After Song Qianji reached the Transformation Stage, he established a grand formation to gather clouds, creating a palace in the sky.
The palace floated high in the heavens, drifting slowly through clouds and mist, passing over mountains and rivers.
It journeyed across the four continents and five great seas, overlooking the mountain gates of various sects and schools.
Every day, people entered the palace to offer treasures. The celestial palace had everything one could desire, except for a name.
The cultivation world thus called it "The Domain Beyond Heaven."
This name appeared extremely reverent on the surface, but concealed within were cunning implications and unspoken expectations.
—The Domain Beyond Heaven. The One Above All.
Song Qianji, a low-born rogue cultivator who had clawed his way to the top by any means necessary, would surely fall from the highest heavens sooner or later.
It was only a matter of when he would die.
Song Qianji never failed to repay grudges or debts.
Therefore, besides offering treasures, there was another shortcut to curry favor with him—"offering people." Cultivators often captured his former enemies and presented them for his personal judgment.
But after his engagement, he drew his sword less frequently.
Natural disasters occurred frequently, the world was unstable, the Sky-Supporting Tree was losing vitality, and a great calamity loomed near.
Song Qianji had no heart for settling personal vendettas; he only wished to prolong the life of heaven and earth.
People mistakenly believed that Fairy Miaoyan had reformed Song Qianji, so everyone praised the fairy's noble righteousness and benevolence.
In truth, after Miaoyan moved into "The Domain Beyond Heaven," she rarely saw Song Qianji.
She feared witnessing her betrothed draw his sword to kill, and she worried that over time, Song Qianji would grow weary of her unchanging appearance.
In today's cultivation world, senior experts from renowned orthodox sects often killed without shedding blood. They were more adept at using verbal criticism, complex systems, rituals, rules, and many invisible blades.
Only Song Qianji maintained the habits of a rogue cultivator, always making scenes bloody and crimson, glaringly vivid.
Like the blood-red clam before them.
"For you," Song Qianji said.
The clam was as tall as a person, its shell crystalline, with streaks of blood flowing across it like the clam's veins, the faint pink flesh visible within.
The evening glow slanted, the gathered light shimmering.
"A millennium celestial clam from the South Sea?" Miaoyan moved gracefully, circling the clam shell. "They say this clam produces only one spirit pearl per year. If the essence blood of two cultivators, male and female, is placed inside the clam and nourished with spirit qi for ten years, it can give birth to a celestial child. Is that true?"
"Yes," Song Qianji nodded.
He believed he could save the world, and he believed in the future.
Miaoyan smiled, her pear dimples faint. "Excellent."
But then she thought, although the South Sea celestial clam was rare, if Song Qianji wanted anything, other cultivators would scramble to offer it to him.
He didn't need to trouble himself to search for it personally.
Noticing some weariness between Song Qianji's brows, Miaoyan pondered briefly before smiling radiantly:
"The celestial child nurtured by this clam, born from the millennium spirit qi within, would naturally have unparalleled innate talent, strong spirit veins, and be a natural-born cultivator. When grown, they would surely be like you—able to become the number one under heaven!"
She knew what to say and when, needing only a few words to make others happy.
"No." Song Qianji shook his head. "Whether it's a boy or a girl, I don't want them to be number one under heaven."
Miaoyan was slightly taken aback. "What?"
"They don't need to learn my sword, nor play your zither. Their father is number one under heaven and will naturally hold up the sky to shelter them from wind and rain."He could sleep until the sun was high in the sky, drink himself into a stupor, raise a few spiritual beasts, and make a group of friends. He could do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. He could lie around for as long as he pleased.
"The shackles of this world cannot bind him. I want him to live the freest, happiest life."
Miaoyan widened her almond-shaped eyes in astonishment: "Wouldn't that make him a scourge of the world?"
"So what if he becomes a scourge?" Song Qianji replied with a laugh.
Layers of sunset glow and cloud shadows drifted slowly across his profile, interweaving in hazy shades of orange and red.
In the blink of an eye, the wind scattered the clouds, and Miaoyan realized she had never truly seen this person clearly.
She wanted to say: If you have no family, no disciples, no ambition to establish a sect and become a grandmaster...
No matter how powerful you are, you're just one person, not a force to be reckoned with. You're destined to have a bad reputation.
Song Qianji might not care about his reputation, but she couldn't afford not to.
