A Thousand Generations of Clear Autumns

This book is also known as Why Is the Venerable One Like This?, Reborn as a Big Shot, Now a Pretty Boy in the Righteous Sect, and A Tragic Record of the Minions After Management Goes Rogue

In his previous life, Qi Yao, leader of the ghosts, declared himself the Venerable One of No Absolution and led a band of evil spirits in turning the entire World of Ten Thousand Spirits upside down.

In the end, Mo Qingyu, a paragon of the righteous path, pierced his heart with a sword. He died before he was eighteen.

Eighteen years later, someone used a forbidden art to summon him back to the mortal realm, attaching his soul to a body of unknown origin.

This body couldn't carry a heavy load or lift a finger, and had not a trace of spiritual energy. Its only remarkable feature was a face that looked seventy or eighty percent like Qi Yao's in his previous life.

Qi Yao: "..."

Fine.

Better to live miserably than die well. He'd just have to make do.

He thought that after eighteen years, the past would have faded like smoke.

Who knew the world had changed?

Mo Qingyu, the ten-thousand-year runner-up whom Qi Yao had always kept down, had become the most revered person under heaven.

His sworn brother, once hailed alongside him as a scourge of the world, had become the Spirit Guard's Chief Envoy, protecting all living beings and standing above the masses.

The young book attendant who once obeyed his every word had become the beloved darling of a century-old immortal sect.

Strangest of all, when these people saw his face, each wore an odd expression, yet every one of them treated him with unusual leniency because of it.

Especially the masked young man he had casually rescued. He carried the sword Qi Yao had wielded in his previous life, and looked at him as if a long-burning blaze lay beneath a frozen sea.

Qi Yao felt as if he had opened the door to a whole new world.

If he'd known a single face could let him run roughshod over the entire World of Ten Thousand Spirits, why had he bothered trying so hard in his previous life?

He'd wasted more than ten years taking the long way around!

**

When the evil spirits heard that the Venerable One of No Absolution had returned, they rejoiced and spread the news far and wide.

The Venerable One is back!

The righteous dogs' good days are over!

They waited eagerly for Qi Yao to take command of the ghosts again and bathe the World of Ten Thousand Spirits in blood.

But as they waited, things began to seem more and more wrong.

Venerable One, why have you joined a righteous immortal sect and become Mo Qingyu's disciple?

Venerable One, why did you pick up a masked man as your underling, then go on to wipe out our hideouts one after another?

Venerable One, what do you mean protecting the World of Ten Thousand Spirits is your greatest wish?

The evil spirits were devastated: Venerable One, which side are you on?

Qi Yao: "Uh, the middle."

The masked man behind him added gently, "By my side."

The evil spirits: "..."

It's over.

Where is my murderous Venerable One of No Absolution?

Who is this person, bewitched and utterly besotted with the masked man?

**

Eighteen years ago, the entire Qi clan was wiped out.

To avenge them, Qi Yao fell in a single day from a righteous gentleman to the leader of evil ghosts. After passing through the Asura Hall, he came to believe that life and death were nothing much.

He never imagined that the Qi clan's destruction, the forbidden soul-summoning art, and his rebirth in another body had all been part of an elaborate scheme spanning both his past and present lives.

Old grievances from the past could no longer be avoided.

There was only one person who, even as Qi Yao drifted through two lives and forgot the entanglements of love, still held tight to the red thread that bound their fates, never once leaving him.

**

A gentle, harmless man in public, a gloomy and obsessive man in private, top

X

A ruthless, unrestrained man in his past life, a lazy, carefree man in this one, bottom

Reader's Guide:

1. Bottom's POV, one-on-one, happy ending. Yao is pronounced like "yao." Not a story where everyone falls for the protagonist, so former acquaintances have different feelings toward him.

2. Episodic plot, a touch of ensemble cast, with a secondary couple and an independent romance arc.

3. I'll give advance notice when I get stuck or revise the story.

Theme: If good and evil go unrewarded, then the universe must be playing favorites.