A Century in Seclusion, the Last Cultivator Alive
Synopsis
A Century in Seclusion, the Last Cultivator Alive
A hundred years of bitter cultivation, and I finally broke through to the Great Ascension.
The moment I pushed open the stone door of my cave residence, I was ready for the gaze of ten thousand.
There was no one outside.
I walked the three mountains and five peaks, the nine sects and eighteen schools — wild grass three feet high, bones strewn across the ground.
Of the entire Cultivation World, I was the only one left alive.
So I cultivated… nothing?
Chapter One
The stone door of my cave residence crumbled to pieces beneath my palm.
Spiritual qi rushed in like a tide, flooding my limbs and bones; every inch of my meridians screamed.
The Great Ascension.
I, Zhang Xuan — the same Zhang Xuan whom every last person in Tianxuan Sect had treated as trash and thrown out a hundred years ago — had broken through.
A hundred years.
I had sat cross-legged in this lightless cave for a full hundred years, eating stalactites and drinking groundwater; three pairs of pants had rotted away.
Worth it.
I took a deep breath and stepped out of the cave mouth.
The sunlight made me squint. The wind poured in, carrying the smell of dirt and withered grass.
Below the mountain, all was quiet.
Not quiet — dead silent.
I had imagined seven or eight kinds of scenes for the moment I came out of seclusion.
Heavenly signs descending with ten thousand people bowing in worship; old enemies kneeling and begging for mercy; at the very least, some bird should have cried out a couple of times.
None of it.
The wind passed through the treetops, and a dead leaf spun down and hit me on the forehead.
“…Is anyone there?”
The echo bounced three times through the valley.
No one answered.
I sent my Divine Sense sweeping outward.
A Great Ascension Divine Sense covering a thousand li was no trouble at all. Within a radius of a thousand li, every spiritual qi fluctuation and every thread of human presence that should have been there —
One vast blank.
Something was wrong.
Frowning, I rose into the air and flew by sword toward the nearest town.
The Eastern Region of the Cultivation World: Qixia Town.
A hundred years ago, when I had passed through here, the rogue cultivators with stalls along the street could have lined up for three li.
Now, beneath my feet, there were only broken walls and ruins.
Most of the houses had collapsed, and the middle of the streets grew wild grass waist-high.
The teahouse’s signboard hung crookedly in the air, its lettering faded to a single shadow.
I landed in the center of the town, and my foot crushed a roof tile.
The sound was jarringly loud in the empty lanes.
“Anyone?”
I let out a shout.
The wind carried my voice away.
“…Anything alive?”
I pushed my Divine Sense to its limit — the entire Eastern Region —
Not a single thread of human presence.
Even demonic beasts had grown pitifully few; only some low-tier wild foxes and mountain hares remained.
I stood in the field of broken tiles, and my mind gave a hum.
The Cultivation World… gone?
The entire Cultivation World…
During this hundred years I spent in seclusion, what on earth had happened out there?
I spent three days flying through the five great cities of the Eastern Region.
The same sight everywhere: ruins, dry bones, wild grass.
Some towns still bore the marks of battle — sword scars splitting the city walls, scorched earth where spells had burned, not a blade of grass growing.
On the fourth day, I found a Jade Slip in the hand of a skeleton.
I probed it with my Divine Sense. Inside was a single line of text.
Crooked and wavering, clearly carved by someone on the verge of death:
“To whoever finds this slip, know this — Senior Brother Liu Changqing is a dog.”
I stared at that line for a long time.
Liu Changqing.
Tianxuan Sect’s Senior Brother.
Half the reason I was driven out of the sect was his doing.
A hundred years ago, that afternoon, he stood in the center of the Martial Arena and, in front of three hundred disciples, threw a rusted broken sword at my feet.
“Keeping a useless wretch like you in the sect wastes spirit rice.”
“Either get lost and fend for yourself in the wild mountains right now, or —”
He raised a second finger and smiled — a lovely smile.
“I will see you out myself.”
Three hundred people looked at me. Not one of them spoke.
I picked up that broken sword and left.
Behind me, as I walked, came a roar of laughter.
Someone shouted: “Take care out there, Useless Zhang — don’t get eaten by demonic beasts!”
Liu Changqing’s voice was the loudest.
That was my last memory of Tianxuan Sect.
Afterward I found that Kunlun Ancient Cave, sealed the entrance, and went into seclusion — a hundred years of cultivation in one go.
I had thought the first thing I would do after coming out was return to Tianxuan Sect, stand before Liu Changqing, and make him see clearly — that a useless waste could step on his head too.
Now I held this Jade Slip, standing in the middle of an empty city.
Liu Changqing is a dog.
Fine. I can agree with that.
But you should at least have lived long enough for me to curse you.
Where are the people?
“…”
I slipped the Jade Slip into my sleeve and took a deep breath.
“Let’s go back and have a look at Tianxuan Sect.”
Chapter Two
Tianxuan Sect stood in the Northern Region, on Cangwu Mountain.
The mountain gate, so majestic a hundred years ago, now leaned at a forty-five-degree angle. Of the three golden characters that had once read Tianxuan Sect, only the first still hung there; no one knew where the other two had gone.
I stood in front of the crooked gate, the corner of my mouth twitching.
The moment I stepped through the mountain gate, my vision was filled with ruin.
