The Last Ordinary Person in the Cultivation World

My name is Shen Yinghan. I am the last ordinary person in the cultivation world without a spiritual root.

I kept this secret for a long time, and no one discovered it before I died.

Everyone thought I was the supreme master of the sword, but no one knew:

My eldest disciple, Feng Yao, forced sword intent into his body to break through to the next cultivation level. To protect him, I let sword energy pierce both my shoulder blades.

My white robes were soaked with blood, and shards of bone mixed with flesh were scattered across the ground. I spent three whole months bedridden before I could get up, yet he never came to see me once.

The male ghost I released, Shang Wujiu, treated me as a cultivation vessel and forced me to cultivate with him.

Ghostly energy flooded my mortal body, and evil Yin energy poisoned all my internal organs. My hair turned white before its time, and I coughed up blood every day.

After each time, he showed not a trace of pity. His eyes red, he shoved me viciously to the floor and said, "You owe me this."

The Buddhist disciple Badu, who was staying at our sect, tried to dispel my karma by burning my body day and night with Buddha's light.

Bound by spiritual energy, I couldn't break free. I could only watch as my skin rotted away layer by layer, leaving scars behind.

The words he said to me most often were, "You need to let go."

But he didn't know that all I was clinging to was life itself.

And my junior brother, Gongsun Xu, whom I had raised by my side since childhood, personally delivered me to the Demon Lord's blade.

They thought that with my cultivation, of course I could escape unscathed.

But I was just an ordinary person. How could I possibly fight an entire army of demons on my own?

I died.

I died on that desolate plain, every drop of blood drained from my body, with not a single person by my side.

*

But who could have known that after I died:

Feng Yao knelt outside the sect for seven days and nights without food or water, then drew his sword and stormed the demon realm, vowing to kill everyone who had caused my death.

Shang Wujiu forcibly tore his soul in two and stuffed half of it into my corpse, hoping to turn me into a ghost cultivator and bring me back to life.

Holding the prayer beads I had given him, Badu recited the Rebirth Sutra nearly ten thousand times in the main hall, until he coughed blood and his Buddha bones shattered.

My junior brother, Gongsun Xu, was quiet by comparison.

He simply planted a peach tree by my grave and came to water it every day.

He watered it for three hundred years straight.

Three hundred years later, when the peach tree became a spirit, the first thing it said to him was, "Your senior brother isn't coming back."

Gongsun Xu smiled and said, "I know."

Then he went on watering it.

The peach tree spirit rubbed its feet, raw and sodden from all that water, and cursed me, the dead ghost who'd brought it nothing but trouble. It hoped I'd hurry up and vanish from existence. If it ever got its hands on me, it would pin me beneath the tree and kill me again and again.

I was a little sad. It was bad enough to be insulted and disliked while alive. Why did I have to endure this humiliation as a ghost, too?

But in the end, I did not vanish from existence.

I simply stood on the bridge over the River of Forgetfulness and silently watched it all unfold.

*

Three hundred years after my death, I was reborn.

I was reborn just before taking my first disciple.

In this life, I planned to stay far away from them and live a little longer.

But who could have guessed they would cling to me as if they'd gone mad?

Feng Yao became a demon in a fit of rage to protect me, blood spreading through his eyes.

He said he didn't need the sword path anymore. In this life, he would never let anyone hurt me again.

Shang Wujiu lingered before the Reincarnation Platform, scattering three hundred years of ghostly power and letting his soul gradually dissipate.

All he asked was for the Judge of the Underworld to give him another chance at reincarnation. He said he would serve me like an ox or a horse, and only wanted to repay every life he owed me.

Badu knelt before the Great Leiyin Temple and returned his Buddha bones to the Buddha.

He kowtowed until the skin on his forehead split and bare bone showed. He said he was done practicing Buddhism, and from now on, all he wanted was to stay by my side.

Gongsun Xu placed a knife in my hand, wrapped his hand around mine, and pointed the blade at his own heart. "Senior Brother, please, stab me to death."

"You should've stabbed me three hundred years ago!"

My name is Shen Yinghan. I am the last ordinary person in the cultivation world.

But now, they are more afraid than anyone that this ordinary person might really die.

Reading Guide

1. The main story is told in third person and takes place in a fictional setting.

2. The protagonist has had previous partners; the love interests have not.

Theme: Even in difficult circumstances, keep striving and working hard.