Chapter 2

As she watched one antique after another, along with the lavish jewelry in the treasury, Mengze Li trailed behind, admiring the collection. To be honest, there were quite a few remarkable pieces—no wonder that scoundrel insisted on currying favor with the owner, even abandoning his previous little lotus.

Hmm, this one is nice. The Li family owns one as well, she’d seen it—nothing new. But this next piece, now that was unfamiliar, and from the Ming dynasty no less. The base, though, was rather unsightly, resembling a pig’s leg; it would look much better atop a round plinth.

As Mengze Li browsed, her eyes suddenly lit up—a Bagua disk caught her attention. Its jade was smooth and lustrous, the patina clear, the water content abundant. The black and white halves, representing yin and yang, melded seamlessly together—truly exquisite beyond compare.

In her previous life, Mengze Li had owned a private kitchen and her family was by no means poor. She had seen her share of treasures, yet few items ever truly moved her heart. But at this moment, something about this extraordinary piece captivated her, much like a child drawn to a delicious treat, unable to resist inching closer.

She became so obsessed with acquiring it that she didn’t even notice when the scoundrel and his companions left. She tried every method she could imagine: grabbing it—her hand passed right through; biting it—no sensation at all; throwing herself at it—like a fool, she went straight through to the other side.

Mengze Li was not one to give up easily. If she couldn’t smuggle something she coveted into her own bed, she would not sleep soundly. In all these years, nothing had ever suited her this perfectly—she refused to let it go and was determined to see it through.

How much time passed, she couldn’t say. All she knew was that wherever this treasure went, a wisp of her soul would inevitably linger nearby—truly a case of being haunted, heart and soul.

Yet, she had to admit, over the years, she had made some progress. At the very least, her soul had become much more solid than when she first began—gleaming with a pearly whiteness, not unlike the white jade half of the taiji, stunning in its own right.

Mengze Li didn’t spend all her time watching over the jade; sometimes, she would wander elsewhere but never left the villa. If someone were to take the jade, where would she find it again? So she confined her wandering to the villa grounds.

One day, the owner of the villa hired a new maid, a girl who spent her free time glued to her phone, reading novels. Mengze Li had never read such things before, but she didn’t mind cultivating this hobby now.

She began to follow the maid around, absorbing the thoughts of this new generation and learning a great deal. For example, if the heroine felt a special connection to a piece of jade, there was a high chance it was a portable space or a jade slip containing cultivation techniques. Usually, the bond was sealed with a drop of blood.

After reading enough of these stories, Mengze Li entertained the thought that perhaps her jade was also a portable space. If she recognized it as her master, perhaps it would reveal countless treasures and techniques, and she would be able to cultivate, regain a human form, and walk the streets again. Then, she would first deal with that scoundrel and then return to the Li family, terrifying those old relatives out of their wits.

Unfortunately, that was all just wishful thinking. She had no body, no blood—let alone the chance to bond with the jade by offering her blood.

But Mengze Li was not inflexible. She was clever enough to adapt. If she couldn’t drip blood, she could meditate. That, too, she had learned from those novels—cultivators often meditated for days and nights, absorbing spiritual energy. Why couldn’t she do the same, even if her method was a bit unscrupulous?

As a knowledgeable ghost with a bit of a golden finger, Mengze Li could sense faint energies within the room—some of the antiques contained spiritual energy. She wasn’t sure what kind, but she did know one thing: when she drew near those objects, her soul felt lighter and more comfortable.

That was obviously beneficial for a ghost. So she chose such antiques as her aids, floating up during meditation and sitting atop them, gradually drawing their energy into her soul.

After absorbing all the spiritual energy from every treasure in the room except for the jade disk, Mengze Li realized her efforts had not been in vain—she could feel a tangible change within herself.

At her heart, she sensed a single drop of heart’s blood—the final gamble. If this didn’t work, she would have nothing left; unable to become human, she would likely dissipate into nothingness.

Over time, she understood that a person’s soul persisted only because of that last drop of heart’s blood. Previously, her senses had been too dull to notice its presence.

Now, she was ready to make her final wager. If the jade was truly a treasure, her prospects would open up; if not, she had already endured enough lonely, friendless days.

