Chapter 47 Matters of a Dead Heart

The old man took out another vial of platinum-colored medicinal liquid and poured it over Mu Chenxue's body.

No matter how well prepared Mu Chenxue was, she was still of mortal flesh and blood. The corrosion of this spiritual liquid made her feel as if she were being burned alive, with countless tiny flames rampaging through her body. The excruciating pain caused her to scream uncontrollably.

"Ah, ah, ah!"

Seeming somewhat impatient, the old man struck her with a single palm strike, cutting off the cries of pain abruptly as Mu Chenxue's body slumped limply.

Standing between the two young women, he flicked his wrist, and several frost-gleaming blade tips flashed through the air. Two distinct streams of spiritual liquid—one purple, one golden—slowly converged toward him. As they intertwined, thick layers of black smoke suddenly billowed within the stone chamber, appearing exceptionally eerie and terrifying in the thunderstorm-ravaged night.

Amidst this black smoke, on the stone bed where Qinglan lay, a faint green light flickered slightly, and very soon, that green light transferred to the other stone bed.

A pungent stench of blood permeated the air.

The ethereal phantom of Qinglan stood in the corner of the stone chamber, staring fixedly at the old man.

Before long, the spiritual root transplantation was complete. The two men walked in, both crowding around Mu Chenxue to meticulously and gently examine her wounds until they were certain the spiritual root had stabilized within her body.

Exchanging a glance, smiles bloomed on their faces as joyous voices rang out: "We've succeeded! Hahaha..."

No one paid any heed to the girl on the other stone bed, who was lying in a pool of blood.

"Drip, drop..."

Every single sound fell into this dark abyss of death.

Blood seeped along the grooves of the stone bed, eventually dripping onto the floor. Her face had turned ashen, and her life force drained away rapidly as time passed.

Until the pooling blood flowed to the edge of Mu Feng's boots. Seeing his hem stained with blood, he frowned and turned his head.

Looking at the girl he had brought back from Mingshan more than a decade ago, reduced to this current state, there was not a trace of pity on his face, nor any discernible emotion.

He merely felt it was troublesome—the eldest miss of their Mu family could not just die like this overnight.

With a flick of his hand, he tossed out a medicinal pill, shoving it roughly into the girl's mouth.

Muttering under his breath, he was full of impatience, "What a nuisance..."

...

A day later, when the first faint ray of dawn pierced through the dust, Qinglan slowly woke up. She had been removed from that warm and comfortable room and cast into a dark, cramped woodshed.

She looked around in a daze, and as she shifted her vision back, a wave of pain washed over her.

So painful.

It felt as though her soul had been torn apart; she felt an unprecedented weakness. In the past dozen years, no matter how much spiritual energy she had depleted or how many times her source essence had been extracted, she had never felt this weak.

She touched her lower dantian, only to feel a stabbing agony.

Her mind was a complete blank, and only then did she realize—she no longer possessed a spiritual root, and her path of cultivation was utterly severed.

"Snap!"

Before she could even ponder further, the door of the woodshed was kicked open violently.

Two familiar figures stepped inside. A middle-aged woman entered with attendants, and this woman was none other than the Mu family's head housekeeper—Li Shuyun.

Qinglan was at a loss; she could not even comprehend the expression on the housekeeper's face, only feeling a sense of utter alienation.

Because in the past, the housekeeper had always been gentle and submissive to her, especially after Qinglan cured her of the frost poison infestation, making the woman endlessly grateful, almost fawning.

Yet now, Li Shuyun's face was contorted with twisted malice and an indescribable sense of gratification, differing vastly from the image in her memories.

"The eldest miss is still sleeping? Time to get up and do chores."

"You're used to being pampered and noble, but you probably don't even know yet that you're a fake. There is only one true eldest miss of our Mu family, and that is Mu Chenxue."

"You're nothing more than a wild spawn who crawled out of nowhere!"

She then hurled a pile of foul-smelling clothes and bedding directly onto Qinglan.

"Get to work. This is your task, and you must wash them all by today, or you won't get any food."

...

Dazed, Qinglan hugged the pile of garments and walked outside. She noticed the completely altered gazes of everyone around her—gazes starkly different from the past.

Whether it was the servants she had healed or the martial hall disciples who had once fought side by side with her,

the looks they cast her way were laced with heavy mockery and ridicule.

She looked closely, yet she walked too slowly.

"Bang!"

From behind, she was struck heavily by a kick, sending her crashing to the ground.

Li Shuyun sneered viciously, "Walking so slowly, can you finish today's work? Look, what are you looking at? You're even lower than them now!"

The twisting pain in Qinglan's dantian had not yet subsided. Clutching her lower abdomen tightly with one hand, she found herself unable to stand up for a moment.

Seeing her dawdling, Li Shuyun's anger flared even higher, and she drew a whip from her waist.

With a sharp "crack," the whip lashed fiercely across Qinglan's body.

"Absolute trash."

"What, can't you live without spiritual power?"

