If Life Were Given

On her twelfth birthday, Su Lingxi encounters a soul-guiding female ghost by the river, one created through refinement. The moment their fingertips touch, the forbidden life-stealing technique known as the “Replenishment Barrier” is planted in her. The Lin family secretly conspires with the evil cultivator Chang Heming, using the Su family's ancestral tomb as an anchor to nourish the Lin family's legitimate daughter, Lin Mengyao, with the rare spiritual lotus fate. They intend to use her life and fortune to defy heaven and exchange destinies. Su Xiumei, Su Lingxi's aunt, tries to dispel the evil but suffers a terrible backlash. Only then does she uncover the deadly scheme that has been unfolding for over a decade. To find a way to break the curse, Su Lingxi's father braves the perilous, fog-shrouded Cold Mist Ridge to seek out the reclusive Daoist Master Mo Xuan. Along the way, he meets Lu Yanzhou, who carries a legacy of exorcism. The three join forces and survive one deadly trap after another: ghostly loops, the fiends of Yin Mountain, and a blood-fiend cellar deep underground. They finally learn that the Lin family has harmed dozens of innocent children to refine its forbidden technique. The evil cultivator Chang He, meanwhile, has used the Lin family's influence to set up a chain of killing formations, feeding on thousands of souls in an attempt to seize the spiritual lotus fate and gain immortality through the fortune of the entire city. Burdened by the old regrets of his sect, Mo Xuan leaves seclusion to help them, while Third Master Bai arrives to aid them along the way. The group enters the Lin family's ancestral tomb and ventures into an underground realm, confronting layer upon layer of refined corpses and vengeful spirits. Su Lingxi was once a frail girl, and her fate nearly shatters time and again. Several times, she burns through the power of her spiritual lotus to fight back, risking her life as she detonates fragments of her fate. Third Master Bai and Mo Xuan are each gravely wounded and brought to the brink of death protecting her. Beneath the layers of conspiracy, they glimpse a cruel truth: the Lin family is merely a pawn in the hands of the evil cultivators, and another mastermind is pulling Chang He's strings. Soul-trapping formations, fate-reversing arts, and blood-sacrifice altars are all linked, turning countless souls into offerings for an exchange of destinies. Su Lingxi is no longer a vessel whose fate can be stolen at will. Enduring the destruction of her meridians and the danger of her soul dispersing, she stands shoulder to shoulder with her father, Lu Yanzhou, and Mo Xuan, using the life force of the spiritual lotus to fight the utmost yin fiendish energy, seeking