After Faking Her Death and Escaping, the Junior Sister Fell to the Demonic Path - Chapter 1

The peerless genius of the Sword Sect has gone mad!

This was already well-known news throughout the Profound Heaven Realm.

“The rumor is that three days ago during the battle at Cliff Mountain, the Sect Leader of the Sword Sect died on the spot blocking a sword for her, and she went mad as a result.”

Someone sighed and raised a cup to toast their friend: “The battle that day was brutal, many Sword Sect cultivators died. The Demon Race produced a demonic star, a supreme genius whose cultivation speed was comparable to hers, which is why the fighting was so fierce. It’s said that several Sword Sect Elders fought with all their might just to drive him back into the Demon Territory beyond Cliff Mountain.”

“That Sect Leader was her elder sister, who raised her from childhood. Cultivators have faint family ties and are usually indifferent to life and death. How many like her, so deeply devoted, can one encounter? The youth is inexperienced and is naturally heartbroken. Falling seriously ill because of this is understandable. Now, she is only acting crazy from excessive grief. Once she thinks things through in a while, she’ll be fine.”

“Alas, it is a pity for the new Sect Leader of the Sword Sect. To encounter such a disaster barely half a year into his tenure is also lamentable.”

In the tavern down the mountain, people lamented.

A moment later, the wine was finished, and the people dispersed.

The Coffin Chamber

Meanwhile, the Sword Sect genius they claimed was insane was sitting quietly before a coffin.

The room was dim, the door shut tight, with only the Night-Luminous Pearls around the jade coffin providing a soft light.

Zhou Zhixue sat before the coffin, her eyes never leaving the person inside.

“Senior Sister, I’ve come to see you.”

Zhou Zhixue’s voice was gentle. Her body was stained with blood, but the faint glow of the Soul Gathering Lamp in her hand was protected extremely well, without a single spot of blood.

She gently placed the Soul Gathering Lamp down, then patiently and carefully wiped the blood from her cheeks. Only then did she reach out again to light three sticks of incense.

The faint smoke of the Soul Guiding Incense curled around the jade coffin, silently dissipating a few breaths later.

There was no soul to guide here, so the incense was useless.

The person in the coffin had an extremely beautiful appearance, with crescent-shaped eyebrows, lips like painted cinnabar, and skin that was delicate and white. If one ignored the overly pale complexion and the lack of rise and fall in her chest, one would think she was merely asleep.

“Senior Sister, I still haven’t found you today. Where has your soul gone?”

The person in the coffin was silent, unable to answer.

After all, this body had long lost its soul. If not for the jade coffin’s preservation effect, the body would have long turned into a pile of dry bones.

Zhou Zhixue leaned her head gently against the side of the jade coffin. Only when she closed her eyes did her overwhelming exhaustion momentarily surface.

“Senior Sister, I miss you so much…”

The next moment, the door was broken open. A figure stood silhouetted against the light, their voice suppressing anger:

“Zhou Zhixue, how long are you going to keep acting mad?!”

“It’s been three days! Three full days! Are you going to continue being so stubborn?!”

Xie Su’s voice reached Zhou Zhixue’s ears. She turned to look at her radiant and honorable Senior Brother.

The light streaming in through the doorway was so harsh it made her involuntarily close her tired eyes. She hadn’t rested for over thirty hours, by her count.

Xie Su strode in and hauled Zhou Zhixue, who was slumped like a pile of mud, up from the ground, his face full of anger. But when he sensed that all of Zhou Zhixue’s spiritual power had been exhausted, his voice suddenly faltered.

Zhou Zhixue slowly opened her eyes, looking at the complicated expression on Xie Su’s face, a hint of sarcasm curving her lips:

“Did Senior Brother come today to lecture your Junior Sister again?”

She broke free of Xie Su’s grip and stood up, calmly replying: “Senior Brother is busy with the duties of Sect Leader. You don’t need to trouble yourself over my minor affairs.”

She turned, presenting her back to Xie Su.

Zhou Zhixue looked at the burnt-out Soul Guiding Incense and the unmoving Soul Gathering Lamp from the past three days. She suppressed the grief in her eyes and calmly lit three more sticks of incense.

“Your Senior Sister has passed away. How long do you intend to keep her here?”

Xie Su’s voice was hoarse as he forced himself to look away from the jade coffin.

“You and I both know that cultivators who die at the hands of the Demon Race leave no residual soul for reincarnation. Why are you… so stubbornly clinging to this?”

Zhou Zhixue stood with her back to him and did not speak.

Seeing that she ignored him and did not get angry, Xie Su continued to speak to himself:

“I’ve already sent people to suppress the rumors outside, but you…”

He seemed to be pondering whether he should speak the rest of his thoughts. Before he could hesitate for a moment, Zhou Zhixue preempted him:

“Senior Brother wants to say that I shouldn’t leave the sect for the next few days, is that right?”

Xie Su remained silent, but his silence was all the answer needed.

