterly unaffected, slipping past the glow without pause and seeping into her body.
Seeing her engulfed by the darkness, Wei Li burst into laughter. Blood dripped from his lips as he stared at the girl standing motionless within the black haze, his eyes gleaming with anticipation.
Just then, the restrictive formation he had laid around the courtyard trembled violently, echoing with loud crashes—someone outside was striking it with force.
“Too late,” Wei Li sneered, glancing toward the frantic assault on the barrier. He seemed certain of victory. Yet within the mist, Yu Sangsang felt its terror, a chill that made her very soul shiver… and yet, strangely— It tasted rather good.
The pouch continued to pour out endless black fog, cloaking her figure until, under the moonlight, she appeared as a silhouette of shadow.
The mist churned, whispering faintly, enough to inspire dread in any onlooker. But moments later, the haze streamed into her body and vanished.
Yu Sangsang clutched her stomach and let out a satisfied burp. The power hidden in that darkness was vast, inexhaustible—more nourishing than spiritual energy itself. Absorbed into her meridians, it quickly settled, flowing obediently into her dantian. Ugly in color, perhaps, but undeniably potent.
In the blink of an eye, the princess’s qi sea swelled and expanded. Spiritual energy and black mist alike transformed into a milky-white vapor, swirling within her core.
From just a single pouch of black fog, her cultivation leaped straight into the mid-stage of Qi Refining, with signs of breaking through even further.
“What is this stuff?” she wondered. With her broad experience from countless games, this pitch‑black energy looked suspiciously like demonic qi.
The princess, long branded a demon, had plenty of experience. Yet she faintly sensed that this wasn’t quite demonic qi. It was something even more terrifying.
“Impossible… impossible!” The youth, who had expected to see her swallowed by darkness, collapsed to the ground, his eyes bulging as if they might burst from their sockets.
“You should have turned into a monster!” He shouted. “The black mist should have twisted you into a soulless, heartless abomination—hunted down and slain, stripped even of your humanity!”
But how could it be otherwise? Never in this world had anyone heard of such a thing…
“You—you are a monster now! Already a monster!”
Amid his frenzied roars, Yu Sangsang flicked her glowing sword, intrigued—and even a little greedy—as she drew the now‑empty pouch into her hand. She could already hear the pounding outside the courtyard, intruders trying to break in. At that moment, her mind jolted, spiritual energy surging. Instinctively, she followed its pull and looked skyward.
There, beneath the moonlight, stood a figure at the edge of the heavens.
Though the person was too high to see clearly, somehow Yu Sangsang knew—they were watching her from midair.
Anyone who could stand upon the clouds was surely a master of the highest order, far beyond her ability to resist. And outside the courtyard, others pressed in, their allegiance unknown.
She narrowed her eyes, wasted no words, and drove her little sword forward once more. This time it pierced through the protective glow, shattering Wei Li’s defense and cutting him down in a single stroke. His hysterical cries ended abruptly.
The youth seemed unable to believe he had fallen here, disbelief etched across his blood‑stained face. A gaping wound opened at his brow, blood streaming as the silver sword burst through the back of his skull, then swept across his neck. His head tumbled to the ground.
Yu Sangsang did not falter before the figures outside or the one above. With a gesture, she summoned a newly learned fire spell, and with a flick of her fingers, reduced the severed body to ashes. Her strength was still meager, and the cultivator above was of unknown origin.
Striking down her enemy first was the most important thing—lest the “benevolent master” from the story arrive and rescue this malicious youth.
Only when every trace of Wei Li was erased from the world did Yu Sangsang finally nod in satisfaction, giving herself a big thumbs‑up.
Clutching the now‑empty pouch, which still seemed like a fine treasure, she muttered softly, “A pity… all I gained was you.”
Killing the enemy and then looting the corpse was the proper way. But Wei Li was a named figure in the tale; she dared not leave his body behind just to search it, lest someone revive him. Still, recovering a pouch capable of containing such aggressive black mist was no small reward. Then she remembered the barrier artifact that had sealed off the courtyard, and her wariness deepened.
She lifted her gaze to the sky. The figure above had vanished. Almost instinctively, she spun around, silver sword blazing, and thrust behind her.
A single slender finger pressed lightly against the blade’s edge. It looked effortless, yet the sword could go no further.
At that moment, Yu Sangsang felt the spiritual energy of heaven and earth tighten around her, binding her in place so she could not move. Her eyes widened sharply as she looked at the man. Before her stood an extraordinarily handsome figure, his expression cold. His beauty was striking—eyes shaped with a hint of allure yet filled with icy indifference, a flowing robe of shimmering blue. His face seemed born for romance, charming and magnetic, but those frigid eyes chilled the heart.
A man of such captivating grace, yet as cold as frozen steel. He gazed at Yu Sangsang with detached calm, his presence overwhelming, his eyes lowered in judgment.
That scrutiny made her shiver—not out of fear that he might touch her, but because it felt as though her very life and death could be decided by a single thought of his.
Her heart tightened, then eased. This man was no friend; perhaps he was connected to the fallen Wei Li. If so, then killing Wei Li first had been the right choice. Whether she lived or died, she would never allow her enemy comfort.
“Wei Li is already dead.” Bound in place, her spiritual energy sealed, even her silver bracelet frozen so that no treasure could be summoned, she only smiled. Facing death, she would never bow to someone who bore her killing intent.
Slowly, she said, “But they say the one who strikes first is base. He came to kill me first, so I struck back. Nothing wrong with that.”
Wei Li had tried to kill her for Xian‑zhu’s sake, claiming it was for love. Touching sentiment, perhaps. But why should she be anyone’s stepping stone for love? Even if she fell today, she would never utter a single soft word. Her words hung in the air. After a long silence, the handsome man, still watching her with a trace of killing intent, finally spoke—his voice cold as ever. “Who is Wei Li?”
Yu Sangsang: …
Her turbulent emotions froze at that single sentence.
“You didn’t come down to avenge Wei Li?” she asked cautiously. That face was utterly expressionless, yet somehow she felt she understood the air. “Senior… you don’t know Wei Li?”
Then why descend from the heavens? Such a powerful aura, able to bind a mere low‑level cultivator—surely he wouldn’t be drawn by a scuffle between two Qi Refining novices.
“Came down to find you.” His alluring yet cold eyes rested on her face. After a pause, he raised his hand, a streak of blue light flashing—and released her.