On the Eve of My Ascension, I Jumped Off the Immortal-Slaying Terrace!

The day before the disciples were to ascend, I gave it up. I chose to go down to the mortal world and face my Tribulation Transcendence there instead, which is the one thing no disciple of Tianyimen had ever asked for.

Lord Jindou blocked the Immortal-Slaying Terrace. He wanted to know why I had picked this hour, of all hours, to throw away everything the sect had poured into me.

I did not answer him. I turned, and stepped off the terrace.

In the life before, I had fed my own blood to the bird I rode, all to get up there.

Came the day. The azure bird I had bound to me with the blood of my heart flew off to my junior sister, Shen Xiaoyao -- the one person in the sect I had never once thought to guard against.

Shen Xiaoyao rode that bird through the Five Tribulations of Heavenly Lightning and came out with a golden immortal body.

I lost my divine beast at the first bolt. The lightning tore my soul apart and scattered every scrap of my cultivation.

Shen Xiaoyao accused me of stealing her divine beast.

They pulled out my immortal bone. My own senior brothers. Then they threw me into the Demon Pit.

Ten thousand years of torment. At the end of it, one thing still sat wrong in me.

Why. Why did the bird I fed with my own blood turn on me and pick Shen Xiaoyao for its master?

I opened my eyes. I was back before the Ascension.

“The day of Ascension is nearly here for you disciples.

Linglong, of all of them, you are the brightest.“

“Shame my own girl has none of your gifts. Slow by nature. If she had one ten-thousandth of your talent, I would sleep easy at night.”

Lord Jindou sipped his jade nectar and patted my shoulder.

That pit. Ten thousand years inside it. Every day of it.

I woke with a start. Only then did I understand that I had been reborn.

Hate filled me to the throat. My eyes stung.

That torment. The pain of an immortal bone torn out of living flesh. The humiliation of the Demon Pit. Not if I lived a thousand lives would I forget them.

Lord Jindou poured me wine and praised me until the words ran dry.

“Linglong, the Sect Master thinks more of you than of any disciple he has. Ascension is right in front of you. Train the beast at your feet well. Aim for a golden body.”

Hate sat in me, heavy as a stone. I kept my eyes down and smiled a small smile.

“Rest easy, Lord Jindou. I will train harder than ever.”

My last life, Lord Jindou had praised me with these exact words.

I went back to my room pleased as a child, ready to take the bird under me into dual cultivation.

Ascending did not depend mainly on your own cultivation base. It depended on the divine beast you sat on.

A good one could shield its master from the lightning tribulation. It could even add ten thousand years to your cultivation.

Rumors, that was all I had. Someone said that if you bound the blood of your heart to a divine beast, the creature would grow a human understanding. That it would carry you up.

Every day I pushed a silver needle into my own chest and drew a bowl of blood still steaming. I fed it with my own life.

Soon it grew seven colors in its feathers. It even formed a primordial spirit. It could cultivate alongside me.

A common one was good for flying and nothing more. Now and then it could swallow water or spit fire. Its power was ordinary.

A creature that formed a primordial spirit was already a top-rank divine beast. Its cultivation base ran higher than some of the disciples of the immortal sects -- higher, on a good day, than the elders who had taught them.

I fed it with everything I had. Out came a top-rank divine beast.

The day arrived.

I brought my seven-colored azure bird up to the terrace for the tribulation.

The instant Shen Xiaoyao appeared --

the wings opened, seven colors, and it flew to her.

It spat fire at me. Then it came at me.

Shen Xiaoyao laughed, loose and careless. She stroked the beast and denounced me in front of everyone.

“Senior Sister, I kept asking myself how my divine beast could have been stolen. Swapped for some common bird.

So the thief was you all along.“

“But Senior Sister. I raised this seven-colored bird day after day. It has long since grown fond of me. Steal it if you like. It will not go with you.”

Seven colors, in front of all of them. Every senior brother of mine stared.

At Tianyimen, every disciple had a bird of his own. But not one of them, not a single one, had ever raised one to seven colors.

All my senior brothers praised Shen Xiaoyao for her rare talent.

Then they turned and spat at me. Called me a little bitch.

“Hah! I really thought Linglong had something in her. Turns out she’s a thief!”

“On the very day of Ascension, stealing her junior sister’s divine beast. There is no punishment low enough.”

“A divine beast is raised with your own hands. It loves its master. How do you even steal something like that?”

