1966. Late autumn.
In the capital, a storm you hardly ever saw was raging with thunder and lightning, beating down on the old city like it meant to tear it apart.
In the west part of town stood a three-courtyard siheyuan. In the west wing, a window that was practically falling apart rattled under the wind with loud bangs. Rain kept forcing its way in through the cracks, and even the old hard bed had its ragged quilt soaked through, the yellowed black-stained cotton darkening in a wide patch.
The person on the bed stirred.
Pain.
Sharp, bone-deep pain.
Serena Ashford snapped her eyes open. Above her were moldy beams and roof tiles furred with cobwebs.
She was still alive?
She had been Patriarch Qingxu in the cultivation world. During her ascension tribulation, a bolt of Heavenly Mystic Thunder had blasted her so cleanly that even her body was gone.
She had thought that was it, that her soul would scatter into nothingness inside the void. But the moment she opened her eyes, she found herself dropped into an age with almost no spiritual energy at all, inside the body of an ordinary mortal.
Before she could even get used to this body, weak to the point of uselessness, a surge of towering resentment suddenly crashed into her mind. With it came broken memories flashing by like a lantern reel, so fierce they nearly tore apart her divine sense.
Serena Ashford, the biological daughter of the Ashford family in the capital, switched at birth and kept outside the family for eighteen years.
She had only been brought back half a year ago. She had thought her suffering was finally over. Who would have guessed she had only stepped out of one pit and straight into another.
Her birth father treated her like a thorn in his eye. Her stepmother smiled sweetly while hiding a knife. And that fake young miss, her younger sister, was scheming against her every single day.
Just ten minutes ago, the original owner of this body had been burning with a high fever, then thrown into this leaking side room and left to die.
"Cough, cough..."
Serena pressed a hand to her chest, coughing so hard her whole body shook. Every cough felt like a dull blade sawing through her heart and lungs.
She lowered her head and looked at her hands. They were so thin they were little more than skin stretched over bone. The backs of them were covered in chilblains and tiny needle marks.
"Nine Yin Severed Meridians?"
Serena narrowed her eyes and sent her divine sense inward to inspect the body. The moment she looked, she understood exactly what kind of condition this body was in.
This wasn’t illness at all. It was clearly a natural Nine-Yin Severed Meridian body.
In the cultivation world, a body like this was the finest kind of furnace vessel. But here, in the mortal world where spiritual energy had long dried up, it only meant one thing: a short life, dead before twenty.
But even that wasn’t the worst part.
The worst part was that she could feel something buried under this room.
Threads of dark, filthy baleful energy kept seeping up from beneath the floor, clinging to her like leeches, sucking hard at the little lifespan and vitality she had left.
Then it followed some invisible path and streamed toward the main house.
"A fortune-borrowing spirit-locking array?"
A slight curve touched Serena Ashford’s lips, but the pallor on her face only made that chill look more frightening.
Very good. Just very good.
So the Ashford family had brought their real daughter back not because they felt guilty, not because they wanted to make amends, but because they meant to use her as a sacrifice, drain her dry, and feed every last bit of her life into that fake heiress.
No wonder the original Serena had gotten weaker by the day, while Candy Ashford had only grown prettier and more glowing, the kind of person who could step outside and seem to stumble into luck.
"Since I’ve taken this body, I’ll settle this debt for you."
Serena lowered her eyes. When she raised them again, the frail, sickly look inside them was gone. In its place was the coldness and killing intent of someone who had lived through ages.
Just then, the sound of high heels striking the stone path came from outside.
"Tap. Tap. Tap."
On a stormy night full of thunder and rain, the sound was especially sharp, enough to make anyone’s nerves tighten.
The door creaked open.
A warm, rich scent drifted in with the damp air, pushing back a good bit of the moldy smell in the room.
The person who stepped in wore a bright red wool coat so flashy it practically shouted in this day and age. On her feet were polished little leather shoes, and on her wrist was a plum-blossom watch.
It was the Ashford family’s fake daughter, Candy Ashford.
She stood there with a white porcelain bowl in her hands. Steam curled up from the bird’s nest soup inside, and the thing looked completely out of place in this shabby, leaking room.
"Serena, why are you still awake?"
Candy Ashford stopped at the doorway, covering her nose with a handkerchief in open disgust. She clearly had no intention of stepping inside, as if the room were full of filth.
She looked down at the frail, scarecrow-thin Serena on the bed, and a flicker of smugness passed through her eyes. But when she spoke, her voice turned sweet and soft.
"Mom and Dad said you weren’t feeling well, so they had me bring you a bowl of bird’s nest soup to help you recover. This is premium blood bird’s nest. Even Mom and I can hardly bear to eat it."
Serena leaned against the headboard and said nothing. She only looked at her quietly.
To be exact, she was staring at the jade hanging on Candy’s chest.
The ancient jade was a deep blood-red all over. Under the dim yellow lamplight in the room, it gave off a strange, eerie glow.
To an ordinary person, it would only look like a fine piece of valuable jade.
But in Serena’s eyes, it was obviously a wicked thing swollen with resentment.
Inside the pendant crouched a hideous little black ghost. It was greedily devouring the luck stolen from Serena, then feeding all of it into Candy.