Chapter 18

Liu Shuang never thought she would regain consciousness one day.

Her last memory was of the ferocious purple thunder falling from the sky, accompanied by torrential rain over the Canglan Lake.

Her mind was hazy, as if waking from a deep dream.

She knew she might have died; after crushing her spiritual essence, her soul began to dissipate.

When Yan Chaosheng found her, she had already become a walking corpse.

Without a heart, dying under the heavenly thunder, she couldn’t even muster any feelings of resentment. In her condition, she couldn’t reincarnate and had no next life.

She quietly waited for her consciousness to fade away. Unexpectedly, as she waited, her consciousness became clearer and clearer.

She felt someone gently wiping her hand with a cloth, mumbling angrily, “Young Miss, that disciple has been caught and is at your disposal. Please wake up soon.”

Liu Shuang wanted to open her eyes but couldn’t manage it just yet.

After a while, someone else came to visit her.

This time, it was an unfamiliar male voice, clear and pleasant, “Liu Shuang, if you don’t want to marry into Kunlun, so be it. Big brother will speak to the Realm Lord on your behalf.”

Liu Shuang was curious how this person knew her name; she didn’t recognize him at all!

Besides him, another annoying person came.

This person sneaked in at midnight and rudely pinched her cheek, tugging at it.

“Stop pretending. You’re such a good actor that my brother has been deceived into begging the Realm Lord to cancel the marriage. He’s been kneeling outside the Realm Lord’s hall for three days now. Still not waking up? How long are you going to keep this up? You can’t possibly be half-dead because of a little demon, right?”

Liu Shuang’s cheeks hurt from his pinching. Since losing her spiritual essence, she hadn’t felt such vivid pain.

This person was very excessive. Without seeing him, she knew her face was probably deformed from his pinching. Liu Shuang wanted to resist, to push his hand away, but she couldn’t.

After a while, the young man said gloomily, “If you still don’t wake up, could there really be a problem? The Huanyan Bead hasn’t come out, and this face annoys me. How are you so ugly? Just looking at you hurts my eyes. Chishui Liushuang, it serves you right for sneaking out of Kongsang. It’s really retribution. Now you can’t change back. Let’s see how you cry then.”

After venting his schadenfreude, he roughly tousled her hair until her exquisite hairstyle turned into a bird’s nest.

“I won’t let you turn out like this for nothing. I’ll go torture that demon bloodline! Dare to mess with my Chishui lineage; they really don’t want to live.”

He left like a blaze, leaving abruptly, clearly an impatient person.

Liu Shuang lay stiffly on the soft couch, waiting until the next day when the immortal maids rushed in, exclaiming in horror at the sight of their “young miss” with a messy hairdo, hastily tidying her up.

In two hundred years, Liu Shuang had never been so curious.

She was trapped in a shell, unable to speak, move, or open her eyes to see the situation.

All she could do was repeatedly analyze the information she had gathered—

The immortal maids called her young miss, the clear-voiced man called her Liushuang, and he said he would help her ask the Realm Lord to cancel the marriage.

The “Realm Lord,” as Liushuang knew, was the greatest person in an immortal realm. The Realm Lords of places like Changliu Immortal Mountain and Buzhou Mountain Immortal Realm were world-famous figures.

Other smaller realms also had their own Realm Lords.

However, her Canglan lake didn’t have a Realm Lord. When she asked Grandpa Tree about it before, he simply said, “There isn’t one. Just isn’t.”

The rude boy called her Chishui Liushuang.

This shocked Liu Shuang.

Chishui was not an unfamiliar surname to her. Among the four great immortal realms, the Kongsang Immortal Realm was ruled by the Chishui clan.

Only descendants of the Realm Lord’s lineage were qualified to inherit the ancient surname “Chishui.”

But the Chishui clan had been annihilated seven hundred years ago by Yan Chaosheng.

How could anyone call her “Chishui Liushuang”?

And what was the Huanyan bead… the demon bloodline… all about?

Thinking about it gave Liu Shuang a headache, so she stopped thinking. Lying around bored every day, she diligently reviewed the spells in her memory. Whether she could live or not, she would rely on no one but herself and would cultivate whenever she had the chance.

After lying like a corpse for an unknown amount of time, one day it rained.

The gentle sound of the rain seemed to try to awaken her spiritual consciousness.

Liu Shuang instinctively felt a pain in her heart and wanted to press that spot. She paused, remembering she was trapped in a shell, and the pain in her heart was gone.

She peacefully slept for a while longer when a nimble figure came in, lifted her, and waved a porcelain bottle under her nose.

The strong fragrance cleared the fog in Liushuang’s mind. She tried to open her eyes and, to her surprise, succeeded!

She saw an immortal aura swirling, beautiful strings of glass beads hanging down, and the enlarged face of a delighted young maid in green.

Outside, it was pitch black, seemingly night, but the sleeping quarter was warm and bright.

Liu Shuang tried to sit up, and the young maid quickly came to support her. “Young Miss, are you alright?”

Liu Shuang felt that she probably wasn’t alright. For some reason, others couldn’t see it, but she could feel her body was lifeless.

She looked at the young maid before her.

The maid had a faint immortal aura, indicating she was immortal. Liushuang didn’t recognize her. She sighed softly. Whatever the situation, at least it wasn’t the worst. She wasn’t in the ghost realm or a demon’s lair.

The young maid burst into tears.

