///_Frozen Flower_///

Liu Mei was someone who enjoyed two things in life.

Making music, and when she's not making music, she enjoys silence. So it's with a great effort, she puts her Ruan down to glare at the one demanding her attention.

"Heeehe, sorry senior sister." Her Junior Sister rubs the back of her head. Liu Mei had once asked her what the gesture meant. At the time her Junior Sister just made a peculiar face and then explained it was when someone knows they're in the wrong and feels sheepish. Then Liu Mei asked what feeling sheepish is and her Junior Sister's face had twitched rather violently.

To this day, Liu Mei still doesn't know what feeling sheepish is. She's never particularly felt like a sheep herself. She doesn't grow wool either. She does know, however, that if her Junior Sister is coming to her like this it means she's done wrong of some kind. "What have you done now?" Liu Mei asks calmly, putting her Ruan down beside her on its own blue cushion.

Li Hua, her Junior Sister, squirms around at that. "You know that our Sect and the Golden Lotus Sect are not really on the best of terms, yes?"

This is not new information. There's always been a long-standing rivalry between the Frozen Blossoms Sect and the Golden Lotus Sect from her memory. It's been said the relationship was quite good before an argument over a thousand-year ginseng. Then things only continued to sour to a point where it's not uncommon to see a fight start between Its members if they are in the same room. It's even gotten worse with the latest hidden realm being found between their territories. All of this is common knowledge in the large area of Huanglong. Why is her Junior Sister telling her something she already knows? At the blank look on Liu Mei's face, her Junior Sister starts speaking again.

"I may have given one of their heir candidates a Jade Token!" Li Hua exclaims. Liu Mei is puzzled about why she's even telling her this. The act itself is rather unwise with the state of their sects, but Liu Mei believes her Junior Sister would rather have just not told anyone of her rather troublesome action. Giving a Jade has a lot of implicit meanings that Liu Mei still doesn't fully understand, her Master had tried their best to educate her on it as Liu Mei is the Chief Disciple of the Sect. A rather troublesome position, truth be told. Her Junior Sister takes her silence as an opportunity to keep talking, fidgeting her hands as she does. "I gave him yours! I took one of your tokens that Master made and told the boy my name was Liu Mei!"

That… that is beyond the mere act of being troublesome. Liu Mei doesn't know all the implications of this, but someone from a rival faction with the token of their faction's Chief Disciple seems very bad. With a frown on her face, she levels an icy glare at her Junior Sister. "Why?"

"He… He seemed manly?" Liu Mei's glare grows in power along with her annoyance. "Look! He was righteous and heroic, and he saved me from a band of bandits!"

"You're in the sixth stage of Qi Gathering, there is no bandit in the vicinity of our sect that could be a threat to you."

"I was spiritually in danger!" Liu Mei, realizes now, that her Junior Sister is an idiot. "I gave him your token because using my identity would get me in trouble with Master. As for you, we both know Master would be happy if you met a man regardless of his Sect." Not just an idiot, a dangerous idiot.

"Your logic is flawed. I'm telling Master." At that, her Junior Sister's eyes widen, and the girl immediately drops to her knees and starts kowtowing.

"Please please please please don't tell Master!"

"I see no other solution."

"There is one! We just need to get your token back!" Her Junior Sister jumps to her feet again, vibrant as her usual obnoxious self. "We'll find Cheng Hong, get your token, and return before Master even knows he had it. No one will suspect anything if you just say you're testing yourself against Demonic Beasts. I of course just want to see my Senior Sister's prowess."

Liu Mei thinks about that proposal for a moment. Is something like that worth it? No, not really. Would Master be happy if she said no? Maybe. Master has been constantly nagging her to be more benevolent, and show more kindness to her Juniors. This would probably count as a kind act. Her Junior Sister would also owe her. She can use that debt to make the girl stay out of her pavilion.

"I will recover the token." She decides with a small nod of her head.

"Perfect! We can go-"

"There is no 'We'. I do not trust your lust-addled mind to accompany me in seeing this man."

"Gah!?"

Hopefully, this will be done quickly.

///_Time Rewound_///

Everything is wrong.

For what feels like the thousandth time, that statement goes through the mind of Luo Xue.

Where did things start to go wrong? When she broke off her marriage to follow Wei Tianyu? Or was it when she first encountered the Demon Saintess, Mo Sha? Could it have been when Wei Tainyu abandoned her in that hidden realm? Was it when despite all odds, she survived, thrived even, having changed her luck and fate? No, she knows exactly when things went wrong.

It was when Long Jie stabbed her in the back when she was ascending.

Yet, she woke up from that nightmare. Back in the body of her eighteen-year-old self. Where the only thing that worried her was her upcoming marriage to Xiang Rong, despite her love for Wei Tianyu, Luo Xue feels a sneer take over her face.

She knows that Wei bastard's true colors now.

After taking a moment to calm herself, she decides to go over what she's done since her return.

Her first decision had been to kill Long Jie. As an expert at the Peak of Transcendence Defining, she had a perfect memory. She knew Long Jie was actually the former servant of her fiancé. In her kindness to the fellow powerhouse, she had not mentioned that embarrassing past.