…

Doted on. That was what Shen Xiaoyao had always been, more than the rest of us.

Not only because she was the youngest disciple in the sect.

Because she was Lord Jindou’s own daughter by blood.

My seven-colored bird. She rode it up and made her Breakthrough through the Five Tribulations of Heavenly Lightning ahead of every one of them -- thunder, fire, wind, all five rounds. She came out with a golden immortal body. That is what a Breakthrough looks like when heaven is on your side.

And me, at that same hour, my senior brothers pulled out my immortal bone.

With not a shred of spiritual power left, the bolts burned me black.

Shen Xiaoyao made a suggestion.

“Senior Sister, you have no immortal bone now. If you stay in the sect, you will only drag Tianyimen’s name through the mud.”

“I do not blame you for stealing my divine beast. But a wrong still has to be paid for. I sentence you to the Demon Pit. Ten thousand years of Tribulation Transcendence.”

Soft-hearted, they called her. Every one of my senior brothers said so.

She had not taken my life. She had only sent me to the Demon Pit to face my tribulation.

The pain in me had nowhere to go. My whole body hurt. Blood ran from my eyes, my ears, my nose, my mouth.

They threw me down there, where anyone who liked could trample me.

They slit the tendons in my arms and legs. They pulled out my immortal bone again. I could not live, and I could not die.

Dragged through that pit, ten thousand years of it, and only then did the torture finish me.

At the very end, one thing would not settle.

Why. Why the creature I had raised with such care turned and flew into my junior sister’s arms.

One more life. I had to change what was coming.

Maybe if I simply did not ascend, none of it would happen.

I kept my face blank and listened to Lord Jindou talk.

Lord Jindou had always looked after me, back then.

He was an Elder of the sect. I held him in the highest respect.

He taught me everything I knew. He had even raised me.

In my heart, I had honored him as a daughter honors her own father.

But Shen Xiaoyao was his only child. Was the bird’s betrayal in my last life -- was that connected to him?

Maybe I was reading too much into it. Still, I would be careful.

Back in my room, I went straight to the cage.

The bird in that cage was the one I had raised with such care in my last life.

I opened the door and climbed in.

It came to me, slow, and rubbed its neck against my hand.

Its feathers were soft. It was asking to be stroked.

Then I made up my mind. I laid my hand on its neck. My fingers tightened, and I twisted, and broke it.

It hurt. I hated it too.

But a beast that turns on its master cannot be allowed to live in this world.

It hurt. All the same, this time I wanted to see how Shen Xiaoyao would ascend.

With the bird dead, I straightened my robes and went to Spiritwood Forest.

Every disciple’s azure bird was caught in Spiritwood Forest.

That first time I went in, I saw several birds thick with immortal air.

The one I chose had a broken wing. It lay in the forest, barely breathing.

I took pity on it. That was why I carried the wounded creature home.

This time I needed a new one.

I had raised seven colors once. With another life, I could do it again.

Inside Spiritwood Forest, it did not take long to hear them calling.

I walked toward the sound. At last, beside a stalk of Immortal Herb, I found a nestling -- thin, almost frail, but with feathers that shone.

You. That’s the one, I thought.

I tied the Immortal-Binding Cord around its leg, gathered it into my arms, and carried it home.

A thousand times over I checked. One thousand one hundred small things, and I counted every one. This time I would be careful.

Every day I kept the nestling in its cage and fed it with all my attention.

I set a talisman on my door. No disciple was to walk into my room uninvited.

Every divine beast anyone else raised was a grown bird.

I, alone, was raising a nestling.

This time, let Shen Xiaoyao try to steal it.

But within a few days, word reached me.

Spiritwood Forest. She had gone there too. And she had brought back a nestling of her own.

Word of it came to me through the senior brothers, who talked it over among themselves.

“Junior Sister is so kind-hearted. Why would she raise a nestling?”

“Right! A little chick. Tiny thing. Can’t even spread its wings yet.”

Hers was a nestling too.

Where under heaven did a coincidence like that come from?

My creature last time turned seven-colored.

Then rumor went round the sect.

Shen Xiaoyao’s divine beast had already fledged.

I did not believe it then.

And the day came round again. My bird flew to Shen Xiaoyao’s side. Every disciple gaped and said the rumor was true: hers had fledged.

Shen Xiaoyao accused me of theft in front of the whole sect.