"Having obtained this immortal clam, if the offspring don't tread the path of cultivation, wouldn't that be a terrible waste?" Miaoyan persuaded.
Song Qianji looked at her: "Even for cultivators, bearing children is still arduous. I sought the immortal clam to spare you that hardship."
Miaoyan opened her mouth but found herself speechless.
She smiled faintly, her gaze intense, as two clear tears fell.
Song Qianji raised his hand, then quickly lowered it, offering an awkward comfort: "If I've done something wrong, you can tell me directly."
Miaoyan only shook her head, murmuring softly to herself: "It's too late."
Before his death, Song Qianji suddenly understood—even back then, she had already intended to kill him.
After his rebirth, he was still terribly afraid of people crying in front of him.
Too many people had cried before him: first Meng Heze and He Qingqing, later Ji Chen and Chen Hongzhu...
Who knew how many more would come after.
Yet he had never cried in front of anyone, and there was hardly anyone he could cry to.
"Shedding tears is the most useless thing." This was a truth Song Qianji had always understood.
His childhood was spent in a small town at the foot of the mountain—poor but happy, with the evergreen Cang Mountain visible through the window all year round.
Though his parents died early, leaving him with no one to rely on, kind neighbors always helped him out. A child who only cried and threw tantrums got no candy; only those quick with their hands and feet could win people's favor.
On the day the young Song Qianji boarded the Huawai Sect's great ship, the whole town celebrated, slaughtering chickens and sheep to see him off.
He brazenly declared he would climb the immortal ladder straight to the clouds, to see with his own eyes the boundless wonders beyond the mountains.
Later, in the Huawai Sect's Outer Sect, he worked the most jobs every day. Some people are born in the heavens; some are born to labor.
He kept to himself, dull and uninteresting, working with obsessive diligence, meticulously saving every coin—enough to make every peer genuinely despise him.
Only the bottomless abyss of Broken Mountain Cliff could barely tolerate his unspoken ambitions and the resentment of unrealized potential.
There, he pushed an innocent youth off the cliff, thus deservedly embarking on a path of no return.
His sword grew faster, his enemies multiplied.
Poverty stifles ambition; sometimes, fighting over an unclaimed treasure or a few Spirit Stones could lead to a fight to the death.
Lin Feiyuan once advised him to become a Guest Elder in a small overseas sect, cultivating in peace and stability.
"This line of work pays well, but if you stay in it too long, there's no turning back."
Song Qianji dearly wanted to smack him on the head with his sword. I've made enemies with major sects—what small sect would dare take me in?
It was far too late for me to turn back.
Ziye Wenshu once asked him why he had to take things to the extreme. In the Secret Realm of the Dead Sea, where evil demons ran rampant and the environment was treacherous, righteous cultivators ought to support each other, not scheme against one another.
But Song Qianji cursed him for speaking without understanding the hardship.You are the Courtyard Overseer of Green Cliff, a deity untouched by worldly desires or personal cravings. When you speak, those righteous cultivators naturally heed your words.
What could I do? I could only speak with my sword.
Back then, he was arrogant and domineering, with a blazing fire in his heart that could ignite the heavens.
He cared not for his life, trusted no one, and valued no one’s sincere goodwill.
Many years later, Song Qianji returned to his old haunts, retracing his steps. The small town at the foot of the mountain had vanished, its ruins buried beneath wind and sand.
The ancient tree he had climbed as a child had withered, the stream where he caught fish had dried up, and swallows no longer flew past the gray eaves.
Yet he soared into the clouds, built a realm "Beyond the Heavens," and saw that beyond the mountains lay yet more mountains.
Though the green peaks remained ever the same, Song Qianji consoled himself, "My life has only just begun."
"I will dwell in the highest heavens, wed the most beautiful dao companion, save the Sky-Supporting Tree that upholds the world, and live my life once more with thunderous passion."
He raced desperately toward the continent’s edge, only to be trapped in a snowy plain. He fought alone across the land, only to be betrayed by those closest to him.
When the heavy snow fell, he finally understood that even if he won every battle, he could never win all hearts.
He had committed too many wrongs, burdened by countless regrets.
He was no qualified "savior of the world," nor was he the "protagonist" of any tale.
He was but an ordinary man, born in the tranquil Pingning Town at the mountain’s base. He survived a hundred battles only because he had no other choice.
OpenNovel