"Gu Junshi, for the sake of ascending to immortality, you severed kinship, killed your master, and annihilated your sect. Do you have any regrets?"
"You massacred three thousand immortal cultivation sects in the lower realm, then used the withered bones of ten thousand demons as a 'bridge of Dao' and ten million malevolent souls as its 'road surface' to build the Ascension Platform on the Endless Sea. Do you have any regrets?"
"Killing your husband to prove your Dao..."
Guang E Feng Yi, the young abbot of Maha Zen Temple, had a seven-petaled lotus blooming between his eyebrows. His jade-like countenance was serene and ethereal, his crimson kasaya resembling a towering Buddha descending from the heavens, exuding an otherworldly aura. His every interrogative word, heavy and profound, echoed towards the half-empty expanse above the Endless Sea.
"Do you have any regrets?"
Apart from Maha Zen Temple, thousands of cultivators, all Mahayana elders and tribulation-half-immortals from major sects, soared behind him. They had gathered their full power over the Endless Sea, pouring in their last ounce of hope to stop Gu Junshi's ascension.
Yet, despite their desperate battle, facing her as a multitude against one, they still collapsed like a mountain in a landslide.
Gu Junshi, seated on the Yellow Springs Throne, was clad in a simple cloud-patterned black robe. Her slender shoulders tapered to a delicate waist. Due to cultivating the Yellow Springs technique, half of her body and face had transformed into bone. The fissures in her stark skeletal structure blazed with blue-black flames. Her robe, stirred by the wind, rippled with a dark crimson hue, like bloodstains.
She asked the young abbot with amusement, "The immortal path is vast and indistinct, the heavens and earth, who truly presides? While you all still wander lost in search of the Dao, I am about to become an immortal... where would regret come from?"
"The Heavenly Gate has not opened in a millennium, nor has anyone ascended. Gu Junshi, you, with such heinous sins, do you truly believe you can still transcend and become a saint?" the wounded cultivators shouted in fury.
Her deep, somber gaze fell upon the speaker. One eye was as dark as the abyss, while the other, framed by bone, burned with Netherworld fire. Yet, that bizarre and evil aura clashed jarringly with her serene and indifferent countenance.
"If I do not ascend, this world will be utterly destroyed. You had best pray for heaven's mercy, for it to grant you fairness and justice."
Above a chaotic, dark sea, a towering black gate, reaching the heavens, materialized. Its appearance immediately exuded a dense darkness that eclipsed the heavens and earth. This gate was named "Yellow Springs," existing in direct opposition to the pure white "Heavenly Gate" at the horizon of the Endless Sea.
Once the Yellow Springs Gate opened, ten thousand Yin soldiers would appear, and the life force of the twenty-eight heavens would be completely plundered, plunging the world into an eternal purgatory.
The cultivators' faces contorted with dread. "Gu Junshi, stop—"
As everything teetered on the brink of irrevocability, the "Heavenly Gate" finally revealed its millennium-old secret. A thin, ethereal white beam of light shot down, instantly dispersing the oppressive miasma and dark clouds, cleaving a thirty-mile distance. A brilliant white light, overwhelming and blinding, spread across the sky.
Everyone stared in shock. "Impossible! The Heavenly Gate actually opened for Gu Junshi?!"
Gu Junshi suddenly raised her head. Her eyes were as cold and desolate as a dry well. Her profound gaze pierced through all illusions above. The twenty-ninth "Taixu Supreme Eternal Comfort Heaven" flickered in and out of existence. Within the gate, a pair of colossal, vertical blood-red pupils scrutinized her.
That cold, malevolent gaze, disregarding everything around, locked onto her soul.
—
When Gu Junshi opened her eyes again, she found everything around her had changed.
Where was this?
She clearly remembered leaving the mortal realm, just one step away from breaking through the void and ascending at the Endless Sea. Why had she returned to the very beginning in an instant?
Was all of this an illusion, or... had she transmigrated again?
After a moment of bewilderment, her expression gradually calmed. She sat up from a bed covered with worn bedding. Her dark eyes swept around the surroundings.
Although her memory was distant, Gu Junshi quickly realized she had returned to the dilapidated thatched cottage of her initial transmigration.
In truth, Gu Junshi was not a native of this world. She had transmigrated from a past life as a domineering CEO of a corporate conglomerate into this other world, becoming an aging village girl named "Gu Yi" in a remote village of the mortal realm.
Gu Yi's parents had died early. Her only younger brother, Gu Er, was taken in by a cultivation sect by chance, and he abandoned the original host to go to the cultivation world.
As a result, Gu Yi became an orphan. According to the county law of the yamen, she had to marry within a month to re-register, otherwise, all her land and property would be confiscated, and she would be imprisoned for defying the law.
Other peasant girls were supposed to marry at fourteen or fifteen. However, Gu Yi had a terrible reputation in the village, known for stealing chickens and dogs, being lazy and gluttonous. Thus, she was twenty and still no one had proposed. She had barely survived by foraging from Gu Er's fields. Now, with her benefactors gone, she was left with no means of survival and could only starve.
When Gu Junshi first transmigrated, the first thing she faced was not the unfamiliar environment or poverty and hunger, but the urgent matter of marriage.
Fortunately, the village head, out of consideration for the now-prosperous Gu Er, couldn't bear to see her imprisoned and found her a foreigner who had supposedly hit his head, suffered memory loss, and had nowhere to stay.
The man was obedient and fair-skinned, seemingly younger than Gu Yi, but his appearance and physique were beyond compare. He looked out of place among the rough peasant men of the surroundings.
To deal with the abhorrent law, Gu Junshi finally agreed to this marriage.
They lived together peacefully for over a month before the young husband climbed into her bed. Gu Junshi had encountered many such instances of self-recommendation in her past life. In the past, she had always coldly dismissed them, lacking romantic interest. However, perhaps it was the bewitching beauty of her young husband, who was shy and coy late at night, that broke through her defenses. Also, considering she couldn't go back, she let it happen.
Gu Junshi was not the true Gu Yi, and naturally, she had never intended to live a mediocre life. Her past life's ambition for power resurfaced, unwilling to be subservient. It was a pity that this body was a cultivation talentless waste. Following the ordinary path, she might never have a chance at the immortal Dao in her lifetime.
But perhaps everything was predetermined. One day, while searching for something, she stumbled upon a blood-stained bundle that the village head had brought along with the young husband. At the time, she hadn't paid much attention and had casually set it aside. Now, thinking to tidy it up, she found two sets of finely made robes that ordinary people couldn't afford, as well as a book.
The cover read: "The Unfeeling Grand Dao Art."
The title sounded rather mystical. Curious, she opened it, and on the first page was a shocking line: "To enter the immortal path, kill your wife and prove your Dao."
She stared at these eight characters for a long time, her expression shifting repeatedly, before finally settling into a profound calmness, like a dry well.
She mused playfully, "If killing one's wife can prove the Dao, then perhaps... killing one's husband can too."
Gu Junshi's memory was good. She quickly flipped through the content of the book several times. Most of it was written in four-character phrases. Though difficult and profound, she could manage to memorize it.
After memorizing it, she carefully placed everything back, smoothing out any traces of her having touched it.
Half a month passed. Gu Junlin had already memorized the "Unfeeling Grand Dao Art" thoroughly. However, practicing according to its methods, she found herself unable to break through a certain barrier.
Amidst the increasing daily anxiety and vexation, the phrase "To enter the immortal path, kill your wife and prove your Dao" unexpectedly resurfaced in her mind.