"Pain!"
Having just regained consciousness, Leng Zhuxin felt a pain even worse than when she had detonated her core. Her Dantian, in particular, felt as though someone were carving it out alive.
Unable to summon an ounce of spiritual energy throughout her body, her face was sticky, and her eyes were too encrusted to open. She could only feel that this physical vessel was lying on a cold, damp, sticky floor, and her life force was continuously draining away.
It seemed she had entered someone else's body, Leng Zhuxin thought as she lay motionless on the floor. She tried to release her divine sense to investigate the surrounding environment, but to no avail.
"Master, can my child truly be safely born?"
A woman's voice rang out from the room. By sound alone, Leng Zhuxin could tell the woman must be exceedingly frail, and her tone carried a measure of worry and fear.
"Yes, Little Six has the Heavenly Water Spiritual Root. She will certainly ensure your child is born safely." Just as the woman's voice trailed off, a reply came. Though the voice was as cold as a snow lotus on a towering peak, the care in her tone could not be faked.
Leng Zhuxin had no idea who these two people were. Just as she was rejoicing that she hadn't spoken out rashly upon waking, she heard a rustling sound, as if someone were standing up from a bed.
Then came footsteps, drawing closer and closer.
After a moment, the footsteps stopped right in front of Leng Zhuxin. Though she could not see, Leng Zhuxin could feel a gaze fixed upon her.
"Master, will Sister... harbor resentment toward me?" It was that same woman's voice again, delicate, weak, and laden with worry, yet Leng Zhuxin inexplicably detected a hint of smugness in it.
The person the woman addressed as Master did not reply immediately.
Instead, she reached out and touched Leng Zhuxin's face. "She won't. Little Six is your sister, and for so many years she has always protected you. She once said she would use her life to protect you. If not for her cowardice and clinging to life, she would not have fallen to her present state. She has little life force left, but her soul is undamaged, so she still has a chance at reincarnation. If she still has spiritual roots after reincarnation, we will treat her well then."
The cold voice fell beside Leng Zhuxin's ear, and a pair of cool, smooth hands were already clamped around her neck.
By this time, Leng Zhuxin had already guessed that she was the "Little Six" they spoke of. A bitter laugh arose in her heart: "I never thought that living a second life would prove to be merely a fleeting dream."
Her entire body devoid of strength, Leng Zhuxin had not an ounce of resistance. The sensations of approaching death were magnified infinitely, and she could feel the grip on her neck tightening.
When had she ever suffered the indignity of being slaughtered like a lamb?
A fire ignited in Leng Zhuxin's chest. Ignoring the tearing pain and suffocation racking her entire body, she desperately drove her cultivation technique, burning away the last remaining drops of spiritual blood in her body to detonate herself once more!
Even if she died, she would drag this master and disciple down with her!
Her body burst apart like blood-red petals, and Leng Zhuxin's soul drifted out along with it.
Yet perhaps because her Dantian had been excavated and the greater part of her spiritual blood drained away, the power of Leng Zhuxin's self-detonation was not great. The man merely flicked his sleeve, and not a single drop of blood splashed onto the master and disciple.
Almost in the very same second, fierce heavenly thunder cracked across the pitch-black sky outside, and silver-white lightning seemed to tear the dark heavens apart.
Before losing consciousness once more, Leng Zhuxin seemed to see a bolt of heavenly thunder violently strike inside the room.
...
"Xinxin, you'll take Sister with you, won't you?"
Leng Zhuxin was jolted back to consciousness by these words. Memories spanning a full hundred years rushed into her mind, so overwhelming that even her powerful soul struggled to absorb them.
After reviewing all the memories, Leng Zhuxin was certain she had transmigrated into a book, becoming a wronged female supporting character in a Dragon-Avaricious xianxia novel.
This body shared her exact name, and was the second young miss of the Leng Family in the mortal realm of the Xuanling Continent. The person who had just spoken was none other than Leng Yueyao, one of the female protagonists of this book—and the person the original owner believed to be her own biological sister!
In her past life, the original owner had agreed without the slightest hesitation. The very next day, when the original owner tested positive for the Heavenly Water Spiritual Root while Leng Yueyao tested for no spiritual roots at all, the original owner stubbornly insisted on bringing Leng Yueyao with her to the Qingxuan Sect.