Now she knows she was wrong. The man serving her former fiancé is not the Long Jie she knew. Which meant the man who stabbed her in the back was an immortal who incarnated into Long Jie's body. She had still debated killing the boy, innocent as he is now before more troubling events unfolded.

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Xiang Rong destroyed his cultivation when he never did before.

Then even more miraculously, he broke any possible record she knew of by immediately returning to his past level, stronger. His new cultivation is far sturdier than his last one. That's not even mentioning the fact he could block her divine sense somehow. Luo Xue had originally thought of Xiang Rong as just an overly arrogant man, desperate in his attempts to seem important after his family's death. This is why she pushed for the dissolution of their engagement at this time when he should have been disoriented.

In the original timeline, Xiang Rong had angered a rather infamous Son of Heaven named Cheng Hong. Cheng Hong beat him half to death and shattered his cultivation. Shortly after that incident, Xiang Rong faded into obscurity, and she never actually broke off her engagement with him. It had hung over her head for years before they finally declared him dead. Shortly after that, Long Jie started to become a well-known name.

Only now has she realized, that Xiang Rong never died. That Intent was unmistakable, it was the Madness intent of one of the Demon Continent's most violent powerhouses. The Berserker Demon, Hong Jue. Hong Jue, she realizes, would have had a very significant reason for killing Cheng Hong in the manner he did if he were Xiang Rong. He had paraded the Son of Heaven's carcass like it was a trophy. It was both a disgusting and horrifying act for those in the Righteous Faction.

Now knowing that the violent lover of the Demon Saintess was her former fiancé gives Luo Xue a complicated feeling. It also explains why Mo Sha would rush at her in every battle, Mo Sha had always had a few screws loose when it came to Hong Jue.

The cost of this information being only 30,000 spirit stones was practically a steal. She refuses to acknowledge that anything else happened in that garden. Instead of dwelling on what's happened, she needs to focus on what's to come. The most important thing is the Three Sect Battle over the Time Immortal's hidden realm. Her Azure Mist Sect, the Golden Lotus Sect, and the Crimson Guardian Sect fought over ownership of the then-unknown realm. The fourth top Sect in Huanglong couldn't participate after a scandal between them and Cheng Hong. The mad bastard had used aphrodisiacs on their Chief Disciple, a crime so horrible even the Golden Lotus Sect had officially cut ties with him.

To think a man like that became the Lord of Huanglong years later. Luo Xue almost scoffs at the thought. As for the Inheritance in the hidden realm? This time around she already took the main one, destroying any trace of it being there, along with taking the Celestial Destiny Changing Fruit. It was just as delicious as she remembered. Covering her traces by using the tool Wei Tianyu as a cover, she did it with everyone none the wiser. Unfortunately, her hourglass necklace that seems to have brought her back in time was broken when she found it, so she can't afford any mistakes.

So consider her dismay when things went wrong again.

She had just received word that Xiang Rong killed Cheng Hong in an instant.

Everything is wrong.

The thought goes through her head once again. Luo Xue sighs.

She needs a drink.

///_Bloody Valley_///

"Sect Leader, this one reports a deviation in Young Master Xiang Rong."

"Oh?"

"He shattered his own cultivation, then almost immediately reached Foundation Establishment a few days after."

She puts her book down, fully focusing on the Shadow Guard. The man doesn't make a sound or movement under her gaze, he has been trained well. She thinks this one was trained by little Lianfeng, she'll have to reward that girl. "Tell me, did his Root change?"

"This one has failed you Sect Leader!" The man kowtows, hitting his head on the ground hard enough she can smell blood. "The Young Master has the divine sense of a Peak Nascent Soul Cultivator, more powerful than my own. His information is not something I can look at unnoticed!"

"Very well. Keep an eye on him."

"Yes, Sect Leader! Here is the full written report." She waves the overly eager man away. There is much to ponder from this report.

A sense of eagerness fills her, and she can't stop the grin from coming to her face.

Much to ponder, indeed.

///_Wandering Aimlessly_///

"Did you hear? The branch family Xiang Young Master bought the best Inn in Shanhe. I tried booking a room when I was journeying here but I was blocked at the door. Had to settle for a second-rate inn." The cultivator scoffs, then takes a sip of his bottle.

"How overbearing! I've only heard nasty things about that man, Xiang Rong." Another shakes his head.

"A villain in the making from what I've heard. Us common Cultivators better steer clear from his path."

"Do you think he will come to the auction in Huangjing this year? I'm worried as it's the biggest one in a hundred years. The sects are already competitive enough."

"Bah. What nonsense did you think you'd win anything in an auction that large? You may as well be a frog chasing swan meat." a round of laughter sounded out at the man's expense, much to his obvious embarrassment. The only one not laughing is a hooded figure, bundled fully in a large brown cloak.

The figure instead approaches the bar. "Just the wine." They say, dropping a single spirit stone. The bartender goes on to say that's too little before his mind boggles realizing it's a High-Grade Spirit Stone. He quickly snatches it up and is about to graciously thank his new benefactor only to realize they aren't there anymore.

On a hill, by the distance of at least a few towns away, the figure sits under the moonlight and takes a sip from the wine bottle she just bought.

"Xiang Rong, huh? Let's hope you can entertain me."