Chapter 4

Chapter 4: What Happened Back Then

She was so scared she nearly burst into tears. Only after a long while did the old Daoist priest turn his head. He gave her one deep, shadowy look, then turned back to the Founding Patriarch’s statue.

“Ah…”

The sigh that followed was long and hollow, like it had been pulled up from the bottom of his bones. His face sagged with exhaustion and bitterness, as if he’d aged decades in a single breath. When he spoke again, his voice was rough and hoarse.

“It’s all fate. It’s fate!”

He reached out a hand.

“Help me up.”

Gu Shi Yi hurried to support him, her expression tight with nerves. Once he was settled cross-legged on the bed, the old Daoist priest motioned for his apprentice to sit opposite him. He stared into the middle distance for a long time before finally speaking.

“Show me that thing…”

“That thing…?”

Gu Shi Yi didn’t understand at first. Then she saw his gaze flick to her collar and realized what he meant. Flustered, she reached in and pulled out the little clay doll.

The old Daoist priest accepted it. The clay doll seemed afraid of him; it went stiff, arms and legs rigid, not daring to move an inch. Its eyes stayed fixed on him, anxious and wary, while he examined it closely. After a moment, he let out another sigh.

“With your cultivation, you still managed to move her into this realm. And she hasn’t had her soul shattered—she can even cling to this little body. That’s absurd luck.”

So… it really was fate.

Even cross-realm soul capture was something his own master couldn’t manage at his peak, let alone Gu Shi Yi with her half-baked skills. If it had worked at all, it had to be because of the Mystic Profundity Bright Mirror—proof of just how terrifying the mirror’s abilities were.

That thought stabbed him hard. He had been only one month away from truly making the mirror his. Bitterness surged up his throat, metallic and hot. He swallowed it down by force.

“Hoo…”

He breathed out slowly, then lifted his eyes to Gu Shi Yi.

“What you did last night was dangerously extreme. One misstep and both you and her would’ve been sucked into the void between two worlds. You wouldn’t be able to live or die—just drift forever in emptiness. Gu Shi Yi… you were reckless beyond belief.”

Gu Shi Yi’s face went even paler.

“Master, it was that dangerous? I thought if the spell failed, the worst would be losing some essence…”

And Yan Er would still be over there, stuck as a vengeful ghost.

The old Daoist priest shot her a glare.

“A newborn calf that fears nothing. Only you could do something like this.”

He sighed, already knowing part of the reason: Shi Yi’s pure yin body matched that little mirror far too well.

“Ah… it really is fate.”

Gu Shi Yi watched him sigh again and again, and her scalp started to prickle. She could tell she’d stepped on a landmine. Forcing a laugh, she tried to lighten it.

“Newborn calf? I’m thirty. I’m an old cow by now.”

Then she dipped her head and muttered, like she was complaining to the ground itself.

“Also… Master, you never told me this little mirror wasn’t safe to use.”

The old Daoist priest glared at her again, then let out another breathy sigh.

“You’re right. This… is on me. Now that things have come to this…” He looked up toward the sky, eyes dim. “There are things I won’t hide from you anymore.”

He returned the clay doll to Gu Shi Yi.

“Put her away properly.”

Gu Shi Yi took the clay doll. Right in front of him, she tugged open her robe without the slightest hesitation and shoved the doll into her clothes like she was pocketing a snack.

The old Daoist priest’s eyelid twitched.

He stared at her for a beat, then shook his head with a weary, despairing sort of resignation.

“It’s all my fault. All my fault! Back then I refused to accept that Senior Brother took charge of the sect after Master died. I stole the supreme treasure, dragged you down the mountain, and we’ve been hiding and running for years. I raised you into… this.”

A ten-thousand-year bachelor had no idea how to raise a child. So he’d raised an apprentice who was bold to the point of shamelessness, clueless about worldly manners—like some mountain savage who’d never heard of propriety in her life.

Gu Shi Yi had been his apprentice for twenty-five years. She’d asked before, once or twice, out of curiosity. Each time, the old Daoist priest kept his mouth sealed like a clam and refused to spit out a single word. Now, hearing him finally mention the past, the “curious cat” inside her practically clawed its way out.

She leaned forward.

“Old man, then say it already! After all these years, what sect do you come from? Where did this mirror come from? You’ve never told me any of it. Don’t you dare start talking and stop halfway.”

The old Daoist priest glared.

“What are you rushing me for? I’m figuring out how to open my mouth.”

It was a long story. Long or not, it had to be told clearly.

Eighty years ago, the old Daoist priest had been a snot-nosed brat dragged through war and left an orphan. A wandering Mystic Profundity Sect Master, Wang Qing Yang, picked him up and brought him back to the mountain as a closed-door disciple. His surname was Qi. His secular name was Niu Er. He was the youngest disciple, ranked ninth, and his Dao name was Qi Jiu Feng.