Upon entering the Qingxuan Sect, the original owner was accepted as the last closed-door disciple by Immortal Lord Changheng, the most powerful figure in the sect, due to her exceptional talent.
Her master cherished and doted on her, and her four senior brothers treated her exceedingly well. Not only did they look after Leng Yueyao for her sake, but they also helped her find items to prolong life and preserve youth for Leng Yueyao.
Yet no matter how a mortal's life is prolonged, a mortal's lifespan is still only a short hundred years or so. To allow her sister to accompany her for longer, the original owner descended the mountain alone after breaking through to the Golden Core Stage at the age of thirty.
She braved major secret realms and painstakingly retrieved a stalk of Spirit-Evoking Grass to help Leng Yueyao cleanse and awaken her spiritual roots.
Though it only cleansed out the lowest purity four spiritual roots, starting a mortal down the path of cultivation was already no easy feat.
Yet Leng Yueyao was unsatisfied, tearfully begging the original owner to help her cultivate.
The original owner could see that Leng Yueyao's talent was insufficient; if she relied solely on bitter cultivation, even achieving Qi Guidance would likely be a difficult task. For the sake of her only sister, she unhesitatingly fed Leng Yueyao massive amounts of medicinal pills and rare heavenly treasures.
Rushing about day after day in various secret realms to seize cultivation resources for Leng Yueyao, the original owner failed to notice that at some point, Leng Yueyao's status on Changheng Mountain was growing increasingly prominent.
Just as she risked her life to seize the Spirit-Cleansing Grass and bring it back for Leng Yueyao, her master, Immortal Lord Changheng, actually declared that his gate hadn't been closed tightly and needed to be closed again, thereby taking Leng Yueyao as a disciple as well.
Furthermore, on the grounds that Leng Yueyao was older, he placed Leng Yueyao's seniority ahead of hers.
The form of address for the original owner in the mouths of Immortal Lord Changheng and her several senior brothers also changed from "Xinxin" to "Little Six."
Yet even so, the original owner harbored no anger; instead, she was genuinely happy for Leng Yueyao, and even handed over the Spirit-Cleansing Grass to elevate Leng Yueyao to a three-element spiritual root.
Later on, the original owner remained within the Qingxuan Sect due to her severe injuries. The original owner, once hailed as a genius, saw her cultivation stagnate completely for a hundred years.
In stark contrast to her, Leng Yueyao somehow transformed into a single spiritual root, broke through to the Golden Core Stage by the age of a hundred, and made a brilliant debut at the Qingxuan Sect grand tournament.
One possessed a heavenly spiritual root yet remained stuck at the Golden Core Stage, while the other had been a mortal yet spent a hundred years becoming a Golden Core cultivator. Naturally, the Qingxuan Sect frequently compared the two. Yet no one knew that Leng Yueyao's current achievements were all brought to her by the original owner!
The original owner never regretted everything she had given for Leng Yueyao. It was merely because of the gossip within the sect that she grew stubborn, resolving never to emerge from seclusion until she broke through the Golden Core Stage.
Yet she was forced out of seclusion after a mere half-year of her latest closed-door cultivation.
Watching her cough up a mouthful of blood due to the internal energy disorder caused by being forced out early, her master—the primary culprit—did not utter a single word of concern. He merely asked her: "Little Six, are you willing to give your spiritual root and golden core to Yaoyao?"
Naturally, the original owner refused, but she did not expect that this was not a consultation at all, but a notification.
When the original owner expressed her unwillingness, Immortal Lord Changheng knocked her unconscious, forcibly dug out her spiritual root and golden core for Leng Yueyao, and even transferred half of the original owner's spiritual blood to Leng Yueyao.
The reason he didn't drain away all her spiritual blood wasn't out of any lingering master-disciple affection for the original owner, but simply because Leng Yueyao's body couldn't withstand it.
The original owner had perished right as that half of her spiritual blood was being extracted. Until the moment she died, she never understood why Leng Yueyao wanted her spiritual root and Dantian, nor could she comprehend why the master who had cherished her when he took her in as a disciple had taken her life without the slightest hesitation.