INE Chapter 118: The Flaw

Heavy curtains veiled the Demon Hall in layers.

As Ji Rong approached, the faint sound of a qin echoed through the air, like shattered jade, mournful and haunting.

With the music swirling around her ears, she walked straight into the hall.

At the center of the grand hall, Ji Rong lifted her head and saw a woman seated on the high throne.

She came to an abrupt halt.

To be precise, the woman’s posture could hardly be called “seated.”

She was half-lying, half-leaning, her head resting on the cold jade armrest. Her dark hair fell in strands like spider silk, veiling her brows and eyes.

As Ji Rong drew near, the woman slowly sat up from the throne.

In her hand was a withered phoenix flower. Seeing the white-haired woman before her, she tilted her head and smiled instinctively, revealing her teeth. “Who are you?”

Ji Rong looked at Bai Yushuang and replied, “I’m your master.”

A puzzled expression surfaced on Bai Yushuang’s face.

She twirled the phoenix flower in her hand, then pointed at the petals and declared with certainty, “You’re lying. My master wears red, just like this flower.”

Seeing the guarded look on Bai Yushuang’s face, Ji Rong was momentarily at a loss for words.

After a long pause, she reached out and gently stroked Bai Yushuang’s dark hair.

Just as she had done a hundred years ago, she softly patted the top of her disciple’s head and smiled. “Once I defeat Feng He, I’ll come see you in red.”

“Then… will Sister Chu come with you too?”

Bai Yushuang looked up at Ji Rong. Though she still didn’t believe this woman was truly her master, her voice remained soft as she asked the question.

Ji Rong gently smoothed her hair and said quietly, “She will.”

Following the music, Ji Rong passed through drifting white veils and came to the Phoenix Terrace.

The terrace was ablaze with vivid red phoenix flowers.

The petals bloomed like flames, brilliant and fierce, the brightest color in the shadowy Demon Hall.

A woman sat on the terrace, her gaze lowered, tirelessly plucking at the strings of her qin.

Ji Rong recognized the melody, it was Jinse. As she stepped closer, the woman looked up slightly.

When she saw Ji Rong’s face, the music broke off abruptly.

The strings had sliced her fingers, and blood dripped like pearls onto the phoenix blossoms.

Ji Rong stared at the face that so closely resembled her own and asked, “Who are you?”

The woman shook her head.

She pointed at her mouth, indicating she couldn’t speak.

Ji Rong understood. She reached out and took the woman's cold hand in hers.

Then, channeling spiritual energy into her meridians, she enabled the woman to speak with her.

She repeated the question. “Who are you?”

I am the spirit of the phoenix flower. My name is Changqing.

When Ji Rong heard the name Changqing, for a moment, she thought the woman had said Changqin.

But she quickly realized it had been her own mishearing.

She asked again, “Why do you play the qin here?”

By order of the Demon Lord.

For years now, I have not dared forget.

A flicker of emotion crossed Ji Rong’s face.

By the time she came to herself again, Changqing had lowered her head and resumed playing, her blood-stained fingers moving across the strings.

The music was plaintive, like a lament.

Ji Rong turned away and stepped down from the Phoenix Terrace, treading over the fallen flowers.

When she pushed aside the final curtain and exited the Demon Hall completely, the mournful tune had reached its end.

She looked up at the blood moon hanging high in the sky, and suddenly, the final couplet of Jinse surfaced in her mind:

This feeling, once lost in confusion, now lingers only in memory.

….

Gu Baiyi hadn’t expected to wake up again.

What surprised her even more was that the first person she saw wasn’t her Senior Sister, but a complete stranger.

The young man sat only a foot away, a wooden sword strapped to his back, staring at her without blinking.

Gu Baiyi stared back for a long while. She was sure, she didn’t know this person.

She quickly noticed that his robes resembled those of the Divine Sect.

Yet the young man simply stared at her in silence.

He didn’t even bother to utter the most clichéd line, “You’re awake.” From beginning to end, his face remained expressionless.

Gu Baiyi had never had much affection for members of the Divine Sect, so she didn’t speak either.

Since the man seemed unwilling to explain anything, she lowered her head to check what she was wearing.

It was still the same blood-stained black clothing.

Seeing that nothing had changed, Gu Baiyi let out a subtle breath of relief.

That meant nothing too strange had happened. She was still herself, and she would still see her Senior Sister again.

The young man watched her for a long time, before finally speaking, slowly and deliberately.

“You’re actually still alive.”

Gu Baiyi stared at the Divine Sect disciple standing before her and nearly let out a cold laugh.

But at the same time, a trace of doubt crept into her heart: she had clearly died, so how was she alive now?

She glanced at the man again, then turned her head to examine the luxurious furnishings of the room.

Moments later, her brows furrowed.

The Divine Sect had always been frugal, when had they become so lavish and extravagant?

Something was off. Gu Baiyi sensed it immediately. Her voice remained calm as she casually asked, “Is this the Divine Sect?”

The young man looked at her and nodded.

“Is the Sect Master, Feng He, here?”

He fell silent at the question.

Just as Gu Baiyi began to wonder whether something had happened to Feng He, the man frowned and asked seriously:

“Who is Feng He?”

