On the Three Sacred Mountains, no spiritual power could be gathered. For cultivators, remaining here too long was torture—oppressive, suffocating, like trapping a great fish in a shallow puddle where the bottom was painfully visible.
Sima Jiao had endured this cage for five hundred years. And now, at last, he broke free.
The iron chains shattered, the jade tablets etched with the word seal splintered. A torrent of spiritual power erupted from the ruins below, surging upward with unstoppable force. The energy was so thick it took on form, blanketing the mountains in a mist before swelling into a rolling sea of clouds.
Even a novice like Liao Tingyan, who knew nothing of cultivation, instinctively absorbed the flood of spiritual power. It was intoxicating, better than anything she had felt before.
The few surviving great figures at the scene, struck head-on by that storm of power, displayed expressions so varied and bizarre they almost looked comical.
The Three Sacred Mountains had once been famed as true spiritual peaks, brimming with the purest essence of heaven and earth. When they imprisoned Sima Jiao, elaborate formations had been devised to sever these veins, diverting their flow through hidden channels to nourish the rest of Gengchen Immortal Mansion. Many had profited greatly from this theft. Now, with the seals torn apart, those hidden gains collapsed in an instant.
And yet, the ruin of their interests wasn’t the greatest disaster.
The true catastrophe was that Sima Jiao was free.
Once, many had scoffed that five centuries in confinement would leave him broken, a hollowed madman easily dealt with. Half a month ago, the sect leader had even sent people to “appease” him, more to probe than to placate. No one had taken the danger seriously.
Now they understood. What stood before them wasn’t a fading threat. It was calamity incarnate.
“Lord Cizang,” a young-looking man ventured, voice overly smooth, “since the Three Sacred Mountains have been destroyed, why not temporarily move to White Deer Cliff? Once these peaks are repaired, we will invite you back.”
The others silently cursed his shamelessness. From the sect leader’s lineage, this one had always argued for befriending Sima Jiao. Now he scrambled to declare allegiance, distancing himself from blame, lest the ancestor’s displeasure cut him down where he stood.
But Sima Jiao didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at them.
His gaze was fixed solely on the woman in his arms.
At first, they had scarcely noticed her. In the midst of life and death, a weakling with such meager cultivation was beneath their regard. An ant in the hand of a predator—why pay her mind?
Yet Sima Jiao’s silence turned their eyes toward her.
Recognition flickered. She was one of the hundred female disciples sent inside. A pawn placed by one palace or another, chosen in the shadows of politics. And yet—here she was, alive, the only one alive. Protected at the side of the very man who had slaughtered them all.
Could it be… the ancestor had taken a liking to her? Impossible. Unthinkable. They dismissed the thought at once. For Sima Jiao to show affection to a woman would be as absurd as the sun rising in the west.
Liao Tingyan felt the heat of their stares but kept her face stiff, hands clinging awkwardly to the ancestor’s waist.
“My waist… is slim?”
At last, he spoke.
The question made Liao Tingyan break her act of playing dead. Forced, she replied, “Yes. I think maybe it’s because you’ve been imprisoned for so long… and starved to this state.”
The words slipped out. She had often imagined him wasting away here, forgotten, unfed, hunger gnawing at his sanity until it twisted. Foolish thoughts—but the truth buff he carried dragged them from her mouth regardless. So much for keeping a professional boss–employee relationship.
“You’re right,” Sima Jiao said flatly. “The suffering I’ve endured should be paid back one by one.”
Liao Tingyan: …When did I say that?
He turned his eyes on the survivors. They knew at once. This was the end.
They scattered, but it was useless. With spiritual energy flooding the world again, Sima Jiao’s power was monstrous. In the span of a breath, they were gone. Every last one.
Only Sima Jiao and Liao Tingyan remained.
Her body shook. Instinctively she pressed her face into his chest, only to realize that the very man she feared most was the one she clung to. If they hadn’t still been suspended mid-air, she would have let go at once.
