Please, Don’t Die - Chapter 1

The Ninth Heaven, the Water Cloud Realm.

The emerald lotus in the Jade Pool swayed gently, while wisps of mist curled up to the edge of the water mirror, creating tiny ripples. The mirror, suspended above the lotus, silently released a few droplets of water, lightly tapping the mischievous petals as a warning.

The subtle movements at the mirror’s edge did nothing to disturb the scene within.

Inside the mirror, a newborn baby let out its first clear, unrestrained cry, utterly unaware of the perilous situation it was in.

Outside the cellar, the clashing of blades rang sharply. The exhausted young woman jolted awake and quickly, yet carefully, covered the infant’s mouth and nose. By the time the cries faded, the child in her arms was already taking more breaths out than in.

Before the water mirror, a woman with hair coiled like clouds and adorned with jade frowned slightly. “Which lifetime is this for my child?”

“Your Majesty, the seventeenth,” came the reply.

The woman lowered her eyelids, no longer looking at the mirror, and fell silent.

The celestial maidens around her knelt in unison.

After a long silence, only the faintest sigh could be heard.

The woman waved her hand, and the lead maiden, understanding the gesture, swiftly led the others out with light steps.

Once they were far enough away, a newly arrived maiden at the Shangqing Palace whispered in confusion, “Why did Her Majesty the Heavenly Empress seem so… strange just now?” She pondered the complex expression on the woman’s face, something akin to sorrow, yet not quite, and chose her words carefully.

The other maidens nearby, clearly intrigued by the topic, eagerly chimed in, telling her about the elusive young prince of the divine realm.

In short:

“The young prince of the divine realm is the most benevolent. He has wandered the mortal path for a thousand years, unwilling to ascend as an immortal.”

…

The Twelve Regions of the Cultivation World, the Northern Region’s Land of Death.

The biting northern wind carried sharp icicles, spinning at a speed no ordinary person could endure, piercing toward the black-robed cultivators surrounding the area on their swords.

From time to time, a black-robed cultivator would fall from their sword, crashing into the snow and blooming into a crimson, steaming flower, like the traces left by the churning lava not far away.

Moments later, their remains would be buried under the relentless snowfall, leaving only an endless expanse of white.

And the faint blue glow of the icicles.

Had anyone paid closer attention, they would have noticed that each bloodstained icicle was quietly connecting, weaving into a vast net, clearly the formation of an impending array.

But in such a perilous moment for both sides, the black-robed figures’ attention was entirely fixed on the white-clad woman standing with her sword at the mouth of the lava flow.

Her hair was slightly disheveled, her robes soaked in blood, yet her dignified bearing remained unmistakable. Her face was deathly pale, resembling fine jade amidst the endless snowstorm, while the blood she coughed up stained her lips a vivid red. Though at a disadvantage, she showed no trace of fear, her aura as sharp as a blade:

“I am but a minor disciple of Fuliu Sect. How could I possibly warrant the pursuit of the esteemed elders of the second-largest sect?”

Without waiting for a response, she burst into wild laughter. “Ah, I forgot. After all, I’ve wiped out the junior disciples of Zhenyuan Sect. Liang Qiuji, only has your old relics left to send.”

“Arrogant brat!”

“Demoness! Give us back our disciples’ lives!”

“He Qingsheng, today you will pay in blood!”

…

The clamor for vengeance rose and fell, yet not a single black-clad warrior dared to take the lead, all fearing she might still have some hidden trick up her sleeve that could cost them their lives.

Their caution was hardly unwarranted. Throughout the pursuit of He Qingsheng, they had learned bitter lessons from underestimating her, lessons too painful to forget.

These old foxes, He Qingsheng sneered inwardly.

“Blood for blood? By that logic, your paltry few hundred Zhenyuan Sect disciples could never repay the lives of the three thousand from Fuliu Sect!”

On that fateful day when she emerged from seclusion, Fuliu Mountain had run red with blood.