Zhou Zhixue gave a sarcastic smile: “Senior Brother, don’t worry. I will certainly not defy the Sect Leader’s order.”

Just as Xie Su breathed a sigh of relief and was about to turn and leave, the latter half of Zhou Zhixue’s sentence rang out faintly:

“After today, I will no longer be a disciple of the Sword Sect. I also ask Senior Brother not to interfere with my actions again.”

With that, she ignored Xie Su’s angry reprimand and simply used her spiritual power to sweep him out of the room.

Her gaze never left the jade coffin.

How could she not know what the outside world was saying about her these days?

They all said she had gone mad, that she had become like a crazy dog for a dead person, and had even given up the Sword Sect’s cultivation for it.

But she didn’t care. If doing this could bring her Senior Sister back to life, she could act even crazier.

But she couldn’t. Senior Sister was dead. Died right before her eyes.

Senior Sister would never come back.

Only, only…

Zhou Zhixue clutched her heart and closed her eyes slightly, pressing herself close to the jade coffin again. Only now did her sorrow leak out a little.

Only, Senior Sister, why is this half-demon core still here…

Cliff Mountain

Cliff Mountain, the boundary between the immortal and demon worlds.

The residual spiritual energy and demonic energy were mixed and impure, so much so that even the least selective Black Cloud Vultures refused to linger here.

Occasionally, a cultivator passing by would shake their head and quickly leave the area.

No other reason: there were many demons wandering here. If one was alone and targeted by a demon, they would be lucky to escape without severe injury.

Until—

An unremarkable small pile of dirt on the edge of the cliff suddenly began to twitch slightly.

Then the movement grew larger, and with a bang, the dirt pile completely collapsed.

A red-furred fox poked its head out from the collapsed dirt pile, struggling to claw its way out of the soil.

The little fox jumped out of the pit, and as soon as its four paws touched the ground—

“Ah ptooie—”

“Ah ptooie! Ptooie! Ptooie! Ptooie!”

After spitting over a dozen times, Qin Qingyi finally cleared the mud from her mouth. She surveyed the eerie and grotesque surroundings and was quite pleased that no one had discovered her faked death and resurrection.

After a few cleansing spells, she shed her dirty, muddy fox image. Qin Qingyi transformed into her human form, put her hands on her hips, and laughed loudly: “Master, I bet you never, in all your calculations, figured out I’d use this trick, did you?”

The thought that her Master couldn’t even calculate her using a death escape was incredibly satisfying to Qin Qingyi:

“You wanted me to work myself to death in the Sect Leader position? You can dream on!”

“I’m going home now. Next time, I’ll never be a disciple of any damn immortal sect.”

“Immortal Fox Grand-Aunt, there is no smarter fox in this world than your granddaughter.” Qin Qingyi hummed a little tune and took a large step, ready to welcome her new life.

But before she had taken two steps, she suddenly stumbled and fell headlong, out of control.

“Hey, hey, hey—”

Bang—

After a muffled thud, a cloud of dust rose.

Qin Qingyi lay motionless on the ground, quiet as if she had truly died.

Ha.

Hehe.

Hehehe.

That’s right, it was the same small dirt pit she had worked so hard to climb out of. Because she wasn’t watching where she was going, she had stumbled in the exact same spot.

And coincidentally, she fell face-first, managing to land head-over-heels right back in.

Immortal Fox Grand-Aunt, she took back her previous statement. She was, in fact, the biggest idiot in the fox world.

Otherwise, why would she stumble back in right after climbing out?

No wonder her Master always looked at her with pity. She hadn’t understood before, but now she did.

That wasn’t the look for a proud disciple; it was a look of compassion for her little fool.

Qin Qingyi thought numbly.

But before she could continue to despise herself, a faintly glowing object at the bottom of the pit drew her attention away.

Out of the inherent extraordinary curiosity deep in a fox’s bones, Qin Qingyi couldn’t restrain her instincts and stretched out a claw to hook the glowing object at the bottom of the pit.

The embarrassment of just falling into the pit was instantly forgotten.

Who cares? No one comes to this godforsaken place anyway.

Not being seen means it didn’t happen.

Qin Qingyi didn’t care at all.

Claw after claw, she dug and dug, and finally—

The fox paw touched something hard.

A look of delight crossed Qin Qingyi’s face.

She grabbed it!

She extended a sharp claw and hooked the hard object, gripping it in her hand.

“Let me see what good treasure this is,” she muttered. She shifted her body, which was dangling upside down in the pit.

The dirty little fox, covered in dust, was filled with excitement as she opened her palm, anticipating a rare object left behind by a peer. But upon clearly seeing what was in her palm, Qin Qingyi immediately let out a loud, shrill fox shriek—

“Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Why is this thing still glowing!”

“Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it!”

The moment she recognized the object, Qin Qingyi was so terrified she immediately threw it out of her hand, then frantically scrambled to pick it back up.

