In the blink of an eye, Yun Tian and his companions had returned safely to the Feather God Sect, and the interregional exchange between sects officially drew to a peaceful close.
After their return, the days passed in their usual routine. Then, one day, Nie Li found his footsteps unconsciously halting outside a secluded courtyard-it was Ying Yue'ru's residence.
As he gazed at that familiar door, memories of his previous life engulfed him like a tide.
In his previous life, he had stumbled into a passage to the Secret Realm and suffered injuries that left him on the brink of death. The woman who lived here had taken him in when he had no one to turn to, healed his wounds, and taught him cultivation techniques. In the Feather God Sect, where he met only cold stares and rejection, she had given him his sole trace of warmth. Yet that gentle, kind master had ultimately died a terrible death before his eyes, her bones not yet cold.
Throughout her life, his master had taught him:
The highest goodness was like water; water nourished all things without contending.
Merely because Ying Yue'ru possessed a Demon Beast bloodline, she had endured endless scorn and false accusations in his previous life, ultimately meeting that fate. Nie Li had been driven mad with hatred, wanting only to take up a blade and slaughter everyone under heaven who had wronged her, repaying blood with blood. Yet even as she lay dying, his master had left him only those words: "Water nourishes all things without contending."
Nie Li had remembered those words all his life-and hated them all his life.
He could not refrain from contending.
The creed he followed had always been-repay murder with death, and debts with money.
Nie Li stared blankly at the