“Boom!”

“Crack!”

The first sound was thunder, heavy and deep. The second was the great martial platform splitting apart.

Dust and stone powder roared up at once, thick enough to blot out the sun.

But only for a breath.

On the high platform above, several figures in dark purple robes raised their hands. Their faces could not be seen clearly, yet with one sweep the flying dust was driven away. Blue sky and bright daylight showed themselves again over the broken arena.

“An accident has occurred on the martial platform today. The entrance test match is suspended. It will continue tomorrow.”

The voice came from above, stern and full, like a bell struck in a hall.

Right after that, two boys of sixteen or seventeen jumped onto the platform. They wore red uniforms, their faces cold and hard. Without wasting a word, they began directing the children off the stage in order.

“Huh? There’s someone in this hole!”

“Whoa, she’s been blasted into charcoal!”

“Save her, quick!”

At midnight, on Qinggeng Peak, inside a plain little room, a charcoal-black girl of five or six slowly opened her eyes.

Her body looked scorched through, but her eyes were pitch-black and bright. Even in the night, they shone. Now and then, a thread of lightning flickered in those pupils, giving her a strange, hidden edge.

The girl stared blankly at the roof.

Then the corner of her mouth twitched.

Heh.

She had not expected to come back to the very place where everything had begun in this world.

So heaven really did have eyes.

Her name was Elara Whitmore.

She did not belong to this world of twisted wonders, immortal arts, and mystical laws. She had been struck here by a bolt of lightning. Not soul only, but body and all. A true bodily crossing.

And worse than that, she had crossed into an xianxia novel.

In her last life, she had thought she was the chosen one of this world. She threw herself into doing good, saving people, handing out kindness like it was her duty. She truly believed that if she walked the bright path, the road would answer in kind.

Only at the end did she understand.

She was not the heroine.

She was cannon fodder.

A streak of bloody cold flashed through Elara Whitmore’s eyes. Before her, the last scene of her previous life rose again, clear as if it were happening now.

The master she had respected, the one she had looked up to, had treated her as a lightning rod.

Nothing in the world was more mocking than that.

And yet that wretched man and woman had really thought she was some meek little rabbit, something they could squeeze, knead, crush, and shape however they pleased.

They had been wrong.

Very wrong.

What had Elara Whitmore done?

Nothing much.

She had only forced her primordial spirit out of her body, charged straight into the tribulation thunderclouds, and turned the original Six-Nine Heavenly Tribulation into a Nine-Nine Windfire Thunder Tribulation.

Then she dragged that trash man and that shameless woman down with her.

That was all.

Really.

Just that.

When Elara Whitmore remembered the fear on that man’s face, a mocking curve slowly lifted on her stiff, burnt face.

Serves him right.

Elara Whitmore pulled her thoughts back fast and started sorting out the road ahead.

This life, she would never take that bastard as her master again. That much was set in stone.

If she wanted to stay in Tianjian Gate, then she had to plan every step well.

She lowered her eyes and looked at her right hand, quiet for a moment, something dark and sharp moving in her gaze.

What she had not expected was this—

the problem she thought would be the hardest turned out to be the easiest.

The next morning, just after she got up, a young servant in blue brought her breakfast. He set the food down, then told her she could go take today’s entrance test.

Elara’s heart gave a jump.

“Why?”

The blue-clad boy was clearly simple and honest. He did not catch the caution buried in her eyes at all. Instead, he looked at her with plain envy and said, “The Sixth Elder, the one who saved you yesterday, vouched for you. That’s why you got the chance.”

A flicker of surprise crossed Elara’s eyes, so faint it was almost gone before it came.

The Sixth Elder?

That old man surnamed Hai, then.

But she remembered him clearly. In the sect, that old fellow had always been a black-faced Yama, cold as iron and hard as law. Since when did he grow so kind-hearted?

With that doubt sitting in her chest, Elara finished her meal and followed the blue-clad boy to the testing square.

This was not the square from yesterday.

This one was bigger by far.

She listened to the chatter rolling around her from all sides, and a strange, cramped feeling rose in her chest. She had not expected to become famous like this.

Then, all at once, the noisy testing square fell silent.

Dead silent.

Everyone was staring into the sky, at the wheelchair flying overhead.

Among the people of Tianjian Gate, there was envy in their eyes, and regret, and pity.

And also—

gloating.

Elara looked up at that wheelchair as it passed above her head, and without warning, a face surfaced in her mind.

