After falling from the city wall of Changsha during the Republic of China era, I woke up in the military tent of Zhang Qishan, one of the Nine Gates.
At our first meeting, Zhang the Buddha Lord sneered. “Your bones are a hundred years old, yet you have the face of a twenty-year-old?”
I hid the fact that I had transmigrated, but Chen Pi A Si imprisoned me in a dungeon as an ingredient for an immortality elixir, skinning me and drawing my blood as I endured years of torment.
Only when the Bronze Gate opened did the modern-day Zhang Qiling fall, gravely wounded, at my feet.
He stared at the hideous scar on my shoulder, but instead of raising his ancient blade against me, he cut into his own palm. “Use my blood instead of yours.”
As the Ultimate Gate was about to open, black mist surged across the passage into the living world.
I pushed Zhang Qiling toward the bright, life-filled sunlight.
“This time, you’re the one going home.”
I turned and stepped into the eternal vortex, his anguished roar burning into my back.
It turned out the price of immortality was time. Once I stopped fearing time, I lost the right to die.
