Chapter 1

“Your Highness, the Celestial Palace has sent a new batch of cloud-brocade. It was woven from morning clouds gilded by the sunrise, soft, shimmering, and radiant. Perfect for a bridal cape.”
“Bring it in quickly, let Her Highness have a look!”
At that delighted cry, a procession of palace maids in gauzy feathered robes filed gracefully into the hall.
Each carried jewel-inlaid caskets in their arms. Silk sashes drifted in the air with their steps, skirts blooming like flowers as they revealed two large redwood chests bound with gold.
With a soft click, the clasps on the chests sprang open of their own accord. A warm golden glow spilled out, like sunlight rising above a sea of clouds, bathing the entire hall in radiance.
The young woman before the silver mirror lifted her head. Her hair was only half done, but when her gaze fell on the length of crimson brocade inside the chest, her eyes lit with a watery brilliance.
The fabric shimmered with captured sun-essence, hues rippling through the gold like a cascade of color. It was indeed far more fitting for wedding robes than any material she had seen before.
Her close maid deftly finished arranging her hair, smoothing down the tresses that fell down her back. “Your Highness, shall we drape it over you to see?”
“Yes.”
The woman before the mirror rose to her feet, extending her arms. Someone moved the soft stool behind her and slipped off her outer robe, carefully gathering her loose hair to one side.
Two maids lifted the brocade from the chest, unfurling it as they stepped lightly forward, and draped it over her shoulders.
Her long black hair spilled like silk over the red fabric, dark and lustrous, flowing like a river under the sunrise.
In the silver mirror, she seemed wrapped in a faint aura of sunlight, her slender shoulders and narrow waist accentuating her graceful frame. The vibrant red cloth made her hair look darker than ink, her skin whiter than snow, her cheeks dusted with the glow of gold.
Her features were exquisite, lips naturally red, brows elegantly arched. The golden light softened the sharpness at the corners of her eyes, lending her beauty a gentle, radiant allure.
A few soft gasps echoed through the hall. These maids served her every day, already accustomed to her face. Yet at this moment, even they could not help being struck by her beauty anew.
“This brocade truly suits Your Highness. Just draped so casually, you already look stunning. Once it’s made into a wedding robe, embroidered with gold, it will be a hundred times more magnificent.”
“Indeed, only Your Highness could truly do justice to dawn-cloud brocade. Anyone else would be overwhelmed by it.”
“That’s right, that’s right. Your Highness’s beauty outshines even the morning sun. If Young Lord Mi were here to see, he would surely be just as spellbound as we are.”
The goddess was gentle-tempered and kind to her maids. In private, without outsiders present, she allowed them to be far more casual in their words.
Surrounded by her maids, the young woman in the center stared unblinkingly into the silver mirror. For a moment, her gaze turned distant, as though lost in some unknown thought. She slowly raised a hand to touch her cheek, then quickly came back to herself, her eyes curving as she smiled. “You flatter me too much. All day long, you only know how to praise me.”
The maids beamed. “Your Highness, we speak only the truth.”
Their voices overlapped in cheerful chatter, yet never descended into chaos. One after another, they opened the ornate boxes newly delivered from the Celestial Palace for the goddess to inspect, recording each treasure carefully before sending it off to the Hall of Precious Things.
Shen Wei sat at her vanity, her chin resting lightly in her palm, watching with a touch of weariness as box after box revealed glittering jewels and rare wonders. Behind her, a maid gently removed the brocade from her shoulders, combed her long hair, and touched up her makeup.
The laughter within the hall mingled with the birdsong outside, carrying over carved jade balustrades and painted beams, flying past the upturned eaves, and dissipating into the eternal clouds that wreathed Kunlun Mountain.
Shen Danxi jolted awake. Her eyes snapped open, and the vivid scene in her mind faded in an instant: the glazed palace tiles atop Kunlun, the never-dispersing rainbow clouds, the laughter and birdsong, all vanished with her return to consciousness.
What filled her pupils now was a world of utter darkness. Black sky, black earth. Between them drifted endless flurries of black ash.
The ash fell from a towering execution platform in the distance, where a colossal sword pierced through the stone. Nailed beneath its blade writhed the remains of a nine-headed demon god.
Shen Danxi had only ever read of it in ancient records: once a retainer of the primordial god Hong, it had followed him in rebellion, bringing down heaven and earth, unleashing flood and ruin.
