Within the Void Abyss, the news that Nascent Soul–stage evil cultivator Yuan Jingzhi had been killed spread as if it had grown legs, but what stirred even greater panic was this: the great fiend had awakened.

The Void Abyss Ancestor had not appeared for a full twenty years. So much so that the taboo against speaking loudly after nightfall had gradually changed, from a life-preserving rule people depended on for survival, into a vague and dubious legend.

Yuan Jingzhi was an evil cultivator who had risen during these past twenty years. It was not that he did not know this taboo—he simply had not taken it to heart. Now he had happened to run into the night of the full moon; even in death, he could not stir the slightest sympathy among the people of the Void Abyss.

But as an evil cultivator, who did not have some means of preserving their life?

His body had not even managed to cry out before it was blasted into ashes, yet the soul-suppressing banner in Yuan Jingzhi’s residence in Ghost Domain City had preserved his final wisp of spirit.

However, the very first words Yuan Jingzhi spoke upon awakening were filled with near teeth-gritting venom, “What a fine little medical cultivator!”

He had originally planned to remove this grave hidden threat for the beloved whose situation was difficult, and conveniently use this furnace vessel to treat the injuries from heavenly lightning. But now Yuan Jingzhi had barely escaped with his life, his remaining thread of spirit so frail it could be blown over by a gust of wind. Only the path of ghost cultivation remained open to him. Not only had his cultivation suffered loss—he had even lost his own body.

His carefully laid plans had been smashed to pieces. How could Yuan Jingzhi not be filled with hatred?

At this very moment, in the Scarlet Flame Flower Sea, Shu Tiantian who had been remembered and targeted—sneezed. She immediately stopped walking and lowered her head to examine the “ground” carefully.

The Void Abyss was filled entirely with evil cultivators. A medical cultivator at the Qi Refining stage simply could not survive here. If Shu Tiantian did not want to walk out and serve herself up like a dish to the various big brothers and big sisters, she had to honestly remain within this Scarlet Flame Flower Sea for the time being. For the sake of her little life, Shu Tiantian also had to figure out what exactly this “ground” was.

Looking closely, the patch of ground Shu Tiantian stood upon was actually the scale of some gigantic creature. Pitch black, covered in intricate patterns, its sharp edges gleamed with cold light—so beautiful one could not help but want to reach out and touch it.

But the troubling thing was that Shu Tiantian discovered that just this single scale was as large as two of her heads. Given Shu Tiantian’s height, she could not determine the creature’s full form at all.

She looked around. All around the flower sea were broken walls and ruined structures, arranged in some mysterious orientation—at first glance, like some abandoned array formation. But the formation was far too profound; Shu Tiantian did not recognize it.

Farther still were towering peaks rising into the clouds, like pillars holding up the heavens.

Upon the mountaintop, one could faintly make out carved railings and painted halls entwined with black mist. According to the original record, that should be the residence of the Void Abyss Ancestor. Beautiful as it was, it carried an oppressive gloom that seemed to press directly toward one’s face—exactly the same feeling as those beautiful pale hands gave.

By the time Shu Tiantian huffed and puffed her way up to the top of the ruined walls, daylight had already grown bright. The long night of the Void Abyss had finally come to an end.

Shu Tiantian let out a breath and turned to gaze at the burning sea of flowers.

Dense mist refracted the daylight, like crushed clouds scattering light and shadow across the ground. At last, Shu Tiantian clearly saw the enormous being beneath the flowers. The moment it entered her vision, she sharply inhaled—

—It was a dragon!

Black-gold scales covered its entire body. White whiskers, black-gold horns, a massive and imposing form… solemn, majestic. Daylight shattered across its body like upon a slumbering divine statue, quietly coiled upon that stretch of scarlet scorched earth.

So beautiful it seemed a creation of the gods themselves. If this dragon were to awaken, it would surely be a scene of moving fire and shifting stars, rising into the clouds and emerging from Dinghu Lake¹Dinghu Lake: traditionally associated with the Yellow Emperor’s ascension to the heavens; often used to evoke a grand, divine rising.; surely it would carry the oppressive might of towering mountain peaks…

The most beautiful dragons Shu Tiantian had ever seen in film special effects did not even compare to one ten-thousandth of this divine creation.

Yet this creation of the gods was covered in wounds. Under the daylight, the injuries looked hideous and terrifying. Its dragon horns were broken; the radiant, breathtaking body and tail were filled with tears of all sizes, blood constantly seeping from the wounds. Along its abdomen and tail, the beautiful layered scales were uneven, as if they had been forcibly torn off; and a massive penetrating wound stretched across the dragon’s body.