More than half the tiles of the Martial Arena had buckled up, the Scripture Pavilion had collapsed at one corner, and the Disciples’ Quarters were down to a few broken walls.
Weeds burst out from the gaps in the stone, easily taller than a man.
My room — never mind. Even a hundred years ago there had been nothing in it. One bed and one bucket. What was there to look at?
I walked straight to the core of the sect — the Council Hall.
The door of the Council Hall was unlocked. When I pushed it open, one hinge snapped, and the door panel crashed to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Inside, it had survived surprisingly intact.
Mostly because the place had been protected by the last layer of the sect’s Mountain-Protecting Formation, and because it was built underground, where the wind could not reach it and the rain could not soak it.
On the table at the center of the hall sat a neat row of Voice-Transmission Jade Slips.
Tianxuan Sect had a tradition — all important sect affairs had to be archived on Jade Slips.
I picked one up and probed it with my Divine Sense.
The date was the third day after I left.
The image surfaced: the Council Hall was brightly lit, ten-odd people sat in a ring, and right in the middle sat Liu Changqing.
He wore brocade robes I had never seen in my memory — cut to a sect lord’s specifications.
A hundred years ago the sect lord had been Zhao Hongdao. That old man had never cared much whether I lived or died, but at least he had never actively harmed me.
In the image, Liu Changqing had his legs crossed, his fingers drumming on the table, his face full of smugness.
“Everyone.”
He looked around at them all.
“That trash Zhang Xuan has finally rolled out of here. From today on, that Stone Chamber he used to occupy belongs to me, and the income from the Spirit Fields will be redistributed.”
A Junior Brother beside him raised his hand. “Senior Brother, that Stone Chamber of his… it’s five square meters. It doesn’t even have a window.”
“That is still a resource.” Liu Changqing slapped the table. “Even a mosquito’s leg is meat.”
I watched the scene in the Jade Slip, the corner of my mouth twitching over and over.
Five square meters, and you still had to steal it.
Classy.
The image continued.
After dividing up my pathetic little “legacy,” the disciples began to argue over the Spirit Fields.
Three Inner Sect Disciples turned red in the face fighting over two mu of Spirit Field.
Liu Changqing leaned back against his chair and watched them argue, a subtle smile on his face.
I knew that expression.
He was enjoying the show.
He was waiting for them to reach the peak of their argument, so he could step in and mediate and look ever so wise.
A hundred years ago he had been the same.
I put the Jade Slip back and picked up the next one.
The date jumped to the third month after I left.
The moment the image opened, the atmosphere was wrong.
Half the people who used to sit in the Council Hall were gone, and every one of those remaining had a gloomy face.
Liu Changqing still sat in the chief seat, but his legs were no longer crossed — he leaned forward, both hands propped on the table.
“Who did it?”
His voice was pressed very low.
“The Spirit Mine on Qingyang Peak — who touched it.”
No one below spoke.
A Junior Brother named Zhao Ming kept his head down, his nails digging into his palm.
“Let me ask again.” Liu Changqing stood up, his chair sliding back. “The Spirit Mine on Qingyang Peak is public property of the sect — who mined three-tenths of it on the sly.”
Still no one answered.
Liu Changqing swept a look around the room, his gaze settling on a middle-aged cultivator.
“Martial Uncle Wang.”
The middle-aged cultivator looked up, his face gray-white. “Changqing, I —”
“It was you.”
Not a question.
Martial Uncle Wang’s lips moved, but no words came out.
Liu Changqing’s hand pressed on the table, and a burst of sword qi shot from his fingertips —
The Jade Slip cut off there.
I set the Jade Slip down and breathed out softly.
I had been gone three months, and the sect had already started tearing each other apart.
Unbelievable.
I flipped through the remaining Jade Slips and sorted them by date.
The further back they went, the shorter the intervals; at their densest, one slip every three days.
And the recorded attendance —
From seventeen people, to twelve, to eight, to five.
On the last one, only two characters were written.
“Final Words.”
I held that Jade Slip, in no hurry to look at it.
First I had to get the earlier ones in order.
This story, I would watch from beginning to end.
Chapter Three
I watched the next Jade Slips one after another.
More thrilling than binge-watching a drama.
Eight months after I left, Liu Changqing formally seized power.
In the image, the old sect lord Zhao Hongdao was bound tight with rope and pressed to the center of the hall, his white hair disheveled, his face covered in blood.
Liu Changqing stood before him, the Sect Lord Token in his hand.
“Master.” He crouched down, his voice unbearably gentle. “Your disciple is unfilial. But you are old. You should rest.”
Zhao Hongdao looked up at him, his lips trembling.
“Changqing… I raised you with my own hands…”
“That is why I am leaving you your corpse intact.” Liu Changqing stood up and patted the dust from his knees. “Better than what you did for Zhang Xuan, no? He never even got a word of comfort.”
I raised an eyebrow.
Using me as an excuse?
The nerve on you.
In the image, Liu Changqing turned and waved at the remaining disciples.
“From today on, I am the sect lord of Tianxuan Sect. Any who disagree —”
He drew his sword.
“Step forward on your own.”
No one moved.
I sat in the Council Hall a hundred years later and watched the whole thing, feeling like I had just seen a play.
The old sect lord did deserve the scolding. Back when Liu Changqing bullied me, he had never said a single word.
