After Infusing Love Poison to the Cold Sword Sovereign - Chapter 1

Year 8 of the New Calendar, late autumn.

It was a day of perfect sunlight. After a week of continuous autumn rain, the skies had finally cleared, offering crisp and pleasant weather. The Hundred Merchants Street, which had been closed for days, was bustling once more.

This was a small market where independent vendors set up their stalls, located at the border between the cultivation world and the mortal realm. Normally, cultivators and mortals could not interact, but this place was the sole exception.

Cultivators sold elixirs for longevity and vitality, while mortals peddled their worldly crafts, a mutually beneficial exchange.

“Big sister, can we really afford the tonic Mother needs…?”

Amid the bustling crowd, a frail little girl with braided pigtails timidly tugged at the sleeve of the woman beside her, her face full of trepidation.

“We can,” the taller woman replied.

Pressed within the throng, she caught a few disdainful glances from the corners of her eyes. Without a word, she subtly shifted to block the girl’s view and said calmly, “Things from the cultivation world are cheap. We can barter for them, no need to worry.”

The woman’s name was Wu Ruo. Delicate in appearance, a thin white veil covered her petite face, revealing only a pair of almond-shaped black eyes that seemed unnaturally large and unsettling. Her frame was also unusually gaunt.

At first glance, she might have been mistaken for a reclusive master among cultivators. But upon closer inspection, one would conclude she was merely a mortal and a dirt-poor one at that.

“Tch… two country bumpkins from the mortal realm, dressed in rags. Selling both of you wouldn’t even fetch enough to buy a single low-grade tonic from my stall!”

The nearest vendor, a cultivator, spat in disdain, though his eyes involuntarily followed the woman. He blinked, and in that moment, her figure vanished, slipping away to who-knows-where.

“Big sister, I’m tired…” The little girl, dragged along by Wu Ruo for quite some distance, finally succumbed to exhaustion. Worry for her bedridden mother welled up, and tears spilled from her eyes. “Their things are all so expensive… what do we do…?”

“Don’t be afraid. Big sister has a way.”

Wu Ruo held the girl’s hand with one hand while hesitantly reaching into her tattered pocket with the other. Unbeknownst to others, that seemingly shabby pouch concealed a hidden marvel.

It was her Qiankun space, holding the spiritual treasures she had collected over half a lifetime. A single item from it could be bartered for the finest tonic available.

But… this space still bore the mark of another. If she recklessly retrieved anything, it would inevitably alert that person’s divine sense.

And in that person’s eyes, she had already been pierced through the heart, her Dao bones carved out, and her body devoured by the backlash of the mother gu poison.

The woman she had been in her past life had been “dead” for eight long years.

And this, this was her own fault, undeserving of pity.

Her slender fingers paused over a shard of spirit crystal, a common currency in the cultivation world that bore no connection to divine sense. If she took this, she might remain undetected.

As she pondered, the little girl tugged at her sleeve again. Though poor, the child was sensible for her age, yet still easily distracted by novelties. “Big sister, there’s an uncle up ahead telling stories at his stall. Can we go listen? Please?”

Wu Ruo patted the girl’s head and glanced at the crowd gathered in the distance. She had no desire to join the commotion.

But the girl was too well-behaved. Even when she saw trinkets she liked, she never fussed or made a scene. She would glance at them and obediently walk away, never making any unreasonable demands. Well then, let her have this small indulgence…

The storytelling stall was surrounded by three layers of onlookers inside and out, all idlers or cultivators with nothing better to do. Two inconspicuous figures huddled in a corner, Wu Ruo strained to lift the little girl in her arms so the child could peek at the scene inside.

With a sharp rap of the storyteller’s wooden gavel, the long-bearded man smoothed his whiskers and began speaking at a leisurely pace.

“Today’s tale concerns none other than the affairs of the heart involving the world’s greatest master, the Venerable Immortal Luo Qingyi of the Zhiyuan Immortal Sect!”

Luo Qingyi, the savior who quelled the great upheaval in the cultivation world eight years ago. The sole successor in millennia to master the Path of Severed Emotions, she wielded a sword capable of cleaving heaven and earth. With her resolute techniques that pierced through all realms, she single-handedly turned the tide when the Heavenly Dao itself seemed on the verge of collapse, becoming the heroine who saved the cultivation world.

Naturally, her story became endlessly fascinating, never growing stale no matter how often retold.

The crowd erupted in cheers, applause, and shouts of approval. Only the woman in the corner turned deathly pale, her slender arms trembling imperceptibly.

Wu Ruo wanted to leave, but seeing the sparkling eyes of the girl in her arms, she could only sigh quietly.

“The world knows the Venerable Luo cultivated the Path of Severed Emotions, where a single lapse into emotion would undo all her achievements.

But did you know, honored audience, that the Venerable once disappeared for a time? When she returned to her sect, her cultivation was completely lost, no different from a mortal!”

“What?”

“Could her Path of Severed Emotions have been broken?”

Seeing the stunned reactions, the storyteller smiled with satisfaction.

The gavel struck the table again with emphasis as he continued, “Exactly so! Rumor has it that during her disappearance, the Venerable accidentally fell into a den of iniquity, where a wicked demonic cultivator specializing in gu sorcery forcibly broke her dao. She was inflicted with the most sinister and cruel love-poison gu, compelling her into marriage!”

“What?! Damnable gu sorcerer!”

“Where is she now? How dare she lay hands on our beloved Venerable Luo! I’ll kill her myself!”