When Hong was banished to Nine Netherworlds, his followers too were struck by divine punishment, falling into demonic corruption and sealed here, condemned to eternal damnation.
But why? Why was she here, suffering the same punishment as those cursed beings, imprisoned in Nine Netherworlds with no hope of return?
While some nameless wandering soul had seized her body, stolen her name, and lived on Kunlun Mountain as the revered Goddess Shen Danxi.
Though her soul was severed from her body, her senses had not been completely cut off. Scenes from that other half of her existence drifted into her dreams, whether she wished it or not, she was forced to watch.
And so, through those fragmented visions, Shen Danxi came to understand the truth: this world was nothing but the setting of some insipid story, and her role within it, though noble, was merely that of a disposable side character.
“Stupid, vicious, yet undeniably beautiful.”
That was the final judgment of the outsider who had stolen her body.
The other called herself a “transmigrator.” She carried a strategy system, and under its guidance, her task was to redeem a man destined to one day overturn the Three Realms, to prevent his descent into darkness.
From then on, Shen Danxi could only watch as the girl wearing her face and name trampled upon all the pride and dignity that “Goddess Danxi” had once held. She debased herself, groveling shamelessly before a filthy demon spawn who wasn’t even worthy to touch her shoes, showering him with flattery and devotion.
She went so far as to pour out her own celestial essence, stripping the very mountains and rivers that had nurtured her divine body. With mountain marrow she reforged his bones, with water essence she cleansed his veins, helping him shed his mortal shell.
All at an unimaginable cost, just to knock on the door of his heart, to make him believe in love.
The spiritual power Shen Danxi had cultivated over a thousand tireless years, through winter and summer alike, was scattered to nothing.
Once a peerless talent, the goddess of Danxi was reduced to a frail invalid who wheezed every few steps, surviving only by the protection of others’ arms.
That was the system’s grand design: to offer up everything, to redeem him, to warm him, to defy fate itself for him. To drag him onto the righteous path, to raise him to glory, and stake the safety of the Three Realms on the fragile thread of “love.”
The cruelest part? Every drop of sacrifice, every ounce of devotion that transmigrator so freely bestowed came not from her own hand, but from the “stupid, vicious, yet undeniably beautiful” cannon-fodder villainess.
One day in the mortal world equaled a year in Nine Netherworlds.
Upon the execution platform, the nine-headed demon god had only one head left, and even that last head was beginning to crumble into dust.
The sound of falling ash had echoed across this land for so long that the world lay buried beneath thick layers of it.
Mounds rose from the ground like tombs in a dead graveyard, her own included.
Slowly, Shen Danxi stirred, pushing herself upright. The mound collapsed around her, gray ash sliding off her body like the peeling of an ancient wall.
Her sleeve emerged beneath the soot, dark and gray like the ashes surrounding her.
But it shouldn’t have been this color.
It should have been red, or gold, or yellow, bright, vivid shades, like those she loved to wear.
She had always preferred bold colors, adorned herself in brilliance. She no longer remembered what color her robes had been when she first fell into Nine Netherworlds, but they had never been this dull, this filthy gray, like a rag.
Her fingers trembled as they stroked the sleeve, memories of brocade shimmering in her dreams surging up again. Her movements grew harsher, rubbing the cloth in frustration.
Since her imprisonment here, she had never once seen the sunrise. And yet the thief who had stolen her body and her name could wear the sunrise upon her shoulders!
Why?!
By what right?!
Shen Danxi bit down on her lip. The long-numbed depths of her heart welled again with threads of hatred and resentment.
She hated the wandering soul who had stolen her flesh. She hated her father, who never noticed she had been usurped. She hated her mother, who secluded herself and never emerged. She hated every so-called friend and kin who welcomed the impostor without suspicion.
When she had first fallen in Nine Netherworlds, she had wandered tirelessly, refusing to give up. She tried climbing the execution platform, searching for a way out.
Back then, she still had hope, that her parents would discover the truth, that one day she would return to her body.
As time flowed on, the last remnants of hope within her withered away.
The transmigrator’s subtle changes, accumulated bit by bit over the years, had long since become natural, erasing every trace of the woman who once existed.