And Lord Jindou backed her up. No matter how I argued, my senior brothers called me a thief.

Even after I was in the pit.

When those green-eyed demons with round staring eyes tormented me, they would spit on the ground and call me the woman who stole.

Another life. I would not carry the name thief again.

And now Shen Xiaoyao had taken up a nestling too.

I went back to my room at once, looked at the nestling in the cage, reached in, and twisted its neck.

Its body lay beside me. Green blood sprayed across my clothes.

I pulled myself together and dealt with the corpse.

Into Spiritwood Forest again. This time I did not care whether they were old birds, strong birds, or nestlings. I carried ten of them home.

I shut all ten in one cage. No food. I let them kill each other.

About half a month passed.

One bird was left in the cage. Blood-red eye, the most savage of them, the strongest.

It was vicious and would not be tamed. Its call was ugly, a sound like something tearing.

But it was the only bet I had left.

So what if it was vicious. I had it in me to break it.

I dealt with the bodies of the others.

I was about to draw heart’s blood with the silver needle and bind it to me.

Twenty thousand times I had gone over it, and never once saw this coming. Then it went wild. It screamed at the door, over and over.

A bird cries like that when it misses its master.

It was calling out to draw its master to it.

A scent of osmanthus drifted into my nose.

I ran to the door to look.

Shen Xiaoyao was walking past my door, heading for Lord Jindou’s room.

The moment she was gone, the bird in my cage stopped crying.

Why?

Why was that?

Why, again and again, did every divine beast I raised end up taking Shen Xiaoyao as its master?

Something in me went cold and stayed cold.

That last one had never even seen Shen Xiaoyao.

It caught the smell of her, and it gave itself a master.

What was going on?

Fear ate at my mind, a little at a time.

My heart knocked in my chest. I drew a cold breath.

After coming back, I had done so much. Why could I still not get free of her?

Something had gone wrong somewhere. A hundred answers went through me and not one of them fit.

That night, Lord Jindou sent for me to talk.

When I came out of his room, Shen Xiaoyao was in my path.

She gave me a bright smile. Her eyes were bold. Her voice was a swagger.

“Senior Sister, I hear you killed the bird you rode.”

Her voice was quiet. Perfectly steady.

Shen Xiaoyao went on.

“Senior Sister, you are so gifted. On the day of Ascension I will be watching you shine. Do prepare properly.”

There was a taste of play in her voice. Then she walked into Lord Jindou’s room.

I stood at the door after it closed.

Eavesdropping on Shen Xiaoyao and Lord Jindou.

“Xiaoyao, how is the divine beast coming along?”

Shen Xiaoyao’s voice carried a smile in it.

“Father, I have thought up a good trick.

Before this, I raised a nestling. But it was so weak. No good to ride. Only good for soup.

Lately I found a marvelous method.

I went to Spiritwood Forest and caught a dozen or so azure birds. Put them in one cage to train, let them tear at each other. Now only one strong bird is left.

That bird is savage and will not be trained, but there is something uncommon in it.

I think if I raise it carefully, I can surely make it fledge. Grow it into a seven-colored azure bird…“

She was saying all this for my ears. Deliberately.

Every step she described. It was the same as mine, to the letter.

Where exactly had it gone wrong?

No matter which way I turned it, I could not find the crack.

Only, when she passed me just now, that familiar osmanthus scent came off her again.

Rough, strong nature, that was Shen Xiaoyao. In the past, I remembered, she had no liking for perfumes.

Tianyimen is a sacred ground of immortals. Every disciple in it, down to the last one, lives for cultivation.

Man or woman, not one of them cared for the smell of rouge and powder.

The senior sisters did not preen, did not prize beauty or softness. Nobody spent the day steeping herself in scent.

Right then, a thought came to me, faint.

Ascension day in my last life: I had smelled it on Shen Xiaoyao then too.

Back in my room, I looked at the last azure bird in the cage.

My eyes began to drift.

At the end I picked up a jewel-hilted dagger. I went into the cage and stabbed the last one to death while it was still alive.

It was savage. It left my arm covered in blood-flecked gouges.

With the bird killed, I made up my mind to burn my own boats.

If Ascension was fated to go wrong, then better to give it up.

That night I went to Lord Jindou and told him outright.

“Lord Jindou, I want to go down to the mortal world for my Tribulation Transcendence.”

“Linglong, have you lost your mind?”

