They All Want to Bring Me Back to Life

-

There's an unwritten rule for cultivating the path of depravity at the Forbidden Sect:

The more you slack off, the faster you ascend! But the higher your title, the lower your spiritual power.

Since temptations abound here, it's a gathering place for max-level experts from all realms. They all cultivate in reverse, trying to keep their inner demons under control.

There's only one exception: Jin Ling.

Jin Ling is the youngest junior sister at the Forbidden Sect, and the fastest to ascend. She slacks off all day long and couldn't be happier.

Her senior brothers, though, don't much care for her. In the eyes of all those max-level experts, she's even weaker than an ant. They look down on her for willingly falling into depravity and refusing to improve herself.

Jin Ling doesn't care. She always sneaks off to the mortal world to have fun.

Unfortunately, she isn't very lucky. While traveling around the mortal world, she happens upon a war between immortals and demons. At the crucial moment, she gives her life to save a little golden snake that's trapped. Jin Ling takes every attack in its place and is beaten to death on the spot.

She thinks that once she turns to dust, that'll be the end of it.

But even death won't let her rest in peace!

Her ashes are fought over and taken by several different factions.

Her cool and refined eldest senior brother uses her ashes to grow flowers, then spends all day murmuring to them.

Her arrogant second senior brother uses her ashes to make porcelain, adding more and more fire with a cold expression each time.

Her warm and courteous third senior brother puts her ashes in water to brew tea, always staring blankly at the bubbles as they pop and simmer.

The hardest thing for her to accept is that an enormous golden python appears from who knows where, its scales flashing with a cold golden light. It takes the most ashes of all. Then it goes to the edge of a cliff, flicks its tail, and scatters them...

After that, the giant golden python coils up there all day, sobbing and wailing. The more bizarre, the better!

Well, the ashes are scattered, but at least her senior brothers never give up on her. They keep searching for a way to bring her back to life.

So, does she come back to life?

Yes, but not completely.

Her soul splits apart. One moment she's a flower, being stroked by her eldest senior brother. The next, she's a porcelain vase, being wiped over and over by her second senior brother. Then she's tea leaves, tumbling around as her third senior brother boils them...

The giant golden python that scattered her ashes somehow hears that she's been successfully revived. It goes completely mad, forcing its way through the barriers her senior brothers set up. Its gleaming golden scales are scraped off until hardly any remain, and it charges in, covered in blood.

The golden python becomes a blood-red python. One moment it coils around the flower holding her soul, smearing blood all over her. The next, it wraps its body around the porcelain vase holding her soul, nearly suffocating her. Finally, the blood-red python stares at the pot of boiling tea holding her soul, then suddenly leaps up and circles above it, poised to dive inside.

Jin Ling, who can't bear to kill anything, cries out to the blood-red python, "Don't come any closer!!!"

But the blood-red python dives in without hesitation. The tea pot shatters into pieces, and Jin Ling loses consciousness completely.

A few months later, the Demon Prince gets married.

They say his little wife is quite unique. Her body is as supple as a flower's stem, her skin as smooth as white porcelain, and she carries a refreshing tea fragrance wherever she goes.

But no one has ever seen her come out. They say she has to spend her whole life in the secret realm the prince has created for her. The moment she leaves it, her soul will vanish. No matter whether one searches the highest heavens or the depths of the underworld, she will be impossible to find again.

The prince cherishes her dearly, to the point that he no longer even attends to state affairs.

Jin Ling looks at the blood-red python before her and sits on the waterbed, sobbing. "You went through all that and got yourself covered in wounds to bring me back to life, so I ought to repay you by giving myself to you. But even if we look at it from every angle, aren't you at least partly responsible for those wounds?"

The blood-red python coils around Jin Ling. With its tail, the only part still bearing a golden scale, it gently lifts her toward itself, then flicks out its tongue. Its voice, cold and possessive yet somehow clear, echoes through the secret realm: "You haven't kissed me today."

-

Theme: Love is a moment outside the bounds of order