Immortal by the River

Ming Xi, beloved disciple of the Daoist Venerable and future master of the Daoist Palace, suddenly dreamed that she was a character in a book. In the book, titled *Ascension to the Heavens*, the male lead, Ning Chongxiao, is a bona fide child of fortune. Born into a cultivation family, he is noble from birth and adored by all. He stands above the clouds from childhood onward, with everything going his way and every wish fulfilled. He unifies the northern and southern realms, is surrounded by beautiful wives and concubines, and ultimately breaks through Heaven's restraints to become the first person in a thousand years to ascend. Ming Xi, meanwhile, is the small imperfection the author of *Ascension to the Heavens* gives the male lead, Ning Chongxiao: the one piece of fulfillment missing from his life. She is his former fiancée, engaged to him and then released from the engagement, the white moonlight the young man could never have. More importantly, she dies young, at the height of her beauty, becoming an unforgettable ache in the heart of the Chongxiao Emperor, who will one day reign above the Ninth Heaven, and a moonlight he will endlessly remember. The way he remembers Ming Xi is by taking on her sect, trampling on her junior sister, crushing her senior brother's pride, and destroying her master's good name after his death. Then he marries twenty or thirty beauties who supposedly resemble Ming Shao, all so he can sigh and lament over his memories of her. After waking, Ming Xi sat quietly for a day, then suddenly remembered someone else from the book. Yao Guang, the young lord of the Demonic Sect, a peerless beauty and prodigy who had long been celebrated alongside Ming Xi, one in the north and one in the south. The young lord Yao Guang had once traveled south in disguise. Ning Chongxiao found him kindred in spirit at first sight and treated him as a close friend, only to fall into a trap and nearly die at his hands. Yao Guang became the greatest obstacle on Ning Chongxiao's path to dominance. They fought for nearly a century, until he ultimately lost to the halo of the child of fortune. If Ming Xi, looking at the whole book, is the white moonlight that Ning Chongxiao can't forget, then the young lord Yao Guang is the black moonlight he hates with a vengeance. . At the same time, in the Demonic Sect, the newly ascended young lord Yao Guang was receiving a sacred revelation in the sect's ancestral grounds. "Before long, the world will fall into chaos, and neither the Holy Clan nor humanity will escape. For the sake of our Holy Clan's ten-thousand-year legacy, you must immediately do something." "Ming Xi, disciple of the Daoist Venerable of the Daoist Sect, will soon be heading north. Your task is to find her immediately, and then..." The young lord: "Kill her?" The sacred revelation said, "No. You must stay by her side, accompany and protect her, and share every hardship that lies ahead. Ordinary people need adversity to temper them before they can break free, but Ming Xi doesn't even need to endure pointless suffering. Her resolve to pursue the Dao is already firm enough." "..." The sacred revelation asked, "Yao Guang, do you have any other questions?" The young lord took a deep breath and asked cautiously, "...May I ask if one of the Daoist Sect's ancestors has possessed you?" Theme:.