The Villain After Being Reborn

Shen Cangzhou transmigrated into the protagonist of the novel The Path to Immortality. When he opened his eyes, however, it was the finale: the protagonist's final battle with the Demon Lord, Zhao Yan.

Shen Cangzhou lost as expected and was on the verge of death, with the villain's sword pointed at his throat.

Just as Shen Cangzhou closed his eyes and waited to die, the villain's sword tip only picked up a single tear. "Our lofty Immortal Venerable can cry, too?"

Shen Cangzhou looked up. The villain's face held more than mockery: there was also a trace of suppressed yearning.

Shen Cangzhou: ...?

Shen Cangzhou was locked away in the demonic world's prison. It was dark and damp, and the guards discussed when he would die every day. His wound festered, and he grimaced in pain.

Before he passed out, the Demon Lord deigned to visit the prison. Though his face was full of disgust, he personally examined Shen Cangzhou's spiritual meridians inch by inch, then sneered:

"Your meridians are shattered. You're completely useless. Beg me, and perhaps I'll show mercy and treat your wounds."

Shen Cangzhou: "Even if I die here today, I won't lower myself to beg a demon like you!"

A few days later, with his wound getting worse, Shen Cangzhou said, "...Please."

After that, the villain no longer kept him in the dungeon. Instead, he fastened silver chains around his ankles and kept him on a leash at all times.

The Demon Lord took him for walks in the courtyard, telling him which immortal sects he'd destroyed that day and which ones he'd destroy tomorrow.

Finally, he deliberately said that next time he destroyed an immortal sect, he'd take Shen Cangzhou along so the cultivators could see what he looked like now.

Shen Cangzhou: "...Madman!"

The villain smiled with delight. "That's right, Immortal Venerable. Do you regret saving me back then?"

At last, the System had gathered enough energy. Shen Cangzhou faked his death in an instant and traveled back three hundred years.

A young cultivator, dressed in fine clothes and full of youthful vigor.

Shen Cangzhou reminded himself countless times not to care what happened to the villain in this life.

Shen Cangzhou took first place in the sect competition and was accepted as the head disciple by the leader of the immortal sect, enjoying boundless glory.

Meanwhile, people in the villain's sect crushed his finger bones, and his master poisoned him with bloodletting.

But when that boy was truly left with a broken back and barely clinging to life,

the number-one genius of the immortal sect, clad in white as bright as snow, paced around the bamboo grove for a long time, and in the end... couldn't help reaching out to the gates of hell.

Shen Cangzhou was determined to set the villain straight, unaware that on countless nights, the boy he'd saved would wake from nightmares and stare at him all night until dawn.

Zhao Yan had once been lowly and wretched, kneeling and begging others for a chance to survive. He'd stopped at nothing to bury countless people alive, believing he had nothing left to lose except his worthless life.

But when he saw that person's corpse, he sat in the blizzard, holding the body for seven days, wondering why it hadn't been all those self-righteous cultivators in the world who died.

Why had it been his pure, spotless little Immortal Venerable?

P.S.

1. A seemingly dignified and otherworldly bottom who's actually carefree and unruly x a seemingly innocent but secretly calculating, repressed, and unhinged top

2. False transmigration into a book vs. genuine rebirth

Theme: I wanted to buy osmanthus blossoms and share a drink with you, but things are never like those carefree days of youth.