Guide to the Rebirth of the Evil Woman in the Immortal Realm - Chapter 2

Those with a furnace-cauldron constitution are exceptionally beautiful and ideal for harvesting and dual cultivation, a rarity in this world. Almost without exception, once these human cauldrons have been drained of their value, they are cast aside like worn-out shoes, meeting tragic ends.

Shen Fuxin had schemed and striven for half her life, using herself as a stepping stone to help her family cling to Zhao Lanying, that lofty branch. Yet, it was only then that she learned she wasn’t truly considered a living person.

In the eyes of her family, she was merely a tool to facilitate their social climbing.

Although they had been bound by a contract for three years, including the day of the ceremony, Zhao Lanying had never once stayed in her room, nor had he ever laid a finger on her. But being kept like a caged bird within an immortal manor was not the fate Shen Fuxin desired. She hated the heavens, the earth, and everything her eyes could see. She hated Zhao Lanying even more, and the adoptive father who had pushed her before Zhao Lanying since childhood.

But most of all, she hated herself.

Standing inside the dimly lit room, Shen Fuxin once again cast her gaze upon the long sword that had accompanied her for three hundred years.

If only she had the strength to draw the sword, the power to protect herself, the might to crush heaven and earth into mud with a single gesture.

Perhaps everything would have been different.

As she pondered this, the youth squatting outside the door suddenly let out a pained cry, as if someone had kicked him. Annoyed and irritable, she was about to tell everyone outside to get lost when, in the next moment, a brilliant, starry river of sword light illuminated her pale eyes. Before the sound of shattering even reached her ears, Shen Fuxin saw the ancient wooden door before her burst into hundreds of fragments.

In an instant, the vibrant spring scenery from the mountains flooded into the gloomy little room.

Shen Fuxin lifted her eyelids to assess the situation outside. The youth, kicked face-first into the mud and struggling to rise, looked familiar, though she had never bothered to remember his name. The other, a sword immortal holding her blade with an air of arrogant pride, was also someone Shen Fuxin recognized, an acquaintance she had cursed in her heart a thousand times in her past life.

Seeing Shen Fuxin standing there unharmed, the sword immortal, her long hair tied high and adorned with a red flower in her temple, sneered coldly and sheathed her sword. She possessed a face so strikingly beautiful it bordered on arrogance jet-black hair, crimson robes, and the sword of a crown prince. This was none other than Yu Zhanxu, the mortal crown prince who had ascended to the immortal realm centuries ago.

His Highness the Crown Prince was known for his grand entourage and extravagant ways. After ascending to the immortal realm, he was taken under the wing of the Lord of Xuanyuan Terrace as a closed-door disciple, his future limitless. If Zhao Lanying held the top spot among the most prominent figures in the immortal world, then Yu Zhanxu undoubtedly held the second.

Xuanyuan Terrace and the Green Emperor’s Immortal Mountain stood worlds apart, one in the south and the other in the north. By all accounts, Zhao Lanying and Yu Zhanxu should have had no connection. Yet, between them stood Yu Zhanxu’s master, the Lord of Xuanyuan Terrace.

The Lord had wandered off to travel the world, entrusting her only disciple to her young friend Zhao Lanying at the foot of the mountain, instructing her to temper Yu Zhanxu’s unruly nature. Though their ages were not far apart, Zhao Lanying always managed to stay one step ahead of Yu Zhanxu, and now she had even become his nominal half-master.

In her past life, no one had wanted anything to do with Shen Fuxin, yet Yu Zhanxu visited her frequently.

However, each time he came empty-handed, his belly full of nothing but scorn and mockery. Throughout the centuries Shen Fuxin spent at Fu Jianxian Academy, she had always believed that she and Yu Zhanxu mutually detested each other, their relationship like needles meeting wheat awns sharp and confrontational.

That is, until the day of her contract ceremony with Zhao Lanying, when a drunken Yu Zhanxu, weeping bitterly, drew his sword and wrecked the banquet of his so-called master, defied the sect, and returned alone to his Xuanyuan Terrace.

Coveting one’s master’s wife, no decent person would do that.

Shen Fuxin gazed coldly at Yu Zhanxu, who stood bathed in the vibrant spring scenery. Her sword still trembled in her hand, the crimson flower tucked in her hair quivering faintly with the motion undeniably a breathtaking sight in this world.

If her master, Zhao Lanying, was the purest reflection of moonlight, then Yu Zhanxu was a peony cultivated in the imperial court utterly resplendent yet utterly mad, blooming in full glory only to meet its end at the peak of its beauty.

Recalling their past entanglements, Shen Fuxin’s eyes held a trace of a smile, but her heart was as cold and hard as ice.

Sure enough, seeing her smile, Yu Zhanxu leaned even more brazenly against the doorframe, the door itself long gone, and mocked her with a direct stare: “Still dreaming of forming a bond with Zhao Lanying? Someone like you really. Shen Fuxin, if she were to beat you to death one day, would you still kneel and thank her for the favor?”

