“Dig a pit, heap some dirt, count one two three four five…”
In the eerie forest drowned in fog, a girl in white, soaked head to toe in blood, was humming that cheery little tune while driving a blue-glowing dagger into the ground again and again, gouging up clods of wet earth.
She was digging with real spirit.
At her feet lay another young woman, collapsed flat on the ground. The tendons in her hands and feet had already been cut. Her face was white with terror as she stared at the scene before her.
“Nina Ashford, what are you doing? I’m your sister!”
That off-key song, that grin on Nina’s face that flickered up now and then like she was in a fine mood—it all wrapped around Yvette Ashford like a bad omen.
Whether it was pain, fear, or sheer rage, her whole body shook without stopping.
She refused to believe it. Refused.
A useless waste like Nina actually daring to kill her?
“Nina Ashford! If you dare lay a hand on me, Father will never let you off!”
Seeing Nina ignore her, Yvette finally snapped and shrieked.
Never let her off?
Hearing that, Nina’s digging paused for a beat.
Then she whipped her head around and glared at her, fierce and impatient. “Why are you yelling? I can already see your stomach! Isn’t that why I’m digging the pit?”
Once the hole was done, she could just toss the body in and cover it up.
Heh. Who would know she was the one who did it?
She bent down, grabbed a fistful of weeds, and stuffed them straight into Yvette’s mouth.
At last, the world went quiet.
Nina turned back around and kept digging.
“My own soil, my own ground, plant anything and silver grows…”
…
Just one hour earlier, Nina had died from staying up too late.
Yes.
That’s right.
A fine, full-blooded college student in the prime of youth, not even grown into the nation’s pillar yet, and she just dropped dead from staying up too many nights?
Hell. Just hearing it was enough to make her chest tighten.
She could already picture what those bastard friends of hers would carve on her tombstone—
Here lies Nina the Absurd, a legend of her age,
fated for everything but the glory of standing above the rest.
And beneath it—
Damn, what a show.
The body she ended up in belonged to the vicious supporting girl from the cultivation novel she had been reading right before she died.
That girl was also called Nina Ashford.
Second daughter of the Ashford family, the foremost cultivation clan of Chili Kingdom on Qingyuan Continent.
But truth be told, she was a genuine menace.
She could not cultivate, and because of that, the Ashford family spoiled her without limit.
No line. No restraint.
Raised in that kind of indulgence, she had been taught from childhood to be arrogant, unruly, blind to everyone but herself, as if the whole world ought to bend around her.
Day in, day out, she was either offending someone or on her way to offend the next.
As time passed, Nina Ashford only grew more lawless. In the imperial capital, her name had long since turned into a curse. A beauty with a viper’s heart. A girl people feared more than they admired.
Whenever she stepped out, the common folk scattered like they had seen a flood beast coming down the street, fleeing in all directions.
And she had an elder sister.
Yvette Ashford.
Unlike Nina, who was hated wherever she went, Yvette had been the shining example since childhood—gifted, beautiful, kind, gentle.
The holy-hearted heroine of the book.
With Nina there to set her off, Yvette looked even better in everyone else’s eyes: high talent, good temper, easy to approach, loved by all.