Lord Jindou snapped at me.

“What kind of moment is this? You are all about to ascend.

A thousand years of cultivation, and what was it for if not to shed your mortal shell and become immortal on the day of Ascension.

You could go down for your Tribulation Transcendence at any other time. You pick now!“

Lord Jindou called in my senior brothers and had the lot of them talk me round.

When they heard I meant to go down, every one of them, to a man, thought I had gone mad.

My eldest senior brother was kind about it.

“Linglong, of all the disciples ascending this year, you have the most aptitude.

Do not start acting like a child!“

A junior brother spoke up too.

“That is right, Senior Sister. You are not really going to give it up? You could go down any time. Have you lost your head?”

They all looked as if I had cut them open. Lord Jindou more than any of them, his tone as warm as a fond father’s.

“Linglong, I raised you with my own hands. I will not allow you to do anything so foolish.”

On the surface, every one of them wanted what was best for me.

Had I not come back from the dead, I would have believed he meant it with his whole heart. I would have chosen Ascension a second time, and ended up lower than I had been before.

The noise died down.

Then Shen Xiaoyao came rushing in.

“An Linglong, why did you kill every one of your azure birds?”

So. There it was. She was rattled.

Without my bird, I wanted to see how she would get through the Heavenly Tribulation this life.

Lord Jindou spoke up.

“Linglong, the bird is dead, so let it lie.

I will give you another. Raise it well. And never speak of going down to the mortal world again.“

I paid no attention.

I looked at Shen Xiaoyao’s twisted face and felt a satisfaction I could taste.

I flew to the Immortal-Slaying Terrace. Before anyone could stop me, I faced the Mortal Dust of three thousand worlds, shut my eyes, and jumped.

One day in heaven, one year among men.

On the day I jumped, there were only eighteen days left before Ascension.

Nobody knew what I meant to do.

Eighteen short days up above, and eighteen years down there.

I did not linger once I landed. Straight for the pit I turned.

I remembered the smell on Shen Xiaoyao.

Osmanthus. Rouge Intoxication.

That smell would have been strange to me in the life before.

But the last time round, ten thousand years of torture had been mine, down in that place.

I knew it well enough. The scent on Shen Xiaoyao came from a flower of the Demon Realm, the Ten-Thousand Desires Flower.

It grows at the summit of the Demon Realm, and it draws in ten thousand beasts.

Nine hundred and ninety thousand, nine hundred years ago — call it nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred if you like. No one was counting. Nine lifetimes of the world, and then some.

The war between immortals and demons.

The Demon Lord once used that scent to draw in every mount in the immortal world. Three Elders of the Primordial Sovereign rank had their immortal spirits destroyed, and scattered like smoke.

After that, a Daoist of cultivation from the Ninth Heaven went down into the Demon Pit himself. He found the antidote to the Ten-Thousand Desires Flower: the red-cang fruit.

That is what broke the calamity that had come down on the immortal world. It drove the Demon Lord back, step after step.

The Demon Lord took his people to the deepest, darkest place in the mortal world, and camped there. Never again would he take the heavens.

I should have seen it long ago. Shen Xiaoyao had struck a bargain with the demon race.

She had that scent on her body then, and she used it to steal my azure bird.

This life, she would pay for it in blood.

Eighteen full years I searched. At last, in the Ninth Circle of the Demon Realm, I found the legendary red-cang fruit.

Eighteen years down there. Eighteen days in heaven. And the time came round again for the disciples of Tianyimen to ascend.

This time I had not cultivated an immortal body.

But I had cultivated a whole body of demon arts.

That day I dressed myself as a little immortal page and mixed in with the crowd to watch the disciples ascend.

Ascension is not so difficult a thing to watch.

The disciples rode their azure birds through the five great calamities: heaven, earth, thunder, fire, wind.

Those who could hold out took on a golden body and ascended as immortals.

Those who could not came away cut to ribbons, their cultivation base damaged. They would start over, and wait for the next Ascension.

There were not many disciples ascending this year.

Counting Shen Xiaoyao, barely a dozen.

With me out of it, the most gifted left in Tianyimen was my junior brother, Yunhezi.

He went up onto the Ascension Platform first, azure bird under him.

The bird he had trained had not fledged, but it was huge. Its feathers ran with a sheen. It stretched out its neck and gave a long, mournful cry.

That too was a good divine beast, the kind you meet once in a thousand years.

