Guide to the Rebirth of the Evil Woman in the Immortal Realm - Chapter 27

Shen Fuxin didn’t know his name, but she remembered his face from the statues.

Now, by the hazy moonlight, she turned over to face Ji Ting. Her gaze traced the contours of the other woman’s face. “I don’t know.”

Ji Ting felt a bit unnerved by the scrutiny. She curved her eyes into a smile and guessed softly, “It seems Little Fu is looking at someone else through me.”

“No, I’m looking at you through someone else,” Shen Fuxin concluded. “His expression is very similar to yours, especially when his features relax like that.”

Ji Ting froze. Her expression shifted into an unnaturally cold solemnity. Shen Fuxin continued to watch her, her thoughts drifting aimlessly, wondering why some people looked like early spring flowers when they smiled but resembled three feet of fallen snow when they didn’t. The contrast was quite stark.

She chose to stop looking at Ji Ting and lay flat on the bed. “I saw a porcelain statue of Goddess Yandan today,” she said evenly. “It was placed alongside the War God statue in that woman’s house. Her porcelain body was damaged, so I pieced her back together.”

“And the War God statue?” Ji Ting couldn’t help but ask. “Where did you put him?”

“I smashed it,” Shen Fuxin said.

She said it with such righteous confidence that Ji Ting couldn’t help but laugh softly, feeling a subtle, inexplicable sense of pleasure.

The nausea she had felt earlier at the thought of Jie Fanyin was suppressed by Shen Fuxin’s casual words. Carrying a hint of testing she hadn’t even noticed herself, Ji Ting turned her head toward Shen Fuxin and whispered, “Why?”

She received no answer.

Shen Fuxin rested her head on her elbow, watching the cold moon through the broken window. After a long silence, she finally spoke. “I just think it’s unfair.”

Why should one god’s body be exposed on the Heaven-Slaying Altar for thirty thousand years? Why should one god undergo thirty thousand years of lonely, wretched mortal cycles? And yet, another god can sit high on a pedestal, hogging all the incense while doing absolutely nothing?

Shen Fuxin closed her eyes. Her lucky second chance at life was perhaps only something she had fought for through that very word: unfairness.

Under the dim moonlight, accompanied by the faint chirping of cicadas in the trees, she drifted into a heavy sleep. Perhaps because her thoughts were so focused during the day, Shen Fuxin dreamed again of that headless statue broken in the snowy mud during her past life.

The First Sword Immortal

Three hundred years ago, when Shen Fuxin first entered the Green Emperor’s Spirit Mountain, her classmates in the Sword Immortal sect already loathed her. The presence of Zhao Lanying and Yu Zhanxu only made her situation worse.

Carrying the natal sword that refused to emerge for her, she took a leave of absence to go home on a snowy winter day. Halfway there, a messenger spirit sparrow landed on her shoulder, pecking at her hair.

Immortal Gu Teng would not allow her to return. Thus, Shen Fuxin had nowhere to go.

Thinking of the snowy ground where her knees would have to kneel and the many sword wounds waiting at home, Shen Fuxin changed her path without a second thought. She headed toward a remote forest east of the Immortal Realm.

The forest was vast. Because of the snake marshes deep within, no immortals lived or cultivated there. She stepped over branches buried in heavy snow, hacking her way through the woods as she wandered deeper. Near the edge of the snake marsh, she tripped over a wooden stump.

Using her spiritual power, Shen Fuxin pulled the stump out by its roots and crushed it into dust.

Strangely, it took a great deal of effort to pull it out. The stump seemed to have grown there naturally, embedded in the mud for untold years. When it came out, it brought up a large patch of hard, earthy-smelling soil, revealing a small, collapsed hollow underneath.

As the snow fell like goose feathers, quickly filling the hollow, Shen Fuxin knelt down. From the snowy mud, she pulled out a broken, headless statue.

It was a goddess.

Shen Fuxin wiped the mottled mud from the statue’s body with her sleeve and dug through the hollow. Sure enough, her hand hit a hard piece of broken porcelain.

She found the head—she couldn’t tell if it had been twisted off by a person or snapped by the pressure of the earth—and set it back onto the empty neck.

Due to its age, the features of the statue were blurred. Shen Fuxin could only manage to wipe clean the calm, chilling eyes.

Finding a god’s statue in this godforsaken place was a sign of fate.

Shen Fuxin had no incense or candles, so she melted snow into water to wash the goddess’s statue thoroughly. When she reached the base, she saw a line of elegant calligraphy: The Number One Sword Immortal in Heaven and Earth.

Shen Fuxin smiled. She placed the “Number One Sword Immortal” onto the tree stump she had just cut, then snapped off a branch of plum blossoms to offer before the image.

The heavy snow broke a nearby branch, sending it tumbling. Amidst the falling snow and the cold fragrance, Shen Fuxin bowed to the statue and muttered to herself, “I want to make a wish.”

Her voice echoed through the sound of falling snow and blooming flowers. She was too tired and sad, so she allowed herself to be foolish for once. She sat there thinking. Should she wish for Zhao Lanying to stab her a hundred times first and then announce to the Immortal Realm that she was a control freak? Or should she wish for that lunatic Yu Zhanxu to stop bothering her and get out of Spirit Mountain and back to Xuanyuan Terrace immediately?

Shen Fuxin laughed until her eyes lowered, her heart filled with loneliness.

Her entire conscious life had revolved around others.

She let the snow settle on her pearl-adorned shoulders, her beautiful but fragile skirt spreading out in the snow like a flower. Looking at the tattered statue, she whispered, “I still don’t know what I want.”

“If you truly have divine power and can grant wishes, then let it manifest at the moment my desire is strongest.”

