Having cultivated myself into an immortal, all I want to do is raise female disciples.

It is impossible for mortals to marry cultivators.

As long as cultivators engage in dual cultivation with other cultivators, their cultivation level will greatly increase. In this world, strength is the only true measure of power. Moreover, cultivators have different lifespans than mortals. Mortals age quickly, while cultivators can mostly remain forever young.

How could Gu Xingzhuo not understand this principle?

So he left.

He left the village and went to the mountain city where the Xulan Sect was located, intending to join the sect as a prospective outer disciple on the day the sect opened its gates to accept disciples.

As long as I can be with Wang Xiaomo, that's enough...

That's what he thought.

……

Ignoring his family's objections, he strode away from the village.

But he did succeed.

His aptitude was slightly better than that of ordinary people, barely meeting the standard to enter the Xulan Sect. Although he was only a menial servant in the outer sect, he was so happy that he almost laughed out loud.

Because as long as you have the opportunity to enter the Xulan Sect, you will have the opportunity to meet Wang Xiaomo.

He did see it.

One evening, he met Wang Xiaomo in the back mountain of Xulan Sect. Wang Xiaomo was surprised that Gu Xingzhuo would take the initiative to find him. The two talked for a long time. Perhaps Wang Xiaomo could not bear the longing for him, and they were intimate for a long time... right there in the back mountain of Xulan Sect.

and then?

Everything should have been more perfect.

...If Gu Xingzhuo hadn't been stabbed to death the next day.

Yes.

Gu Xingzhuo died at the hands of an inner disciple of the Xulan Sect. The reason was that the other party mistook Gu Xingzhuo for an intruder who was stealing from the spirit field and accidentally stabbed Gu Xingzhuo to death with a sword.

But it was obvious to anyone with eyes that the inner disciple had always admired Wang Xiaomo, and that night—he just happened to be on the back mountain.

No one will blame him.

Because his reasons were very valid and he pretended to be innocent, while Gu Xingzhuo was, in the end, just an outer sect servant. His death was nothing to the Xulan Sect.

This matter... didn't even cause a ripple within the entire Xulan Sect.

……

……

What happened after that? How did Wang Xiaomo react? What became of that inner disciple?

Gu Xingzhuo was unaware of these matters.

Because when he opened his eyes, he was no longer himself. A flood of memories of someone named Liu Xunkong rushed into his mind. His once decaying body regained something called life, and the concept of death receded from him. And finally...

He crawled out of the grave—as the dead.

From then on, Gu Xingzhuo was just his name, while his origin... was the impermanence of life and death, one of the twenty-one extremes.

He went through a long period of confusion.

Until he remembered Wang Xiaomo.

Thinking of my lover.

That girl with stunning beauty, elegant and quiet... my childhood sweetheart.

But he didn't dare to go.

He really didn't dare.

He was afraid... afraid that after seeing Wang Xiaomo, he would have already been forgotten by Wang Xiaomo.

He was afraid... afraid to see another man standing next to Wang Xiaomo.

He was even more afraid... afraid that he would no longer be human, afraid that he would be treated as an outsider, afraid that Wang Xiaomo would distance himself from him.

Gu Xingzhuo struggled for a long time, but in the end he still didn't dare to go to Wang Xiaomo, because he couldn't bear... the pain of being a dead person.

Even cultivators and mortals find it difficult to pair up, let alone the living and the dead. Not to mention Wang Xiaomo, the people of Xulan Sect would probably mistake Gu Xingzhuo for a demonic cultivator and kill him as soon as they saw him, given his corpse-like appearance.

Gu Xingzhu lingered for a long time.

until one day……

He heard the news of the destruction of the Xulan Sect.

Gu Xingzhuo rushed to the Xulan Sect, only to find ruins everywhere, corpses everywhere, countless streams of blood, and wailing, vengeful spirits flying all over the sky.

It is said that the Xulan Sect was slaughtered by demonic cultivators.

He searched the entire Xulan Sect for a long time, and finally... found a corpse he didn't want to find.

Wang Xiaomo's body.

Its skin was as white as his own, its eyes were tightly closed, and there was a sword wound in its chest that went straight through its heart. There was no heartbeat, no pulse, no color in its skin, no breathing... nothing at all.

Her slightly disheveled hair fell limply down; it was early morning when the demonic cultivators attacked that day... and she hadn't had time to comb her hair yet.

She lay quietly in Gu Xingzhuo's arms, motionless.

Now they are the same.

They were all dead.

But Gu Xingzhuo couldn't laugh.

He seemed to have lost his soul, and picked up Wang Xiaomo.

Snow was falling in the Xulan Sect, but unlike the usual pure white snow, this snow was tinged with black demonic energy... it looked like black ash...

But Gu Xingzhuo felt it was more like scattered specks of ink spreading out.

The wind blew against Gu Xingzhuo. He was a dead man, so he wanted to cry, but he couldn't. He could only suppress the sadness in his heart, in his throat, and in his nose... but he just couldn't cry out.

He walked for a very long time... a very long time... a very long time...

He walked back to the cold fishing village where he was born, only to find a desolate wasteland.

what……

He almost forgot.

Fifty years have passed since his death.

It seems that Hanyu Village has been incorporated into a nearby city-state called Qingyao City, and it appears that all the villagers have gone there.

He didn't know if his parents were still alive, but even if they were, he didn't want to go back to face the people in his old village looking like this.

He was stunned for a moment before he came to his senses and walked to the place where the original Cold Fishing Village was located.

He buried Wang Xiaomo here.

He made the tombstone himself, which took a long time—Gu Xingzhuo had no experience making tombstones, this was his first time, and he sincerely hoped it would be the last.

He buried Wang Xiaomo and stared at the bulging grave. For some reason, he was somewhat bewildered, his lips moving and his eyes trembling slightly.

Gu Xingzhuo felt he should cry, cry loudly, and cry here for three days and three nights.

But he just couldn't cry.

He suddenly felt that he shouldn't have come back to life, that he should have died there and remained dead... instead of reappearing here in this dead state.

It's too painful... and too cruel.

But in any case, everything has already happened, and he cannot defy the cruelty of time.

He could only use all his strength to carve a poem on the tombstone.

That was a poem he would never forget in his life.

The poem is titled... "Ink-Stained Journey"

……

After that, he lay down in the pit he had dug earlier next to Wang Xiaomo's grave, did nothing, and closed his eyes.

He hoped he could just fall asleep like this... preferably never to wake up again.

……

A cold wind was blowing across the frozen lake.

The snow, accompanied by a light drizzle, came whistling in and then went whistling away, falling from the sky.

From then on, a grave appeared on the desolate land that no one cared about.

Beside the grave, a person lies asleep, unwilling to wake up.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

I accidentally wrote too much, a 5000-word chapter.

A story that is neither tragic nor grand, just an ordinary one.

11. Please, everyone at Yuntian Academy, have some decency...

The story is over.

It's neither long nor short.

Throughout, Gu Xingzhuo's tone remained calm, as if he were telling someone else's story and was merely an observer rather than someone involved.

The campfire illuminated the boy's pale, bloodless face. He sighed and glanced indifferently at Zhang Ruoxue.

"..."

Zhang Ruoxue didn't reply, she just kept drinking.

She opened her mouth repeatedly, but didn't know what to say. She wanted to offer comfort, but couldn't find the right words. She wanted to express her feelings, but her knowledge was pitifully limited, and she couldn't utter any philosophical remarks.

She scratched her head and took another sip of wine.

"Then, the teacher picked you up?"

"More or less... Perhaps it's the calamity from my past life stirring within me... I didn't actually fall into a deep sleep and never wake up."