Her senior brothers and junior sisters had been slaughtered, her master and fellow disciples vanished without a trace, and all three thousand sect members had been brutally massacred. Meanwhile, the perpetrators, Zhenyuan Sect disciples, had rampaged through Fuliu’s treasuries under the protection of their elders before swaggering down the mountain unscathed.

He Qingsheng had wanted to charge at them in a suicidal last stand, but her youngest junior sister had held her back with desperate strength.

That carefree, seemingly lazy youngest disciple, who had always shirked training, had burned every last drop of her spiritual power in that final moment. She detonated her core to carve out a sliver of escape for He Qingsheng.

“Go! Live on!”

The junior sister’s hoarse scream was swallowed by the deafening roar of a cultivator’s self-destruction.

The shockwave rattled He Qingsheng’s very soul.

“No-!”

Amid the scorching blast, a surge of gentle spiritual energy cocooned He Qingsheng, hurling her away.

The lingering warmth at her back clung for just an instant before vanishing, like her junior sister leaning against her shoulder one last time in silent farewell.

Every time she relived that memory, fury churned in He Qingsheng’s chest like an unquenchable tidal wave.

Not even the 289 lives of Zhenyuan Sect could quell it.

Nor could the 67 elders before her now.

“Divine Slayer, rise.”

A mesh of indigo-black light wove into an impenetrable net, electricity crackling as spiritual energy coalesced into blades. The moment it grazed them, the black-clad cultivators didn’t even have time to scream, they turned to charred bones in an instant.

“Dark arts! These are forbidden techniques!”

The current leader, a white-haired, deeply wrinkled elder who clung stubbornly to life, watched in horror as the glowing net tightened like a predator’s maw. His face twisted first in anguish, then into the grim resolve of a martyr.

“With such evil unleashed, we cannot suffer you to live. Even if I perish today, I must eradicate you, demoness, to spare future generations from your scourge.”

“Tch—”

He Qingsheng’s derisive laugh cut through his sanctimony. Listening further would only pollute her ears.

Her fingers snapped shut. Blood coughed up from her lungs became ink for lethal array formations. Within the rapidly shrinking battlefield, deadly spells and ice blades, now swollen to monstrous sizes, whizzed through the air, mercilessly crushing any remaining space for the trapped cultivators.

Some black-clad figures, realizing their doom, detonated their cores in a frenzied rush toward her.

Truly aiming to drag her down with them.

He Qingsheng clicked her tongue. “Die? I’ve no intention of joining you wretched curs.”

The indigo net constricted violently just as the shockwaves from multiple self-detonations crushed inward from all sides.

Her soul quaked under the onslaught; her consciousness teetered on the brink of collapse, threatening to trigger her own core’s explosion.

Gritting her teeth, she somersaulted into the seething, molten lava below an instant before the light-net sealed completely.

The viscous, crimson magma seemed to come alive, hungrily enveloping her.

Then,

BOOM.

The lava erupted, catapulting a thousand-foot geyser skyward.

The cultivator who had just exhausted their spiritual energy and barely survived by hiding in a mustard seed space didn’t even have a moment to feel a flicker of relief before their life was utterly extinguished.

The Twelve Wall Chronicles record that after the fall of the Fuliu Sect, the Zhenyuan Sect also rapidly declined, falling out of the ranks of the Five Great Sects. Later generations who sought the reasons for Zhenyuan Sect’s decline could only find the ten words: “No legacy from the past, no successors for the future.”

The many secrets in between were deliberately concealed. The once-in-an-era genius and the blood-soaked vendetta between the two great sects, perhaps only the vast snow plains and the ceaselessly churning magma beneath them had glimpsed a fragment of the truth.

…

The mountain range stretched endlessly, its dense forests towering into the clouds.

Short, stunted plants could only survive by snatching slivers of sunlight in the narrow gaps between the crowns of ancient trees.

Yet in the shadowed ravines where sunlight rarely reached, there was a startling circular clearing about a hundred zhang long, densely covered with golden flowers that cascaded from the slopes down to the valley floor.

Bathed in the glow of newly sprouted tender leaves, the golden blossoms appeared even more radiant, shimmering as if uniquely favored by the sun’s grace.

