Fei Yiming's Life

"On the ninth day of the seventh month, an immortal cultivator flew over Green Fish Village. Everyone in the village knelt on the ground. Mother sheltered me in her arms. I asked her why we had to bow our heads. Mother stroked my head and said, they are immortals, standing high above us. We are beneath them, so this does not count as bowing our heads."

"Then I want to stand up in the sky too."

"On the fifth day of the fourth month, I could not resign myself to being a mortal forever, plodding through life and accomplishing nothing. At midnight, I bade Mother farewell and left to seek immortality and the Dao. When I return, I will give Mother a good life."

"I do not know the month or the hour. It has been two years since I left Green Fish Village. I have kept moving forward. I heard that immortals preside over the cities there. Even serving as a boy who sweeps their floors would do. All I ask is to learn a single immortal art."

"On the fourth day of the fifth month, at the foot of Greenbriar Mountain, the Fang Family took me in and sent me to toil in the mines. Looking at those glittering golden ores, I thought, These must be things that belong to immortals. When will I have some of my own?"

"On the fifth day of the first month, it has been six years since I left home, yet the Fang Family still refuses to teach me any immortal arts. Is it because I have no talent for cultivation at all? I cannot accept this. I cannot accept this!"

"On the first day of the second month, I overheard members of the Fang Family talking. They said my Wisdom Light was strong, but I had an Eagle Gaze, Wolfish Regard. They feared that if they let me cultivate, I would turn on my masters, so they deliberately withheld immortal arts and barred me from cultivation. They even intended to give me to the demons. The demons of Filth Mountain love eating Human Sacrifices with Wisdom Light like mine. Why? Why? I have done nothing wrong. I only want to cultivate!"

"I do not know the month or the hour. It has been ten days since I was sent into the Demon Cave. I tried to resist the Fang Family, but they are immortals, and I am only a mud-legged peasant. They bound me effortlessly and sent me here with a group of others as food for the demons. My ambitions of cultivating immortality, my impractical fantasies... it seems they will end here..."

"I refuse to accept it! If I must die, then I will die as a cultivator!"

"I do not know the month or the hour. I escaped, taking an immortal art with me. It was a demon that liked to wear rouge. It told me to return in sixty years to repay it. I know it cannot have good intentions, but even if it kills me, I must cultivate."

"On the fifth day of the eighth month, in the eleventh year, I finally opened my apertures. So this is what cultivation feels like. How wonderful."

"On the fifth day of the ninth month, I returned to Greenbriar Mountain, to the Fang Family. This time, I was no longer a mud-legged peasant, no longer a Human Sacrifice. I was Fei Retainer, at the third level of Aperture Opening. Not one of them saw through my disguise, and none saw my Eagle Gaze, Wolfish Regard anymore. Yet all I had done was exchange my hemp clothes for silk. Yes, who would care about a mud-legged peasant, a head of human sacrificial livestock?"

"On the fifth day of the fifth month, it has been twenty-two years since I left home. With the Pills that Monster provided, my cultivation rose rapidly. I have already reached the fifth level of Aperture Opening. The Fang Family began to sense a looming threat. They felt my cultivation was too high, that I would take a share of the upper ranks' profits."

"They began assigning me grueling tasks, sending me running everywhere and making me teach their children to cultivate. They even married a woman of the Fang Family to me. Day and night, my wife told me how good the Fang Family was. I merely listened, while secretly cultivating trusted followers, allying with outsiders, and colluding with the Wang Clan. I attacked the Fang Family's ore veins and abducted mortals, gravely weakening them. After most of their people had been sent out to quell the unrest, I successfully took control of Greenbriar Mountain."

"I asked the Household Head of the Fang Family whether he still recognized me. He shook his head. I asked whether he thought I had an Eagle Gaze, Wolfish Regard. He did not dare answer."

"So the evil of the Immortal Sect and the aristocratic clans lay hidden beneath brocade and finery. Once I dressed as they did, I possessed the same evil."

"On the ninth day of the ninth month, rain fell unceasingly. The Fei Clan replaced the Fang Family, Greenbriar Mountain changed hands, and congratulations came from every quarter."

"On the tenth day of the ninth month, I went down the mountain to fetch Mother. Green Fish Village was still there, but our house had collapsed."