“Now, now, don’t be hasty.” The storyteller quickly waved his hands to calm the agitated crowd. “No need for anyone to act, the Venerable took matters into her own hands. They say she endured the gu’s backlash, shattered her cultivation anew, reforged her sword bones, and ultimately ran that gu sorceress through the heart with her blade proving her severed emotions aligned with the Heavenly Dao!”

“Bravo!!”

“Run through the heart!!”

“Such a scheming villain, the Venerable struck well indeed!!”

Nearly every spectator clapped and cheered, the thunderous applause creating a spectacular scene.

Only Wu Ruo bit her lip until it turned white, her face ashen and seemingly on the verge of collapse. Her long lashes fluttered like drowning butterflies before stilling completely.

Her hands were cold. So was her heart.

The hideous, terrifying wound over her heart throbbed as if freshly torn, just like eight years ago when she faced that sword sovereign’s icy, emotionless gaze. The physical pain paled in comparison to the agony in her heart.

Wicked demonic cultivator.

This wasn’t the first time she’d been spat upon with such words. The first time she heard them, righteous indignation filled her. After hearing them repeatedly, a helpless grief took root until she became numb to them.

Besides, the love gu in the other’s body had indeed been placed by her own hands. She dared to take responsibility, she wasn’t innocent.

But when she unsealed that long-crafted, multicolored gu vessel, she was just a lovestruck girl, foolishly yearning for romance, only to ultimately commit an irreparable mistake.

“Sister, are Gu cultivators really that bad? But I’ve heard there are kind Gu cultivator sisters who use healing Gu to treat us poor folks…”

Before Wu Ruo could answer the little girl’s question, an elderly man beside them frowned and spoke sternly, as if lecturing.

“How have you been teaching your little sister? Miao Gu are utterly wicked things! That Gu cultivator used despicable means to make the immortal master fall in love, ruining her path and nearly harming the entire realm!”

A young man standing straight next to the old man spat out angrily, “If I were the immortal master, I’d have her torn limb from limb and her bones ground to ashes to vent my fury!”

“But in the books I’ve read, they also have.”

The little girl’s rebuttal was cut short as the woman gently set her down, softly squeezing her palm and lowering her eyes. “Mm… Gu cultivators are all bad people, simply reaping what they sow.”

She also concealed a faint red mark on the inside of her wrist. This was the brand left when a Gu cultivator cast spells, its color varying with the practitioner’s cultivation level.

A mark this faintly red could only belong to a beginner or someone whose cultivation had been completely destroyed, their Dao bones shattered, never to practice again.

“Oh.” The little girl said no more, shaking Wu Ruo’s hand. “Sister, this story is so scary. Let’s go. Maybe we can find cheaper elixirs if we look around more.”

Wu Ruo knew the child wasn’t truly frightened but had noticed her low spirits and was wisely suggesting they leave.

Gratefully holding the little girl’s hand, she was about to leave when distant shouts erupted from the crowd, collisions, gasps, and muttered curses no one dared voice aloud.

Not far off, a gaudy carriage was barreling recklessly through the street. Made of premium Void Crystal, its corners adorned with jade tassels, it screeched to a halt just a foot from the stage.

The crowd instinctively parted, leaving Wu Ruo jostled in the middle. She looked up and froze.

A girl in a fiery red miniskirt leapt energetically from the carriage, hands on hips, scolding the storyteller. “What nonsense is this charlatan spouting? Slandering my shijie’s story and tarnishing my Zhiyuan Immortal Sect’s name! Come with me to the disciplinary hall, you’ll pay for this!”

Jiang Qingbei?

Wu Ruo’s eyes widened before she quickly adjusted her veil, bowing her head to hide in the throng.

This was Luo Qingyi’s shimei, the first cultivator to belittle her when she’d happily followed her Dao companion back to the sect, and the only one who, after Luo Qingyi ran her through with a sword, had tossed her a bottle of healing pills amid the usual humiliation.

“Wronged, young mistress! I’m only spreading tales of Immortal Master Luo’s beauty and achievements.”

Jiang Qingbei huffed angrily, flicking her sleeve from afar. A gust of wind instantly whipped up, slapping the storyteller’s mouth.

“Watch your tongue! My shijie is pure as ice, transcendent and flawless from start to finish. The vile wretch you speak of trying to taint her is utter nonsense!”

Wu Ruo hid in the crowd, quietly drifting away from the storm.

Yes, flawless.

She was the stain Luo Qingyi refused to acknowledge, the one that should be erased.

“I was wrong, dear lady! Ouch, great lady! Agh…” The storyteller scrambled up from the ground and fled in a flurry of dust.

Jiang Qingbei, clad in fiery red robes, flicked her high ponytail with a heroic flourish. “Did you all hear that? That man was nothing but a lying fraud! From now on, if anyone dares spread rumors about my senior sister again, I’ll beat them one by one!”

She leaped onto the roof of the carriage, standing tall as she arrogantly surveyed the crowd below. Her sharp gaze swept across every face, though a faint frown flickered almost imperceptibly across her brow.

“Witch!” With another dramatic sweep of her wide sleeves, a sharp gust of energy forced the crowd to part. Her eyes locked onto two women standing in the corner.

One was tall, her delicate features veiled behind a soft white gauze, while the shorter one wore her hair in braids. Both were dressed in neat but plain clothing, their hems faded from repeated washing.

Jiang Qingbei’s breath hitched, a surge of emotion churning inside her as if struck by a sudden thought. Her expression darkened, her tone shifting abruptly into one of sharp accusation. “You look up at me!”

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