Shen Qingmian transmigrates and becomes the cannon-fodder senior sister in a matriarchal romance novel.
The senior sister is exceptionally talented, aloof, and ethereal. Unfortunately, she follows her master's orders and becomes engaged to the male lead. When the male and female leads are hunted, she holds off a horde of enemies alone, exhausting herself to death.
The book says: “When Lin Yuanxing learned that Shen Qingmian had died, he froze for a moment and shed two lines of tears. But when he thought of how he would no longer have to worry about that marriage contract, and could marry Xiao Jinglan openly and honorably, a few sparks of delight rose in his heart.”
After transmigrating, Shen Qingmian tries to stay alive by avoiding the male lead every day. Before long, however, her master kindly brings up the engagement.
Shen Qingmian's mind races. “Master, I... I already have someone in my heart.”
“Oh? Who?”
Just then, a group of outer disciples happens to pass by. Shen Qingmian closes her eyes and points at random. “Him. That's him.”
Word that Shen Qingmian had privately pledged herself to an outer disciple spreads through the entire Tianshuang Sect in no time.
Late one night, Shen Qingmian hesitantly sneaks into the outer disciples' quarters. At last, she finds the boy huddled and shivering against the wall in a drafty storeroom.
His clothes are in tatters, and the skin exposed beneath them is covered in mottled scars. He looks even more miserable than he did on the day she brought him back to the Tianshuang Sect.
“What... is your name?”
Shen Qingmian asks hesitantly.
The boy raises his head. His dark eyes settle on Shen Qingmian's face, and he speaks in a hoarse voice.
“Pei Wang.”
What a familiar name. Where had she heard it before?
A few days later, Shen Qingmian wakes from a dream and suddenly remembers why the name sounds familiar.
Pei Wang.
The blurb of that novel said that the Demon Lord Pei Wang would bring the world to ruin.
Shen Qingmian gets up in a daze and sees the legendary Demon Lord standing beside her, respectfully holding out a cup of warm tea.
“Senior Sister, have some tea.”
Mottled scars mark the fingers holding the cup.
Shen Qingmian's heart softens, and she accepts the tea Pei Wang offers her.
*
Pei Wang has lived a life of misery.
When he was young, bandits slaughtered his village. He took a palm strike that destroyed his meridians, leaving him a cripple who could never practice martial arts.
Later, after entering the Tianshuang Sect, he was naturally bullied and scorned as a useless freeloader.
If there was one light in his life, it was the white-robed woman who led him away from the mountain of corpses and sea of flames on the day his village was massacred.
But they were worlds apart, and he had only that one chance encounter with her.
Through a twist of fate, Pei Wang fell into a demonic pit and endured endless suffering. Many years later, he finally returned to the world of the living, only to learn of her death.
Kill. Kill everyone in the world.
Everyone who caused her death deserved to have their lives claimed by him, the evil ghost, even if it cost him his own life.
As he lay dying, the only thing Pei Wang regretted was that he had not killed every last one of her enemies.
When he opens his eyes again, the white-robed woman looks just as she does in his memories, lifting him from a pool of blood when he is at death's door.
Only this time, she adds a gentle word of comfort.
“Don't be afraid. You're safe now.”
*
Word in the martial world has it that the astonishingly gifted senior sister of the Tianshuang Sect is engaged to an obscure good-for-nothing. People come to the sect, eager to watch the useless man make a fool of himself and grovel.
Instead, a man in black steps out from behind Shen Qingmian and quietly tops off her cup of tea.
Shen Qingmian smiles at him. “Come back quickly, or the tea will get cold.”
“Yes, Senior Sister.”
When someone questions the sinister nature of Pei Wang's martial arts, Shen Qingmian gives the aggressive martial artists a cold smile.
“Martial arts aren't inherently right or wrong. Good and evil lie in the heart. If you want to slander my future husband, you'll have to get past me first.”
That night, Shen Qingmian holds Pei Wang's thin wrist and carefully examines him.
Pei Wang is used to enduring the torment of his meridians flowing in reverse every day, but he is anxious about his demonic cultivation being exposed.
Shen Qingmian furrows her brow, then raises a hand to wipe the cold sweat from his temple.
“Does it hurt?”
Theme: Good and evil lie in the heart