But Liu Changqing deserved it more. He had not seized power for any kind of justice — purely out of greed.
The second slip.
The first year after Liu Changqing took power.
Tianxuan Sect expanded outward and forcibly swallowed the three small sects around it.
In the image, Liu Changqing pointed at the sand table, full of heroic spirit.
“The Qingyun Sect in the east, with nothing but a Golden Core-stage sect lord — swallow it.”
“The Luoxia Valley in the west, rich in spirit medicines — swallow it.”
“To the south…”
A Junior Sister beside him timidly raised her hand. “Senior Brother — Sect Lord, the Chiyan Sect to the south is no weakling. Their sect lord is middle-stage Nascent Soul…”
Liu Changqing waved her off. “Do not worry. I have already contacted the Frost Moon Palace in the Northern Region. When the time comes we will attack from both sides, and the Chiyan Sect will not last three days.”
The Junior Sister shrank her hand back and said nothing more.
I watched Liu Changqing pointing grandly at the sand table, and suddenly remembered that afternoon a hundred years ago when he had thrown his sword at me in the Martial Arena.
The same expression.
That “everything is under my control” confidence.
The difference was that back then the person he controlled was a useless waste like me.
Now he wanted to control the entire Northern Region.
The third slip.
Two years later.
The Chiyan Sect had fallen, and the Frost Moon Palace of the Northern Region had gone back on its word afterward — instead of giving Tianxuan Sect a cut of the spoils, it swallowed the Chiyan Sect’s territory alone.
In the image, Liu Changqing smashed the entire table to pieces.
“That old thief Qin! We agreed on a fifty-fifty split!”
The people around him looked at each other.
A Junior Brother said quietly, “Sect Lord, how about… we endure it for now? The Frost Moon Palace is stronger than us —”
“Endure?” Liu Changqing turned and glared at him. “You tell me to endure?”
The Junior Brother shut his mouth.
I rolled my eyes in the hall a hundred years later.
When you betrayed your master, your master wanted you to endure it too.
The reincarnation of cause and effect.
The fourth slip, the fifth slip…
Tianxuan Sect began to split from within.
Liu Changqing’s confidant Chen Feng secretly contacted outside sects, wanting to replace him.
Another disciple found evidence that the Spirit Mine had been embezzled, and the next day he “accidentally” fell.
Fewer and fewer people.
Thinner and thinner trust.
The atmosphere in every Jade Slip was tenser than the last.
By the last five slips, only three people were left in the Council Hall.
Liu Changqing.
Chen Feng.
And a female cultivator I did not recognize, who looked like a disciple he had taken in later.
The three sat in the vast hall, separated from each other by two empty tables.
No one looked at anyone.
I lined the Jade Slips up in order and let out a long breath.
“All right, what should the next act be? Brothers at each other’s throats?”
I picked up the third slip from the end.
Chapter Four
The third Jade Slip from the end. The date marked on it was the thirty-ninth year after I went into seclusion.
The instant the image opened, I almost thought I had picked the wrong one.
This was not the Council Hall.
It was the cliff behind the mountain.
Under the moonlight, two people stood facing each other.
One was Liu Changqing.
The other was Chen Feng — his chief confidant, a brother of nearly forty years.
Liu Changqing held a sword in his hand, its tip pointed down, dripping blood.
Not Chen Feng’s blood.
His own.
His entire left arm hung below the elbow, the white stub of bone showing from his sleeve.
“Chen Feng.” Liu Changqing’s voice was as hoarse as sandpaper grinding over stone. “You — why?”
Chen Feng stood three zhang away, his robes perfectly intact, a token pinched in his hand.
The Sect Lord Token of Tianxuan Sect.
“Why?” Chen Feng laughed once and tossed the token in his palm. “Senior Brother, ask your conscience — what is the difference between what you did to the old sect lord and what I am doing now?”
Liu Changqing was stunned.
His whole body seemed nailed in place.
“I… that is different.”
“How is it different?” Chen Feng took a step forward. “You said Sect Lord Zhao was old and should yield his place. Fine. Then what about you? You are wounded, your Primordial Spirit is unstable, your cultivation base had stalled at the late-stage Nascent Soul — is it not time for you to yield too?”
Liu Changqing’s lips moved.
Chen Feng took another step forward.
“Senior Brother, I followed you for forty years. In forty years I killed for you, took the blame for you, took swords for you —”
“When have I ever wronged you!” Liu Changqing howled.
“You have not wronged me.” Chen Feng nodded. “Just as your master never wronged you.”
“— But you still struck.”
“Because you stood in front of me.” Chen Feng said calmly. “Just as Sect Lord Zhao stood in front of you back then.”
Liu Changqing could no longer hold his sword.
Clang.
The sound of metal hitting the ground echoed along the cliff edge.
He stepped back, his knee striking the cliff rock, and sat down heavily.
“I… I treated you as a brother.”
Chen Feng did not answer.
He turned and walked away.
Two steps in, he stopped, without turning his head.
“Back when you drove Zhang Xuan out, he treated you as a senior brother too.”
The image froze on Liu Changqing’s sitting back.
The moonlight stretched his shadow long and thin.
Then the Jade Slip ended.
I moved the Jade Slip from my forehead and sat in the dark Council Hall for a long time.
Quiet.
My heart held no particular flavor.
Not satisfaction — though there should have been satisfaction.
