"Demoness! She's a demoness!"
"A demoness brings calamity to the Human Realm. Her crime warrants execution!"
"Kill her! Whoever takes the demoness's head today will be rewarded with an earth-grade cultivation technique! Kill her!"
Song Zhizhi froze for a moment. She remembered now—her name was Song Zhizhi. She was on the battlefield of the Human-Demon War, a Half-Demon. Her mother had been killed by human cultivators, and before dying, she had instructed Song Zhizhi to seek refuge with her father.
But on the way to seek him out, her identity had been discovered. Cultivators regarded demons as floods and savage beasts, showing them no mercy, even though she was only a Half-Demon.
Song Zhizhi's face turned deathly pale. She spun around and ran deeper into the dense forest, the people behind her pursuing relentlessly, as though they would catch her the very next second.
Thinking of the horrific sight of her Demon Race companions being flayed and stripped of their bones while still alive by the Human Race, Song Zhizhi did not dare pause for even an instant. Though she was a Half-Demon, she too possessed demon bones.
A fierce will to survive erupted within Song Zhizhi: She couldn't let them catch her! She didn't want to die!
Wind seemed to rise beneath her feet, and her speed became three parts faster than before. Little by little, she shook off her pursuers.
Song Zhizhi let out a breath of relief. Only then did she feel the throbbing pain coursing through every tendon and meridian in her body. She had run too fast just now, exhausting the spiritual power within her.
Using the last of her strength, Song Zhizhi found a concealed cave. After that, she lost consciousness.
When she woke again, she found herself lying in a crude room, the wounds on her body clearly having been treated.
Movement came from outside the room. Song Zhizhi clutched the blanket with both hands and looked outside warily.
The door was pushed open a crack, and the golden afterglow of the setting sun spilled inside, draping the visitor in a warm halo of light.
The newcomer was a young man in coarse cloth robes. His looks were ordinary, but he had a pair of phoenix eyes shimmering with a rippling brilliance. Carrying a bowl of medicine that gave off a bitter smell, he walked in. When he saw that Song Zhizhi was awake, his brows curved with delighted surprise. His phoenix eyes glimmered, making his originally merely passable appearance far more striking. "Miss, you're awake? That's wonderful!"
Looking into his eyes, Song Zhizhi seemed to see a blurry face flash through her mind, but it vanished too quickly for her to grasp.
Song Zhizhi said nothing. She watched the unfamiliar man guardedly. "Who are you? Why am I here?"
The man's face reddened slightly. "Miss, I am Zhu Nanjia. Yesterday, I went up the mountain to gather herbs and happened to find you unconscious there, so I brought you back to my home."
"M-Miss, the wounds on your body... I invited a female physician to bandage them."
Looking at his crimson ears and his stammering from embarrassment, Song Zhizhi found him inexplicably familiar. She also felt an equally inexplicable pang of guilt.
Song Zhizhi: How strange.
"Have we met before?" Song Zhizhi asked in confusion.
"Ah? N-No..." The man's face grew even redder.
The sense that she had met this man before became even stronger in Song Zhizhi's heart. For some reason, seeing his slightly flushed face gave her an inexplicable sense of peace and trust.
"My name is Song Zhizhi," she told him.
Song Zhizhi stayed in Zhu Nanjia's village. That stay lasted half a year, and the injuries on her body completely healed.
The tranquil life in the mountain village had nearly made Song Zhizhi forget what had happened before. Until that day, when a group of cultivators found the place and saw through her identity.
"She is the bastard spawn born of a human and a demon, intolerable to the Dao of Heaven. She should be executed!"
"This man sheltered a Half-Demon. He must be in league with Half-Demons as well. Take him to the Heavenly Punishment Platform for judgment!"
"Enough talk. Kill this bastard spawn!"
The cultivators swarmed forward. Song Zhizhi had no ability to fight back at all. A sharp sword pierced straight through her chest, and she fell into a pool of blood, watching helplessly as Zhu Nanjia was taken away.
"No, don't..."
Anyone brought onto the judgment platform, cultivator or mortal alike, would suffer the cruelest punishments. Of ten, not one survived.
Another sharp sword stabbed toward her brow. Song Zhizhi wanted to dodge, but her body was far too weak. No matter what she did, she could not avoid it.
If this strike landed, she would undoubtedly die.
But she didn't want to die...
Why?
A powerful resentment and unwillingness suddenly surged from the depths of Song Zhizhi's heart. She had done nothing wrong, hurt no one—so why did they have to shatter her peaceful life? Why did they have to take Zhu Nanjia away? Why did they have to kill her?
"Because our birth is the original sin." A hazy voice sounded in her mind, neither male nor female. As the sword tip pierced her brow, the world before Song Zhizhi seemed to have been paused. Fallen leaves hung motionless in midair. The cultivator stabbing at her with his sword widened his eyes, as though something had bound him in place, unable to move.
Song Zhizhi's pupils contracted. She looked around vigilantly, her lips pale as she said, "Who?!"
"Who I am isn't important. What matters is whether you want to live." The voice continued to entice her in her mind. "I can help you."
Song Zhizhi said nothing. Then, suddenly, she felt a sword appear out of thin air in her hand.
"This sword is called Slaying Immortals. As its name suggests, it can slay True Immortals. With this sword, none beneath the heavens or above the earth can be your match."
"But this sword was sealed because it is inauspicious. It must be tempered with the resentful souls of a hundred people before its full power can be unleashed."
As luck would have it, the village where Song Zhizhi stood contained exactly one hundred people, counting both the villagers and those cultivators.
Holding the sword, Song Zhizhi could feel the immense power within it. Her gaze seemed bewitched as it swept across one terrified face after another.
The voice cackled wickedly in her mind. "Kill them, and you'll be free. From this day onward, no one in this world will be your opponent. No one will dare look down on you again..."
"Are you done?" Song Zhizhi interrupted calmly. She released her grip and let the sword tip plunge vertically into the dirt. Her expression was clear as she said, "If you're done, then scram. I'm in a hurry. There's really no point in putting on this kind of illusion."
"This scene is pretty convincing, but throwing in such a melodramatic plot is a little abrupt. Even TV dramas from ten years ago didn't play out like this. Kill a few people and your power skyrockets? Who are you trying to fool, children? And your voice has no feeling at all. If I had to score it, I could only give your acting a five."
Rankings | Transmigration into a Book | Sweet Romance | Transmigration and Rebirth Romance | Tu Yanyan | Amnesia Trope