A flicker of emotion crossed her face.

…

After several days of observation, Gu Baiyi tentatively determined that the time she had landed in was approximately, 

A thousand years ago.

When she first realized this, she found it absurd and assumed it was another illusion created by the Divine Sect, some elaborate mirage conjured to fool her.

But after spending several days here, she gradually realized that things weren’t so simple.

If it were an illusion, how could it feel so real? And how could she not sense a single trace of fabrication?

She hadn’t died. Instead, she had somehow returned to a time a thousand years in the past.

It was too bizarre to believe.

While Gu Baiyi had accepted the shocking truth that she had come back from the dead, there was still one thing she couldn’t come to terms with.

A thousand years ago, her Senior Sister didn’t yet exist. So what was the point of her being here?

She felt a little lost.

The person who found and brought Gu Baiyi back was named Feng Lan.

He was the son of the Divine Sect’s current sect master. Judging by his generation, Gu Baiyi figured he was probably an ancestor of Feng He.

A thousand years ago, the Divine Sect was far from the flourishing powerhouse it would later become.

Though it was still wealthy, it lacked disciples, and spiritual energy was scarce.

Even the iconic parasol trees that symbolized the Divine Sect had yet to be planted. Only a few scraggly peach trees stood around, far from the grandeur needed to attract a phoenix to roost.

Gu Baiyi stood beneath a peach tree, gazing at this sect that seemed almost deserted.

Her expression was complicated. It was hard to imagine that this very place would one day rise to become one of the Four Great Sects.

To Gu Baiyi, being thrust back a thousand years was anything but a blessing.

In the early years, she buried herself in books, hoping to find a way back to her own time. She scoured every text in the Divine Sect’s archive, but found nothing useful.

When all hope seemed lost, she remembered a passage from the The Hidden Records of Cultivation.

It claimed that once a cultivator broke through the Returning to the Dust realm, they could transcend time and space, able to travel through the past and future.

So Gu Baiyi made up her mind to cultivate until she reached that realm.

It was the only thing she could do, and the only thing she was good at.

She formally joined the Divine Sect.

But despair soon followed, she discovered that after being pierced by that golden light and brought back to life, the spiritual energy in her meridians had vanished.

Without spiritual energy, she couldn’t cultivate.

She was no different from a cripple.

Gu Baiyi fell into a long period of hopelessness.

She even seriously considered ending her life, wondering if dying again might send her back to her original time.

Eventually, she gave up on that idea.

Because she thought, what if she really died this time? Then she’d never see her Senior Sister again. Even the face etched into her mind might fade away forever.

Despite the blows she had suffered, Gu Baiyi didn’t resign herself to fate. Instead, she decided to follow her own path, to live freely, just this once.

But what did “freely” mean?

Mostly, it meant not practicing swordsmanship, not meditating. When she was tired, she would lean against the peach tree and bask in the sun.

Having lived two lifetimes, both full of danger and bloodshed, this was her first taste of a leisurely life.

Put nicely, it was peaceful. Less kindly, it was like early retirement.

Day by day, Gu Baiyi sank deeper into idleness.

In her past life, she had always been cautious, yearning for just one chance to live as she pleased. Now that she finally could, it felt too free.

No enemies, no lover, and no hope of ever reaching the Returning to the Dust realm.

She drifted through her days, exhausted by existence.

Sometimes she even thought, maybe dying wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Perhaps she’d do it in a few days.

With that thought, Gu Baiyi absentmindedly reached up to pluck a peach blossom from a nearby branch.

The robes of Divine Sect disciples were pale blue, edged with silver.

Her fluttering sleeve, set against the pink-white petals, should’ve looked elegant.

But to Gu Baiyi, it was anything but beautiful.

Red and green together, it was just plain tacky.

She let out a sigh.

She was just about to lower her hand, to let the blossom be, and maybe, to let herself go as well, 

When she suddenly noticed something strange.

Amid the peach blossoms, on one of the delicate branches, someone was sitting.

What was odd was that the branch was so thin and light, yet the person sitting there hadn’t fallen.

Their faces were hidden behind the petals.

At that moment, Gu Baiyi couldn’t see who it was, but there was something oddly familiar about them.

Standing beneath the tree, she reached out to part the blossoms and get a clearer look, 

But before she could, the person on the branch moved slightly.

The branch swayed, and fell to the ground.

Petals rained down over Gu Baiyi.

Looking up at the woman sitting in the tree, Gu Baiyi forgot to breathe for a moment.

The woman’s expression was calm and indifferent.

She looked straight at Gu Baiyi and said evenly, “I’ve been watching you for a long time.”

It took a long while for Gu Baiyi to suppress the storm in her chest.

A gentle smile formed on her lips, but her eyes remained locked on the woman’s face.

Her voice trembled slightly as she asked, “Why have you been watching me?”

The woman gazed at her, speaking in a detached tone: “Because you’re supposed to exist a thousand years from now, not here.”

Gu Baiyi froze.

“I’ve run several checks. You’re an anomaly from the future, your presence disrupts the flow of time. So I’ve come to erase you.”

“If that’s hard to understand, let me put it another way, ”

“I’m here to kill you.”

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Note: Guess who is Immortal Sanhua?