But rather a kind of…
Absurdity.
The same script, performed again and again.
Zhao Hongdao trusted Liu Changqing. Liu Changqing betrayed him.
Liu Changqing trusted Chen Feng. Chen Feng betrayed him.
When I was kicked out, I had thought I was the only one who had suffered.
It turned out everyone was suffering.
Only the order was different.
I picked up the second Jade Slip from the end.
This one had not been recorded in the Council Hall — judging by the Divine Sense fluctuations, someone had sealed it hastily on a battlefield.
The image shook violently.
In a sea of fire, Chen Feng was running.
The ones chasing him were not Liu Changqing — they were a group of cultivators wearing the robes of different sects.
He had not run more than a few steps when a flash of sword light came slashing from the side.
Chen Feng twisted away, at the cost of half his right ear.
Blood spurted out.
He clutched his ear and rolled into a stretch of ruins, curling behind a broken wall to catch his breath.
In the image, the distant sounds of slaughter, screams, and the rumble of collapsing buildings could faintly be heard.
Then Chen Feng muttered one line to himself —
“It is all for that Kunlun Ancient Cave… mad… all of them mad…”
The Kunlun Ancient Cave.
My hand stopped.
Was that not —
The very Cave Residence I had cultivated in?
The image in the Jade Slip continued. Chen Feng huddled in the ruins, his whole body trembling.
“What is in that cave… that it is worth everyone going mad…”
The image cut off there.
I pinched the Jade Slip, my thumb rubbing back and forth over it.
The Kunlun Ancient Cave.
The place I had cultivated for a hundred years.
They… were fighting over my seclusion cave?
I shot to my feet.
“Wait, that is not right —”
Chapter Five
I needed more information.
The Jade Slips in the Council Hall were finished, but if the entire Cultivation World was going mad over the “Kunlun Ancient Cave,” the related records could not exist only in Tianxuan Sect.
I flew for three days and visited the ruins of the five great sects.
At every stop, I rifled through their Scripture Pavilions, Council Halls, and elder chambers — every information-bearing object I could find, I took.
The haul was rich.
First — how the people had died.
The Frost Moon Palace.
Palace Lord Qin Ruohan — a late-stage Nascent Soul female cultivator, the number one expert of the Northern Region.
Cause of death: mutually destructive clash with the Sword Saint of the Southern Region. The two had died together, and the ground within ten li of the site grew not a blade of grass.
The cause: fighting over “priority access to the entrance of the Kunlun Ancient Cave.”
I stood on that scorched earth and looked for a long while.
Ten li of scorched land. All for one cave’s “priority.”
At the time, the only person in that Cave Residence was me, sitting in meditation.
I was not even wearing a shirt.
The second site — the Luoxia Valley.
This sect’s destruction was even more absurd.
Their Valley Lord and Deputy Valley Lord had fought over a “map of the Kunlun Ancient Cave’s location.”
In the Jade Slip record, the two attacked each other over a ragged piece of parchment, fighting from day until dark.
In the end both collapsed from exhaustion —
Before dying, the Valley Lord crawled to the parchment and looked closely.
“This thing is fake —”
And stopped breathing.
I squatted in front of the Luoxia Valley ruins, looking at that parchment still nailed to the wall.
It had a turtle drawn on it.
Just a turtle.
Who had taken this thing for a location map?
The third site.
The Chiyan Sect — the one wiped out years ago by Tianxuan Sect and the Frost Moon Palace together.
The records they left behind were the most complete.
One of the Jade Slips recorded the origin of “the mystery of the Kunlun Ancient Cave” —
About forty years after I went into seclusion, my cultivation had entered its critical phase.
During that period I was condensing the embryonic form of a Great Ascension Primordial Spirit inside my body, and the spiritual pressure leaking outward from my body was extremely dense.
That spiritual pressure had seeped out through the gaps in the cave’s seals, spreading over a radius of a hundred li.
The first to notice were the rogue cultivators nearby.
They took it for a grotto-heaven blessed land left behind by some ancient mighty cultivator, about to open.
The news spread, growing more outrageous with each retelling.
“There are immortal relics inside the Kunlun Ancient Cave!”
“An ancient lineage!”
“The secret art to break through to Spirit Severing!”
“The key to immortality!”
By this point I slumped bonelessly onto a rock.
Immortal relics.
Did the loincloth I wore in seclusion count?
That thing really was ancient — worn for a hundred years, it had rotted into rags long ago.
An ancient lineage?
The cultivation technique I practiced was third-rate junk I had fished out of the sect’s scrap pile.
The key to immortality?
I had barely made it through Core Formation.
The entire Cultivation World had turned my broken Cave Residence — no, the spiritual qi fluctuations that leaked out while I cultivated — into a sea of blood.
I looked up at the sky.
The sky was very blue.
The clouds were very white.
The world was very quiet.
I said it word by word: “Are you all sick.”
No one answered me.
Of course no one answered.
Everyone was dead.
The fourth and fifth sites were more or less the same.
All the records pointed to the same fact — the “Kunlun Ancient Cave” had gone from an unnamed cave in the wild mountains to what the Cultivation World acknowledged as the “number one secret realm under heaven.”
Every sect had thrown its full strength into it, and rogue cultivators swarmed like bees.
Alliances, betrayals, assassinations, sieges —
One act after another.