Then Yunhezi ordered the bird to carry him up there.

The creature went mad. It drove its beak into his arm.

Then it spat Samadhi Flame and came at him like something rabid.

The disciples stared.

“What is this? Why has his azure bird gone mad?”

“Is that Yunhezi’s divine beast? Divine beasts are loyal. How does one turn on its own master?”

…

Then Shen Xiaoyao came forward out of the crowd, openly, for all to see.

She raised one hand and beckoned.

The bird beside Yunhezi flew to her.

It cried out in delight, preened, and pressed itself against her.

Shen Xiaoyao stroked it and looked at Yunhezi as if she had been wronged.

“Senior Brother Yun, why did you steal my divine beast?

I fed it every day. It grew fond of me long ago. Even if you steal it, it will not obey you.“

So. The same old trick.

Only this time I had not joined the Ascension.

The unlucky one had changed from me to Yunhezi.

He heard her out, his face blank with shock. His eyes went wide.

“Junior Sister, what are you saying?

I raised this azure bird with my own hands. How could it be yours?“

Shen Xiaoyao could not hold back a jeering laugh.

“Senior Brother Yun, everyone knows how azure birds are raised. They are spirit beasts. They bind to a master.

I may not have had this one long, but I fed it my heart’s blood every day. It took me as its master long ago. Steal it however you like. It will not come away.“

Now the disciples of Tianyimen chimed in.

“That is right! Azure birds bind to a master. Ours will only ever know the one master, all their lives. They never turn.”

“How could Senior Brother Yun do a thing so foul? It is disgusting.”

“Think what Junior Sister has been through. Every day she bears the pain of ten thousand hearts, feeding that bird her heart’s blood. And Yunhezi steals her mount.

There it is. Hoist by his own petard. A man like that has no business in Tianyimen.“

“That is right! Leave the Master, then. Expelled from the Sect. Punish him as he deserves.”

…

Yunhezi stood there with no way to answer.

The Samadhi Flame had already burned his foundations through.

He stood before it, cut all over.

“Shen Xiaoyao, how can you accuse me like this? You… you…”

Her eyes filled at once. She spoke as if she were the injured one.

“Senior Brother Yun, I know you only stole my bird because you wanted to ascend.

I should not have exposed you in front of so many people today.

Senior Brother Yun, hate me if you must. Blame only yourself, for not walking the Righteous Path, for sinking to sneaking and stealing.“

Yunhezi had never been much of a talker.

She put on her white lotus act, and my senior brothers and sisters all began to ache for her.

“Junior Sister, do not cry. We will ask Lord Jindou to give you justice.”

“That is right, Junior Sister. Every one of us can swear this bird is the one you raised. Azure birds only ever know one master. Do not be afraid. Yunhezi would not dare touch you.”

…

At that point Lord Jindou, so long in coming, drifted into view.

He came down wrapped in a shaft of golden light.

The moment he appeared, he named Yunhezi’s crime.

“Yunhezi. Never have I been so disappointed in a disciple.”

Lord Jindou sounded as if his heart were breaking.

“Last night I saw you loitering at Xiaoyao’s door, sneaking about.

At first I thought you had feelings for her, that you wanted to talk with her, so I said nothing.

Twenty thousand times over, that thought would never once have crossed my mind. And still — you stole her bird for your own gain.

Ah. Tianyimen cannot keep you. Yunhezi, from this day I strip you of your immortal bone. Down you go, then, and live out your days as a mortal.“

Those few words nailed him to a post of shame.

He had named me with those same few words, and I was the thief.

Only the sentence he passed on me was not so light as Yunhezi’s.

Yunhezi was beautiful. They called him the handsomest man in the immortal world. Shen Xiaoyao had once cast a covetous eye on that beauty, and had even crept off to watch him bathe.

But Yunhezi was cold by nature. He saw what she wanted and gave her a dressing down.

I suppose that when I jumped, Shen Xiaoyao fixed her eye on him, meaning to collect on that old humiliation.

Only this time Shen Xiaoyao nodded along with Lord Jindou’s proposal.

She still loved a handsome face. She could not bear to see Yunhezi suffer too much.

Me, though. They stripped my immortal bone, slit my tendons, threw me down where anyone could reach me, and made me a woman the whole Demon Realm could take.

I will never forget how those Beasts of the Realm Below -- every twisted, qi-twisted shape of them -- used my body.