"The villagers said that after I left, Mother was all alone and could not tend the fields, so others seized them. She fought with her life to keep twelve coins, saying she would wait for me to return and use them to find me a wife. Mother was beautiful and had never remarried after Father's death. With no man in the Ning Household, drunken louts from the village often came to cause trouble, harassing and humiliating her. No word from me ever came. Her heart turned to cold ashes, and she hanged herself. When she died, she was clutching twelve copper coins."

"The village chief kept the copper coins safe and returned them to me."

"I killed everyone who had mistreated my mother, along with all their blood relatives and descendants. Then, fearing they would trouble Mother in the Underworld, I ground their souls to pieces, pulverized their bones, and scattered their ashes, denying them rebirth for a billion lifetimes."

"On the fifth day of the third month, the date of my agreement with Flying Light drew near. I traveled far away to South of the Yangtze, leaving him no way to pursue me. There, I broke through to outer scenery and forged a magical artifact. When I returned to the Southern Border, the Fei Family had been wiped out, with only one young boy remaining."

"Flying Light had not yet replenished his 'nature root.' With the 'Twenty-Month Azure Fish Ring,' I wounded him, reorganized the Fei Family, established our household anew, and took command of the four mountains."

"On the sixth day of the sixth month, I realized I had still underestimated Flying Light. The cultivation method he gave me would actually refine me, little by little, into a 'Wandering Gold' Spirit Object. Moreover, the Pills Flying Light gave me back then were all refined from Blood Qi. In my haste to break through to Outer Scenery in South of the Yangtze, I also practiced the demonic path. Now there is no way for me to advance."

"I stopped cultivating and spent all day studying the 'Twenty-Month Azure Fish Ring.' Many coincidences had made its forging possible back then. Not long afterward, I suddenly discovered that a strand of qi contained within the artifact had developed Spiritual Nature and inadvertently destroyed the Spirit Objects stored inside."

"Oh, you stupid thing! You've churned all the Spirit Objects in my Jade Ring into useless scrap."

The handwritten account ended abruptly there.

Li Fuchan casually flipped to the end. There was a page of final words, which read:

"In this life, Fei Yiming abandoned his mother, forgot the debt of being raised, betrayed righteousness, slighted kin and friends, parted from his bloodline, trusted demons, allied with outsiders, indulged wicked servants, joined forces with other families, and tyrannized the four mountains. Nothing short of 'heartless and faithless, disloyal and unfilial, treacherous and evil' can describe him."

"My death now is no cause for regret. I fear only that demons will toy with my family. I sent the Second Lineage south, the Third Lineage east, and the Fourth Lineage west. Only the First Lineage refused to leave, willing to guard our home. My heart is deeply comforted and deeply grieved."

"Should there be another life, I wish to cultivate immortality and seek the Dao. This aspiration will never change."

The internal chronicle recorded: on the twenty-third day of the seventh month, heavy rain fell on Greenbriar Mountain. Fei Yiming died. His flesh, bones, and organs shattered, undergoing Transformation into Spirit Objects that fled into the mountain. A monster arrived and, finding the Spirit Objects incomplete, used Fei Yiming's bloodline to complete them.

With no one to lead it, the Fei Family stood on the brink of destruction.

Inside the secluded chamber where Fei Yiming had passed away through Transformation.

The "Twenty-Month Azure Fish Ring" released a ray of radiance. It wandered about before finally slipping into Fei Yiming's skin and filling it out.

He was still bewildered, unaware of what he was or where he was.

So he read every letter in the cave and every clan history.

He carefully cut out some of the important passages and, stumbling along, pieced together the image of a person.

Then he emerged from seclusion, intending to protect that person's family in his stead.

In just a few decades, several generations of the Fei Family had come and gone. Wearing Fei Yiming's skin, he was recognized by almost no one. With his cultivation at the great perfection of aperture opening, he became the Household Head and adopted six children from the First Lineage.

Later, an old man came to him.

He was the only old man who recognized Fei Yiming.

He was also the sole young boy left on Greenbriar Mountain when Fei Yiming returned from South of the Yangtze all those years ago.

He said the people of the First Lineage had deceived Fei Yiming. They had been unwilling to relinquish Greenbriar Mountain's holdings and power. Now that the monster had come, they wanted to leave again.

He nodded without any emotion and said, "I will help them."

The old man said, you ought to have a name.

He thought for a moment and suddenly recalled a laughing rebuke he had heard many years before, when his consciousness was still muddled. That voice had sounded from far away, twenty-six years ago, yet it was so close, coming to rest in this very moment. He said, "Fei Cai. My name is Fei Cai."