Qi Jiu Feng had always been quick. After entering the sect, he learned Daoist arts and studied scriptures with a mind like a steel trap—one look, and he never forgot. Most human path methods took a year just to get started and three years for minor mastery. He could reach minor mastery in a single year. On top of that, he had a sweet mouth and knew exactly how to please Master, so Wang Qing Yang favored him.

When Qi Jiu Feng was twenty, Wang Qing Yang passed away and handed the sect master position to the eldest disciple, Liu Yuan Shan.

Qi Jiu Feng had never liked that stubborn, wooden, introverted Senior Brother. After Master died, he picked fights, made trouble, searched for faults—anything to vent the resentment he kept swallowing. Deep down, he refused to accept Liu Yuan Shan as Sect Master.

Other senior brothers didn’t accept Liu Yuan Shan either. They gathered together and tried to force the eldest senior brother to give up the sect master seat. But Liu Yuan Shan, honest and thick-headed though he was, had taken in a terrifyingly capable apprentice: Zhang Zhen Yue.

That apprentice truly surpassed his teacher. His Daoist arts were refined, and his mind was even sharper—calculating, patient, viciously good at turning a situation to his advantage. With Zhang Zhen Yue backing him, Liu Yuan Shan crushed the attempted coup.

Still, Liu Yuan Shan was kind by nature and didn’t want to tear apart fellow disciple bonds. Instead of killing them, he locked the three ringleaders—Qi Jiu Feng, Zhao Ba Ling, and Wan Liu Zhi—in the back mountain to face the wall and repent.

But Qi Jiu Feng had been a closed-door disciple. Under Wang Qing Yang, he’d learned a method none of the other senior brothers knew: the External Incarnation Technique.

He prepared a puppet in advance, attached his incarnation to it, and fooled Liu Yuan Shan and Zhang Zhen Yue. The puppet was locked away in the back mountain, while his true body slipped out.

After escaping, Qi Jiu Feng still couldn’t let it go.

Relying on his familiarity with the mountain, he crept back into the sect and stole the Mystic Profundity Sect’s supreme treasure—the Mystic Profundity Bright Mirror.

The moment the treasure mirror left Celestial Yin Pool, the restrictions set upon it triggered. The sect discovered the theft instantly. Liu Yuan Shan and Zhang Zhen Yue personally led the chase.

Qi Jiu Feng ran like his life depended on it—because it did—while Liu Yuan Shan pursued from behind, shouting as he ran.

“Ninth Martial Brother, don’t make another mistake! This Mystic Profundity Bright Mirror is a treasure of the immortal realm. It was lost in this realm during the great immortal war of the primordial era. Only someone with great fortune and destiny can wield it. Your luck isn’t enough. If you hold it, it will ruin your whole life. Be careful… you’ll be hauling water with a bamboo basket—nothing but emptiness, Martial Brother…”

Qi Jiu Feng didn’t listen. He threw back his head and laughed three times, wild and sharp.

“Senior Brother, don’t try to trick me with fairy tales even children don’t believe. I want to see how it’s supposed to harm me!”

…

By the time the old Daoist priest reached this point, his face was full of regret. He looked at Gu Shi Yi and sighed as if the breath hurt coming out.

“I regret not listening to Senior Brother…”

After Qi Jiu Feng fled with the mirror, he hid and ran, afraid the Mystic Profundity Sect would hunt him down. Three months later, he discovered just how abnormal the treasure mirror truly was.

In the primordial era, the Mystic Profundity Bright Mirror had been held by an Immortal Maiden—a woman born with a pure yin body. She had refined the mirror within her own immortal body. It could connect yin and yang and unleash divine light. Wherever that light fell, it could tear out souls and seize spirits. In combat, it could even snatch an opponent’s treasures and spirit items. It was viciously powerful.

Because it was birthed from a pure yin body, it needed to absorb innate moon qi to be nourished. The treasure belonged to yin; it suited women best. Since it was an immortal treasure, a man holding it wouldn’t immediately die, but in the long run the pure yin qi would gnaw at him. His yang qi would weaken little by little. The lighter cases lost their masculine vigor. The worse cases… changed from male to female, turning into a daughter’s body.

Back then, the Mystic Profundity Sect’s Founding Patriarch had been a man of iron. After obtaining the treasure mirror and discovering its danger, he traveled across this realm’s famous mountains until he finally found an extremely yin place. He raised the mirror deep underground within Celestial Yin Pool and almost never carried it on his person.

Qi Jiu Feng had been favored by Master, yes, but he hadn’t been Master’s choice for Sect Master. The mirror’s secret was never told to him. Once he realized something was wrong, he quietly asked around, moving from place to place until he finally learned the ancient truth.

Only then did regret truly bite.

He wanted to return the mirror, but he couldn’t swallow his pride. He held a grudge against Liu Yuan Shan, and after everything he’d done, how could he lower his head and go back? So he wandered through the mundane world with the mirror, searching in secret for a way to hide an immortal treasure like this.