Or the fox demon whose fur ran red.

Day after day that fox tormented me. She drove the Soul-Reaving Needle into my flesh. She cut characters into my face with ink.

She used the Spirit-Flensing Knife to pry off my fingernails and toenails. And then…

I remember the hour I had been tortured past any resemblance to a person, with barely breath left in me.

The fox leaned to my ear and murmured something.

“Think you deserve to take what is hers.

She is an immortal of heaven. You are a thing for demons to play with.

My own flesh and blood has to be matched with the finest treasure under heaven…“

My own flesh and blood!

So that was how it was.

Out of that very fox, Shen Xiaoyao was born.

All I knew then was that Lord Jindou was Shen Xiaoyao’s birth father.

Nobody knew who Shen Xiaoyao’s real mother was. The story went that she was a girl from the mortal world, met by chance when Lord Jindou went down to catch demons -- a chance meeting in some mountain village, the sort of thing he would never have mentioned again if the child had not lived.

Later this mortal girl gave birth to Shen Xiaoyao, and died.

Hah!

A mortal girl bears a daughter to an immortal, and then -- what mortal on her deathbed could carry that child to the gate of a sect.

The signs had been there all along. My fault, for being so stupid in my last life. I never saw that three of them had planned it together.

Lord Jindou was already working his art. He cut out Yunhezi’s immortal bone.

Yunhezi screamed. Dark red blood burst from his mouth.

Then Lord Jindou flicked his sleeve, and dropped him over the edge of the Immortal-Slaying Terrace.

For his own flesh and blood, he did not waste a second.

With Yunhezi dealt with, Shen Xiaoyao stroked the azure bird beside her, glowing.

Then she sprang up and rode it.

And everyone watched her lean down and whisper into the bird’s ear.

The bird beat its wings, flew up, and climbed straight for the immortal realm and the Ninth Heaven.

In an instant, wind and fire, thunder and lightning, all came down at once.

Heaven, earth, thunder, fire, wind. Five tribulations. Nothing easy about passing those.

This life, Shen Xiaoyao would never cross the five as she had before, and come out with a golden body.

At the same moment, I slipped the red-cang fruit out of my pocket and crushed it.

The red-cang fruit is sour, bitter-sour. That sourness is what cuts through Rouge Intoxication.

In a few breaths, the sourness had spread through the air.

Then Shen Xiaoyao, who a moment ago had been riding high on the bird’s back, flinched in midair.

Nobody noticed the bird had stopped answering to her.

Right then, a bolt of lightning tribulation came straight for Shen Xiaoyao.

She shouted.

“Azure bird, fire! Block it!”

But in that same instant the bird lost all control.

It beat its wings like something rabid. It turned and came at Shen Xiaoyao.

Yunhezi’s azure bird was no common thing.

Shen Xiaoyao’s aptitude had always been poor. The thunder cracked open, and the bird turned its fire on her.

In the blink of an eye, the Samadhi Flame had burned her down to bald, bare skin.

Then a bolt went through the crown of her head.

Everyone saw Shen Xiaoyao hanging in the air. Her body went black. The bones inside her gave off white light.

That is what a body looks like when the lightning has smashed its immortal bone.

The crowd broke into an uproar.

Lord Jindou clenched both fists. Tears stood in his eyes.

“Xiaoyao! Xiaoyao, my daughter…”

Up above the Ninth Heaven, Shen Xiaoyao’s scream came down, raw, torn out of her.

She fell like a handful of beans shaken out, clattering, straight down.

Lord Jindou shot up to meet her, caught her in his arms, and set her down slowly on the Ascension Platform.

The disciples of Tianyimen stood with their faces slack. Then they all talked at once.

“What is this? Why would the azure bird turn on her too?”

“That bird must be mad. It attacks anyone.” “Could it be the bird was never hers to begin with?”

Every immortal bone in her body, broken. Not a drop of spiritual power left in her. That was how Shen Xiaoyao lay there.

Lord Jindou, savage with grief, brought down a Deity-Splitting Palm and beat the mad bird to death where it stood.

The bird’s blood sprayed across his face.

He could not hide the fury in his eyes. He cursed it.

“A mad bird. It nearly killed my daughter!”

Then I walked up out of the crowd, slow.

I made a soft sound in my throat, my face all scorn.

“That bird is not mad. Blame Shen Xiaoyao. She used some filthy trick to take Yunhezi’s bird. This is nothing but what she had coming.”

