Synopsis
-Blurb-
Five years ago, the maid serving the fourth disciple under Venerable Wuchen of the Xuantian Sect drowned and died.
When Shen Guiyin opened her eyes, she had taken over the dead girl’s body.
From then on, she became a servant, carrying swords, tying belts, doing laundry, tending the fire, and every other menial task.
And the person she served was the sect’s most beloved junior sister
Su Ruoling, the true heroine of the book.
She knew she was no more than an insignificant background character, so she trod carefully and kept quiet, enduring everything just to survive beneath the heroine’s halo.
But fate seemed to enjoy making a fool of her.
When the junior sister threw a tantrum, she shoved Shen Guiyin into the arms of the eldest senior brother, who looked at her coldly. “Don’t dirty my clothes.”
The second senior brother humiliated her in front of everyone to win the junior sister’s favor, making a spectacle of her.
The junior sister was too shy to deliver her love letter herself, so she forced Shen Guiyin to take it to the Venerable. Everyone mistook her for trying to seduce him.
On a snowy night, Shen Guiyin knelt in the forbidden grounds for three months, with no one coming to help.
Later, when the junior sister was afflicted by icy poison, Venerable Wuchen said, “The only cure is to draw out the poison. The price is a ruined dantian and the loss of all cultivation for the rest of your life.”
Everyone turned to look at Shen Guiyin. Forced to agree, she received compensation and became the Venerable’s fifth disciple.
Then came the day the demons invaded. The barrier crumbled, demonic energy swept through, and she was trapped inside alone, while they fought to protect the person they cared about: the junior sister.
Not one of them looked back at her.
Only one person tried to charge into the ruins, where demonic energy churned.
Her junior fellow disciple, Ye Ziqiu.
She knew that behind his proud, aloof exterior lay a deranged, obsessive nature. His temperament was twisted and extreme, and because of an incorrectly planted love gu, his desire for her was so intense he could hardly resist killing her.
During the years when she had lost her cultivation and was as good as crippled, she paid for it with her body.
Through dark, feverish nights, he gripped her throat, his crimson eyes full of madness and sickness, trapping her in an abyss where he could do whatever he wanted.
Everyone thought she was dead.
Only he dug through the charred corpses and scorched earth with his bare hands like a madman after the demonic tide receded, until the demonic energy had eaten his fingers raw. At last, he pulled her out from among the bones.
His eyes burned red at the corners, and scalding tears fell on her lips. Like a vengeful demon crawling up from the eighteenth layer of hell, he leaned close and whispered in her ear:
“Senior Sister, your life belongs to me… Did I say you could die?”
Carrying her broken body on his back, he left the Xuantian Sect and traveled the world in search of doctors and medicine.
The once-proud boy abandoned every last shred of dignity for her. Through countless summers and winters, he dragged her life, which should already have ended, back from the Yellow Springs and into the world of the living.
From then on, she lived again as Shen Guiyin.
She returned with her sword, broke through her limits, seized her destiny, and defied heaven’s decree.
Everyone from her past regretted what they had done.
The cold-faced eldest senior brother said with red-rimmed eyes, “I was blind back then.”
The second senior brother knelt before her sword. “If you kill me, I’ll welcome it.”
Even her master, as cold as an iceberg, was filled with guilt and asked for her forgiveness.
Only her sickly junior fellow disciple, who was always cold-faced, still hid in the shadows, angrily cursing every man who came near her.
Later, he pressed a jade disk he had secretly spent ages carving into her hands. His voice was muffled.
“I found it. I didn’t make it for you.”
Then, after a pause, he added in a near-whisper
“Silent jade, a heart for you alone.”
Weibo: @Taoli Yaoyao
[Reader’s Guide]
1. The heroine’s growth is central, with plot and romance given equal weight.
2. The xianxia setting serves the story, and the author has invented a great deal of it.
Theme: Self-respect, confidence, independence, and strength.
