The storm that had raged for years within the sealed courtyard... ended in silence.
At dawn, no frost crept across the tiles. No chilling gale seeped from the cracks. For the first time in seasons, the sky above the Tian estate was not covered by Ningxue's suffocating Yin.
Servants dared approach. Elders gathered, hearts drumming with both dread and expectation.
When the heavy door creaked open, the courtyard unveiled its secret.
From the swirling mist stepped not the fallen young master—but a maiden of otherworldly grace. Her skin was pale as new snow, her eyes gleamed with chilling clarity, her every movement radiated an ethereal charm. The youth once hailed as the Southern Capital's first genius had been reborn—yet reborn in a form no one could have foretold.
Ningxue was no more.
Before them stood Ningyue, a woman carved by heaven's own hand.
A hush fell. The elders' gazes darted from awe to fear. None dared speak of the unnatural transformation. Instead, they cloaked their terror with honeyed words.
"Heaven's blessing!"
"A divine reversal of fate!"
"The Yin Furnace was not a curse, but a gift from the heavens!"
Already, schemes slithered in their hearts.
It was Elder Huaixin who first gave voice to the plan:
"Such celestial beauty must not remain hidden. She should be wed into a great clan. This is Heaven's will."
The others nodded eagerly. Whispers turned to plans, and plans turned to action.
Word spread swiftly. The sect prepared to send her portrait to the Hua Clan, whose young master was infamous across the region. A man of lust, cruelty, and decadence, yet backed by an Pure bloodline. The alliance promised the sect protection and prestige.
Ningyue's father, Tianlei, stood before the council. His voice thundered with anguish:
"The Hua young master is vile! I will not sell my child to such a beast!"
But his defiance was drowned by the cold voices of his peers.
"Elder Tianlei, do not let fatherly sentiment blind you. For the sect's prosperity, sacrifices must be made."
"Would you risk the future of the clan for your own child's purity?"
Even the Patriarch—his own elder brother—could not meet his gaze. His silence was worse than any insult. When Tianlei begged with trembling hands, the Patriarch only looked aside and murmured:
"For the prosperity of the sect... we must make some sacrifice."
Tianlei staggered back, as if stabbed in the heart. His shoulders bent, his head lowered. For the first time in decades, the proud elder could not raise his eyes.
Among the gathered youths, none rejoiced more than Ningxue's cousin—the one who had always lived in Ningxue's shadow. Once, he had been overlooked, a faint star eclipsed by the blazing moon of his cousin's talent.
Now, he smiled openly, his voice dripping with saliva:
"Uncle, you should rejoice. Heaven has taken your son but given you a daughter. A celestial maiden worthy of the young master. Perhaps this is Heaven's mercy upon you."
He raised his head proudly, no longer oppressed.
"And from this day forth, we will stand as the first clan of the Southern Capital."
Tianlei clenched his fists until blood seeped from his palms, yet he could not strike his own kin.
The sect moved quickly. A famed painter was summoned. Before the eyes of elders and disciples, Ningyue was adorned in silken robes, her snow-pale skin glowing under the candlelight.
She sat in silence, her eyes downcast, as the brush traced her form.
"A celestial maiden…" the master painter whispered, his voice heavy with envy and defeat.Once, they called me a prodigy. With a single stroke, I could capture a man's laughter, the sorrow of widows, the majesty of rivers, even the fleeting breath of spring. They said my paintings held memory itself, that life obeyed my brush.
Yet before her… my art is but dust. Why does the brush betray me, when even the unpainted silence holds more of her than I can? Her gaze alone would burn through every color the mortal world has to offer. Each stroke mocks me — no art can capture what the heavens themselves could not shape twice. If even the dao grants no second creation of her kind, how dare I presume to imprison her radiance on silk?
The canvas stares back at me, hollow. The ink bleeds, ashamed. And I—hailed as a master—am nothing more than a blind fool scratching at eternity.
The portrait captured not only her face, but an allure that made even the oldest elders avert their gaze.
The days bled away in ink and blood. Scroll after scroll, thousands upon thousands, lay discarded at his feet—each a failure, each mocking his hand that once held the world in strokes.
The master painter's eyes were hollow, his fingers covered with ink and blood. Yet still, he painted. Obsession burned where pride had long since died.
And then—on a night when the moon slumbered itself in sorrow—his trembling brush finally stilled.
Before him lay a painting unlike any other.Not her entirety, not her radiance in full, but a breathe of it—a faint curve of grace, a shade of her presence, enough to stir the soul.
For the first time, the painting breathed. It did not capture her, but it hinted—like a single note that foretells the melody of heaven.
The painter fell to his knees, tears soaking the silk."So this is all I am permitted," he cried. "A fragment. A ripple of her beauty. Enough to break my Pride… and enough to let me live."
When dawn finally broke, the master painter did not stay to receive praise or reward. He gathered his brushes, left the fragment of her beauty sealed within silk, and turned his back to the village.
He returned to the quiet fields of his hometown, where willows swayed by serene rivers and children laughed with the innocence he once painted so effortlessly. Yet this time, his hand did not move with pride — it moved with reverence.
The fragment had shown him a truth deeper than any court, deeper than any title of "prodigy" or "master."
"To paint life is to chase shadows. To paint truth was to glimpse the Dao itself."
In solitude, he painted the wind that curled around the mountains, the breath of dawn upon the rice fields, the sorrow of rain on empty graves. Each stroke was no longer a claim of mastery, but a path.
And with each step, his brush grew lighter, freer, closer to the Dao that had once abandoned by him.
A few weeks later
The elders bestowed upon her a new name and title, praising her as if she were a gift from the heavens. Yet their words were chains, gilded with hypocrisy.
What none knew... was that the glow on Ningyue's skin was no blessing. Each night, she slipped into shadows, her body shrouded in Yin mist. Servants disappeared, outer disciples pale corpse, and rumors of sickness spread.
Ningyue smiled faintly in solitude, tasting the forbidden power of Yang devouring. The sect believed her radiance to be a divine transformation, but it was the stolen vitality of those around her.
Her ghostly cultivation deepened with each passing night.
Tianlei watched all of this—helpless, broken. He alone saw the truth. He alone heard the muffled cries of missing servants. He alone saw the chill in his daughter's gaze, a reflection of the abyss.
Yet the elders silenced him. The Patriarch betrayed him. The sect chained him with duty.
When the Hua Clan responded with delight to Ningyue's portrait, sending word that their young master eagerly awaited the bride... Tianlei fell to his knees in despair.
Preparations for the engagement banquet began. The halls of the sect filled with music, laughter, and envy. Yet within Tianlei's heart, only grief resounded.
He stood at the door of his child's chamber one last time, whispering into the cold silence:
"Xue'er... Yue'er... Forgive me. Your father has failed you."