When the crowd heard me, every face turned.

“Who is she? I know that voice.”

“It is Linglong. Senior Sister Linglong!”

“Impossible. Senior Sister Linglong jumped from the Immortal-Slaying Terrace and went down to the mortal world. It has only been eighteen days. How could she be back?”

…

Then some of the disciples of Tianyimen did recognize me.

“No. It is her. It is Linglong.

One day in heaven, one year on earth. Senior Sister Linglong would be eighteen by now. It is her. She has come back!“

Around me, one of the younger disciples spoke up.

“Senior Sister Linglong, what did you mean just now? What do you mean, Shen Xiaoyao took Yunhezi’s azure bird.

It was Yunhezi who turned thief and stole her bird.“

I raised an eyebrow and smiled. Step by step I walked up to Lord Jindou and Shen Xiaoyao.

Out of my pocket, quietly, I took a little red fruit. Shen Xiaoyao lay on the Ascension Platform, every scrap of power gone, a wreck.

“You did not expect this, Shen Xiaoyao.

That Rouge Intoxication you brought back from the Demon Realm cannot carry you the whole climb.

All it takes is one small red-cang fruit. That is enough to break the deluding scent of Rouge Intoxication.“

Burned to raw flesh. She fixed her eyes on me anyway, and there was poison in them.

The look said she wanted me peeled, my sinews pulled out.

Lord Jindou heard me out, and his face went white.

Then the man I had honored all my life, the one I had looked on as my father, was on his feet, shouting.

“Linglong, what nonsense is this?

How is there such demonic qi on you!

You are nothing but an ordinary mortal body. Eighteen short years. And you reached the foot of the Ascension Platform.

You. You have cultivated the Demonic Path!“

Hah. Of course. Lord Jindou, to the last.

A single glance and he had it, the demonic qi drifting off me.

Now he roared, as though his heart were coming out of his chest.

“Linglong! Linglong! How could you walk into the Demonic Path?

And now you use demon arts to bring down your own junior sister. I misjudged you.“

One easy sentence, and the chamber pot came down on my head.

A roar of noise went up. The disciples of Tianyimen had taken it up at once.

A senior sister shouted at me.

“Linglong, you have cultivated yourself into a demon.

You walk the Demonic Path. Then you stand against Tianyimen. Today I will cut you down.“

Then another.

“Right! Cutting down demons is our duty here.

Look at today. The bird goes mad, hurts Yunhezi first, then Shen Xiaoyao. All of it this witch’s work!

Come on, all of you. Kill the witch!“

Behind me, Lord Jindou was quietly gathering his power. He meant to put it in my back.

“Fools. The lot of you.”

I laughed out loud, one short bark of it.

“Immortal disciples. Common trash, every one of you. Take you all together and there is still not one golden body in the pile. And you mean to kill me.”

Somewhere behind my eyes the cold came up. Another life. Senior Brother, Junior Brother. What were those words worth now. What was a father’s love worth.

They called themselves immortal disciples and could not tell right from wrong if it stood in front of them. Fools.

Dregs and scraps. And they stood against me.

I put my head back and laughed at the sky.

Then a sweep of my sleeve, and I was in the center of the Ascension Platform.

I had stood on this platform before, an azure bird under me, and the Five Tribulations of Heavenly Lightning broke me then.

Why should the immortal sects lean on birds to get up there.

My fate is mine, not heaven’s. The thought came, and my eyes turned blood red.

Then I pulled up every scrap of divine strength and flew at the Ninth Heaven, alone, straight up.

Seeing me go up alone, they just gaped.

“This Linglong. She is begging for it.”

“No bird under you and you cannot hold the lightning. Not a chance.”

“Hah. A witch, that is all. Digging her own grave. We will watch and see how she comes apart.”

I went up, and kept going, toward the Ninth Heaven.

The clouds broke into thunder and lightning. Fire came at me from every side. Wind screamed. The waters of the Heavenly River poured down and washed my whole body.

Every eye was wide. They had come to watch me die, a hundred thousand zhang down, no way back.

I shut my eyes instead. Not one drop of spiritual power. My mortal body would take it, and be scoured clean.

Bolt after bolt of Heavenly Lightning came down on me, a hammer on an anvil that would not crack. Ball after ball of Samadhi Flame burst around me. The waters of the Heavenly River poured over my head and closed above it, so that for a long moment I could not tell whether I was being drowned or burned.

