CH 1

Out of thin air he condensed water to form a mirror, which showed the reflection of a teen about 17 or 18 years old, dressed all in white with a tall and upright stature. He had upward slanting brows, eyes that shone like stars, slightly thin lips, and a forehead that expressed youthful vigor, which together created a visage of true perfection.

If anyone else had died and found themselves reborn as a beautiful young man, they might think it previously had all been just a dream, and awaken with a smile. Su Mujin, however, had a slightly melancholy expression. 

There was some good news and some bad.

The good news was he had been reborn. No longer would he be a human shaped lingyao subject to torment.

But perhaps the previous owner of his current shell had experienced an even more miserable life?

Su Mujin recalled his previous incarnation’s life. It was truly a spectacle too horrible to endure. 

He was adopted by a kind-hearted family after his parents abandoned him as a newborn. The year of his 10th birthday, there was a famine. His foster parents didn’t even have enough to feed their own children, so how could they manage to help him? So as not to burden his foster family, one night he bowed thrice at the gate to pay his respects, then quietly departed . . .

After leaving, he begged to survive until he turned 13. One day Gu Yunxi, the daughter of Taixu Sect’s sect leader, passed by. She saw that his aptitude for cultivating his spirit roots was promising, and brought him back with her to the sect. Come to speak of it, Gu Yunxi is not the kind of person who willingly helps others. In fact, she’s extremely cold blooded. Su Mujin had no inkling of the real reason why she took him in and cared for him.

Su Mujin always repaid the kindness extended to him, so his previous incarnation always treated Gu Yunxi as though she was his blood relative, and had given her the respect he would have given an elder sister. If he encountered any precious lingyao, he would immediately give them to her. Later, when Gu Yunxi suffered a serious injury and was at death’s door, he revealed his phoenix heritage without hesitation, and gave some of his blood to heal her. Gu Yunxi emphatically promised never to speak a word of it to another soul.

Su Mujin never expected her to collude with dashixiong Mo Ran to use him as a human shaped lingyao, and imprison him for three hundred years. Strangely, his memory prior to being imprisoned was fragmented. Had such a long imprisonment made him forgetful?

It was precisely during this time of imprisonment that he got to know the previous owner of his current shell — Gu Feng.

Had they not suffered imprisonment together for three hundred years, he would never have known that the sect leader had a son. Although Gu Feng was Gu Yunxi’s younger half-brother, she treated him with contempt. Su Mujin, at most, had his blood taken from time to time, but as for Gu Feng . . .

Gu Yunxi originally tortured Gu Feng in a myriad of ways, but felt it wasn’t nearly enough. Consequently, she announced a reward — so long as anyone could think up a new torture method, they would be rewarded with spirit stones in accordance with the level of cruelty. These punishments were inflicted one by one on Gu Feng’s body. In order to guarantee that Gu Feng remained alive to be tortured, Gu Yunxi grabbed a bunch of heavenly treasures to prolong his life.

Why would a person deal so cruelly with their own flesh and blood? Su Mujin was uncertain as to the reason. No, now it is he that should be called Gu Feng. His former incarnation had asked the original owner of this shell about it, and was told that his elder sister had no empathy for him, and that the situation was inevitable. 

Gu Feng’s face was expressionless as he put away the water mirror. He contemplated — this body’s current age is 17 years old. His rebirth placed him in the body of ‘Gu Feng.’

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This body was of the exceedingly inferior five spiritual roots type — he was 17 years old, but had only reached the peak of qi refining stage of cultivation. Gu Yunxi had already reached the peak of the foundation building stage at age 15. 

Gu Feng: “. . .”

Had the heavens purposely set him up to fail? This aptitude was worthless compared to those of Gu Yunxi and Mo Ran. Even compared to his previous incarnation, this shell fell far short.

Wait a second — recalling his previous shell, Gu Feng suddenly had a thought — he wasn’t reborn in his own body, so did his previous incarnation’s shell, Su Mujin, still exist? Given the age of his shell, he could extrapolate the current location of Su Mujin. At this time in his previous life, he should have just entered Taixu Sect. It was nearly time for that fateful event to occur.

Recalling that event, it left a shadow his psyche that persisted even until this moment. It was practically the darkest day of his life, if you ignored his later days of imprisonment. 

Su Mujin had just entered Taixu Sect, but still wore the tattered clothing from when he was a beggar. The other disciples were haughty, constantly stared at him in derision, and pushed him out of their way. But that was nothing. He wasn’t so weak as to be unable to withstand people rolling their eyes at him.

He would never forget the day of the incident. It was the third day since Su Mujin had arrived at Taixu Sect, where the disciples for the most part abstained from eating, so naturally there is no dining hall. He hadn’t eaten in days and his hunger was overwhelming. He was only able to find a few blades of grass to pluck and eat. He had no idea that the grass was a lingyao.

As it turned out, some of the spoiled brats who despised him happened to see. They dragged Su Mujin to a deserted location with an icy pond and beat him. He thought they had finished with their abuse, and didn’t anticipate they would suddenly throw him in the pond. At that time, he didn’t know how to swim. Fortunately, the pond was not too deep — the water only reached up to his chest — but it was extremely cold, and each time he started to climb up onto the bank, they pushed him back in. Who knows how long this continued before he had completely frozen through and his skin had turned purple.

Su Mujin was freezing to death, and had to pretend he was unable to stand up any longer. Only by playing dead he was able to deceive those people. They saw that he was no longer breathing, and without the slightest hesitation, they turned around and left him there. If he hadn’t used gongfu to temporarily stop his breath, it seemed he really would have died. 

