Who in this world can ever escape death?
Though you be the most enchanting beauty, peerless under heaven, in the end you become but red-cheeked bone and ash. Though you be a favored son of heaven, commanding a thousand leagues of rivers and mountains, in the end you will turn to a handful of yellow earth.
Deathless longevity—all desire it. But there is no ageless beauty, no immortal emperor. The fairest and the most blessed are no different from the teeming masses: none can elude birth, age, sickness, and death. No one has ever lived forever in this mortal realm.
Yet the legend of deathless immortality has never ceased to circulate through the ages.
Laozi, Zhuangzi, Bodhidharma, Chen Tuan, Zhang Sanfeng…
Name after name, passed down through a thousand generations, driving later men like an ancient curse, urging them to believe that deathless immortality is not absolute absurdity—that some may indeed attain that realm.
But time is the most ruthless of all. As the years flow past, even once-immortal legends fade and crumble in the river of ages.
Until, after an endless stillness, a miracle erupts again from the midst of the ordinary.
On the night of the full moon, within the Kunlun Mountains, the peerless heavenly maiden Lan Nuo would sever her mortal ties upon Red Dust Peak and shatter the void to depart. The news shook every practitioner in the land, and the ancient debate of deathless longevity blazed anew.
In recent days, more than a hundred thousand people had converged upon Kunlun—nobles and princes, peddlers and paupers, followers of every creed and calling. All shared a single purpose: to witness a divine wonder unseen in a thousand generations.
At last, the night of the full moon arrived. The Kunlun range stood vast and majestic, cloaked in translucent moonlight, the sacred peaks wrapped in a hazy gauze that made them seem as ethereal as a celestial realm.
Beneath that moon, Xiao Chen ran like the wind, his body soaked in blood, his long black hair stained crimson. But his face, carved like fine jade, was set with an unyielding expression; his eyes, bright as stars, blazed with resolute light.
He was fleeing for his very life.
The Royal Celestial Maiden Zhao Lin’er had sworn to destroy him, leading dozens of practitioners in a hunt from every side. She wore a light veil over her face; her figure was willowy, her movements graceful as a startled swan, light as a drifting shadow, as though a banished immortal descended to the mortal world.
With no other escape, Xiao Chen charged toward Red Dust Peak.
Under the moonlight, the area around Red Dust Peak was a sea of humanity—hundreds of thousands of figures blanketing the slopes. Yet, despite the immense crowd, an utter silence reigned. All gazed upward in stillness at the woman in white atop the peak.
On that lofty summit, Lan Nuo was clad in robes as white as snow. Bathed in the moon’s glow, her immortal form seemed to radiate a faint, sacred brilliance. The white silk fluttered in the wind, and she truly resembled the goddess of the moon, untouched by the dust of the world.
Over the past half-month, she had twice attempted to shatter the void, and twice drawn back the foot she had taken at the final instant.
One step—and she would be deathless in heaven and earth.
But to take that step meant leaving the vast red dust behind forever, severing all mortal ties.
To draw the sword of wisdom and cut the bonds of the mundane—this required extraordinary courage. For once that step was taken, in the endless years of deathless life to come, she might face nothing but infinite solitude.
Heaven’s heart is unknowable; the feelings of the immortals are like frost.
She had stood upon the peak since dawn, all the scenes of mortal life passing through her heart. Now, at last, the time had come to bid the world farewell. Blazing divine light suddenly erupted from the summit, cloaking the entire mountaintop in an aura of supreme sanctity.
Lan Nuo’s skin was ice and jade; in the holy radiance, she appeared utterly transcendent and pure. As tens of thousands looked on in reverence, the void shattered. She stepped forward with calm and unwavering determination.
In that final moment, she turned her head and cast one last look back at the mundane world. That dreamlike, celestial countenance would remain forever etched in the hearts of all who witnessed it. Hundreds of thousands of voices cried out her name in unison.
But the unified shouts soon broke into chaos. People saw two figures racing across the summit—and they followed Lan Nuo through the shattered void, vanishing together into the World of Immortality.
*The Chronicles of the Nine Provinces record:* In the year 7316, the peerless heavenly maiden Lan Nuo broke the void and departed. The Royal Celestial Maiden Zhao Lin’er was fortunate to encounter immortal fate and entered the World of Immortality alongside her.
As for Xiao Chen, no such fortune earned him a place in the annals.
In the instant the void tore open, Xiao Chen was stunned beyond measure.
Never had he imagined that such a day would come, that he would enter the World of Immortality in this manner. In that moment, countless thoughts flooded his mind—his family, his friends—all would be parted from him forever. He would leave this mortal realm for good.
A desperate flight for his life had ended in this. To many, shattering the void and entering the World of Immortality was a glory that would echo through the ages. But Xiao Chen would have given up this chance willingly. He was so reluctant to leave this world. His parents, his kin—farewell forever! He parted from the red dust in silence.
Xiao Chen did not know that the Royal Celestial Maiden Zhao Lin’er had also shattered the void and departed.
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