She stood bathed in the brilliance of spring, while Shen Fuxin remained in the dim, shadowy room. The sword that had not answered her call for three hundred years had likely rusted in its scabbard. No matter how ruthless Shen Fuxin’s methods were, how could she contend with her clan, with Yu Zhanxu, who had the backing of Xuanyuan Terrace, or with Zhao Lanying, the master of Qingdi Ling Mountain?

Having lived through it all once before, nothing mattered anymore. She was alone, with no one and nothing to her name there was nothing left to lose.

In that fleeting moment, Shen Fuxin suddenly remembered what day it was.

She curved her lips into a faint smile, the same frivolous expression as always, yet beneath it lay a malice that Yu Zhanxu could not perceive. Shen Fuxin’s gaze traveled slowly from Yu Zhanxu’s face downward, finally settling on the letter clutched in her left hand.

The envelope was cyan, stamped with the lotus spirit pattern personally imprinted by Zhao Lanying.

“If you’re trying to say I’m willingly degrading myself, there’s no need to beat around the bush,” Shen Fuxin said. “Yu Zhanxu, given the choice, I’d still pick Zhao Lanying over anyone else.”

Yu Zhanxu’s lips twitched as if she wanted to say something, but she forcibly held back, her simmering resentment turning into a cold laugh. “Zhao Lanying comes from a lineage of sword immortals. You think you can climb so high without even looking at your own worth? Do you truly believe she would form a bond with a notorious laughingstock like you?”

“She wouldn’t, but would you?”

“I—”

Before Yu Zhanxu could finish, Shen Fuxin cut her off again: “It’s the cyan lotus spirit pattern. Why are you holding a letter from your master?”

Yu Zhanxu seemed to find the object burning in her hand. With a flick of her sleeve, she tossed it carelessly at Shen Fuxin. “She asked me to deliver it to you.”

The pristine, unsoiled letter slid from Shen Fuxin’s chest to the ground. Instead of using magic, she deliberately bent down to pick it up herself, causing the wounds on her back to split open again. The blood seeped through her white robes, a stark red that stung Yu Zhanxu’s eyes.

She shoved Shen Fuxin aside and picked up the letter for her. “What priceless treasure is this, that you’d humiliate yourself like this?”

Shen Fuxin did not reach out to take it.

Standing in the shadows, her eyes flickered as she looked at Yu Zhanxu. “My injuries are severe. I shouldn’t agitate myself further. What if my master wrote to reprimand me? Yu Zhanxu, why don’t you open it and read it to me?”

All along the way, Yu Zhanxu had been itching to know the letter’s contents. It was no secret that Zhao Lanying despised Shen Fuxin she had witnessed it herself. Yet today, Zhao Lanying had taken the initiative to send a letter.

This had left Yu Zhanxu unsettled, and Shen Fuxin’s suggestion played right into her hands. In her haste, she missed the fleeting trace of malice in the other’s eyes.

This was the first divergence from the previous life.

Shen Fuxin watched with keen interest as Yu Zhanxu, who dared to covet her master’s wife yet lacked the courage to take her away, trembled under her scrutiny. Her gaze shifted from Yu’s slender fingers to the letter that had begun to quiver slightly, then moved to her abruptly paling face.

Through the thin paper, Shen Fuxin caught sight of the familiar drop of heart’s blood.

The bitterness of her hatred was diluted by the other’s suffering, and for the first time in a long while, she felt a sense of satisfaction.

“What does the letter say?” Shen Fuxin rose from her chair, feigning curiosity. “Why don’t you read it aloud?”

Yu Zhanxu remained silent, the edges of the letter crumpling under her grip, nearly tearing. After a few moments, she tossed the paper aside and, without a backward glance, nearly collided with the young man standing dumbly by the door before fleeing hastily.

The marriage contract drifted lightly to the ground, stained by the trail of blood Shen Fuxin had dragged along as she crawled. This time, no one picked it up for her.

Resting her chin on her hand, she smiled cheerfully at the ink-stained white paper on the floor and the glaring drop of heart’s blood that declared ownership. Almost innocently, she hummed a cheerful ancient melody. Beneath her song, the soiled contract floated into the air by her spell. After admiring it for a moment, a sudden surge of force crumpled it into a tiny ball.

With a flick of her finger, she cast another minor spell, and the letter burst into flames. Everything except Zhao Lanying’s drop of heart’s blood was incinerated without a trace.

She tucked the blood-stained scrap into her storage pouch. With everything settled, Shen Fuxin lifted her eyes and pensively glanced at the jade-hued longsword carefully placed on the table.

The divine blade was sharp, yet it refused to sing from its sheath for her. The celestial maiden was compassionate, but her compassion had never been directed at Shen Fuxin.

If that was the case in this life, this sword, this person, and this fate that displeased her.

She wanted none of it.