And inside that cave, from beginning to end, there had been only me.
Cross-legged, eyes closed, knowing nothing.
I even remembered that around the fortieth year I had indeed felt a bit of noise outside the cave —
But at the time I was condensing my Primordial Spirit and took it for a hallucination. I rolled over and kept cultivating.
It was possible that at that exact moment, several hundred people were dying outside.
At the thought, I shivered.
Not from fear.
From absurdity.
I rose from the ruins of the fifth sect and brushed the dust from my robes.
Next stop — back to the Kunlun Ancient Cave.
I had to see with my own eyes what those people had done at my doorstep.
Chapter Six
The Kunlun Ancient Cave lay in the Nameless Mountain Range, at the far west of the Eastern Region.
Back then, after I was driven out of Tianxuan Sect, I had fled due west, and only stopped when I reached a place with no people.
On the flight back, I realized something was wrong.
The terrain around the Nameless Mountain Range had changed completely.
The lush mountain forests of the past were now bare, the ground pitted and pocked, covered in craters left behind by spell bombardment.
Some of the craters were more than ten zhang deep, filled with rainwater into small lakes.
From a distance it looked like the surface of the moon.
I landed on the slope in front of the cave mouth.
The scene before my eyes kept me standing there for a long while without moving.
My cave residence’s entrance — back then it had been nothing but a natural cavern opening two people wide, and I had moved a rock over to serve as the door panel.
That rock was still there now.
But within a radius of a hundred zhang around the rock, there was nothing but white bones.
Layer upon layer.
Some had weathered into fragments; some still held fighting postures — one skeleton’s fingers plunged into another’s eye socket.
Some gripped rusted magic tools; some had fallen across half-formed formations.
They had died less than ten zhang from my “door panel.”
The nearest skeleton lay prone in front of the stone door, the bones of its fingers deeply embedded in the cracks of the stone.
It had come within a hair’s breadth of touching the door.
Pasted on the door was the note I had written before leaving, a hundred years ago —
“Closed-Door Cultivation in Progress. Do Not Disturb.”
That Talisman Paper had yellowed and curled at the edges, but the writing was still legible.
It sat right in the center.
The size of a palm.
I stared at that note for a long time.
“You people —”
I took a deep breath.
“You did not see this piece of paper?”
The bone pile did not answer me.
The wind whistled through the gaps in the bones, making a whirring sound.
I crouched down and drew a shattered Jade Slip from the finger bones of the nearest skeleton.
I used Spiritual Energy to barely activate the residual information.
The image came in fragments — a middle-aged cultivator with a face full of blood, howling at the recorder:
“Quick! Almost there! Break through this Seal and —”
The image cut off.
The Seal.
He had been talking about my Mountain-Protecting Formation.
Back when I sealed the cave, I had casually laid down a protective formation — its level, well… it could only block Core Formation-stage cultivators.
At the time I was only at the Bone Tube stage. What kind of decent formation could I lay?
But later, as I cultivated inside, the Spiritual Energy leaking from my body gradually seeped into the formation. Over a hundred years —
that third-rate formation had been nurtured by my Great Ascension Spiritual Energy into who knew what kind of monster.
I stood up, walked to the stone door, and pressed one palm on the door panel.
The formation recognized my presence and silently dissipated.
If the person who had come was not me, this formation, nurtured for a hundred years, would have been enough to kill a group of Spirit Severing-stage cultivators.
Those white bones at the entrance —
at the very least there were the lingering spiritual pressures of more than ten Spirit Severing cultivators.
They had thrown everything into trying to break the door.
Inside the door, I was sitting in meditation.
The “immortal relics” they had desperately wanted.
It was my meditation.
I walked slowly into the cave.
Everything was the same as a hundred years ago.
The tally marks I had scratched into the stone wall with my fingernails were still there — I had used those to count the days during my first ten years, and later gave up when there got to be too many.
That rotten pair of pants in the corner was still there.
On the meditation platform, the imprint of my buttocks was clearly visible.
I stood in the cave where I had cultivated for a hundred years, turned in a circle, and then walked out.
Standing in the middle of the bone pile.
Looking at the remains spread across the mountains.
In here, I had cultivated for a hundred years.
Out there, they had killed each other for a hundred years.
I had done nothing.
For the fact that “I had done nothing” — they had died out completely.
I suddenly wanted to laugh.
But I could not.
I just stood there, the wind filling my sleeves, my robes snapping in it.
Perhaps the most ironic thing in this world was exactly this —
I had thought I was the one who had been abandoned.
It turned out I was the only one who had survived.
Not because I was strong.
Because I did not compete.
I sat at the cave mouth for a night.
At dawn, something flashed at the very edge of the bone pile.
I walked over, pushed aside the broken bones, and found a perfectly preserved Jade Slip.
I probed it with my Divine Sense —
Elder Su’s presence.
Su Huairen.
An Elder of Tianxuan Sect.
The only person in the sect who had ever smiled at me.
I gripped the Jade Slip tight but did not look at it right away.
Instead I took a deep breath and sat up straight.
Only then did I send my Divine Sense in.
Chapter Seven
The scene in the Jade Slip was not a battlefield.
It was the bamboo grove behind Tianxuan Sect’s back mountain.
Su Huairen sat on a bluestone slab, swaying bamboo shadows behind him.