“Young miss slept so long that Fuliu thought the elixir had lost its effect. I went to find immortal fairy Mi Chu for advice, but she shut her door and wouldn’t see me. I was so worried.”

Liu Shuang suddenly raised her eyes.

This familiar name pulled her back to reality from distant memories.

Mi Chu? Was the little maid in front of her talking about the Mi Chu she knew? Could it be that she wasn’t dead after all!

Liu Shuang tried to summon her spiritual energy and created a water mirror in her palm.

Unexpectedly, it succeeded immediately.

Amid Fuliu’s sobbing, she looked into the water mirror.

The moment she saw her appearance, she was speechless.

In the mirror was a woman with a face like a pancake, swollen lips, and sparse eyebrows, staring wide-eyed back at her.

Liu Shuang almost dropped the water mirror in shock. This! This was her!?

Although Liu Shuang had never cared about her appearance since birth, having seen a beautiful face for two hundred years, suddenly seeing such a face was almost suffocating.

Liu Shuang swallowed hard.

Before she could lament how ugly her “reincarnation” was, Fuliu started crying her heart out.

“Don’t be afraid, Young Miss. We’ll go to the Realm Lord and surely get the Huanyan bead out of you. Then you can restore your appearance.”

“Huanyan Bead?”

“Yes, young miss, you became like this because you swallowed the Huanyan bead. Although the Realm Lord is angry about your escape and the broken engagement, he will find a way to save you.”

It seemed the story was not simple.

Liu Shuang blinked, “Fuliu, I’ve forgotten many things after waking up. Could you tell me everything in detail?”

Fuliu barely held back her tears, her eyes full of sympathy, “Young Miss, you’ve had it so rough!”

“It’s not that bad.”

No matter how bad it was, this body’s owner hadn’t died under heavenly thunder like she had.

Liu Shuang wiped Fuliu’s tears.

The sight of Fuliu reminded her of Chang Huan, who seemed about the same age, though Chang Huan never cried when sad.

Liu Shuang felt a sense of familiarity with Fuliu, so she softly said, “Don’t cry. Didn’t you say I can return to normal?”

Liu Shuang’s calm reassured Fuliu.

The young maid collected herself and explained everything to Liu Shuang.

After all her curiosity, Liu Shuang finally understood the situation—

She had indeed died.

Her current body belonged to the only daughter of the Kongsang Immortal Realm’s Realm Lord, Chishui Liushuang.

In this era, among the four great immortal realms, the Feng family of Buzhou Mountain reigned supreme, while the spiritual veins of the other three realms began to wither.

Her current body’s father, the Realm Lord, devised a plan: marry into the Kunlun Immortal Mountain so that his daughter could unite with the young master of the Jimo clan in Kunlun to merge their spiritual veins and ensure the realm’s prosperity for millennia.

Chishui Liushuang grew up pampered and spoiled. Unwilling to marry the Kunlun heir she had never met, she harbored feelings for someone else, the Heavenly Prince Feng Fuming.

Not wanting to break off the engagement but fearing her stern father, Chishui Liushuang, on the instigation of the sister from the side branch of the Chisui clan, swallowed the Huanyan bead and fled from Kongsang, hoping to force the Kunlun heir to break the engagement.

She intentionally used the Huanyan bead to make herself exceedingly ugly.

She flew out of the immortal mirror and went to Kunlun, where she met the heir, who coldly agreed to annul the engagement.

But on her way back, something happened, causing her to fall into a deep sleep. The news that Kunlun no longer wished to marry reached her father, the Realm Lord, who was furious, thinking she was feigning sleep to avoid punishment, and forbade anyone from seeing her until she woke up to face her punishment.

Knowing his daughter well, the Realm Lord was right; Chishui Liushuang had indeed taken an elixir to seal her spiritual consciousness, fearing punishment.

Until tonight, when the little maid used an elixir on her, allowing Liu Shuang to open her eyes.

The little maid’s words flowed like beans, leaving Liu Shuang in a daze, astonished. She had thought she was foolish a century ago, but now there was a Chishui heir even more foolish.

They didn’t understand, but Liushuang vaguely felt that when Chishui Liushuang took the elixir, she had probably died.

Otherwise, this body wouldn’t have been so lifeless, only regaining vitality when her soul entered it.

The elixir Chishui Liushuang took must have had issues.

“Fuliu, who gave the elixir?”

“Immortal Fairy Mi Chu.”

Liu Shuang touched her chest. Under her palm, a heart beat steadily, but hearing that name brought a surge of resentment.

Liu Shuang’s heart pounded.

She pressed her chest and whispered, “I’ll find a way to avenge you.”

As her heartbeat steadied, her numb limbs began to regain sensation.

The emotions left in this body seemed to resonate with her, beginning to accept her at that moment.

Liu Shuang couldn’t help but laugh.

Fuliu looked at her pancake face, pained by the sight, “Young Miss, why are you laughing?”

Liu Shuang’s eyes curved into a smile, “It’s good to be alive.”

Having died once, she now knew how good it was to be alive. And this time, she had a better opportunity; everything was still possible.

Kongsang existed seven hundred years ago, meaning she not only came back to life but also returned to seven hundred years ago!

This time, the Canglan Lake still existed, her dear friend Shaoyou hadn’t left, and she had time to cultivate properly and protect Canglan’s future; everything was still possible.

Better yet, the heart that belonged to her had died.

The heart now beating in her chest was someone else’s.

A heart that no longer loved Yan Chaosheng, that could view him as a stranger.