Even so, the severe cold left Su Mujin with an invisible chronic illness. For a long time afterwards, he didn’t dare approach pools or puddles. While practicing cultivation, he often thought back to that time and his mind became uneasy. That event could be said to be responsible for causing repeated blocks in his cultivation progress.

Thinking of all this, Gu Feng burned with impatience and couldn’t sit still. What could he do if he accidentally arrived too late? Out of the question! In this second chance at life, he will absolutely not let this sort of thing reoccur.

Based on his memory, Gu Feng came to a place not far from the cold pond, but before he could get close, he heard the unpleasant noise of vulgar insults mixed with the sound of violence.

“Little Beggar, Gu shijiewent out of her way to bring you back, but you’re undeserving of her kindness!” 

“You even dared to steal and eat some lingyao, you really are a disgusting thing. . .”

Gu Feng felt all the blood in his body instantly turn to ice, and unconsciously clenched the corner of his robe. Had he arrived too late?

“Xiao Cheng shixiong, hello!”

The youths who were beating up Su Mujin suddenly heard a nearby voice call out and they instantly jumped with fright. It should be known that Xiao Chen shixiong was the most feared representative of the Law Enforcement Hall, not because his cultivation was high, but rather because he was impartial and incorruptible. If he were to see this situation, he would have to discipline them. The youths didn’t even take another glance at Su Mujin, who was lying on the ground, and quickly ran away. 

After making sure the youths would not return, Gu Feng cautiously came out of hiding. Fortunately they hadn’t thrown Su Mujin into the pond yet; he made it just in time. Despite this, Gu Feng was still incredibly angry. Among those youths, one was in the foundation building period while the rest were at the summit of refining qi, so he was currently unable to deal with them in his state.

In this second chance at life, Gu Feng didn’t expect for his first encounter to make him feel so useless. He didn’t even have the ability to teach those people a lesson. He could feel his breath catch in his throat — the frustration was difficult to bear!

Taking a deep breath, he slowly headed for Su Mujin, who was huddled on the ground with his head lowered. His ragged clothing was covered in footprints and blood, and his hair was also bloodstained; he was a complete mess, filthy from head to toe.

Gu Feng’s mood at this moment was extremely complex — expressions of humiliation, resentment and self mockery all flashed across his face, before finally fixing an expression of faint concern. He sighed, bent down and lightly tapped Su Mujin’s back, gently asking: “ Are you okay? Can you still walk?” 

Su Mujin shrank back, somewhat afraid, but slowly lifted his head. In front of him stood a man dressed in white robes. His long hair was tied up simply, and he was handsome.

“It’s nothing. Thank you for just now.” Su Mujin spoke and struggled to stand up. When he limped away, it was clear his joints were dislocated.

Gu Feng caught up to him: “Your hip seems dislocated, why don’t I carry you on my back?”

“No need, I can walk.” Su Mujin was somewhat surprised, his face was bruised and he had a bloody nose — the former combined with the later resulted in a comical expression. 

However, Gu Feng did not laugh. He just picked Su Mujin up, and cradled him in his arms. At first, Su Mujin was startled and grabbed his sleeve, but he quickly recovered and started to struggle with all his might.

Gu Feng leaned down his head and softly said: “Don’t be afraid, I’m taking you back to treat your injury. For now, nobody will be able to hurt you.”

Su Mujin curled up in his arms, reluctant to trust him, but after a long time he whispered: “I’m covered in dirt, your clothes will be ruined, I . . . I can walk on my own.”

Gu Feng was silent for a moment. How had he not known what a considerate person he previously was? This boy was obviously unused to physical contact, and didn’t want to be carried, so he went to the effort to make up a dignified excuse. 

Gu Feng lightly kneaded Su Mujin’s hip and heard a cry of pain. With exasperation, he replied: “You can walk on your own? Yeah, right! Don’t make a fuss. If my clothes get dirty, I’ll just wash them, it’s not a big deal.”

Su Mujin: “. . .”

Gu Feng carried Su Mujin the entire way back to his courtyard, then set him down gently.

“Stay here and don’t move, I’ll go get some water.” 

His shell’s current cultivation was too low and Gu Feng couldn’t use his normal methods to handle things, so he had to employ the most primitive means to carry water.

Gu Feng brought back a basin of water. Looking at Su Mujin, who was completely filthy from head to toe, he didn’t know where to start.

“Come closer, I’ll wash your hair!” He sat on the bedside, set the basin on his thigh, and motioned to Su Mujin.

Su Mujin sat motionless, then slowly shifted over and lowered his head, apparently still compliant. 

His head was covered in lumps from the beating. Gu Feng carefully cleaned his hair. After he’d finished, the water had turned black, so he had to dump it out and refill the basin in order to continue.

Su Mujin found it a little embarrassing, but fortunately his face was so bruised and swollen that it perfectly concealed his embarrassment.

“Don’t . . . I’ll wash myself.”

Translator’s Notes: 

On sect names: I’ve left Taixu Sect untranslated, since it’s a bit of an awkward name in English, but where reasonable, I’ll translate the sect names as some of them sound pretty cool, and readers would have recognized their literal meanings in the original text. If I can figure out a decent translation for Taixu, I’ll add it in later on.

On cultivation stages: if you’ve never read xianxia novels, this may be new to you, but in this novel the author doesn’t get too deep into the stages, so I won’t bother to write out a whole schema. For now, it’s enough to know that the qi refining stage is the very beginning of a cultivator’s career, and is nothing to brag about. Only once you advance to building your foundation can you start to actually do cool stuff. There are a ton more stages, but they really don’t matter at this point. The author has a note in an upcoming chapter about cultivation levels and lifespans that I’ll make sure to translate.