And then, as the water closed over me, a five-colored radiance broke out of my body like a thing that had been waiting there all along, patient, for its hour.

My flesh was burned away, entirely. What came out of that fire was a seven-colored soul body -- an undying soul, lit from within.

Every one of them went still. The disciples of Tianyimen had seen it.

Then someone in the crowd whispered.

“An undying body. Eternal life, as long as heaven and earth. A seven-colored soul. This… this is rarer than a golden body by far. A hundred thousand years, and nobody has done it!”

Another disciple said.

“An Ancient High God! She has made herself an Ancient High God.”

A golden body. Ascending as an immortal. Already so hard. Nobody managed it easily.

And then, a seven-colored soul. An Ancient High God.

The last Ancient High God had appeared a hundred thousand years before.

Below me the disciples fell to their knees and bowed their heads to the ground.

Lord Jindou himself went to his knees, grey with fear, muttering.

“This cannot be happening. Not to us. Not to me.”

I broke through the Five Tribulations of Heavenly Lightning. Every bolt, every flame, swallowed whole into me.

I hung above the Ninth Heaven, my eyes half shut, looking down on all of it.

“Lord Jindou, do you know your crime?”

My voice was cold. Nothing in it.

“Years ago you went down to hunt demons, and you lay with a red-furred fox demon of the Demon Realm, and got a bastard on her, Shen Xiaoyao.

To shelter that bastard, you joined hands with the fox. You got the Rouge Intoxication and used it to draw the azure birds away. You framed a fellow disciple. You destroyed Yunhezi. Do you know your crime?“

Lord Jindou still meant to argue.

I flicked a finger. A halo opened in the sky above the Ninth Heaven.

An Ancient High God has the Divine Ability to know the past and see what is to come.

All I did was show them what had already happened.

Inside the halo, Lord Jindou lay with the red-furred fox demon.

And Shen Xiaoyao sat plotting with Lord Jindou in his room.

Shen Xiaoyao’s face was dark and vicious.

“With the Rouge Intoxication my mother gave me, I am certain to ascend this year.

What I want is Linglong’s azure bird.

Hah. A fatherless, motherless bastard, and Yunhezi favors her. As if she deserves it.

Little bitch. I will not only take her azure bird. I will cut out her immortal bone, slit her tendons, and throw her into the Demon Pit.“

And Lord Jindou, so kind to all, so honored by thousands, nodded along.

“That is right. She stood in my daughter’s road. Then she can blame no one but herself.

I have had enough of being an Elder of Tianyimen.

Daughter, once you have your golden body, we will find a way to take Tianyimen. And after that, heaven above and earth below, the immortal realm, the mortal realm, the Demon Realm. All of it will belong to our family…“

The crowd saw the old scenes play out in the halo.

Every last bit of Lord Jindou’s and Shen Xiaoyao’s ambition, laid bare.

I swept my sleeve a second time.

I cut out Lord Jindou’s immortal bone where he knelt.

And I could not let Shen Xiaoyao and the red-furred fox demon off.

Last time, the Demon Pit. Ten thousand years of torment in it.

This life I would be kind. I would let the three of them be together as a family.

In the Heaven Beyond Heaven there is a Valley of Ten Thousand Wraiths, and in it eighteen pillars that hold up the sky.

Every pillar is grown over with golden thorns. The thorns go through skin, seep into marrow, and reach even into the soul.

And that place opens to heaven, to earth, to gods, to ghosts.

Every day, countless hungry ghosts come down there. They bite through skin and swallow flesh. They eat hearts and drink blood. They eat flesh. They eat lungs.

I had studied under Lord Jindou once. So I would send the three of them a generous gift.

“I swear this by the name of a god. Lord Jindou, Shen Xiaoyao, and the red-furred fox demon shall live as long as heaven and earth, and shine with the sun and moon… undying, unrotting, Indestructible. Forever and ever. Tormented without end, the wheel turning, and no day of rest.”

With Lord Jindou and the rest dealt with, I was gone in a flicker, vanished from above the Ninth Heaven.

Because I was born of mortal flesh, and had broken through the Heavenly Tribulation with the arts of the Demonic Path, and come out with a divine body.

Neither mortal nor immortal. Neither demon nor god.

From that day on, the world called me the Primeval Female High God of the Three Pure Ones, Who Pierces Heaven.