Xu Xuan was truly heaven’s favored son in the cultivation world.
Champion of the Ten Thousand Sects Grand Competition, first disciple of a top sect, and young lord of an ancient clan.
Anyone who heard his name would praise him as a prodigy of unparalleled talent.
And anyone who heard his name would also sigh, “It’s just a shame he ended up with a master like that.”
That was right. Xu Xuan was as beloved as his master, Shen Huaian, was detested.
Xu Xuan was kind, righteous, and easygoing.
Shen Huaian was cold, ruthless, and vengeful over the slightest slight.
Xu Xuan had heard such things all his life. They made him feel that the only blemish on his perfect life was this master he was ashamed to acknowledge.
Shen Huaian had always been strict with him, too. When Xu Xuan was young, he once slept in and delayed his sword practice by a quarter of an hour. For that, he was made to kneel in the snow for an entire day and night.
Punishments of this sort were too numerous to count.
As Xu Xuan grew older, his hatred for Shen Huaian only took root more fiercely, until it was impossible to restrain.
So one night, after getting drunk, Xu Xuan said what was in his heart to Shen Huaian, who had come to help him: “Master, wouldn’t it be wonderful if you were dead?”
Then he could become a disciple of the noble and virtuous Immortal Venerable Qiongyu, and never again have to endure people’s gossip.
Shen Huaian’s indifferent eyes remained utterly calm. He only said, “Xu Xuan, you’re drunk.”
Xu Xuan thought he didn’t care.
He had said plenty of things like that to Shen Huaian before, and Shen Huaian had never paid them any mind.
But before a day had passed, his master really was dead.
He died without resisting, in Xu Xuan’s arms, beneath his sword.
*
In the year 2380 of the Taixu era, Shen Huaian, foremost among the Four Grand Masters, betrayed the righteous path and joined the Demon Venerable. His disciple Xu Xuan slew him in the name of justice, and his body was destroyed in the Forest of Despair.
Xu Xuan’s reputation soared throughout the cultivation world. He successfully became a disciple of Immortal Venerable Qiongyu and should have been at the height of his glory.
Yet disciples often saw him kneeling before Immortal Venerable Shen’s former residence, weeping bitterly, his face full of remorse. It became a strange tale.
*
Shen Huaian had tried to live as an island unto himself.
Until one day, someone knocked open the window he had awkwardly shut away, then threw himself into Shen Huaian’s arms with all the innocence of a child and asked, “Master, Master, am I your favorite?”
Shen Huaian warily sensed a blade hidden in those soft words, one that could doom him beyond redemption. He laid a hand on the nape of the child in his arms and lowered his eyes to meet his gaze before he could break his neck.
That one look turned the hand that would have killed him into a caress. Shen Huaian spoke coldly, without a trace of emotion, yet said, “Yes. Master loves you best.”
After saying those words, he became a devoted, indulgent master for two hundred years, giving his disciple everything he asked for.
Even when Xu Xuan wanted him dead, he couldn’t refuse.
But then something unexpected happened: after dying, he came back to life.
Badly injured, his cultivation, memories, and even appearance had all reverted to his teenage years.
Teenage Shen Huaian was solitary and proud, and so sharp-tongued and cold that he took his own story with his disciple for a novel and scoffed as he judged it. “Hesitating when he struck the killing blow was a cardinal mistake. Regretting it afterward and throwing himself into ruin was even more foolish.”
Having survived at last, he would never again feel a useless, degrading softness toward Xu Xuan.
There were only two things he wanted.
First, to reach the Great Dao as soon as possible.
Second, to never see him again.
【A seemingly twisted master who’s actually begging his disciple to stop going crazy: I’m an honest master, really! Bottom × A disciple who seems respectable on the surface, but when his master calls him an animal, decides to start acting like one: Top】
Reader’s Guide:
1. Four to six updates a week, posted at midnight.
2. One-on-one romance, both leads’ first relationship, happy ending.
3. The master is an unbelievably beautiful man, more beautiful than anyone else. The beautiful bottom trope is taken to its absolute limit! (Author pumps fist.)
