A Legend of a Heavenly Cultivator

1 Betrayal at Flower Hill

The spring wind blew gently over Red Flower Hill, carrying with it the fragrance of thousands of petals blooming among the rocky footpaths. It was here, in the place said to be the most beautiful in all of Yanfeng City, that a young man and woman ran with laughter filling every corner of the hill.

The young man was astoundingly handsome. His jaw was sharp, his eyes pitch black like obsidian stone, and his smile was the most dangerous weapon he had ever possessed, though he himself never realized it. His name was Chu Jianqiu, a young cultivator who was once considered talented by not a few people in this city.

Once.

Beside him ran a girl in a pale blue dress fluttering like butterfly wings. Liu Tianyao. Her skin was white like jade, her lips naturally red, and her long black hair occasionally swept by the wind. Any man who had ever seen her would surely turn back for a second glance.

"Jianqiu! Don't run so fast!" she called out while laughing, her voice clear like silver bells.

Chu Jianqiu chuckled and slowed his pace, letting the girl catch up and immediately embrace his arm from behind. He turned, looked at her face up close, and his heart pounded as usual.

'Three years. Three years I have loved her.'

"Sit down first," he said while pointing at a large flat boulder covered in soft moss, right at the cliff's edge with a view of the city below. "I have a surprise for you."

Liu Tianyao pursed her lips playfully, then sat gracefully on the boulder. "A surprise? What surprise?"

The girl's eyes sparkled. At least, that was how it looked to Chu Jianqiu.

The young man smiled broadly. With a movement full of enthusiasm, he reached into his storage pouch and took out a small pill glowing fiery red. The pill shimmered faintly in his grasp, radiating warmth that could even be felt from several steps away.

Liu Tianyao frowned. "This is... a blood burning pill?"

"Correct." Chu Jianqiu nodded firmly.

"I don't," the girl paused for a moment, confusion coloring her face. "I don't need a pill like this, Jianqiu. What for?"

The young man laughed softly, then flicked his finger toward the pill.

"Not for you, Tianyao. This is for me."

Silence for a moment. The wind blew, carrying down a few red flower petals between the two of them.

"For you?" Liu Tianyao repeated the word quietly.

Chu Jianqiu nodded, his eyes shining with conviction. "I read an ancient healing manual three months ago. It was written there that an attack of cold qi as severe as what you suffer can only be completely removed if the healer activates his hot bloodline to several times its normal state." He drew a long breath. "Over these three years, the treatments I performed have never been effective enough. But this time is different. This time I am certain."

The girl looked at him. "But that blood burning pill will injure you."

"It's fine."

"It's fine?" Liu Tianyao raised one eyebrow. "Jianqiu, that pill will..."

"It's fine," the young man repeated more firmly, and his smile widened without the slightest shadow of doubt. "You have suffered long enough. It is time for all of that to end."

Liu Tianyao lowered her head.

Her face was hidden from Chu Jianqiu's view.

And it was there, behind her flowing strands of hair, that a smile slowly bloomed at the corner of her lips. Not a smile of emotion. Not a smile of being moved. But a smile that was cold, thin, and full of calculation, the smile of someone who was watching a plan unfold exactly as she wished.

But Chu Jianqiu did not see that.

He was too busy gazing at the sky, feeling grateful in his heart.

The blood burning pill melted on his tongue like embers.

One breath. Two. Three.

Then the heat crept from his stomach, spreading to his chest, rising to his shoulders, descending to his fingertips. His blood began to boil in his veins. Not ordinary pain. This was like thousands of tiny needles stabbing from within while a furnace blazed inside his chest cavity.

Chu Jianqiu clenched his jaw tightly and did not let out a single groan.

'Must not show weakness in front of her.'

He raised both his hands, placed them on Liu Tianyao's back, and began channeling qi that now blazed like lava. The hot bloodline within him, a rare ability inherited from his ancestors, now spun at a speed he had never reached before, pushed relentlessly by the effects of that cursed pill.

The treatment began.

And this time, it was indeed different.

Within the first few minutes alone, Liu Tianyao was already drawing long breaths. The cold qi that had nested in her meridians for years began to be expelled, pushed out by the waves of heat flowing from Chu Jianqiu's hands. The girl could feel it very clearly, something that had been eating away at her body from within was now beginning to crumble, layer by layer.

Meanwhile, Chu Jianqiu continued to endure.

One hour.

Two hours.

Sweat poured down, soaking his clothes. His face turned pale. His breathing grew shorter. But his hands never shifted from the girl's back.

He thought of these last three years. Of the countless herbs he had searched for from every corner of the city. Of the many sleepless nights he had spent studying healing manuscripts. Of how he had no time at all to train in cultivation, while his peers had now jumped two to three levels above him.

He regretted nothing.

'As long as you are healed, Tianyao. As long as you are healed.'

The third hour.

Chu Jianqiu could barely feel his own body anymore. His qi was nearly depleted. The heat in his blood had drained almost all the reserves of vitality he possessed. Every breath felt like swallowing hot ash.

But it was at that moment that something great happened.

The final cold qi hiding deep within the core of Liu Tianyao's meridians finally shattered, swept away completely by the last wave of heat that Chu Jianqiu slammed through with all his remaining strength.

Done.

The young man slowly withdrew his hands. His body swayed. He nearly fell, but managed to steady himself with one knee touching the ground.

"Tianyao," he called out with a hoarse voice, his breath ragged. "It's... it's gone now. You are free. That cold qi is completely gone."

He lifted his head with great difficulty, waiting for the girl's answer.

And Liu Tianyao rose.

Slowly. Gracefully. Like someone who had just finished resting.

She stood with her back to Chu Jianqiu for several seconds, gazing at the city view below the hill. Her fingers moved slowly to the hilt of the sword at her waist.

Then she turned around.

And Chu Jianqiu saw her face.

There was no warmth there. No tears of gratitude. No gentle smile that for three years had always made him able to bear everything.

There was only coldness. A coldness far more piercing than any cold qi Chu Jianqiu had ever felt in his life.

A thin smile bloomed on Liu Tianyao's lips.

"You have finished your task, Chu Jianqiu," she said with a flat voice, almost casual. Her sword was half drawn from its sheath. "It is better for you to die now."

Silence.

Even the wind seemed to stop blowing.

Chu Jianqiu stared at that girl. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.

His lips moved, but no sound came out.

'What...?'

"Tianyao," he finally managed to utter one word. "What do you mean?"

Liu Tianyao scoffed softly. "My meaning is very clear."

"I just..." his throat tightened. "I just spent three years of my life for you. I just drank a blood burning pill to heal you. I..."

"Yes, yes." The girl waved her hand lazily, as if hearing something not very interesting. "And I am grateful for that. It was indeed very useful to me."

"Useful?"

"Of course." Liu Tianyao looked at him with a gaze that now felt completely foreign, the gaze of someone looking at a tool that was no longer needed. "Did you think I truly loved you, Chu Jianqiu? Did you think a girl like me would be content to be the wife of a young man who cannot even maintain his own cultivation progress?"

Every word landed like a slap.

"Your family is mediocre. Your prospects are nonexistent. And now, after drinking that blood burning pill, your body is ruined and your cultivation can no longer be saved." She tilted her head slightly. "Then what use are you to me?"