Prologue: The Fragmented Manuscript

A year earlier, aboard the Bedran.

With the descent of the Dark Spirit, blossoms fell into the sea.

The rain had not ceased.

Young Master Lan staggered back several steps. He could feel his spirit soul wounded by the iron staff wielded by the youth who had just plunged into the sea. In ordinary times, how could any iron rod harm an immortal body? But it was plain that the youth had placed some sort of spell upon it.

This was no immortal art. It was likely demon magic.

Could he truly have misjudged a creature of evil?

By the youth’s age, if he was a demon, then his father must have been one as well. Yet Heaven had long since pacified the four quarters; the world should no longer hold demons.

Unless he had been transformed from something spiritual into a demon...

Young Master Lan closed his eyes for two or three seconds, gradually recovering his senses. If the youth might be a fiend, then the little girl in black before him was certainly not a demon. And yet why had his own calculations revealed that this girl, who radiated immortal grace, was a bringer of calamity?

Lan recalled that he had not used his true name on earth for a very long time. Why had the girl seen through him at first glance?

She had called him: Lan Caihe.

That name had been used in both Shengpingning and Heaven, but he had never uttered it in the mortal realm, and no one should have known it. When Lan Caihe opened his eyes again, the little girl was right in front of him, her gaze bright with slyness as she stared him down.

Even an immortal could not help but shiver under that look, as though a hunter were watching an injured deer.

And not only toward Lan Caihe: the oppressive aura that girl gave off seemed enough to leave any god helpless before her.

Lan Caihe drew a startled breath. He found, to his own shock, that he was afraid. His position and the girl’s seemed to have been reversed in an instant; before her, he felt a kind of helplessness. Moments ago he had sensed nothing at all, yet in the space of a breath the girl had become, as it were, another formidable enemy.

Whoever she was, whether human or demon, she must never be allowed to harm the world.

Lan Caihe reacted at once, pointing a lightning spell toward the girl. But she raised her palm and with one hand took the current head-on. The incantation condensed into a ball of electric light, hovering in the air between them.

There was not a trace of fear on the girl’s face. She looked as relaxed as though she were gazing at an ant on the ground. She rolled her neck and said, “Lan Caihe! Do not underestimate me, Dark Spirit!”

No sooner had the child calling herself Dark Spirit spoken than she shoved the sphere of lightning back. Young Master Lan was driven by the force out into the air beyond the cruise ship, and then a point of light shot from the girl’s hand. “Swiftly, as the law commands! Immortal-Sealing Stone!”

Caught off guard by Dark Spirit while his spirit soul was already damaged, Lan Caihe had no time to break free before he found himself shrinking smaller and smaller. Before he could react, his immortal body contracted and he was trapped inside that grain-sized Immortal-Sealing Stone. Darkness rushed over him, and he lost consciousness.

The stone then fell into the sea, instantly swept away by the waves, until no glimmer of light remained.

“I never imagined the Immortal-Sealing Stone would be so formidable. Too bad I only brought two; I’ll leave the other one for dealing with that troublesome Star Lord of Dao Spirit!”

The little Dark Spirit touched her hair, now singed a deep silver, and murmured to herself.

“What a pity my hair was burned by Lan Caihe. Now there’s only a trace of ink-black left. And this Star Robe—really, the bandwidth for space-time transmission is far too low. It’s practically a half-finished thing. It took so long before it finally transmitted my spirit soul intact; I nearly had my robe destroyed by Lan Caihe and was almost reduced to ashes of spirit. Never mind. Even without the Immortal-Sealing Stone, dealing with those stone-age immortal dregs in Shengpingning is more than enough!”

The rain poured down in torrents.

It could not extinguish the raging fire aboard the Bedran. Water had already begun to seep into the cruise ship’s lower decks, and explosions rang out all around; the vessel would sink beneath the sea in only a moment.

“That little brother just now was truly something else. To think there are such fools in this world, willing to throw away their lives to save a stranger. I despise nothing more than such recklessness...”

The girl stared in a daze at the sea where Blossom had fallen. Soaked through, she watched rain stream from her deep-silver hair like a curtain of water, and a single tear slipped from the corner of her eye without her noticing.

Night deepened the lonely, slight silhouette of Dark Spirit.

She raised her left hand above her head. A flash of silver light passed, and the little girl transformed into a slender, graceful young woman.

“I cannot repay such kindness, burdened as I am by heavy duty, but if fate permits, I only hope it is a splendid day with clear skies after the rain.”

Resting one arm against the railing, the young woman turned unhurriedly. Waves churned below, and the great ship had already begun to sink, half of it slowly swallowed by the sea.

“When one comes into the world, one ought to be drenched a few times. If one always hides from the rain, how lonely the rain must be. The name Dark Spirit invites suspicion; when I go to Shengpingning, I shall call myself Weiyu instead.”

Weiyu rested her chin in her hand and gazed absentmindedly at the waters of the Eastern Sea.

“If we meet again, and you still have the courage to speak your liking aloud, then I will accompany you, and together we shall change this story.”