[Cold-Blooded Diviner Junior Sister × Gentle, Refined Ghost Senior Brother]
Ming Ying died, and before she did, she even dragged someone down with her.
She hadn't looked closely. It wasn't until she was reborn that she realized the unlucky ghost was Fu Xunsheng, her junior fellow disciple who had practiced the Heartless Dao for years.
The good news: they were fellow disciples, so she could try to get on his good side.
The bad news: the guy remembered his previous life, so getting on his good side was completely useless!
After bribing him with copper coins failed, Ming Ying saw Fu Xunsheng about to hunt her down, so she hurriedly wrote a wicked wish on a Bonding Leaf.
But he happened to catch up with her just then, and an accident occurred.
In her panic, Ming Ying accidentally added a tiny stroke in the middle of the words "fall in love with me." It looked just like a dash, turning the phrase into "fall, in love with me."
Ming Ying: I really have to thank you.
Looking at her elegant, cool-eyed senior brother, Ming Ying took three steps back.
She gritted her teeth and thought, I meant to play with his feelings, so how did I end up getting myself involved?
But the Bonding Leaf seemed to have stopped working...
That was what Ming Ying thought. Until one long night, with candles burning, the senior brother praised as an outstanding practitioner of the Heartless Dao restrained his mocking desire and bound her hands with a cold jade-and-glass hair ribbon. Looking down at her, he calmly asked, "Junior Sister, why are you trembling?"
Ming Ying: Because I'm afraid of dying! Are your eyes broken? Can't you see?
It was also that night, listening to him coax her tenderly as they made love, all in that eternally distant voice, that Ming Ying belatedly realized: To hell with the Heartless Dao. Bro, you are practicing it completely wrong!!!
Her anguished conclusion as the person involved: I knew nobody could successfully ascend by practicing the Heartless Dao.
*
In his previous life, Fu Xunsheng had been devoted to the sword. Yet no matter how hard he trained, he always fell just one step short of success, forever on the verge of ascending. Others said his Dao Heart was firm and his ascension was close.
Only he knew he might never ascend in this lifetime.
There was a lazy, gluttonous disciple in his sect named Ming Ying. In his previous life, he treated her as a passing stranger, yet came to her aid many times whenever she was in danger. He thought he had at least done her a kindness. But just as she fell into demonic cultivation and shattered her Dao, she dragged him into the raging lightning tribulation with her. He died.
After death, he wandered the human world as a lone ghost for over a hundred years.
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself back at the moment they had first met. Looking at the smiling woman across from him, he tightened his grip on his sword. He was resentful, unable to understand how someone like her could be
so heartless.
He raised his sword, intending to forget their past and start anew, when he heard his junior sister behind him mutter in sudden realization, "So the incredibly unlucky guy I dragged along to die last life was him. Tsk, how pitiful."
Across both lifetimes, Fu Xunsheng had never been as angry as he was now.
He had thought he was merely a passing stranger to Ming Ying, but to her, he was a complete stranger.
The next moment, Ming Ying looked at the sword pointed at her forehead. The frosty sword cultivator opposite her called her by her full name in a stern voice: "Ming Ying."
Ming Ying immediately nodded, flustered.
The ever-gentle senior brother glanced at her and left her with a single line: "When we meet again, I will kill you."
Ming Ying sucked in a sharp breath.
No way, bro, you were reborn too!!!?
[Lazy, gluttonous, terrified-of-death diviner junior sister × Hardworking, gentle ghost senior brother who practices the Heartless Dao]
Reading Guide:
1. The romance and plot are split about fifty-fifty, with just a little more emphasis on romance.
2. Ensemble cast. The female lead isn't a traditional righteous heroine, and this is NOT an overpowered female-lead wish-fulfillment story!!!
3. The male lead is gentle and refined early on, but after they become a couple, he evolves in the direction of a gloomy, clingy ghost.
4. Inspiration screenshot dated 2023.11.25, minor revisions on 2026.7.28.
5. The novel will begin serializing in winter 2026, after the entire story is written.
6. The leads are each other's first and only partners, and the female lead always has the upper hand in the relationship.
7. My take on fantasy, with lots of original worldbuilding. For detailed content warnings, see Chapter One.
Theme: Saving each other and growing together
