She slowly regained consciousness… or maybe it wasn’t quite consciousness… because she couldn’t feel her hands, her feet, or any part of her body as if they didn’t exist. The pain from the heavenly lightning strike left no trace, only the heart-wrenching emotional pain lingered in her heart.
She was left with only her soul.
Driven by instinct, she walked step by step along the only small path ahead. With each step, every day and every moment of her over two hundred years in the world flashed uncontrollably in her mind.
The joyful cries she heard at birth, the loving yet weary face of her mother when she first opened her eyes.
At three or four years old, she met the little boy next door for the first time, who was the same age as her, and accepted a big, round apple from his hand, which was very sweet.
At seven, her anxious parents pushed her in front of the immortal elder, placed her hand on the spirit-testing stone, and watched as the dull stone emitted a dazzling light. The surrounding exclamations, and her mother’s ecstatic yet bittersweet gaze.
Struggling up the path to immortality, drenched in sweat, following the silhouette not much taller than herself, holding her hand unwaveringly.
Her first kowtow in front of Master Qu Ting, the joy of smoothly entering the Qi Refining stage.
Training down the mountain with that person, returning home for the first time, seeing her aged parents whose lives were nearing their end.
Her first kill, her first encounter with a fortuitous event, her first friendship made outside, and the death of that friend.
And… the first encounter with that girl during the battle with the demonic path.
The beginning of all calamities.
As she experienced more, her horizons broadened, her cultivation level gradually increased, and the once inseparable companions began to have times when they acted separately.
The occasional absent-mindedness when they met again, the rumors from the outside, his cold and perfunctory explanations.
The joy and relief before marriage, the final madness and despair.
Everything flashed before her eyes, the once vivid memories in her heart slowly faded, and the unbearable sadness began to fade like the pain from the lightning tribulation.
She knew in her heart what was happening, and she walked forward step by step, neither surprised nor trying to resist, letting the past be left behind.
After walking for what seemed like a decade, she finally reached the end.
There, unsurprisingly, was a stone bed, and in the haze, someone sat cross-legged on it.
In the dim white light, that person gently raised their eyes, looking at her with an emotionless gaze.
Although she couldn’t see the face clearly, she knew there was no extra emotion on that person’s face, just looking at her with a faint gaze, as if looking at the most ordinary flower or grass in the world.
She approached, finally seeing that person’s face, then chuckled lightly, closed her eyes, and turned into a point of starlight, like a drop of water merging into the ocean, entering that person’s soul platform…
*
As the last wisp of soul returned, the spiritual energy around her surged for a moment.
Her fingers resting on her knees slightly curled, she held her mind steady and looked inward, observing the meridians running through her limbs and the spiritual foundation in her dantian. The spiritual energy, shining like gold, boiled for a long time before finally settling into silence.
Still not enough.
A tiny miss, a thousand miles off.
She thought to herself, with a rare hint of regret, but it was a shallow regret, like a fish’s breath in a deep pool, not even causing a ripple on the water’s surface before dissipating.
It seemed as if dozens of people were chattering noisily in her ears, but it didn’t affect her calm in the slightest. The light on her forehead flickered, finally spreading into a beautiful pattern covering her forehead, like intertwining vines, protecting her upper dantian, and the noise in her ears abruptly stopped.
As the pattern slowly faded into her forehead, her eyelashes trembled for a long time before she finally opened her eyes slowly.
A deep blue light flickered in her eyes, her soul had rotated through countless cycles of time, and her vision was momentarily uncontrollable. In an instant, the mountains and rivers, clouds and seas of thousands of miles, the fleeting years of thousands of years all reflected in her eyes, yet seemed so small and insignificant.
Wherever this gaze passed, it spanned thousands of miles, even the yet-to-be-stabilized divine soul scattered and projected into the unknown with this gaze.
And wherever this emotionless gaze reached, anyone with a certain level of cultivation instinctively felt a moment of horror, their spiritual energy surging around them, instinctively looking up at that pillar reaching the heavens.
That was…
— Buzhou Mountain.
*
Three men and one woman, four young people in total, walked in the mountains, their expressions a mix of seriousness and caution.
They wore almost identical white robes, each looking mostly in their early twenties, the oldest around thirty, and the youngest no more than seventeen or eighteen.
The thick fog obscured the sun, leaving only a vague golden-red shadow amidst the mist-covered mountains.
In the fog, lush greenery could be vaguely seen, dense and layered, rising from the ground, vines intertwining tightly around tree trunks, presenting a somewhat menacing posture. The green trees remained unmoved, showing no signs of weakness, their canopy seemingly capable of piercing the sky.
In such wilderness, the vegetation was bursting with an almost eerie vitality, yet it was so quiet that even a pin drop could be heard, with not a single bird’s chirp to be found, as if some invisible yet domineering force had silenced all living creatures, making them tremble in fear, not daring to make a sound.
In this atmosphere, the youngest boy began to find it increasingly difficult to breathe, unable to resist loosening his grip on his sword, forming a hand seal to try again.
“It’s useless,” the young man beside him calmly advised, “This is the Divine Realm’s Buzhou Mountain. Ancestor Yan Hang said that the spiritual energy here is abundant, and only those at the Spirit Light stage or above can barely mobilize it. You and I are nobodies in the Divine Realm, why waste the effort?”