Instead, he lifted her higher. His free hand slid up her back, pausing at the nape of her neck. The movement was slow, deliberate. Dangerous. Liao Tingyan swore he was weighing the thought of snapping her neck.
Her body stiffened. If she had fur, it would all have stood on end. Each pass of his hand made her hold her breath, each retreat let her exhale again. Three strokes later, she gave up reacting.
Just kill me already. This suspense is exhausting.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he carried her back to the shattered central tower. The moment her feet touched ground, they wobbled weakly. She pulled out a chair from her pouch and collapsed into it, trembling.
Sima Jiao stepped into the jade pond where the red lotus grew. Without a word, he tore his wrist. Blood flowed into the water, not dispersing but gathering, pulsing at the pond’s heart.
Time slipped by. Dawn crept over the mountains. Still he stood, motionless, bleeding into the lotus.
Liao Tingyan, exhausted, strung a makeshift hammock between two broken pillars and crawled in. As her eyes drifted shut, she glimpsed a flame-tipped red lotus blooming from his blood. So that’s how such a treasure grows, she thought drowsily. No wonder this ancestor is so formidable—he doesn’t need rare materials, he is the rare material.
Sleep claimed her.
By the time the sun was high, Sima Jiao emerged from the pond. His dripping figure steamed as the water evaporated, leaving only a pale dampness on his robes. His lips were drained of color, his aura sharpened to stark black and white—an image more terrifying in its restraint than fury.
He bent low, pressing into the hammock.
When Liao Tingyan woke, something was wrong. Her hammock was too cramped.
The murderous ancestor lay beside her, seemingly asleep, his head resting against her neck. His steady breathing stirred her collarbone. The robe she had pulled as cover was his, and the hammock’s curve had left her entirely enclosed in his arms. A few strands of his black hair spilled across her chest.
…She was suffocating. What the hell? I just took a nap and somehow ended up in bed with him.
Beneath them, the great black snake had curled into a coil and also fallen asleep.
Sunlight streamed through the broken tower. The foul clouds that had lingered for centuries were gone, replaced by drifting mists of spiritual energy. The red lotus burned quietly in the jade pond, its flame subdued at last.
Everything was calm.
Too calm.
Liao Tingyan dared not move, until sleep dragged her under once more.
There’s nothing in this world that can’t be faced. And if there is… just sleep through it.
…
The upheaval of the Three Sacred Mountains spread quickly through Gengchen Immortal Mansion. Even elders long secluded in pursuit of ascension emerged.
The Mansion’s power structure was vast and tangled: hundreds of great families, dozens of palaces, countless branches and affiliated lineages. Take Sect Leader Shi Qianlü’s Shi family alone: ten thousand disciples bore the name, and counting allies and branches, their number swelled into the hundreds of thousands. The interests at stake were staggering.
For years, they had debated what to do with the last bloodline of Fengshan clan, never reaching agreement. Now, the annihilation at the Three Sacred Mountains forced their hands.
Overnight, nearly all one hundred disciples sent inside perished. Their soul lamps extinguished, save for a single one still flickering faintly. The dozen powerful cultivators sent to monitor had likewise been erased.
Sect Leader Shi Qianlü, grave and unshaken, summoned the soul of one survivor. “Geyan,” he asked evenly, “what truly happened?”
The young man’s wraith smiled bitterly. “Grand-Uncle, as you said, that Lord Cizang is cruel and bloodthirsty. He slaughtered us all, threat or not. Only this fragment of my soul was spared.”
Shi Qianlü’s eyes flickered, but his voice was calm. “Yet one disciple’s life lamp still burns. Explain.”
Shi Geyan hesitated. “It surprised me too. A female disciple… she seemed favored. He kept her close, protected at his side.”
At this, Shi Qianlü finally showed a trace of astonishment. “Truly?”
“Indeed,” Shi Geyan confirmed. “Not only I—others saw it as well.”
“So it’s true.”
Shi Qianlü’s gaze deepened. A faint smile curved his lips.
“Perhaps this… is an opportunity.”
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