Returning to the Mountain to See Spring

Two hundred years ago, on the Jingchun Terrace, Shi Yaoguang shattered her sword with resolute conviction and perished alongside the Yellow Springs Demon Lord, dying in the ancient depths of Wangchuan.

Two hundred years later, a pale hand reached up from the ancient depths of Wangchuan. Shi Yaoguang, who had died, returned to the world of the living.

Her deeds were passed down through the mortal world. People erected monuments and wrote biographies in her honor, while generation after generation of her sect retold the story of how she died for the world.

No one ever imagined that one day, the hero of that ancient tale would return to the world of the living.

Two hundred years ago, she was the finest disciple of the Shifang Sect.

She was the disciple Dao Lord Guihong took pride in.

She was a peerless prodigy with extraordinary talent and exceptional bones, who reached Foundation Establishment at the age of eighteen.

She was the foremost among those below the Nascent Soul stage, looking down on all her peers.

She was a carefree swordswoman who fought her enemies with sword in hand, growing stronger against the strong, her sword's chill sweeping across fourteen provinces.

It was as if Heaven favored her. She knew neither worry nor fear.

Two hundred years later, she was the hero who saved the world by sacrificing herself and shattering her sword to slay the Demon Lord.

She was also a stranger, emaciated, stripped of her cultivation and with her spiritual roots destroyed, bewildered by a world that had moved on for two hundred years.

She returned to her sect. Her fellow disciples, old friends, and all the people from her past were overjoyed.

Her fiance, who had grown up with her and sought the Dao by her side, also had red eyes. He gripped her frail shoulders tightly and wept.

He was exactly as she remembered: handsome, gentle, a little proud, but always willing to give way to her.

A faint smile appeared on her lips.

Then she saw the person standing beyond the crowd.

The woman had come with her fiance. She wore a smile, though unease was hard to hide.

She looked so much like Shi Yaoguang, so very much like her. She resembled Shi Yaoguang's former self even more than Shi Yaoguang did now, gaunt and haggard.

Suddenly, she remembered the vow she had made at sixteen, beneath her window in late spring, as she solemnly addressed her life-bound sword.

I, Shi Yaoguang, seek not immortality, but to save the world. For all living beings, I am willing to die.

Sixteen-year-old Shi Yaoguang had never considered what would happen if she did not die.

Was there anything in this world more painful than life and death?

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1. The title and blurb may still change.

2. Yaoguang is one of the seven stars of the Big Dipper.

3. The trope where the substitute takes the original's place, only for the original to come back to life.

4. Happy ending.

Theme: Do not be afraid. Keep striving to live.