At the exact moment her soul drifted away from her body, Jian Dan felt completely blank, as if she were dissolving into the wind, leaving all the chaos and noise behind.
All that remained were fragments of imagery—her entire life replaying like a lantern show, accelerating from slow to fast as it slipped through her mind. It was like walking down a corridor of time where everything dissolved into specks of light, finally settling into a book.
A book? How could there be a book? No! She was a cultivator; after perishing, her soul should have been completely scattered. How could she be here?
Jian Dan forced herself to calm down and walked toward the book. She reached out with a nearly transparent hand, wanting to open it. The moment she touched it, both the book and her hand emitted a soft white light, and then Jian Dan saw her entire life.
The final image froze on Du Yanran hiding behind a man, watching her draw her last breath with a smile playing at the corners of her lips, her red lips parting slightly as she uttered:
"Farewell!"
At that moment, she understood the reason for her existence. The White Magnolia Earring hanging at her chest had saved her life! She had always regarded it as a high-grade storage Space, never realizing it was a safeguard left to her by her ancestors.
At the very last second, it had shielded her divine soul and blocked the Heavenly Dao, with the White Magnolia Pendant being destroyed in place of her soul.
As it turned out, the White Magnolia Earring that Du Yanran had begged from her was a matched set with the White Magnolia Pendant at her chest, and Du Yanran's eventual surpassing of her in cultivation was also due to the White Magnolia Earring.
After obtaining her Immortality Cultivation opportunity from Jian Dan, Du Yanran had claimed the earring as her master without telling Jian Dan its secrets. It was precisely because she knew those secrets that she had wanted to take the White Magnolia Pendant from Jian Dan as her own.
Only when Jian Dan discovered Du Yanran's obsession with the pendant did she develop a faint suspicion, merely telling Du Yanran that the pendant had shattered while helping her fend off a demonic beast's attack.
It was precisely because of her concealment that she ultimately won a sliver of a chance at survival for herself.
Her entire life was simply that of the primary supporting female character in a book titled *Yanran's Endless Journey to Immortality*, whose purpose was to deliver magic treasures, opportunities, and clear away obstacles for the female protagonist Du Yanran, helping her attain the Dao and achieve immortality while she herself was reduced to ashes.
No wonder that whenever she was with Du Yanran—whether exploring or fighting enemies—she always felt a sense of incongruity: the benefits always went to Du Yanran, while she was always the one who got hurt.
After entering the cultivation world, she had also learned that certain people were born with stronger fortune that could affect those around them, so she had gradually and imperceptibly distanced herself from Du Yanran.
Although both of them had entered the Alchemy Sect, they drifted further and further apart due to the disparity in their cultivation levels.
Jian Dan did not want to be affected by the other person's bizarre fortune, so she avoided Du Yanran, became a rogue cultivator, and embarked on her own path of Immortality Cultivation alone.
Having survived near-death experiences numerous times and narrowly cheated death on several occasions, she finally advanced smoothly to the Deity Transformation Stage through relentless tempering and the polishing of her Dao heart. Yet at that moment, Du Yanran tracked her down through the faint connection between the White Magnolia Earring and the pendant.
Truly, one succeeds because of fortune and fails because of it.
The soft white light gradually dimmed, and Jian Dan withdrew her hand. Her soul body looked somewhat more solid, no longer transparent and on the verge of dispersing.
"Alas! I have already perished; what use is knowing the truth? Can I still defy the heavens and change my fate?"
"No, it is correcting a mistake! Do you accept?"
A deep voice reached Jian Dan's ears. After hesitating for a few seconds, Jian Dan nodded, and fearing the other person might not see, she hurriedly said:
"Of course!"
"Then go! Good luck."
Before Jian Dan could ask another question, her soul body rose into the air, speeding away before plunging into pitch-black darkness.