Li Shuyun berated Qinglan angrily. Her eyes were filled with rage, as if the girl lying on the ground hadn't simply failed to stand up, but had committed some heinous crime, justifying her fury.

Yet, looking deep into her eyes, there was an extremely bizarre, alternate emotion.

She seemed to be trembling with some secret joy—the sheer thrill of trampling someone who had once stood far above her.

Standing to the side, the ethereal phantom of Qinglan watched her coldly, a surge of regret rising in her heart—memories and witnessing it firsthand felt entirely different; she shouldn't have let that woman die so easily.

...

Qinglan endured this torment for a full month.

Until one day, Mu Chenxue fluttered in gracefully upon the morning light. Having completely adapted to the various powers and conveniences of a cultivator, every movement of hers exuded effortless poise.

Under the sunlight, she wore the freshest and most delicate pink gauze robes, resembling a radiant young maiden in spring, brimming with boundless vitality.

Seeing Qinglan's wretched, ghost-like appearance, a wave of sadistic pleasure welled up on her face.

Yet, feeling that this was not enough, even more horrifying torments descended.

...

The ethereal Qinglan simply watched these hardships endured by her former vessel. This felt entirely different from when she had first transmigrated here, and she slowly closed her eyes.

Wasn't the girl with the once-bright future her?

Wasn't the girl now battered, scarred, and severely bullied her?

Perhaps, neither of them was her, for she hailed from another world. She was clearly meant to be nothing more than an onlooker, but why did her heart ache so intensely at this moment?

As if all those grievances and resentments, all those soul-deep wails and hatreds, were about to burst forth from her chest, her body shuddered violently...

She had been in this continent for a long time now. There were endless battles to fight and many hateful people here. Unawares, she had already absorbed all the experiences, all the rights and wrongs, and all the karma of her original self.

If so, wasn't she Mu Qinglan?

At this moment, she was still standing in the courtyard of the Mu family estate, still trapped within the illusory maze of fog. White mist drifted around; before her, there was actually nothing at all, save for boundless darkness.

...

The girl was cast into the back-mountain mass grave. While Li Shuyun and the others believed she was still breathing, in truth, the girl's body had already grown completely cold on the journey there.

Qinglan walked once more along the mountain path of her resurrection. She watched quietly as the jolted body of the girl was carried along—even in death, she could not attain a moment of peace.

Yet, the girl was dead, while she remained alive.

This was a profoundly bizarre sensation. She was warm and full of vitality; just moments ago, she had even healed a crowd of companions down the mountain, imbuing them with renewed life.

Yet she was also freezing cold, entangled with the aura of death. She had lost everything—her spiritual power, her beliefs, all had collapsed.

Everything was an illusion, everything was a deception, everything was exploitation.

"Thump, thump, thump!"

At this point, the scene before her shattered abruptly like a mirror, fracturing into countless fragments as all people and events disintegrated into dust.

Chilly white mist pervaded the boundless darkness once more, silently swallowing everything around her.

Qinglan stood there, her eyes lowered, silent and motionless.

An ethereal voice rang out suddenly—a voice of ambiguous gender, originating from an unknown source, echoing like the deepest voice from the bottom of Qinglan's heart.

"Nobody likes you."

"What is the meaning of your existence?"

"Why do you live?"

"Did you do something wrong?"

Qinglan heard the questions posed to her. Her expression remained utterly indifferent; the vitality and the aura of death mingled in her eyes, each occupying half, forming two distinct sides.

She stood quietly in the white mist, standing within this endless darkness.

As if she were about to be swallowed by the abyss.

...

...

Meanwhile, the two red-robed maidens stepped into Mirror Mountain. Thick fog rose once more, but strangely, the two of them were not separated; instead, they arrived in the exact same world.

Only, their bodies had shrunk significantly, as if they had returned to their childhood.

The sky gradually tinted with dusk, and night was about to descend.

Before them lay a desolate grassland, with withered yellow grass blades towering higher than their heads. Not far away at the foot of the mountain lay a village, where a household appeared to have caught fire, their dwelling already charred completely black.

A mottled stone tablet stood at the forefront of the village, inscribed with a few slightly blurred characters: Chen Family Village.

The two red-robed girls were now dressed in coarse hempen garments. Exchanging a glance, they read the shared shock and unspeakable, buried terror in each other's eyes—this was the place where they had grown up, home to both the person they feared most and the person they loved most.

Amidst the dim twilight, the desolate village suddenly erupted into a strange commotion.

The two girls were sisters: the elder was named Chen Xi, and the younger was Chen Yan.

At this moment, upon merely catching sight of that stone tablet, Chen Yan was struck as if by lightning. She squatted down instantly, wrapping her hands tightly around her head, her eyes squeezed shut as she trembled violently.

Chen Xi looked at the vaguely shifting figures moving about the village, her face as cold as frost, unable to conceal the chill piercing her heart.

Some long-sealed memories flooded back once more.

Both of them knew all too well what terrifying events had transpired before, and what even more horrifying events were about to unfold next.