He looked far older than in my memory — his white hair was sparse, his face deeply furrowed, but his eyes were the same as ever, carrying a smile.
“Little Xuan.”
He spoke to the recorder, his voice hoarse.
“If you can see this Jade Slip, it means you are still alive.”
“It means this old man bet right.”
He smiled, and there was something in that smile I could not read.
“I hid this Jade Slip at the mouth of the Kunlun Ancient Cave. Because I knew you would certainly be inside.”
“Everyone in the world thinks there is treasure in that cave.”
“Only I knew — that it was you inside.”
My breathing stopped for an instant.
“Back when you were driven out, I tried to chase after you. But my cultivation base was too low, and I could not catch up. Later I found that you had settled in the Kunlun Mountain Range, and I was relieved.”
“And after that… the world fell into chaos.”
Su Huairen looked up at the sky, then lowered his head.
“That child Changqing… ah.”
“I could not stop him.”
“The sect fell apart. The Cultivation World fell apart too. Everyone is grabbing, killing —”
He paused, his right hand rubbing the back of his left.
“I am almost finished too. This Jade Slip is the last of my Spiritual Energy.”
My fingers were trembling.
“Little Xuan, listen well.”
Su Huairen looked straight at the recorder, as if looking straight into my eyes.
“It is not your fault.”
“You did nothing wrong.”
“Those people — they chose their own path.”
“Live well.”
“Even alone, even with no one left in the Cultivation World — live well.”
He paused, then broke into an old fox’s smile.
“Oh, right, let me tell you something — that Senior Brother Liu Changqing of yours, he died in the most interesting way.”
“I watched it with my own eyes.”
I was stunned.
“After Chen Feng seized power, Changqing was beaten half to death and fled the sect.”
“He ran and ran, and in the end, guess where he ended up?”
Su Huairen could not help laughing, his shoulders shaking.
“He ran to the Kunlun Ancient Cave.”
The expression on my face must have been spectacular.
“He wanted to break your cave door, wanted to find the treasure inside and turn the tables.”
“And the moment he touched the Seal —”
Su Huairen laughed until he coughed.
“That broken formation of yours, nurtured by spiritual qi for decades, was no ordinary thing anymore. The moment his hand touched it, his entire arm was shattered on the spot.”
“And then he just sat at the cave mouth, cursing at the door like a madman.”
“He cursed for half a shichen.”
“When he was done cursing —”
Su Huairen’s smile faded a little.
“When he was done, he made no more sound. He just sat there, looking at the note on your door — ’Closed-Door Cultivation in Progress. Do Not Disturb.’”
“And then he said one thing.”
Su Huairen cleared his throat and mimicked Liu Changqing’s tone.
“’Zhang Xuan is inside? From the very beginning… it was Zhang Xuan inside?’”
“’Then what have we been fighting over all these years?’”
Su Huairen stopped mimicking.
“After he said that, he died.”
“He died sitting at your door.”
The image was quiet for a few seconds.
Su Huairen looked at the recorder again.
“Little Xuan. That Senior Brother of yours never understood one thing, right up until he died —”
“Some things cannot be fought for.”
“You never competed. So you lived.”
“He wanted to compete for everything. So he died.”
“That is all there is to it.”
Su Huairen stood up, his old bones creaking.
“All right. This old man is done rambling.”
“If you come out, pour a jar of wine for me in the bamboo grove.”
“My favorite while I was alive — Osmanthus Wine.”
“Oh, right —”
He turned back and winked at the recorder.
“That skeleton at the entrance is Changqing. The one with the broken arm.”
“Did you recognize it?”
The image dissipated.
The light of the Jade Slip dimmed.
I gripped that Jade Slip and sat at the cave mouth.
Right beside me lay that broken-armed skeleton.
The nearest one at the entrance — the one with its fingers embedded in the stone cracks.
I looked down at it.
Its hollow eye sockets faced the stone door.
Faced that note reading “Closed-Door Cultivation in Progress. Do Not Disturb.”
“Senior Brother.”
I spoke.
My voice scattered in the mountain wind.
“Look. I did not cultivate any treasure either.”
“I just broke through to the Great Ascension.”
“The cultivation technique is still that same set you used to disdain and throw in the scrap pile.”
The bones did not respond.
“If you had not driven me away back then —”
I paused.
“No. If you had also driven me away back then, found a cave and gone into seclusion —”
“Perhaps today the one sitting here alive would be you.”
The wind passed through the gaps in the bones, whirring.
Like a sigh.
I stood up and patted the dust from my backside.
Then I walked toward the bamboo grove.
I would have to buy a jar of Osmanthus Wine.
No —
With no one left in the whole world, where would I buy it?
“…I will brew it myself.”
Chapter Eight
In the days that followed, I did not look at the Jade Slips again.
I wandered alone in the ruins of Tianxuan Sect, looking for osmanthus trees, looking for brewing jars.
The osmanthus trees were easy to find — there was a stretch of them on the back mountain. With no one tending them for a hundred years, they had grown wild into a golden forest.
The jars took some effort. I dug a few still-intact ones out of the ruins of the mess hall.
As for the craft of brewing —
I did not know it.
But a Great Ascension cultivator’s Divine Sense was strong enough; finding a brewing manual covered in mildew patches was no trouble.
I would follow the steps.
Pick the flowers, wash them, steam them, jar them, seal the mouth.