The statue remained silent. Shen Fuxin stood up, mocking her own stupidity. This statue was so ruined, and she had never even seen this deity before. It was likely just a clay Buddha crossing a river—if it couldn’t even save itself, how could it save her?

She turned and left, leaving the snowflakes and plum blossoms to bloom before the statue in the emptiness.

Many days and nights passed after that, with thousands of snowfalls like that day.

Shen Fuxin had almost forgotten the headless statue until the moment of her suicide. As her consciousness blurred, what she saw was not Zhao Lanying coming with a sword, nor the heavy snow outside, but a faint figure suddenly appearing in the cold white landscape.

The figure walked through the snow, standing before the hate-filled Shen Fuxin and sighing.

“Fine.”

A cold hand pressed against Shen Fuxin’s eyes. “Then it shall be as you wish.”

The Morning After

Shen Fuxin turned over, her hand landing on a mass of cold, long hair.

A warm set of fingers gently picked up her wrist, moving her hand away from the hair. Ji Ting sat up, looking out at the sky which was already turning the color of a fish’s belly. In the courtyard, Shensha was already up, heating last night’s leftover sweet potatoes.

Recalling her dream, Ji Ting reached up to touch her neck.

Why did she dream about her head being separated from her body? It was a strange dream. Fortunately, someone in the dream had helped piece her back together; otherwise, she would have spent the whole time looking for her head.

Ji Ting stood up and put on her jade-colored outer robe. Behind her, Shen Fuxin was woken by the movement and began rustling about. As soon as she stood up, she headed toward the courtyard, likely lured by the sweet smell of the roasting potatoes.

Seeing them awake, Shensha lowered her head and silently ladled out the mushy brown rice porridge from the pot. Only when Ji Ting and Shen Fuxin were seated did she whisper, “In the future, at night, keep the noise down.”

Shen Fuxin’s hand froze. “What?”

Shensha’s head was nearly buried in her bowl. She finished the porridge in a few gulps and prepared to head out with her stall. “The bed in your room, leave it. I’ll fix it when I return tonight.”

As immortals who had lived for countless years, they naturally understood the implication in Shensha’s words. Shen Fuxin immediately shot a cold look at Ji Ting. Ji Ting set down her bowl and said sincerely, “Thank you, but we already fixed the bed last night.”

Shensha kept her head down, not knowing what to say. She planned to sell yesterday’s meat at a discount and began pushing her cart. Ji Ting followed her.

The sun was just beginning to rise, but it would soon become scorching, to the point where sweat in one’s eyes would sting like grit. Seeing Ji Ting following her to the stall, Shensha stopped to advise, “No need to help me. Just stay in the house.”

“I’m not going to help you,” Ji Ting said.

As Shensha hesitated, Ji Ting laughed. “Little Fu and I plan to look around the city to see if we can find some work.”

Shensha was silent for a moment, her brow looking as though a heavy mountain weighed upon it.

“It is not easy for women to find work in Ruo Country,” she whispered. “Many can only do laundry or sewing. Even then, the income is meager and barely enough to live on.”

Shen Fuxin walked up as they listened to Shensha. The small morning city was beginning to come alive. The crowing of roosters, the sound of laundry being beaten, the sounds of children being scolded—these worldly noises were like a tangled mess of thread, trying to trip them up.

Thinking of the woman with several children yesterday, Shen Fuxin frowned. “Why?”

Shensha shook her head. She didn’t know why either. In this backward and impoverished country, she was an anomaly. Shensha hoped to see the eyes of others struggling against their fate, but whenever she looked through the streets, all she saw above the face veils were pairs of submissive eyes that always seemed to hold a trace of fear.

Ji Ting said nothing. She and Shen Fuxin walked with Shensha to the place where she had set up her stall the day before. Seeing her start to skillfully cut meat, Ji Ting tugged at Shen Fuxin’s sleeve and walked with her down the streets where curious glances came from all directions.

Perhaps the more bitter a place is, the more people need spiritual sustenance. The houses and shops along the road all displayed clay or porcelain statues of various gods and goddesses, but the most common was the War God with the long sword who relieved suffering.

Shen Fuxin was still dwelling on Shensha’s words. This world felt foreign to her, and once again, she felt it was unfair.

Ji Ting stood outside an incense and paper money shop, staring at the statue of Jie Fanyin in the shrine.

Shen Fuxin, seeing Ji Ting stop, followed her gaze into the shrine. She said, “At first glance, this porcelain statue looks like you. But looking closely now, the eyes are different.”

Ji Ting wanted to hear Shen Fuxin’s opinion. “What’s the difference?”

Shen Fuxin stared at the statue of Jie Fanyin for a long time, then turned to look at Ji Ting. She said with certainty, “The eyes of this statue are empty. If you look closely, it’s actually a bit terrifying.”

They walked for a while longer. Ji Ting looked at all the shops and finally stopped. She seemed to have discovered something and said to Shen Fuxin, “There are all kinds of gods here, yet your master Goddess Yandan’s statue is rarely seen. She is the Goddess of Medicine. Logically, she should be an auspicious deity for dispelling illness and bringing blessings in the mortal realm. Yet, of the many pharmacies we passed, only one enshrined her.”

Ji Ting paused and continued, “The power in the Divine Realm depends not only on a deity’s personal cultivation but also on the incense in the mortal realm. If the incense is plentiful, the power grows. If no one worships them, the deity’s state will wither away.”

Shen Fuxin found Ji Ting even more mysterious. “How do you know all this?”

“Of course, I know,” Ji Ting smiled. “I told you, I am the Number One Sword Immortal in Heaven and Earth. I’ve only forgotten, not died.”