The Long Road to Longevity

Outside the western suburbs of the city, in the Tie family ancestral graveyard.

Su Yueli walked along the muddy path overgrown with wild grass for a long time before she finally found Tie Ling'er's grave among a desolate cluster of mundane stone tablets.

She was buried right next to her father, Tie Tu.

After thirty years of wind and rain, the once-new grave had long since become an old mound covered in weeds.

The once-clean bluestone tombstone was now covered in thick moss, which clung tightly to the cracks in the stone.

The inscriptions reading “Grave of Tie Tu” and “Grave of Tie Ling'er” had peeled away and faded after years of being washed by rain, making the characters highly difficult to recognize.

Su Yueli stood before the grave and took out the pristine golden silk phoebe wood box from her storage bag.

Inside lay a heavy stack of banknotes worth over a hundred thousand taels, along with a yellowed final letter.

“Ling'er, I'm back, and I've received the money... In your next life, don't be a mortal. The days are too short, not long enough to wait.”

Su Yueli let out a long sigh and put the box away.

Tie Tu was her master's close friend, and Tie Ling'er had long been a dear friend in her heart.

Now, both of them had turned into a handful of yellow dust beneath these tombstones.

In this massive Qingzhou City, the last person she knew was gone. It was time to leave.

Su Yueli turned around, her figure transforming into a wisp of light smoke as she departed resolutely.

...

A day later, at a desolate, rocky hill outside Fengling City.

Su Yueli found Shen Qing'an's grave beside a crooked, long-dead tree.

Thirty years had passed. Under the constant erosion of wind and rain, the small dirt mound from back then was nearly leveled with the surrounding earth, completely covered in dense ivy and black thorns.

The simple wooden plaque that once stood at the head of the grave had long since rotted and snapped from years of moisture, leaving only the bottom half of the decayed wood still stubbornly stuck in the dark soil.

Looking at the desolate scene before her, Su Yueli felt a bitter ache in her heart.

Back then, in that nameless little mountain village, the brothers Shen Qing'an and Shen Huai'an had taken great care of her.

Later, Shen Huai'an went to the Blue Moon Sect and had now become the high-and-mighty Young Sect Master, even having an undeniable connection to the death of her master, Lu Chen.

Meanwhile, the eldest brother, Shen Qing'an, was just a mortal. He had traveled all the way to Fengling City alone, working from dawn till dusk as a merchant and enduring countless cold shoulders, all just to save up enough money to buy her an immortal jade slip so she would have a chance at cultivating.

In the end, he was swindled out of all his savings by Jiang Ran of the Cangyun Sect, freezing to death in a ruined temple during a heavy snowstorm.

Su Yueli squatted down, her slender fingers gently brushing against the remaining piece of rotten wood.

“Shen Qing'an... Back then, you always felt that mortals were too weak and would never get ahead without cultivating. You insisted on finding an immortal path for me. Now, let me tell you clearly: I am not going to cultivate.”

“But I am very strong now. Killing Fourth Realm cultivators is no different from crushing chicks. That Jiang Ran who swindled you is currently only at the Fourth Realm mid stage. I already have my eyes on him. Sooner or later, I will bring his head here as an offering to you.”

...

After tidying up the grave, Su Yueli left Fengling City.

Heading straight north, she returned to the small mountain village of her past.

This place had been reduced to ruins during the brutal massacre decades ago, and now it was completely swallowed by the lush, primeval forest.

The ruined walls were overgrown with tall trees as thick as a man's embrace. If an outsider were to wander in, they would never be able to tell that a village had once stood here.

In a dark, ancient forest on the mountain behind the village, Su Yueli found the graves of the villagers and her master, Lu Chen.

Decades had passed, and these grave mounds were almost half-buried under collapsed deadwood and silt. The roots of a few large trees had even pierced straight through the depths of the mounds.

Her master Lu Chen's tombstone was a block of stone she had cleaved using sheer physical strength back then. Now, it was covered in dark gray lichen, and the engraved characters were filled with black grime.

Su Yueli sat cross-legged before the grave. With a wave of her sleeve, an invisible surge of energy erupted, instantly shredding the encroaching thorns and poisonous vines into dust.

She unfastened the old wine gourd from her waist, took a swig, and then poured a large mouthful of the strong liquor onto her master's grave.

The rich aroma of wine wafted through the deathly silent forest.

“Master, when you were alive, you always complained that a martial artist's blood qi had to remain pure, so you never let me drink, and you didn't touch a single drop yourself. Now that you're lying here, you can't control me anymore. Drink up and rest easy.”

Su Yueli stared at the moss-covered stone, her eyes deep and inscrutable.

“The five martial styles you left behind—over these past few decades, I've trained every single one of them to great mastery. I've also given them a collective name: 'Ji Dao'.”

“A teacher for a day, a father for a lifetime.”

“Master, your disciple is very strong now. I have already reached the Eleventh Realm, Delusion Breaker. I will uncover the truth behind the village massacre and settle the score with the Blue Moon Sect, one account at a time. If Shen Huai'an really had a hand in it, I will crush him along with them.”

Su Yueli chatted with the grave for a long time before finally making a trip to Daliu Village.

That was the place where she was born in this life, and also where her parents met their tragic deaths.

From the day she left Daliu Village in tears until now, a full sixty to seventy years had passed.

The pair of small dirt mounds where they were buried together had now sunk halfway into the weed-choked wasteland outside the village. From afar, they looked no different from ordinary mounds of earth.

The simple stone tablet had been eroded by years of wind and rain, its surface long since ruined and the inscription completely erased.

Su Yueli stood before the graves, a complex mix of emotions swirling within her.

Without realizing it, so much time had actually slipped away.

When she first transmigrated as an infant, this was the home she opened her eyes to see.

Although her parents were the most ordinary mortals, scraping a living from the soil their entire lives, they had showered her with love, allowing her to feel the warmth of a home for the first time in this cold cultivation world.

Yet in the end, this sole source of warmth was casually snuffed out by a passing, arrogant cultivator, who crushed them like a pair of bugs.

“Father, Mother, Yueli has come to see you...”

“Your graves are about to sink into the earth, but Yueli has not forgotten that blood debt for a single day.”

“To cultivators, mortals are like ants. But to me, cultivators are just mud that can be crushed at any moment. Not a single one of those high-level immortal sects within the Great Qian Dynasty will escape this debt.”

...

After paying her respects to her parents, Su Yueli turned and left Daliu Village.

Gazing up at the sky, she couldn't quite describe the feeling in her heart. Along the long road to longevity, after hundreds, or perhaps even thousands or tens of thousands of years, would she still remember all of this?

Su Yueli wasn't sure. But... she had to live until then first.

Just as she was preparing to leave, passing by a bustling tea stall on the side of the official road, the chatter of some mundane martial artists suddenly caught her attention.

“Have you heard? The Great Li Dynasty's Martial Arts Tournament in the imperial city is about to begin!”

“Tsk, this is the ultimate grand event for our mundane martial path, held once every thirty years! I heard that quite a few reclusive Ninth and Tenth Realm old monsters are coming out of seclusion for this.”

Hearing this, Su Yueli paused in her tracks.

The Imperial City Martial Arts Tournament?

A flash of realization crossed her eyes.

Sixty years ago was exactly when she had first made a name for herself by participating in that tournament.

Held once every thirty years, counting back, this was already the second tournament since she left.

“Sixty years already...”

Su Yueli touched her face.