A face beautiful enough to stun the soul.

That had been the only person who had ever given her warmth.

Her gaze followed the wheelchair all the way to the high platform where the sect elders sat. Only then did Elara realize her eyesight had become much better. Even from this far away, she could see every face on that platform clearly.

She swept her eyes across them once, then stopped on the wheelchair.

The person before her was very young, more than ten years younger than the one in her memory.

And yet on this young boy, she saw the bearing of that same man from years ago.

Brows like a painting. Eyes bright as a river of stars. A straight nose. Lips pressed lightly together.

Maybe his features were not the most delicate if each was judged on its own.

But together, they were flawless.

Especially now, with his profile turned toward the square. That side view cast a hazy light over features that should not have been this striking, and it made Elara think of an old phrase from a distant life—

a killer profile.

Voices buzzed in her ears, sharp and busy, but none of them reached her.

At that moment, Elara could only stare, almost dazed, at that side profile.

At that moment, the boy in the wheelchair seemed to sense something. Slowly, he turned his head.

Elara Whitmore’s pupils widened a little.

Damn. That was cheating.

That face, that calm air around him, that clean, sharp look that did not belong in this noisy place—it hit too hard, too fast. For a heartbeat, her chest tightened. Some buried memory stirred like a blade scraping against stone.

On the main seat above, the middle-aged man caught the fleeting smile on the wheelchair boy’s face. A trace of curiosity flashed through his eyes.

“Nie Zunzhe, what do you think of this batch of disciples?”

The man was the Sect Master of Tianjian Sect, Cornelius Sageworth.

“Interesting.”

The smile on the wheelchair boy’s face vanished as quickly as it came, like frost melting under sun.

Cornelius Sageworth lifted a brow. “You mean to take a disciple?”

That one line pulled every gaze on the high platform over at once.

The wheelchair boy pressed his lips tight. His eyes swept over the crowd below, over the tense faces, the stiff backs, the anxious breaths. A mocking glint slipped across the bottom of his eyes.

“Let’s watch a little longer.”

These people?

Heh.

And Elara Whitmore?

She had her head lowered, deep in thought.

Her fingers curled a little at her side. Her mind was not on the square, not on the crowd, not even on the test for a moment. It was on that one glance just now. Something in that boy had stirred old ash in her heart, and under the ash was still a spark.

Then—

“Hey, hello!”

A hand slapped down on Elara Whitmore’s shoulder.

Her thoughts broke clean in half.

She looked up. The moment she saw who it was, her lips pressed into a hard line.

“I’m not fine. After seeing you, I’m even less fine.”

The newcomer froze.

“...”

The little boy gave a dry laugh, trying to cover the awkwardness. He puffed out his chest and said, “You sure know how to joke. My name is Roland Pemberton.”

Elara Whitmore looked at him with a cold face.

“I’m not joking. Seeing you makes me feel worse.”

Roland Pemberton choked.

“...”

The pride on his face cracked a little.

“Do you even know who I am?”

“I don’t,” Elara Whitmore said flatly, “and I don’t want to.”

Her face turned colder as she spoke. No warmth, no patience, not even the basic courtesy she might have given a stranger.

Roland Pemberton’s expression sank at once. A little anger rose in his eyes. He lifted his chin and threw out his background like a banner.

“I’m from the Xuanyuan family!”

Elara Whitmore flicked him a cold glance.

“So what?”

Her voice was light, but sharp enough to cut.

A strange sadness rose in her heart for no clear reason, heavy and faint at once, like old rainwater collecting in a stone crack. Maybe it was because people like this always liked to wave their names around, as if a clan could stand in for a soul.

“If it has nothing to do with me, why should I care whether you’re from the Xuanyuan family or any other family?”

She paused, eyes icy.

“And one more thing.”

“I hate people who act familiar.”

A trace of hurt showed on Roland Pemberton’s face.

Just then, the test up front began.

The Sixth Elder of the outer sect stood there and called the names one by one, his voice carrying across the square.

“Roland Pemberton!”

“Here!”

Roland answered at once. Then he turned, cheeks puffed with anger, and glared at Elara Whitmore.

“I’m going to enter under the Sect Master.”

Elara Whitmore: …

What did that have to do with her?

“And you’re coming too!”

Elara Whitmore: …

If she had still been a little unsure before, then now Elara Whitmore was certain.

She would only choose the one peak nobody saw coming.

The one none of them would ever guess.

“Elara Whitmore!”

“Here!”