In this eerie, labyrinthine forest, this small patch of land formed its own scene of warmth and tranquility.

But He Qingsheng knew better, to hell with this “cozy little flower field.”

These seemingly harmless little yellow flowers, without even a tiny thorn in sight, were Mianrihui, a plant long extinct in the cultivation world, and lethally toxic.

Mianrihui, literally, “shunning the sun’s brilliance” had layered golden petals that shimmered like sunlight, so they had no need for the actual sun.

Legend said its original name was Jinyaoguang, a celestial plant of proud and aloof nature, disdaining the sun’s light. After offending the Immortal Lord Siming, it was renamed Mianrihui and banished to the mortal realm.

Life in the mortal world was harsh, and Mianrihui’s resentment festered into poison, seeping into its flowers, leaves, and roots. Its venom was slow-acting yet vicious, with no known antidote.

After He Qingsheng plunged into the magma, the lingering divine aura of the Wuding Sword formed a barrier, allowing her to safely approach the hidden passage.

Just as she was about to reach the edge of the passage, she was suddenly struck by a gust of wind and slammed into a hidden reef. Darkness swallowed her vision, and she lost consciousness.

When she opened her eyes again, all she saw was a flattened patch of golden Mianrihui.

Not a trace of spiritual energy could be summoned. Every inch of her bones and flesh was wracked with intense, unrelenting pain. Her limbs were too weak even to twitch, leaving her helpless as blood trickled from the corners of her eyes, mouth, and nose.

The poison had seeped into her bones.

He Qingsheng: “…”

He Qingsheng: My life ends here.

Since transmigrating into the Twelve Region cultivation world, He Qingsheng rarely acted, but when she did, it was always with lethal intent, striking with ruthless precision.

Before every fight, she had always considered the countless ways she might die. Because of this, she had lost count of how many times her master and senior brother had scolded her.

But this time, at the Northern Region Volcano, she had known about the hidden passage beneath the mountain. So, in a desperate move, she had used herself as bait to lure the enemy.

She hadn’t planned to die, yet here she was, undone by this very scheme.

Who could have predicted that inexplicable gust of wind?

Just my luck.

Half of He Qingsheng’s face rested against the delicate petals as her vision blurred further with the ebbing of her vitality. All she could see now were the intricate, tangled roots of the Mianrihui stretching endlessly before her.

A rustling sound came from the flowers, as if someone were parting the blossoms and stepping forward. Their pale green robes carried a hint of dampness, like tender willow shoots brushed by rain in early spring.

Did the Black and White Impermanence change uniforms?

Well, at least I’m dying in one piece, relatively dignified.

But still… there was a trace of unwillingness.

He Qingsheng felt her life flashing before her eyes. First, she saw the face of a dear friend she never got to meet again, followed by fleeting glimpses of her youthful years spent cultivating in the celestial palace. Then came the serendipitous encounter when she first arrived at Fuliu, freezing finally on a joyous moment with her sect.

The fragmented memories of her twenty short years in the modern world had long since blurred beyond recognition.

Before she could finish reminiscing, a slender, bony finger approached, checking her breath and carrying with it the faint, bitter scent of medicinal herbs.

Soon after, warm fingertips deftly pressed against her pulse.

A physician!

Heaven never seals off all exits.

Immediately, several pills were forced into her mouth one after another.

Seeing she still showed no reaction, the person seemed to realize she currently lacked the strength to swallow.

The figure in green robes, unbothered by her disheveled state, half-lifted her upper body and pressed on acupoints to help her swallow the pills.

One pill, then another, and another.

One bottle, then another, and another.

He Qingsheng felt she ought to give some response, even if she didn’t feel any better, otherwise, she might end up a ghost who died from overeating.

“Save… me…”

A life-saving favor.

Ying Qujie looked down at the woman in his arms. Before she could finish speaking, her gaze had already begun to scatter rapidly.

He didn’t even bother checking what medicine was in the white porcelain vial he pulled out, after all, everything he carried was the kind of miraculous cure that could revive the dead and regrow flesh from bones. Without hesitation, he poured it all into her mouth.

“Don’t you dare die!”