Osmanthus wine brewed by the hands of a Great Ascension cultivator.
If the Cultivation World still had people in it, this scene would have trended.
After brewing, it needed time.
While waiting, I finished the remaining Jade Slips.
They were all battlefield records.
The last great battle had taken place in the ninety-third year after I went into seclusion — only seven years before I came out.
The remnants of the five great sects, plus several hundred rogue cultivators, had gathered outside the Kunlun Ancient Cave.
They were the last living people of the Cultivation World.
They had formed what they called the “Cave-Breaking Alliance.”
The name they had come up with — I did not even know what to say.
The Cave-Breaking Alliance.
To break my cave.
The Jade Slip recorded footage of the alliance’s council.
A group of cultivators in ragged clothes, covered in wounds, sat around a bonfire.
Their leader was a one-eyed old man, at the Nascent Soul stage.
“Everyone.” He looked around, his voice hoarse. “Tomorrow — is the final battle.”
“A hundred years. How many people the entire Cultivation World has died for this cave, I need not say.”
“Tomorrow, we join hands — and charge one last time.”
“If we succeed, we share the immortal fortune.”
“If we fail —”
He raised his single eye, the firelight reflected in it.
“Then we die here. Going back has no future anyway.”
Silence below.
Then someone raised the broken bowl in his hand.
“Down it.”
“Down it!”
The broken bowls knocked together.
The scene cut to the next day.
Several hundred people charged at my cave door.
Spells, sword light, talismans, formations — every means thrown at once.
My Mountain-Protecting Formation did not move.
Then the rebound began.
The Spiritual Energy the formation had accumulated for a hundred years fed back in an instant.
A streak of white light.
The image went white.
When the light dispersed —
within fifty zhang in front of the cave mouth, there was not a single person left standing.
The one-eyed elder lay at the very front, a hole the size of a fist in his chest.
Even in death his hand still reached forward.
Several hundred people.
The last several hundred people of the Cultivation World.
All wiped out.
Seven years later.
I pushed open the stone door and came out.
Stepping on their bones.
Knowing nothing.
I finished watching the last frame of the image and set the Jade Slip down.
The hall was quiet enough to hear dust falling.
Then I rose and walked out of the hall.
The sky was nearly dark.
The sunset burned half the sky red.
Very beautiful.
But no one to watch it with.
“Tch.”
I scrubbed my face hard.
Stop thinking about it.
Go see if the Osmanthus Wine is ready.
Chapter Nine
The wine was not ready.
Osmanthus Wine needed at least three months of sealing.
I could not wait three months.
I ripened it with Spiritual Energy — the taste would certainly be worse, but the sentiment was there.
Carrying the jar to the bamboo grove on the back mountain, I found the largest bluestone slab and sat down.
I poured a bowl and set it on the stone.
“Elder Su.”
I raised the bowl to the empty air.
“Osmanthus Wine. Brewed it myself. My skill is mediocre.”
“Make do and drink.”
The wine in the bowl gently rippled in the evening wind.
I tilted my head back and downed a mouthful.
Hot.
Clearly not properly brewed; the alcohol burned my throat.
But the fragrance of the osmanthus was really there, faint and distant.
I leaned against the bamboo, watching the last trace of red at the edge of the sky fade into deep blue.
The stars emerged one by one.
With no spiritual qi fluctuations to interfere, the starfield was brighter than at any time in my memory.
Unreasonably bright.
“Elder Su.”
I spoke again.
“I thought about it — actually, I do not have much to complain about.”
“Living, you know.”
“Living alone is still living.”
“Better than that bunch of idiots anyway.”
I drank a second mouthful.
This one went down smoother.
“It is just —”
A bit boring.
The wind blew through the bamboo grove, rustling.
Like someone talking.
But it was not.
I knew it was not.
The whole world had only the sound of wind, of insects, of flowing water.
No human voices.
I hugged the wine jar to my chest and closed my eyes.
“A hundred years ago, you told me — ’Little Xuan, your talent is not good, but your patience is. On the path of cultivation, being slow is nothing to fear. Just do not stop.’”
“I did not stop.”
“I walked for a hundred years.”
“I walked to the end.”
“It is just that at the finish line — no one was waiting for me.”
I poured the remaining wine in the bowl onto the stone.
The liquid trickled down the cracks in the stone, seeping into the earth.
“All right. No more being sentimental.”
I stood up, hugging the wine jar, and walked down the mountain.
At the halfway point down the mountain, I suddenly stopped.
Because I sensed a presence.
Faint.
Extremely faint.
But it really was the presence of a living thing.
My Divine Sense instantly locked onto its source — a shrub thicket at the foot of the mountain.
My heart skipped half a beat.
Impossible.
I had searched the entire Cultivation World —
there could not be another living thing — no.
A low-tier demonic beast. The kind rogue cultivators ignored and sects paid no attention.
Not human.
But —
alive.
I quickened my pace.
I pushed aside the shrub thicket.
A white ball of fur was curled at the very center, folded into a puff.
Snow white all over.
Its tail was fluffy and enormous.
A fox.
A spirit fox cub the size of a palm.
It heard the movement and raised its head.
Two eyes like black beans stared at me.
Its whole body was trembling.
I crouched down.
It shrank back a little.
“Do not be afraid.”
I reached out a hand.
It bared its teeth.
Very fierce.
