Chapter 1: If Given Another Chance

If Song Zhiyou were granted another chance, she would without hesitation post the scathing review she had written just days ago on Douyin, gambling her entire fortune on Dou+ to ensure it reached every pair of eyes.

Such bullying! It was utterly intolerable!

Song Zhiyou lay on her bed, spitting blood and thinking such thoughts.

Three days ago, she had been nothing more than an art student about to graduate.

All it took was a five-hundred-word negative review beneath this very novel about a dragon-spirit male lead, and she found herself transmigrated into this wretched cultivation story, reduced to her current half-dead state.

Bad news: she was not the dragon-spirit male lead.

Worse news: she was the cannon fodder sister of that male lead.

Now, she had just turned eleven.

In the novel, the male lead, Song Lingtian, after undergoing the classic trope of genius turning waste, being humiliated by a broken engagement, and awakening an old man mentor, caused a massive uproar in the Song family before betraying the clan.

He made his escape, free and unfettered.

But the sister he left behind, Song Zhiyou, instantly became the target of everyone’s resentment. Her already difficult life grew even harsher, and during a sparring match among the younger generation, she was gravely wounded.

If she were an ordinary clan disciple, even if injured in a match, she would be given pills and proper treatment.

But she was Song Zhiyou, sister of Song Lingtian, left to fend for herself in this remote little courtyard.

In the original story, this was the point where Song Zhiyou’s foundation was destroyed, turning her into a cripple unable to cultivate.

Years later, Song Lingtian would return, initiating the classic ‘Sword Saint returns to find his sister living in a doghouse’ face-slapping plot.

But… Song Zhiyou didn’t realize that this wasn’t her brother coming to rescue her at all.

It was the King of Hell himself.

Within half a month, Song Lingtian’s Heart Inquisition Tribulation would suddenly activate, forcing him to kill his sister with tears in his eyes to achieve the Great Dao.

Yes, that bastard Song Lingtian practiced the Emotionless Dao.

And the most dramatic part? After killing his sister to prove his Dao, he realized that the Emotionless Dao was actually the Dao of Emotion, and without any hindrance, he formed Dao partnerships with his harem, achieving ultimate transcendence.

And she, Song Zhiyou, was the unlucky successor who transmigrated right at the moment of her severe injury in the sparring match.

Thinking of this, Song Zhiyou spat out another mouthful of blood.

Her dantian throbbed with piercing pain and coldness, impossible to dispel no matter what she tried.

To say nothing of…

Song Zhiyou tremblingly extended her hand, stubbornly gathering spiritual energy to cast a healing spell to ease the pain.

Yet…

Once again, a half-blank paper page materialized at her fingertip.

The page fluttered down to a corner.

In that corner, there were already three or five pages of varying sizes.

Song Zhiyou wiped her face, not caring that she smeared blood across it, leaving only an expression of utter despair.

Perhaps it was because of her arrival.

Since transmigrating, all the external spiritual techniques she could use had failed, replaced by blank paper pages of different sizes.

The larger pages were the size of a fist, the smaller ones only the size of a fingernail.

They tore at the slightest touch, burned to nothing, and even writing or drawing on them left no trace.

Song Zhiyou had spent an entire day testing them, still unable to figure out their purpose, and still unwilling to believe that this was the golden finger she had gained from transmigration.

Just a simple healing spell depleted all the spiritual energy she had left.

Song Zhiyou nearly fainted from the strain.

Only by thinking of her soon-to-be-ruined foundation and miserable future did she force herself to hold on, trembling as she crawled out of bed once more.

Her body shook, her arms wobbled. Using every ounce of strength, she dragged a wooden box from under the bed and pried it open.

The large wooden box was nearly empty, containing only a single wilted herb.

Oh, no.

This was called a spirit plant.

Never seen a spirit plant before?

It was a marvelous thing, found only in the cultivation world.

She had never seen one either.

The spirit plant lay limp, withered and yellow, its fluids seemingly drained, radiating an aura of death.

If not for the original owner’s memories, Song Zhiyou would have thought it was just a weed with some special significance to the original owner.

In reality, this was the cultivation resource the Song family doled out to her each month: a Nourishing Origin Herb.

Spirit plants contain many impurities. Consuming them directly could block meridians or even cause qi deviation. Only by refining them into pills could they be purified and absorbed.

But clearly, no alchemist in the clan would choose to refine pills for the original owner.

So, the original owner would cut a small piece of the herb each day, grind it, cook it into porridge with rice, and in the course of her daily cultivation, painstakingly purge the impurities bit by bit.

That was how she had managed to cultivate to this point, stumbling along.

Song Zhiyou gestured over the herb, then unflinchingly tore off a piece.

If she didn’t treat her current body, she would definitely die. She decided to try a desperate remedy: consume the herb and see what happened.

Besides strengthening the foundation and nourishing the origin, the herb also had a faint healing effect.

As for impurities… Song Zhiyou didn’t have the luxury to worry about that now.

If she didn’t try, she’d be a dead horse anyway.

She placed the piece of herb into a mortar, ground it, scraped out the paste with a wooden spoon, and gulped it down.

The bitterness of Coptis chinensis exploded in her mouth.

Song Zhiyou’s face twisted.

She writhed in darkness, contorting, crawling all the way to the edge of the water vat. Before she could chug, an even more violent chaotic current rampaged through her meridians, surging straight toward her dantian.

Yet, as it charged, it also brought a hint of nourishing and repairing power, stitching together Song Zhiyou’s damaged meridians.

She suddenly spat out a mouthful of black blood, then began to hemorrhage.

It looked gruesome, but after the first black blood, Song Zhiyou noticed that the sharp pain in her meridians had eased slightly.

She breathed a sigh of relief.

Good, as long as it could be saved.

Just then, the dilapidated door was kicked open with a bang.

“Song Zhiyou, what’s this? Scared of me? Too afraid to even leave the door? I thought you had some spine, but you’re just a turtle hiding in its shell.”

A familiar, arrogant voice reached Song Zhiyou’s ears.

She remembered that the owner of this voice was the one who had beaten her in the clan sparring match a few days ago.

Her cousin, Song Qingyao.

Song Qingyao was born two days after her, ranking seventh in the Song family. For some reason, she had always disliked Song Zhiyou, and after starting cultivation, she competed with her in everything.

Song Zhiyou wiped the blood from her mouth and turned around slowly, a glint in her eyes.