Beneath the mist of ten thousand sorrows deep,

Ai Baoni stands, her robes of darkest night,

While boring orthodox disciples sleep.

Her purple-streaked hair catches ghostly light,

Her heart beats twenty-two and seven thirds-

Such specific numbers show her inner plight!

Above her head, a flock of shadow birds,

Like Shadows-Upon-Shadows-Darknight-Void,

Proclaim her angst in tragic, measured words.

The proper paths that others have employed

Mean nothing to her darkness-seeking soul-

Their pristine white robes leave her so annoyed!

For she alone can hear the darkness toll,

While other cultivators fail to see

That black is clearly cultivation's goal.

...

The morning mist crept across the pristine grounds of the Huogehuazi Sect like a shroud of infinite sorrows, each droplet a tear shed by the heavens themselves. Ai Baoni stood alone atop the Cliff of Celestial Ascension, her black robes billowing dramatically in a wind that seemed to respond to her very emotions. Her hair, darker than the void between stars and streaked with cultivation-enhanced purple highlights, cascaded down her back like a waterfall of liquid midnight.

"Oh, cruel fate!" she whispered to the uncaring dawn, her voice trembling with the weight of ten thousand years of accumulated angst. "Why must the sacred arts of our sect be bound by such... conventional aesthetics?" A single tear traced its way down her porcelain cheek, its path illuminated by the spiritual essence that thrummed through her meridians like a discordant symphony of despair.

Below, the "proper" disciples of the Huogehuazi Sect went about their morning routines, their pristine white robes a mockery of everything Ai Baoni held dear. She watched them practice their orthodox sword forms with a disdain that could have curdled spiritual milk, her fingers absently tracing the outline of the forbidden scroll hidden within her robes - a technique for communing with restless spirits that she had borrowed from the sect's restricted archive.

"Seeking validation from the dead again, Ai Baoni?"

The voice cut through her reverie like a blade of pure light, causing Ai Baoni to whirl around with a flourish that sent her layers of black silk dancing like shadows given form. There stood Ha Li, the sect's most promising outer disciple, his jet black hair arranged in an impossibly perfect knot, adorned with enough jade hairpins to fund a small immortal realm.

"Ha Li," Ai Baoni intoned, her voice dripping with barely contained darkness. "Have you come to lecture me about the proper way to channel my spiritual essence? Perhaps demonstrate another boring technique passed down through generations of boring cultivators?"

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Ha Li's perfect features arranged themselves into an expression of elegant disdain. "Your unorthodox methods bring shame upon our noble sect. That display yesterday, summoning black rose petals during the basic sword forms practice? Elder Deng was most displeased."

"The traditional forms fail to capture the true depths of my suffering," Ai Baoni declared, raising her arms to the heavens as storm clouds began to gather overhead, responding to her turbulent spiritual energy. "My cultivation path is unique, forged in the depths of existential despair!"

"Unique?" Ha Li scoffed, his jade pendants chiming with disapproval. "You're barely at the third stage of Chi Condensation, and your technique of channeling emotional turmoil into spiritual energy is hardly efficient."

But before Ai Baoni could unleash a devastating retort and possibly some forbidden ghostly techniques, a figure appeared between them, his crimson robes fluttering in the spiritually-charged air. Ma Fen, the mysterious disciple whose very presence caused Ai Baoni's carefully cultivated darkness to waver.

"Ha Li," he said, his voice carrying the weight of ancient bloodlines and superior breeding, "surely our sect's teachings speak of accepting all paths to immortality?" His gaze flickered to Ai Baoni, and she felt her black heart skip eleven beats and two thirds of one beat, her spiritual energy fluctuating wildly by about twenty two percent.

"Ma Fen," she whispered, her voice carried on a wind that somehow caused her hair to float dramatically despite the laws of natural philosophy. "You... understand?"

But before he could respond, a pulse of ancient power rippled through the sect grounds. The forbidden scroll in Ai Baoni's robes began to resonate, sending waves of ghostly energy cascading through her meridians. Her eyes widened in horror as specters began to materialize around them, drawn to her unique spiritual signature like moths to a flame of pure darkness.

"What have you done?" Ha Li demanded, his perfect composure finally cracking. "What forbidden techniques have you been practicing?"

Ai Baoni stood frozen, torn between her desire to prove herself different from the other disciples and the terrifying realization that she might have accidentally summoned an army of vengeful spirits. But as she gazed into Ma Fen's eyes, she felt something shift within her spiritual core. Perhaps... perhaps this was her moment to show them all that her path, though shrouded in darkness and heavy with the weight of infinite sorrows, was just as valid as their orthodox techniques.

The specters swirled around her like a cloak of living shadow, and Ai Baoni felt power surge through her body. This was who she was meant to be - not another pristine disciple reciting ancient scriptures, but a wielder of darkness, a channeler of spirits, a cultivator who dared to be different.

"You're courting death!" Ha Li shrieked, but his words were lost in the growing maelstrom of spiritual energy that surrounded Ai Baoni, who had begun to levitate slightly, her black robes and purple-streaked hair defying gravity in the most aesthetically pleasing way possible.

This was only the beginning. The Huogehuazi Sect would never be the same once Ai Baoni showed them the true power of cultivation through angst.

The storm clouds overhead rumbled their approval, and somewhere in the distance, a raven cawed dramatically.

Specifically, first in G, then ascending to a tragic B flat that lasted exactly seven and three-eighths seconds before trailing off into what could only be described as the avian equivalent of a ge-de sigh.