Years passed before he found a method: a woman with a pure yin body could keep the mirror inside her, nourishing it while concealing its heavenly signs.

“That Immortal Maiden had a pure yin body,” he told himself. “If I raise it inside another pure yin body, it will nourish the treasure and block its fate. No matter how perfectly Zhang Zhen Yue calculates, he won’t be able to find it.”

He searched for nearly a year before he finally met Gu Shi Yi.

Back then, she was the eldest miss of the Gu family in Chen Prefecture. The Gu family was a cultivation clan—calling it a grand “clan” was a stretch, really. A hundred years earlier they’d produced one ancestor patriarch at Nascent Soul Stage. That ancestor patriarch later failed his tribulation while trying to break into Divine Transformation Stage and died, but he left behind methods and pills that kept the Gu family thriving.

Gu Shi Yi was the legitimate miss of the main branch. By rights, her status should have been high. But because of that scandal that became famous across all of Chen Prefecture, her days in the Gu family were miserable.

Qi Jiu Feng saw the opening and took it. With a few quick words, he lured her away and made her his apprentice.

And the Mystic Profundity Bright Mirror was sealed inside the apprentice’s body.

“How the past twenty-five years went, you already know,” the old Daoist priest said, voice rough. “But you don’t understand why I made you keep raising it.”

Gu Shi Yi stared at him, confused.

“Master, then why did you make me nurture the treasure mirror for twenty-five years? And you said there was still one full month… Does that mean after a month, I won’t need to nurture it anymore?”

The old Daoist priest’s eyes dulled.

“My Martial Nephew Zhang Zhen Yue is no ordinary man. I don’t know how, but he latched onto the royal family of the mundane world and became the royal National Preceptor. The Emperor himself supports him. All these years, whether among common folk or among the immortal sects, people have been searching for me…”

Once word spread that he’d fled with a supreme treasure, the Mystic Profundity Sect hunted him, other sects hunted him—everyone wanted a piece. That was why he’d dragged his apprentice through years of hiding and running, never daring to show his true face.

“The treasure mirror is an immortal treasure,” he continued. “When it appears, it stirs heaven’s signs. A cultivator with enough skill can calculate its location. Thirty years ago, when I stole it, I alarmed many people. After I found you, I cast a divination. If a pure yin body nourished it for twenty-five full years, you could refine it. After that, even if you held it right in front of Zhang Zhen Yue and painted your brows, he still wouldn’t be able to tell.”

Then his expression collapsed into something like grief.

“But last night you used it to absorb moon power and connect yin and yang. You stirred the heavenly signs. The last twenty-five years… all wasted.”

He looked up, as if asking the sky to justify itself, and let out a long, broken sigh.

“So it’s heaven’s will. If it’s in your fate, you’ll have it. If it isn’t, you shouldn’t force it. Senior Brother was right—I’m a man without fortune. Treasures can’t be seized.”

Gu Shi Yi stared at him, stunned. She had only wanted to save her best friend from sinking into the cycle of rebirth. She’d used the Mystic Profundity Bright Mirror once—just once—and it had ruined her master’s decades of planning.

Guilt hit her hard. Her eyes reddened immediately.

“Master… what do we do? Then—then we’ll nurture it again! Another twenty-five years, thirty, forty, anything. We’ll hide somewhere new. I won’t marry. I’ll never marry!”

The old Daoist priest sighed again and glanced at the clay doll cupped in her hands. The doll stared at him too, wide-eyed and pleading, like it was afraid to blink.

Foolish child.

For an immortal treasure to hide its heavenly signs once was already a rare stroke of fate. How could it happen twice?

“Enough,” he said. “I won’t live to see that day. And you—though you’ve never been with a man—you poured every bit of the essence of your pure yin body into the treasure mirror to force it to drag your friend’s soul across worlds. Once you lost your primal yin, you can’t nourish the treasure mirror anymore.”

Gu Shi Yi jolted.

“Then we’ll find someone else with a pure yin body!”

The old Daoist priest only shook his head, unwilling to tell her the full truth. Back then, even with her pure yin body, she had still been mortal. Sealing an immortal treasure had taken him twenty years of cultivation and a restriction set with his primordial spirit. Now he was old, his cultivation fading—how could he seal the mirror again?

He changed the subject, voice turning heavy.

“At this point, talking more won’t help. I can calculate this realm’s present life, but I can’t calculate another world. Your friend—where did she come from? And why did you pull her into this realm? Tell me.”

Gu Shi Yi hesitated.

The clay doll in her palm turned toward her, met her eyes, and gave a small nod. It lifted its head, about to speak—

But the old Daoist priest sighed.

“You only just attached yourself to this doll. You’re barely being sustained by the little bit of pure yin power on Shi Yi. Speak less. Apprentice, you tell me.”

Gu Shi Yi let out an awkward chuckle and scratched at her scalp.

She glanced at him and said, “Master… that’s a long story.”