From afar, the ruined walls resembled an oval array formation, as though an invisible giant sword had nailed the dragon firmly to the very center of the formation.

It had likely lain there for many years. Various spiritual herbs had even grown upon its body, to the point that Shu Tiantian had not realized at first that she had been stepping on a dragon.

In the daylight, those tiny golden specks—if one looked closely—were dragon’s blood flowing from wounds that seemed as if they would never heal.

Beautiful, grotesque, saturated with bloody killing aura.

Shu Tiantian was so shocked she could not recover for a long time. Yet, as a medical cultivator, her first reaction upon seeing such wounds was—clean the wounds, stop the bleeding, bandage them.

Coming back to her senses, Shu Tiantian pressed down her restless hand that was about to reach for her medicine pouch—one could treat illness, but how could one treat anything without one’s life?

Looking at the endless sea of Scarlet Flame Flowers, Shu Tiantian suddenly thought of the Scarlet Flame Flowers that bloomed from the dripping blood of the Void Abyss Ancestor’s pale ankle. She looked toward the dragon: that should be the Void Abyss Ancestor’s natal spirit beast, right?

In “Shizun Treats Me as a Substitute”, the descriptions of the Void Abyss Ancestor were actually quite sparse. Whenever he appeared, he was basically killing people. As a public enemy of all, he was constantly being targeted by the righteous sects in every possible way.

The book never mentioned the Void Abyss Ancestor’s spirit beast, but thinking about it, not far away was that fiend’s residence—this dragon must be one he kept.

For a citizen of Huaxia, watching a traditional totem divine beast on the verge of death and being unable to save it felt exactly the same as watching certain foreign zoos mistreat giant pandas. But she was like a clay Bodhisattva crossing a river—barely able to protect herself—how would she dare touch the great fiend’s dragon?

Shu Tiantian looked reluctantly at the dragon, then simply found a hidden corner with her back to it. Out of sight, out of mind. She plopped down, opened the medicine case she carried with her, and began checking all her belongings.

During the sixteen years she had been trapped inside her body, although Shu Tiantian could not do anything, she could still hear and see. Out of boredom, everything she should learn and should not learn—she learned it all.

Shu Tiantian had always believed that the self she had been before gaining control of her body was more like an amnesiac version of herself, forcibly assigned a dim-witted NPC setting.

Her own consciousness had been trapped and unable to move, until just before death she obtained a sliver of hope. She changed the inevitable outcome, and only then regained control of her body.

The reason Shu Tiantian firmly believed that that foolish white moonlight was herself also had very strong evidence—for example, the standard set of acupuncture tools of an old Chinese physician inside the medicine case.

Shu Tiantian had grown up at the side of an expert in traditional Chinese medicine. Her grandfather had always blown his beard and glared, dragging Tiantian around as child labor. When she was only a few years old, his patients jokingly called her Little Doctor Shu. Later she went to study Western medicine, which angered the old man so much he called her three times a day.

So classmate Little Shu, combining Chinese and Western medicine, could step onto an operating table and also perform acupuncture with a needle.

But in this cultivation world, there was no such thing as acupuncture.

In this world, the cultivation methods of medical cultivators differed greatly from those of other cultivators. Although all drew spiritual energy into their bodies and all studied the various mental techniques and forms of their sects, others learned how to fight, while medical cultivators learned how to heal and refine medicine.

When this lifetime’s Shu Tiantian was hurriedly sent away by her shizun, she had been treating her junior brother, so she had brought the medicine case along with her.

Aside from the custom-made acupuncture tools she had commissioned, there were not many ready-made pills in the medicine case. Only one bottle of Qi-replenishing pills and one bottle of Qingxin pills—but there was quite a lot of powder for treating external injuries.

Shu Tiantian turned the medicine case inside out, trying to find a few spirit stones. The poverty was truly shocking.

In the original novel, in order to highlight the special status of the female lead Ling Ruoshui, the status of medical cultivators was raised extremely high.

Medical cultivators were scarce throughout the cultivation world. Vile figures like the great fiend who captured medical cultivators everywhere simply did not exist a second time in the cultivation world. Accordingly, medical cultivators were also extremely wealthy. The female lead Ling Ruoshui could sell a single batch of pills for a sky-high price, and even at her lowest point she had never lacked money.

So why did Shu Tiantian—the brilliant white moonlight in the original novel whose talent crushed Ling Ruoshui have to carry a patched-up broken medicine case? Now the truth was revealed—she was simply poor.

Some unpleasant memories surged up.

Why did Shu Tiantian evaluate her past self in this life as an idiot? Considering how, in the original novel, she had been so beloved in Tianji Sect that she cast a shadow over the female lead, the most unfortunate guess was the truth: because she treated illnesses for free.

