The Immortal in the Cage

* Read the content warnings before reading. If you read pirated copies, get lost. I’m only responsible for the official version.

* This is a shixiong-shidi CP: gentle, avoidant older gong x sharp-tongued, free-spirited, unhinged shou.

Chu Qiuci had few family ties and a life full of misfortune. In just two hundred short years, he had become a moon hanging high in the sky, with no one by his side.

At fifteen, his family was destroyed, and he relied on an older brother with no blood ties for three years. In the end, he took the crooked path of cultivation. His brother became his senior fellow disciple and promised to protect him forever.

At one hundred and seventeen, his sect was wiped out overnight. His master died a horrible death, his junior sister was reduced to ashes, and the senior brother who had always treated him gently defected.

Chu Qiuci pursued his senior brother all the way to the border of the Ghost Realm. He was covered in blood, with not a single part of him uninjured. Chu Qiuci asked why, his voice trembling, but his senior brother only turned his back and said coldly, “No comment.”

For the first time, Chu Qiuci spoke harshly to him: “If you leave today, the next time we meet, it will be to the death.”

His senior brother left without looking back.

Later, they met on the battlefield with thousands of soldiers between them. Looking at the man in white across from him, Chu Qiuci sneered, “The Ghost Lord’s plans are truly brilliant. You’ve manipulated the whole world, leaving the mortal realm in terror. People are even afraid to let their children cry at night.”

“I wonder, have you slept soundly these past decades? When you wake in terror in the middle of the night, do vengeful ghosts come to claim your life?”

The man was still as gentle as ever, but his words were exceedingly distant. “Thank you for your concern, Immortal Lord. I am doing well.”

Chu Qiuci hated him. Since the man had come to him of his own accord, he would not let him leave so easily.

But he never expected that the man truly had no intention of leaving alive.

Immortals and ghosts could never coexist. The battle went unexpectedly smoothly. The man used himself as bait to give Chu Qiuci a parting gift, then died lightly in Chu Qiuci’s arms.

Looking at the bloodless face in his arms, Chu Qiuci had never hated anyone so much. He hated the man for lying through his teeth, for having no sincere feelings, and for asking whether Chu Qiuci had been eating properly even as he was dying... He also hated him for dying so lightly when Chu Qiuci had already decided to spend the rest of his life entangled with him.

Holding the body as it gradually lost its warmth, with the taste of his senior brother’s blood still on his lips, Chu Qiuci thought coldly: Senior brother, you lied to me twice.

That day, Chu Qiuci lost the last family he had in the world and became completely alone.

Chu Qiuci had accepted his fate and prepared to spend the rest of his life in solitude, but then he suddenly realized...

He could have been spared all of this.

Chu Qiuci was consumed with rage. He spent a hundred years laying his plans. He did not care whether he would die. He only wanted the true culprit to pay.

A hundred years later, he awoke in his senior brother’s room. Chu Qiuci knew that the game had finally begun.

Watching his senior brother bustle about, unaware of why he had returned to this world, Chu Qiuci smiled softly and whispered, inaudibly, in a corner where no one could see him:

“Senior brother, I’ve caught you.”

This time, I won’t let you leave again.

--

PS:

1. Older gong, dual POV. No favoritism, no taking sides, no trying to please both camps. Everything serves the plot.

2. Both are powerful and dote on each other; they are each other’s one and only. No perfect characters. Lots of plot, with a touch of ensemble cast.

3. Don’t label the work or the author. Fans of one character, people who dislike pairings or reverse pairings, and self-insert fans, please stay away. Comments will be deleted.

4. The author loves revising, and has rewritten the entire novel, so comments may no longer match the text.

-Thank you for reading-

Theme: Learn to fight back, and always have the courage to refuse to believe that fate is set in stone.