Even when she no longer deliberately mimicked her mannerisms, even when her actions stood in stark contrast to the ones she would have once chosen, not a soul suspected the truth about the imposter.
The world had already forgotten what Shen Danxi had once been.
Even she herself was slowly being assimilated into the Netherworld’s bleak and lifeless abyss. Like the fading hues of her tattered garments, no matter how she beat at the fabric, no matter how she tried to scrub away the dust, the original color would never return.
Her resentment surged like the sea at high tide, drowning her heart, only to ebb away into numb despair.
Over the long span of thirty thousand years, she had wept, she had cursed, she had raged. When endurance broke, she had even tried to end her own life. Better to scatter into dust than watch herself be erased, forgotten.
But Nine Netherworlds , this place where the heavens punished condemned souls, would not grant her such an easy release.
The only way to die was to outlast one’s own lifespan, to burn away into ash.
In this eternal, unchanging wasteland, hatred had nowhere to go. It tormented her spirit and left nothing behind.
That was the terror of Nine Netherworlds.
Shen Danxi, ground down by torment, was forced into obedience. She stopped fidgeting with her sleeves, lay back upon the cold earth, and tried to imagine herself as nothing more than a rotting log, a stone, a nameless grave.
She no longer cared whether she was guilty or innocent. She only wished to be like the others trapped here, sightless, thoughtless, emptied of all, until she weathered into dust and vanished completely.
But even that wish was too extravagant.
Time blurred again, until once more, vivid colors intruded into her awareness, prying at her thoughts, forcing her to see, to think, to feel. Reminding her, she was no withered log, no cold stone, no forgotten grave. She had once been a goddess of Kunlun Mountain.
The knowledge that she had been erased from memory made her dread each new vision. Yet no matter how she resisted, she could not choose to look away. She had never been given a choice.
Within a broad and radiant palace, shark-oil lamps burned steadily, casting a soft glow that lit every carved balustrade and jade pillar. Before a screen, a goddess sat at her vanity, painting her face.
Upon her head gleamed a resplendent phoenix crown, its sides draped with dangling strings of pearls. Her reflection in the silver mirror wore heavy cosmetics and a golden flower painted between her brows.
The brocade from the last dream had been cut and stitched into a magnificent bridal gown. A long, wide train embroidered with Kunlun’s flowers and auspicious beasts trailed upon the ground.
From the moment that dream had first seeped into her awareness, Shen Danxi had known, the woman was preparing for marriage.
That usurper, that transmigrator who had stolen her body, had endured trial after trial, sacrificed everything, and at last achieved her wish. She had won the little bastard’s love, conquered the great villain, and was about to marry him.
And all of it, her body, her identity, would be paraded in a grand wedding that the Three Realms would come to celebrate.
“Greetings to the Lord.” The guards’ voices rang from beyond the hall, followed by the steady, solemn tread of approaching footsteps.
The inner doors swung open, and a tall figure entered.
He wore a wide-sleeved robe of pale moonlight silk, patterned with drifting clouds that shimmered faintly in the light. His face was gentle, his brows eased with warmth. Smiling, his gaze sought the figure behind the screen.
Hearing him, Shen Wei hastily steadied the heavy phoenix crown upon her head and rose. Her attendants swiftly adjusted the dangling jewels and jade at her waist, smoothing out the sweeping train at her feet.
The bride, perfectly adorned, moved forward with the grace of a lotus. Her ornaments chimed softly as she stepped out from behind the screen.
Her face held the shy glow of a young maiden, her eyes bright with joy. She bowed and said softly, “Father, you have returned.”
“Tomorrow is your wedding day. How could I not return?” The Lord of Kunlun quickened his pace, lifting her up with his hands. He looked her over from head to toe, and three times he murmured, “Good...good...good…” His voice faltered, his breath caught. For a long while, he could not find further words.
The Lord of Kunlun, the Ancestor of Ten Thousand Mountains, had red-rimmed eyes, just like any mortal father about to give away his daughter.
It was a scene of tender love and filial devotion.
Shen Danxi watched with hollow eyes. She no longer screamed, no longer flung herself at him, desperate for her father to notice her presence.
She had tried too many times, and each attempt had left her heart in tatters.
The mighty Lord of Kunlun, master of countless divine arts, had never once suspected that his daughter’s soul had been stolen away.
Not even when her nature had changed beyond recognition.