As the drop of blood left her heart, even as a ghost, Mengze Li felt searing, tearing pain. Her body began to dissolve from the feet up, but she did not care. She stared fixedly at the black-red drop as it fell onto the jade, waiting for a reaction. Nothing happened—the jade remained unchanged, while her form had dissolved halfway up her torso. It seemed her gamble had failed. As she closed her eyes, she missed the final moment when the yin-yang jade burst into radiance, enveloping her soul completely.

Her whole body felt warm and comfortable. Mengze Li thought, so this is what it’s like to dissipate—it’s not so terrifying after all.

At the foot of Mount Kunlun, in the gathering town of Juxian, nestled among the scattered cultivators, a chubby little toddler squatted in the courtyard of a three-chambered house, poking at a ball of fur pretending to be dead on the ground with her plump little fingers.

How could something so bizarre have happened? Wasn’t her soul supposed to have scattered? Why, upon awakening, did she find herself as a newborn child, and in a world utterly unfamiliar to her? Here, people flew through the skies in white robes, exuding the aura of immortals—this was the legendary world of cultivation.

She was now five years old. According to her adoptive parents, in a few days, her biological uncle—the Nascent Soul elder of the Kunlun Sword Vault—would come to take her for a spiritual root test and help her select an appropriate cultivation method.

Though Mengze Li had lived in this world for five years, many mysteries remained unsolved. For example, her adoptive parents were both rogue cultivators—her father at the mid-Golden Core stage, her mother at the late Foundation Establishment stage—so how could they possibly have a younger brother who was an elder of a great sect, and a Nascent Soul cultivator at that? For a five-year-old, this was a daunting puzzle.

Despite being five, she had rarely left the house. She had underestimated how much this world valued offspring—among cultivators, the higher the cultivation, the harder it was to bear children. Those without heirs sought to take disciples with high spiritual roots to pass on their legacy. Abandoned children were a common sight. One might suggest marking a child with a magical artifact for tracking, but what if the one who took the child was more powerful than you?

Before the age of five, a child’s meridians were too delicate to accurately discern the quality of their spiritual roots, let alone test them. However, Mengze Li was confident. According to her father, when she was born, her uncle had visited in person, and the room was filled with sandalwood incense—so much so that a passing Buddhist cultivator nearly snatched her away to become a little Taoist nun. Fortunately, her uncle intervened, or she would have lost her lustrous black hair. Mengze Li stroked her smooth, shiny hair with lingering unease.

With such a legendary birth, how could she possibly lack a good spiritual root? By now, shouldn’t she be brimming with kingly aura, surrounded by countless immortal beasts vying to serve her, and attended by a retinue of beautiful young men waiting for her to grow up?

But reality was harsh—so much for the trope that awakening in a new world automatically made one the heroine. Who said supporting characters couldn’t have extraordinary childhoods? Isn’t it the brilliance of many supporting characters that sets off a successful protagonist?

Of course, Mengze Li didn’t initially realize she was trapped inside a novel. She hadn’t been poisoned by countless transmigration and rebirth tales. At first, she simply wanted to grow up safely, follow her uncle onto the path of cultivation, and, after reaching the Golden Core stage, earn a position as a minor elder—leading a comfortable, if unambitious, life. Yet even this modest wish was dashed just a few days ago.

A fellow cultivator of her mother’s showed up, bringing along something said to belong to her last disciple—a pitiful, tearful little thing. The girl nearly made Mengze Li’s mother give away the gift meant for her: a supreme cleansing elixir that would, if her spiritual roots turned out mediocre, secretly wash away one or two roots after the test to save her family from embarrassment. Luckily, her father was more reliable and promptly threw both the child and her dubious master out, preventing what might have been the loss of a crucial cultivation advantage.

If all she knew was the white lotus act, Mengze Li might not have guessed she was in a book—after all, she didn’t know the plot. But the protagonist had an absurd name: Bai Lian, or White Lotus, lauded by her brainless fans as pure as the sacred flower. Mengze Li had mocked that name for two days straight when she first encountered it; how could she ever forget?