The Senior Brother Is Looking for an Extra

I was the most ordinary passerby in a cultivation novel.

I had no talent, no connections, and no lucky encounters.

Every day, I carried water, pulled weeds, and tended the spiritual fields. During breaks, I listened to my coworkers praise Senior Brother.

Senior Brother was exceptionally talented, as bright and refined as the moon after rain, and the most handsome man in the world.

He had countless admirers, but he only loved his junior sister.

This had nothing to do with me.

But Senior Brother had once saved my life.

It was nothing, really. He had saved more people than the fish in a river. I was just an insignificant passerby.

Still, I joined the group of Senior Brother’s biggest fans.

Every day, my coworkers and I competed to see who could praise him the most extravagantly.

I thought I would go on living like that.

Carry water, pull weeds, tend the spiritual fields, then praise Senior Brother. If I still hadn’t advanced by the time I turned thirty, I would go down the mountain, buy a plot of land, and grow vegetables and raise chickens.

After all, farming was the only thing I knew how to do.

One day, a disciple covered in blood brought back the news:

Senior Brother was dead.

My coworkers were stunned. “How could that be?!”

Exactly. How could that be?

The sect had sent people out to search five times, but they hadn’t even found Senior Brother’s bones.

I heard that Junior Sister had cried until she fainted, the sect leader had grown a few white hairs, and the women of the entire sect had all missed their periods from grief.

I was halfway through grieving when I suddenly remembered my period was due at the end of the month.

It was only the middle of the month.

Grief or not, life had to go on.

Hardly anyone in the sect mentioned Senior Brother anymore, but I had a dream.

In the dream, Senior Brother saved me.

I sat by my bed all night and came to a conclusion.

People should be grateful.

Even a passerby is a person.

So I packed my things, accepted a mission to go down the mountain, and set off to find Senior Brother.

I didn’t tell anyone. I was afraid they would laugh at me.

I spent three months at the summit of the mountains and seas.

It was buried under snow, a vast stretch of white with nothing in sight. There wasn’t even a body, let alone Senior Brother.

My cultivation was weak, and I had no experience. I slipped and fell into an icy lake.

I thought I was done for.

Just before I died, I had a few regrets.

Yes, Senior Brother had saved me. Yes, I liked him just a tiny bit.

But when it came down to it, my life mattered a little more than Senior Brother.

I didn’t die.

And I found Senior Brother’s body.

The demonic beasts had hung us from the cave ceiling like strips of dried meat.

The other sect disciples who hadn’t made it home were hanging there too.

They had frozen into pillars of ice.

The demonic beasts were tired of eating frozen meat and wanted something fresh.

I was dragged out, and a knife was held to my neck, poised to cut.

The leader of the beasts stared at me for a while, then suddenly burst into laughter, slapping the table so hard it went bang, bang, bang.

I thought it was excited about coming up with a new way to eat me.

Sure enough, it wanted my heart.

I traded my heart for Senior Brother’s body.

People die without their hearts.

I didn’t die.

It hurt so much.

It hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt...

Can a living person really feel pain like this?

Or am I already dead?

I must be dead.

People can’t live without hearts.

I shoved Senior Brother’s heart into my chest.

It was beating.

Senior Brother wasn’t dead, and neither was I.

How wonderful.

Senior Brother had lost his sight and hearing, and his spiritual meridians were blocked. He couldn’t whisk me back to the sect.

What a shame.

I lied to him.

I told him my name was Xiao Lu.

After all, people die without their hearts.

And I was still alive, and so was Senior Brother.

I spent all my savings on a house, then planted vegetables and raised chickens in front of it.

I could kill one every day to help Senior Brother recover.

Senior Brother said he liked me.

It seemed the chickens I’d bought weren’t ordinary chickens.

Senior Brother had eaten too many.

He’d gotten too much nourishment.

Then Senior Brother said he wanted to take me back.

He didn’t mention Junior Sister or ask how he’d been saved.

Senior Brother must have figured out that the heart was his and wanted to trick me into going back so he could take it out.

I touched my chest. I couldn’t bear to part with it.

People can’t live without hearts.

I ran away.

I took all the chickens with me.

These chickens weren’t ordinary chickens. I could sell them for a good price.

Then I could buy another house and keep growing vegetables and raising chickens.

I didn’t manage to buy a house or grow vegetables and raise chickens.

A fellow disciple coming down the mountain saw me selling chickens and said they’d thought I had died down there.

I returned to the sect.

I went back to carrying water, pulling weeds, and tending the spiritual fields.

During a break, my coworker said Senior Brother had returned.

They all said

Junior Sister had saved Senior Brother.

Bullshit.

I was furious.

I’d traded my heart for him.

Liar.

Theme: I matter too.