Such a living Bodhisattva—how could she not be a white moonlight?

After rummaging back and forth, Shu Tiantian managed to scrape together two spirit stones and also found a bottle of Bigu pills.

Full of hope, Shu Tiantian poured out the Bigu pills and counted them—there was only one.

Her vision went dark.

She was currently at the late stage of Qi Refining and still could not abstain from food. This lowest-grade Bigu pill—one could only guarantee she would not go hungry for three days.

With her head drooping, Shu Tiantian searched for a long time before finally finding the communication talisman she had been thinking about for ages. She eagerly hoped this talisman could immediately summon her damned shizun and let her escape the bitter sea of poverty within three days.

She closed her eyes and sensed the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. She felt extremely abundant spiritual energy in the air. Countless green points of light flowed toward her, and her entire body felt as comfortable as if bathed in sunlight.

She tried to guide the spiritual energy to her fingertips and infused it into the communication talisman. But the talisman only lit up for a second before going dark again.

She repeated the process several times. Each attempt vanished like a stone sinking into the sea. Her hope turned to nothing. Clearly, the Void Abyss lived up to its name—ordinary methods of communication simply did not work here.

Shu Tiantian’s small shoulders felt somewhat heavy, pressed down by the two great life problems of poverty and survival.

The Void Abyss had three great cities. Although it was relatively isolated from the outside world, there were still ways to buy things and send out messages. It was just that her cultivation was low, and outside there were evil cultivators watching like tigers eyeing their prey, and Yuan Jingzhi—who was, eight out of ten, already harboring hatred toward her… Whether she wanted to send a message or simply survive, neither would be easy.

But with not enough Bigu pills to eat and the communication talisman unusable, she had to find a way to go out once—at least before the Bigu pill was finished.

Having made up her mind, Shu Tiantian no longer hesitated.

Subconsciously, she wanted to touch the small bell on her wrist, but her wrist was empty—there was nothing there.

In this life, Shu Tiantian had been an orphan, taken in by Immortal Lord Chixiao and brought to Tianji Sect to be raised.

This small bell had been worn by Shu Tiantian for as long as she had memories. She had once thought it was given by Immortal Lord Chixiao, but later learned that he had no knowledge of it. Most likely, it had been placed on the infant by her biological parents.

When this lifetime’s Shu Tiantian was still a baby, she needed to hold the small bell every day to fall asleep. Later, after growing up, whenever she encountered something unsettling, she would subconsciously reach out to touch the bell.

But now, the small bell was gone. Shu Tiantian guessed that when she woke up in Black Valley, she had likely left it in that little thatched hut. There was a faint sense of loss in her heart.

But no matter what, preserving her life was the priority now. When she had the chance, she would go look for it.

Since Shu Tiantian had decided to go out before the Bigu pill ran out, she needed some ability to protect herself.

She had only learned various cultivation techniques through intention and theory, having been trapped and never practicing them. So today, even using the Lightness Skill was clumsy and stumbling. She had to quickly adapt to her body and become proficient in several life-preserving spells.

Following what was written in the book, she sat cross-legged in meditation, guiding spiritual energy into her body and circulating it through several cycles. At first, the circulation was stiff and slow, but as she tried again and again, it became smoother and smoother.

However, just as Shu Tiantian tried to channel spiritual energy to her feet to practice the Lightness Skill, suddenly, an extreme cold struck her heart.

It was as if a bucket of ice water had been poured over her and she had been thrown into snow at forty degrees below zero. She was so cold she could not move, feeling the chill sweep through every limb and bone.

This time, it was even more terrifying than the previous episode.

The Heavenly Yin physique was originally extremely rare. Without nourishment from Heavenly Fire, it was like a fish deprived of water.

Shu Tiantian was freezing to the point of blurred consciousness, instinctively knowing only that she needed a heat source—anything at all, just a little warmth.

The dragon not far away suddenly exuded an irresistible temptation—like a person about to freeze to death seeing a warm cottage. Even knowing that danger lay within, no one could resist.

In the vast and silent palace hall, the pale young man had his eyes closed. Between his brows was an undisguised restlessness from sleeplessness. Supporting his chin, he seemed to be enduring something, which caused his extremely handsome and cold face to be tinged with a hint of violence.

At the moment when that soft hand barely managed to embrace the dragon’s head—

That abandoned array, so old that one might think it had lost its function, suddenly shone with brilliant light.

The next second, the long-haired young man abruptly opened his golden eyes.

Footnotes

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  Dinghu Lake: traditionally associated with the Yellow Emperor’s ascension to the heavens; often used to evoke a grand, divine rising.