I Raised My Disciple as a Stand-In

When she comprehended the supreme sword intent, slew the Demon Venerable across realms, and became the foremost figure of the righteous path, Gui Jin was 418 years old. Everyone said that Perfected Kuishe's Dao Heart was complete and her future boundless, and that in time she was certain to become another ascended immortal. Only she knew that since her master died four hundred years ago, everything she had done was no longer for the sake of cultivating the Dao, but for revenge. The moment that hatred was finally laid to rest, her path to the Dao ended as well. She could never make another breakthrough. How was she to spend the long, long life that remained, in the Great Vehicle stage? She was more lost than anyone. ...She would begin by raising a child with the same care, kindness, and devotion her master had shown her. · This child looks so much like Master. This child's spiritual roots and talent are so much like Master's. The way this child comforts his younger brother is so much like Master. And this child seems so much like me back then, still under Master's protection, fearless and carefree, before I went and ruined everything... · A snow lotus blooming high in the heavens, Gazing up at endless stars. Remembering the shelter Of the branch, before it bloomed. · As above, this is a story about a protagonist serving as someone else's replacement. The real male lead dies in the very first chapter, four hundred years before the story begins, and he will not come back to life. The female lead loves and will only ever love her master, who is thoroughly dead. He's her first love, her one true love, the one she sees in the wind and the snow. She's struggling to heal from PTSD. Even though one of her disciples is obviously described at greater length than the others, he absolutely will not win her heart. She raises her disciple as her own son. It's not that her heart is as calm as still water; it's completely empty. The inspiration is obvious: at its core, this is an old-school, angsty replacement story. After reading too many of them, you start wanting to step into the story yourself. The beauty of a replacement story is, as they say, that I love you, but you're only looking for the shadow of the love you've lost in me. When the angst only happens to other people, it becomes pure wish fulfillment. Hehehe, that's the female-lead-focused version of the replacement trope~~ Premise: Remember him, become him.