After Dying in Front of My Senior Brother

Before Lian Shu's master died, he asked him for one thing: to take good care of his senior brother.

Lian Shu didn't remember much about his senior brother. He recalled seeing him once, when he first entered the Taixu Immortal Realm. His senior brother had worn white robes and a golden crown, handsome and graceful, his sword famous across the Nine Provinces after a single strike that shook the clouds!

He was the youngest Golden Core sword cultivator, and had long ago been recommended by elders of various sects to lead Mount Shu. His appointment as sect leader was imminent.

His master had also said that Lian Shu liked his senior brother.

-

His senior brother was cold and heartless, but it turned out he could fall in love too.

The woman was a mortal, and exceptionally beautiful. For her, his senior brother severed his destined romantic bond and broke his Cloudshaking Sword. He defied the elders and was expelled from the sect.

Then demons hunted him to a cliff. A sword pierced his heart, leaving him tortured and half-dead, before they tossed him down the cliff like he was nothing. No one knew whether he would live or die.

The demons offered a hundred taels of silver for a single piece of his flesh. Meanwhile, the elders of the sect ordered all disciples not to go rescue him, on pain of expulsion.

So Lian Shu was expelled from the sect.

He found his senior brother, poured his cultivation into him to keep him alive, then carried him step by step to the summit of the Mountains and Seas in search of the dragon pearl that could extend his life. By then, Lian Shu had become a cripple.

For decades afterward, Lian Shu swept the snow from his senior brother every day, protected him from enemies, and climbed steep mountain peaks with his bare hands to seek immortal herbs.

Lian Shu never forgot his master's last request.

His senior brother once asked him, "Why are you so good to me?"

Lian Shu had no awareness of the six senses, no inborn capacity for love, and he was mute. He could only stand there dumbly, holding out the immortal herb and shaking his head to show he didn't know.

He knew nothing: not where he came from, where he was going, or even his own surname and name.

Lian Shu was the name his master had given him.

-

Lian Shu once cast a divination. The reading said the woman would one day die by the sect leader's sword, and his senior brother would be heartbroken. He would swear to oppose the righteous path, then turn to the demonic path, his heart full of resentment.

After they parted at Changshan, when they met again, Lian Shu had returned to the sect, still the slow-witted, overlooked disciple he had always been. But his senior brother had become a demon, leading tens of thousands of demonic followers to attack the cultivation world.

His senior brother's eyes held nothing but hatred. He pointed his sword at Lian Shu, the blade's cold gleam resting three inches from his neck. In consideration of their past, he would let Lian Shu leave some last words.

Using his finger as a pen, Lian Shu wrote in his palm: My master said I like you.

-

The formation's core activated. As everyone watched in disbelief, Lian Shu offered his life as a sacrifice and forcibly reversed the formation's core, exchanging their fates.

In the Demon Venerable's body, he took the three tribulation thunderbolts meant for his senior brother.

Once again, he gave his cultivation to his senior brother, dying beneath the final, perilous thunderbolt that would let his senior brother ascend.

-

His senior brother ascended.

Lian Shu died in front of him, drenched in blood. His senior brother stood dazed for a moment. Then everyone saw the eldest disciple of Mount Shu clutching his junior brother's corpse, panic-stricken as he called Lian Shu's name again and again.

But Lian Shu could never answer him again.

Many years later, no one knew where the senior brother who had ascended to immortality had gone. They only knew of a mad Daoist with unkempt hair who climbed to the summit of the Mountains and Seas year after year, searching for the dragon pearl that could extend a life.

A groveling-after-the-breakup story

A melodramatic ancient cultivation tale

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