But it was only the size of a palm, and with that baby-soft little face —
the corner of my mouth curled up.
“Are you living alone too?”
It stared at me and stopped baring its teeth.
Its nose twitched — it had caught the smell of the wine jar in my arms.
“Want a drink? You are too little. You cannot drink.”
It tilted its head.
I slowly reached my hand over.
This time it did not dodge.
My fingertip touched the fur on its head — soft. Warm.
Alive.
It let out a tiny sneeze.
I cupped it in both hands.
Light as a ball of cotton.
“All right.”
I stood up, holding it.
The little fox turned a circle in my palm, found a comfortable position, and settled down.
Its small warm body pressed against my palm.
I stood at the foot of the mountain and looked up at the star-filled sky.
Wine in my arms.
Warmth in my palm.
The whole world was empty.
But at this moment —
not too bad.
Chapter Ten
Half a month later.
I had built a bamboo house on the back mountain of Tianxuan Sect.
There was no need for any great hall or treasure vault — one bamboo house was enough to sleep in.
A Great Ascension cultivator did not actually need sleep.
But I liked having the form of a “home.”
Even if the home held just one person and one fox.
Xiao Bai — the name I had given the spirit fox, not very creative — was no longer afraid of me.
Its favorite thing to do now was to sprawl on my shoulder and sunbathe.
Occasionally it would pat my ear with its paw.
Every time, it would act innocent afterward.
“You think I am stupid?”
It tilted its head.
Its round eyes were filled with “that’s right, I think you are stupid.”
I flicked it on the forehead.
It bristled.
Its tail whipped into a feather duster.
Then it jumped onto the roof and bared its teeth at me.
I laughed.
The sound carried very far in the empty valley.
Today was the twenty-third day since I came out of seclusion.
I had made a decision.
Standing at the mountain gate of Tianxuan Sect — or rather, the former Tianxuan Sect.
The mountain gate, which had leaned at a forty-five-degree angle, had already been straightened by me.
The three characters “Tianxuan Sect” — I had carved them all over again.
Not because I had any feelings for this sect.
But rather —
there had to be a landmark.
In case some living person popped out of some corner later on, there had to be a place to find me.
I also erected a stone stele at the mountain gate, inscribed with these words:
“Tianxuan Sect, Northern Reaches of the Eastern Region of the Cultivation World. Within: one living person, one spirit fox. Fellow survivors, you are welcome to gather here.”
“Note: visitors bring their own provisions. No surplus food in the cave residence. There is wine — Osmanthus Wine, mediocre craft.”
I stepped back two paces and examined the inscription.
Xiao Bai leaped from my shoulder to the top of the stele and crouched there, looking very satisfied.
“Your aesthetic standards are deplorably low.”
It swept its tail across my face, filling it with fur.
I blew the fur away.
Then I turned around.
Before me was the empty interior of Tianxuan Sect’s mountain gate — the broken walls and ruins were being repaired by me bit by bit.
Half the tiles of the Martial Arena had already been replaced.
The frame of the Scripture Pavilion had been raised anew.
The Disciples’ Quarters — no need to repair that many. One room was enough.
For me to live in.
I walked along the mountain path, the weeds on both sides pulled out by me, the spirit plants replanted by me.
At the end of the path was the bamboo grove on the back mountain.
The bowl of wine before Elder Su’s stone I changed for a fresh one every day.
“Elder Su.”
I patted the stone.
“I have started working.”
“Starting over.”
“Nothing else to do anyway.”
I sat on the stone, swinging my legs.
Xiao Bai jumped onto my knee and curled into a ball.
In the distance, mountains rose in layers, seas of clouds churned.
No immortal cranes, no sword light, no human voices.
But there was wind.
The wind was warm.
In the evening I returned to the bamboo house.
I lit a lamp.
The spirit fire flickered, making the shadows on the bamboo walls leap.
Xiao Bai was already asleep, sprawled beside the pillow, its tail covering its nose.
Its breathing was even.
I sat by the window, looking at the moon outside.
Big and round.
“A hundred years ago.”
I talked to myself.
“They said I was trash.”
“They told me to get lost.”
“So I got lost.”
“And then, for the sake of fighting over the spiritual qi that leaked out while I cultivated — they all died.”
I gave a short laugh.
“What is this.”
“Is the heavens playing a joke on me?”
Xiao Bai’s ear twitched, but it did not wake.
“Forget it.”
I picked up the small jar of today’s freshly brewed Osmanthus Wine from the windowsill.
I took a sip.
This batch was much better.
There was the taste of osmanthus.
“Not competing, not grabbing. Cultivating on my own.”
“And I ended up the number one under heaven.”
“Number one under heaven — with nothing but a lone commander.”
I raised the wine jar toward the moon.
“To myself.”
After that sip, I set the jar down and blew out the spirit fire.
Moonlight spilled across the floor.
Tomorrow, continue repairing the mountain gate.
The day after, brew new wine.
The day after that —
I would think about it then.
The days are long.
The whole world has only me anyway.
What is the rush?
I closed my eyes.
Xiao Bai rolled over, its cool nose brushing my fingers.
I did not move.
The corner of my mouth held a faint curve as I sank into sleep.
Outside the window, the moonlight was like water.
The mountains were utterly still.
In the empty world, one bamboo house glowed with spirit fire.
One person.
One fox.
Just right.