Peace

But Jiang Fengnian knew the difference between his two daughters' standing in the household was as vast as heaven and earth. Especially after Baozhu was found to have the talent of a Three-Spirit Root, A-Ying had all but become an outsider in her own home.

But the child was covered in thorns, and the dark look in her eyes was frightening. She did not seem like his child at all. Jiang Fengnian had always been cold-hearted; as long as his conscience was clear enough for him, he left her alone.

Who could have known that this child had a Spiritual Root too? It was the worst kind, a Five-Element Spiritual Root, but she—

Regret stirred in Jiang Fengnian's heart. If he had known... If he had known she had a Spiritual Root, why would he have lied from the very beginning? Cultivators had never cared about a person's origins. As long as she had a Spiritual Root, who cared who her parents were?

Everything he had done over the years seemed to have been for nothing.

What made him even more jealous was that Baozhu, whom he had painstakingly raised, could only join an obscure little sect like Cloudglow Sect, while A-Ying could take a place on the mountain and become an Outer Sect disciple of a great sect.

Jealousy that gnawed at his bones swallowed him whole. Once a cultivator took a wrong turn, there was no finding the righteous path again.

When a Qi Refining disciple of Yonglu Mountain cut Jiang Fengnian down with a single stroke, he suddenly understood: the day he conceived the idea of Soul-Swapping, he had already doomed himself beyond redemption.

A secret was only a secret because he alone knew it.

Once a second person knew, its exposure was only a matter of