She nervously held the object, trembling, and bit her fingertip.

“I’m done for, I’m done for, I’m done for!”

“This thing is still here, so won’t I be discovered?”

Qin Qingyi was so nervous that her fox tail popped out. As she spoke, the tail swung left and right, sweeping the surrounding dust away.

No other reason: this object was the jade pendant her Master had used to bind her Soul Lamp.

If the jade pendant was intact, the Soul Lamp would be lit, meaning the person was still alive. Even if they couldn’t pinpoint her location, they could determine her general state from the Soul Lamp.

If the jade pendant shattered, the Soul Lamp would go out, and the person would be considered dead.

Now that this thing was still glowing, if someone checked her Soul Lamp, wouldn’t her death escape plan be ruined?!

She’d be caught and dragged back to be the Sect Leader after all!

The thought of the dark days ahead as Sect Leader made Qin Qingyi’s face turn pale with worry. She absolutely refused to be that damned Sect Leader!

Qin Qingyi stared at the jade pendant with bitter resentment, biting her finger, unsure what to do.

This thing absolutely couldn’t be allowed to remain!

Qin Qingyi’s eyes were determined; she would never go back to be Sect Leader!

But no matter what method she used—slashing with a sword, burning with fire, smashing with a hammer—the jade pendant remained completely unharmed, without a single scratch.

Qin Qingyi, having failed to destroy the object despite using all her strength, completely collapsed.

“What should I do?”

She lay on the ground and rolled over a few times. Looking up at the sky, a wave of sadness and grievance suddenly overcame her:

“Master, you never said this thing was so hard to deal with!”

The little fox was literally driven into a self-pitying breakdown.

“I was wrong. I shouldn’t have left the fox den in the first place; if I hadn’t left the fox den, I wouldn’t have come to the Sword Sect; if I hadn’t come to the Sword Sect, I wouldn’t be forced to become the Sect Leader, and if I wasn’t the Sect Leader, I wouldn’t have to practice the sword and deal with political affairs every day…”

Amidst her rambling, a fox had gently broken.

“How exactly can I smash it?”

Qin Qingyi held the jade pendant above her head. The pendant was translucent, with spiritual energy flowing within it.

She stared at the jade pendant, her mind wandering.

This jade pendant was maintained by her own essence blood and spiritual power, so her attacks were ineffective against something of the same origin.

“Then, if there’s no spiritual power, will it break?”

She mumbled softly, unable to resist poking the stream of flowing spiritual power inside the jade pendant with her claw.

The little fox sighed and closed her eyes.

The next moment, the little fox’s eyes snapped open: “That’s right! Why didn’t I think of that sooner?!”

Excitement burst from her round fox eyes.

“If this thing can’t be dealt with using the Immortal Realm’s methods, wouldn’t it work to use the Demon Race’s methods!”

The little fox chuckled mischievously. Her surrounding aura instantly shifted. The pure and light spiritual power all over her body was gradually enveloped by a demonic aura that seeped from within.

In less than five breaths, the spiritual power on Qin Qingyi was completely gone, replaced by an eerie and ominous demonic aura.

Even her original pure white, simple Immortal Sect disciple robes were stained by the demonic aura, completely losing their former dignified and aloof appearance.

“This is more like it.”

Qin Qingyi stretched, feeling a long-lost familiarity with her demonic aura.

As if afraid she had become rusty, she used her demonic power to cast three spells. Seeing that the power was still there, Qin Qingyi nodded in satisfaction.

But she didn’t forget her main task. She pulled out the jade pendant once more, and Qin Qingyi smiled menacingly: “And now, it’s your turn!”

She glared fiercely at the jade pendant, pointed her fingertip directly at it, and slowly began to inject demonic power inward.

One breath.

Two breaths.

Three breaths.

Qin Qingyi held her breath, not daring to relax for a moment. As she watched the demonic power completely infiltrate the jade pendant, the originally crystal-clear jade pendant gradually turned a dull gray.

“Crack—”

It seemed to have finally succumbed to the pressure of the demonic power. The jade pendant slowly developed a fissure in Qin Qingyi’s palm. The fissure then gradually widened, finally shattering into pieces.

The moment the jade pendant shattered, Qin Qingyi clearly felt a thread that bound her heart and mind break. It must have been the Soul Lamp, no doubt.

From this point on, her last trace in the Immortal Realm had completely vanished.

“It was this simple all along.”

Qin Qingyi sighed, casually re-burying the shattered jade pendant at the bottom of the pit. Her Master made things too complicated with all this useless stuff. If she had told her it was this simple earlier, why did she go to so much trouble?

Feeling refreshed after finally regaining her freedom, Qin Qingyi looked out at the flourishing Immortal Realm in the distance and raised an eyebrow: “Goodbye, everyone. From now on, the mountains are high and the roads are far—”

The demonic power wrapped around her, lifting her into the air, her voice thrown far behind her.

“Never to meet again!”