Empress Hengji

She was Heng Ji, a fallen Heavenly Emperor of the Tianxuan Continent.

She had once looked down upon the Nine Provinces, cut down stars, plucked the sun and moon, and united the entire universe. Above heaven and below, she alone reigned supreme.

She had obtained everything. Only the path to immortality eluded her throughout her life.

In the end, she was destroyed by the innate heavenly tribulation.

“What kind of hellhole is this?”

Ning Hengji opened and closed her eyes. A moment ago, she had been facing a world-destroying heavenly tribulation, pointing her sword at the sky and cursing the merciless Heavenly Dao. In the blink of an eye, her whole body was in excruciating pain, as if countless hands were crushing her meridians bit by bit. Not a single spot was free of agony. Everything in the room before her was unfamiliar.

A tiny soul in her mind told her:

“You transmigrated into a book. You're a vicious female supporting character.”

“Because of an accident, your meridians are now shattered, so you can no longer cultivate. Soon, your beloved fiance, the male lead, will come to break off the engagement.”

“You both hate and love the male lead. His breaking off the engagement will be the final straw that extinguishes the warmth in your heart. You'll fall into demonic cultivation and eventually become a bloodthirsty demon king and villain, hated by everyone. In the end, you'll die at the hands of the male and female leads.”

“Sorry! I'll leave your fate from here on to you... System, System!”

With those final cries of “System, System,” the tiny soul disappeared.

Though the soul was gone, a mass of memories remained hidden in her mind.

Before Ning Hengji had a chance to examine those memories, she heard a woman sobbing outside the door.

“They really are going to break off the engagement?! My child has shattered meridians and lost all hope. At a time this painful, they still... want to break off the engagement! The Jiang family has gone too far!”

Break off the engagement? What an interesting phrase.

Ning Hengji couldn't help but smile. She had died, yet hadn't needed to pass through the underworld or drink Meng Po's soup, and had even been reborn like this.

Though her meridians were shattered... well, that was no great challenge for her. One of the ancient emperors she had once admired had obtained a cultivation technique after his meridians were shattered, and used it to ascend to immortality. She had already taken that technique for herself when she excavated the ancient emperor's tomb. In her previous life, she hadn't been willing to give up her innate sacred body and start over.

Now, she might as well give the technique a try.

Soon, when the time came to break off the engagement, Ning Hengji saw her fiance.

He had a face as fair as jade and cold as snow, long brows and narrow eyes, and pale irises that seemed veiled in mist. He looked so much like someone.

If there was anything she regretted in her previous life besides failing to attain immortality, it was Jiang Chendao.

In pursuit of immortality, she had severed her worldly ties. When she struck herself with the three swords that severed those ties, Jiang Chendao turned away. His broken silhouette disappeared into a desolate snowy night as the snow melted away. That was the last time they met. Three hundred years had passed since then.

Perhaps after passing through life and death, the ties she had severed had joined together again. Seeing this familiar face, which she had known so well since they were young, stirred faint ripples in Ning Hengji's heart.

Then she thought it over. This man might look like Jiang Chendao, and his name might be the same, too, but he wasn't that person. Ning Hengji smiled. So they wanted to break off the engagement? Fine. She didn't care.

“Is your Jiang family set on breaking off the engagement?”

The Jiang family parents replied, “Absolutely.”

But beneath the pear tree, the young man suddenly gave a cold laugh. “I won't break it off!”

Everyone: “!!!”

Message: Strive relentlessly for self-improvement.