4. He is not reborn and did not transmigrate. He was simply so badly injured that his appearance, memories, and cultivation all reverted to his teenage years.
5. Thank you to readers who support the author by subscribing to the official version. Enjoy reading.
Coming soon: “At This Point, I Choose the Cannon-Fodder Junior Brother.” Please add it to your collection
He Qiuxin transmigrated into a cultivation novel as a cannon-fodder character.
He appeared in fewer than three sentences in the entire story, because he didn’t survive past Chapter Three.
The male and female leads were villains, the most popular character archetype at the moment. Once their love reached its peak, they slaughtered people, towns, and cities without exception. After wreaking havoc throughout the cultivation world, they ascended in triumph.
Good news: He had transmigrated at the beginning of the story, before he had a chance to meet the leads.
Bad news: He belonged to the same sect as them, making an encounter a certainty.
Given the leads’ personalities, if they crossed paths, he would either become their dog or end up dead beneath their swords.
He Qiuxin wanted to be neither.
Just as he was at a loss about what to do, he turned around and noticed that his fellow junior disciple looked strangely familiar.
After staring at him for a while, He Qiuxin slapped his forehead. His junior brother was another cannon-fodder character!
Born into a distinguished family and blessed with extraordinary talent, he should have enjoyed the life of a top-tier chosen one. But during the Grand Competition, he was pitted against the male lead, and the male lead secretly poisoned him the day before the contest.
Determined to prove himself, he competed anyway the next day. Then the male lead slandered him, making him out to be a villain who had tried to kill the male lead during the competition.
The male and female leads were the protagonists, so naturally nothing happened to them after all this.
The only one who suffered was the cannon-fodder junior brother. After the competition, his spiritual roots were destroyed, and he was expelled from his sect. His family abandoned him, too. He wandered far from home for decades before dying in some nameless corner of the world.
There were still six months until the Grand Competition.
Cannon fodder, help cannon fodder. Looking at his junior brother, He Qiuxin decided they should stick together and keep each other warm.
Though given his lazy nature and cannon-fodder abilities, he would probably be clinging to his junior brother for warmth, just to stay alive a few more days.
And so
While everyone praised the male lead, He Qiuxin cheered over his junior brother’s every little improvement.
While everyone presented treasures to the male lead, he handed his junior brother a precious spirit herb he had struggled to obtain.
After the competition, when everyone said his junior brother was in the wrong, He Qiuxin stood up and said that wasn’t what had happened.
In a small, unnoticed corner of the cultivation world, the two of them relied on each other to survive.
“You’re my protagonist.”
He acted that way, and eventually said those very words to his junior brother.
Much later, after a long separation and reunion, his junior brother had long since surpassed the male and female leads and become the strongest of his generation. When he thought back to those words, his eyes shone as brilliantly as they had the first time he heard them.
He tugged at He Qiuxin’s sleeve, the tips of his ears faintly red and his eyes bright, and said each word with care: “I don’t want to be Senior Brother’s protagonist anymore.”
“I want to be Senior Brother’s cultivation partner. Will you let me?”
A good-natured, lazy, beautiful senior brother who bottoms × A top who is a chosen one out in the world but plays the innocent little bunny to win his senior brother over
Reader’s Guide:
1. One-on-one romance, both leads’ first relationship, happy ending.
Theme: Pursuing the ideal in your heart.
[Crying] [Crying] [Crying] [Crying] [Crying] You were very happy one day, but you are like this the next day... You are so mean to the young couple.
I really want to chop those guys to death one by one [pick their heads] [pick their heads]
Two little bitter gourds are leaning against each other, the pain is sweet [crying] [poor] [poor]
So happy at this time
Are spiritual roots like bamboo shoots? How can you peel them off little by little? [Crying] [Crying] Bad guy, bad guy
Reading this chapter made me so happy, I cried from happiness [burst crying]
Mom and dad are so kind. If they were still alive or could see Wen Wen now, I don't know how heartbroken I would be [crying]
I can't keep it if I don't win [please]
I'm fat to mess with! Save enough and eat [Prick-eared Rabbit Head]
"A few miles away, behind a tree, a..." This is a big bug for the author ~ Repeat