Though the two walked side by side, their demeanor was not intimate, maintaining at least a foot’s distance on the narrow mountain path, indicating their relationship was not harmonious.
Sure enough, the young boy spat in frustration, not only ignoring the advice but quickening his pace, gritting his teeth to continue.
As the young man had said, the moment he formed the hand seal, the dense spiritual energy, rather than being abundant, cut into his dantian like a sharp blade, not only unusable but almost harming his spiritual foundation, scaring the boy into hurriedly exhaling deeply, expelling the unusable spiritual energy along with a mouthful of blood.
The boy’s face flushed red, knowing he was reckless, yet stubbornly refusing to admit it, muttering, “If it weren’t for your distracted mind, we wouldn’t have triggered the formation and lost contact with the ancestor… Now, in this place, even if the ancestor has great abilities, it would be difficult to find us. Who knows when that will be, we might be crushed by the spiritual pressure before then… Coming to the upper realm and failing on the first day, we’d be laughed at…”
A girl with a pink-purple ribbon in her hair frowned tightly, “Kuang Shidi, you’re being unreasonable. Yunqing kindly reminded you, and instead of appreciating it, you blame him?”
Kuang Yuming, the youngest, had a sharp tongue, “His kindness is something most people can’t handle. Saving people casually and ending up saving a little demon girl from the demonic realm, causing…”
“Enough!” Lin Jin, the eldest and most cultivated, was exhausted and had to intervene, “It’s all in the past, let’s not bring it up again.”
The girl sneaked a glance at Feng Yunqing’s still expressionless face, coughed lightly, and whispered, “That’s right, people should look forward. Besides, as cultivators, we should be able to let go. She failed her tribulation because of her narrow heart, how can she blame others…”
Kuang Yuming felt a chill at her words, exclaiming, “Is that even human talk?!”
Lin Jin frowned, “Yuming, Shen Shimei is your senior sister, you mustn’t be so rude!”
Seeing Shen Ying’s smug expression and the senior brother seemingly blaming him for bringing up old matters, while the center of the topic, Feng Yunqing, remained silent, Kuang Yuming felt even more disheartened.
The harmonious scenes with his senior sister were still vivid in his mind, yet in just a few years, it seemed to have vanished like smoke.
All because Feng Yunqing had high cultivation and limitless prospects?
His senior sister died, and the demon girl didn’t fare well either, but why could Feng Yunqing remain unscathed, continuing as the favored one?
The more Kuang Yuming thought about it, the angrier he became, refusing to speak further with his fellow disciples.
Feng Yunqing clearly heard the earlier argument but didn’t bother to explain, only staring ahead, as if something was faintly tugging at his heartstrings. The jade pendant hanging around his neck glowed with a purple-black light, keeping him unsettled.
What exactly is this…
As they continued forward, a mountain stream appeared before them, winding across the path.
With no other choice and not daring to traverse the dense and eerie tree trunks, they stepped into the stream, letting their shoes and socks soak through.
The stream flowed down the mountain’s contours, and as they crossed, the icy water made them shiver. In the lower realm, they were all outstanding cultivators, otherwise, they wouldn’t have been chosen by the upper realm’s venerables.
Walking on water and riding the wind were common for them, their robes always spotless, and such a sorry state was a distant memory.
Feng Yunqing, with a penchant for cleanliness, slightly frowned at the sticky, damp sensation underfoot.
At that moment, Kuang Yuming frowned, setting aside his grievances, “Do you feel the water getting warmer?”
The others quickly noticed the anomaly.
In just a few words, the water flowing over their feet transitioned from “slightly warm” to “comfortably warm,” like stepping into a hot spring.
Everyone’s steps abruptly halted.
Not far ahead in the stream, there was clearly someone lying there!
The figure was slender, lying on the bank, half submerged in the stream, with long hair soaking in the water, face turned away, making it impossible to see from their angle.
A garment that seemed like silk yet not, like satin yet not, wrapped around the person, and despite the stream’s flow, it strangely showed no signs of being soaked, with blue electric light and golden flashes occasionally flickering along the sleeves and hem.
It was a woman.
In the Divine Realm’s most spiritually abundant and mysterious Buzhou Immortal Mountain, where not even birds or insects were seen, a woman suddenly appeared lying in the stream.
Even a fool could sense that this person’s appearance was extraordinary and illogical.
But Kuang Yuming was stunned by the scene, instinctively thinking someone was drowning, and without a second thought, moved to save her.
Feng Yunqing instinctively held him back, “Wait!”
The light on the woman’s body gradually intensified, making her appear somewhat illusory, like a phantom lying in the stream rather than a real person.
But… but!
Feng Yunqing’s expression tightened—perhaps the earlier argument subconsciously hinted at him, the woman’s face turned away, revealing only a slender neck and back, yet in his eyes, there was an indescribable familiarity.
The others were uncertain and dared not approach, but it was Feng Yunqing, who had stopped Kuang Yuming, who walked straight ahead.
Shen Ying was startled, and before she could stop him, Feng Yunqing had already halted.
—The woman’s arm moved slightly, then slowly lifted her face from the stream.