My Shijie Seems Intent on Destroying the World – Chapter 11
by Little PandaWhen the Spirit Flowers Bloom
“Your Delusion Will Never Come True”
Mount Qiongju, a realm half-submerged in the clouds, where the Immortal Terrace has hung suspended for thousands of years.
Upon the Immortal Terrace, an array hovered.
Dark golden inscriptions slowly circulated through a pure white sea of clouds, now visible, now hidden, bearing a solemnity like that of the divine, drawing countless disciples to lift their heads and gaze from afar.
Some said the Daoist Venerable was about to achieve a breakthrough.
All seven elders of the sect, along with six direct disciples taken by the Daoist Venerable himself, were to ascend the Immortal Terrace to guard the ritual for him.
“But hasn’t the Heavenly Gate been severed for thousands of years? Even if he breaks through, he still can’t ascend to the Heavenly Realm.”
“Who says he needs to go to the Heavenly Realm? The Heavenly Realm stopped caring whether we live or die long ago. The Daoist Venerable’s heart belongs to the mortal realm. If he truly breaks through to the Heavenly Tribulation Realm and attains supreme divine power, he would certainly choose to remain in the mortal world even if the Heavenly Gate were intact, protecting the common people!”
“That’s true… it’s been five hundred years…” The disciple gazing up at the Immortal Terrace murmured, “The mortal realm is due for new gods.”
Upon the Immortal Terrace, the Daoist Venerable sat at the array’s center.
He wore white robes with sweeping sleeves, his silver hair half-bound with a wooden hairpin, the rest cascading into the mist below.
Though he had lived three thousand years, the Daoist Venerable’s face remained as gentle and flawless as jade, bearing not the slightest trace of time. Only his eyes seemed to have departed the mortal world—pristine, untainted, distant as a sea of stars.
Even the wind and snow parted three zhang around him.
The seven elders and four disciples took their places at the auxiliary positions around the array, their hands forming seals that resonated with the dark golden inscriptions within.
Their expressions were solemn, their gazes slightly lowered, as though awaiting something.
Two people were missing from the array—and one sacrifice.
“Why haven’t Fourth Senior Brother and Ninth Junior Sister arrived yet?”
“Who knows?”
“Those two are so unreliable. They can’t even bring one person here quickly—they’re probably flirting on the way.”
“Doesn’t Fourth Senior Brother like Sixth Senior Sister?”
“Is he really the type to hang himself from a single tree?”
“Don’t let Ninth Junior Sister hear you say that. She’s petty.”
Bored from waiting, several disciples couldn’t resist using secret voice transmission1 to gossip among themselves.
The Daoist Venerable closed his eyes. The wind stilled around them, and the disciples who had been whispering immediately sat up straight, not daring to utter another word.
Truth be told, even without their words, the Daoist Venerable harbored doubts of his own.
What were Ye Wuju and Qingyao doing? It was just bringing one person—how could they be this slow?
Could it be that these two had formed disloyal intentions?
No, impossible…
Mere juniors—even if they truly harbored disloyal intentions, they lacked the ability to steal his prize. No matter how foolish a person might be, they wouldn’t blunder on such a matter.
But if not that, then what was delaying them?
The Daoist Venerable furrowed his brow and formed a seal with one hand, scattering his spiritual power into a thousand gossamer threads that searched downward beneath the Immortal Terrace.
Everyone in the array lowered their gazes, not a single one daring to meet the Daoist Venerable’s authority directly.
He had waited five hundred years for this day.
Nothing could stop him.
The myriad spiritual threads cascaded across the land, winding like vines, and in an instant had shrouded the entire mountain range.
A voice suddenly rang beside his ear.
“Stop looking.”
The Daoist Venerable started and opened his eyes, following the voice.
There, at one corner of the Immortal Terrace, at the auxiliary position that should have been guarded by Ye Wuju, someone was now standing.
She had appeared without a sound—no one had even detected her presence before she spoke.
“Second Senior Sister?!” Someone recognized her at once.
“Why is Second Senior Sister here?”
“Master would never have summoned her…”
Mu Qingshi said coldly, “Today’s matter—the Daoist Venerable did indeed never mention to me.”
“Presumptuous!” Elder Mu froze for an instant, then rose to his feet in fury. “Mu Qingshi! Have you confined yourself in Suihan Hall so long you have forgotten where you are? The Daoist Venerable is on the verge of a breakthrough today—this is no trifling matter! Who permitted you to come here and cause chaos!”
“Elder Mu, don’t be anxious. I’m only here to remind the Daoist Venerable.” Mu Qingshi paused here, then laughed softly. “Ye Wuju and Qingyao won’t be coming.”
The Daoist Venerable’s expression darkened at these words. He drew his scattered spiritual power back into his palm and called out, “Good disciple, what do you mean by this?”
Mu Qingshi swept her gaze over the assembled crowd and answered a different question than the one asked: “This array was originally prepared to sacrifice one person, wasn’t it?”
Silence fell. Expressions shifted.
When no one answered, Mu Qingshi smiled and continued: “We are all of the same sect. Yet you elders, shidi and shimei2—you’ve all been ruthless enough.”
Several elders rose to their feet at these words, about to drive her away, but the Daoist Venerable slowly stood, hands behind his back, and let out a soft laugh.
“Sacrifice?” The Daoist Venerable’s gaze slowly swept across those in the array, his voice grand and righteous. “This venerated one’s3 little disciple possesses a spiritual essence of extraordinary rarity. She should have been the chosen one born to meet the tribulation, yet she was cursed with a congenitally damaged spiritual root, unable to bear such responsibility.”
“Had this venerated one not nourished it with his divine soul for five hundred years, she might not have lived to see this day. How then can you speak of ‘sacrifice’?”
“Now demonic qi has appeared in the world, demon chaos is endless, and the mortal realm has no divine protection—how tragic is that?”
“If sacrificing her alone allows this venerated one to break through to the highest realm and protect the mortal realm from ever suffering demonic invasion again, then today her flesh returns to heaven and earth, her soul merges with the Great Dao—and it is no longer sacrifice, but transformation into all things, joining this venerated one in immortality.”
The Daoist Venerable’s eyes flickered with a glint of compassion as he spoke these words: “This is the highest honor, and her destiny fulfilled.”
The eyes of those in the array seemed to grow more resolute.
Mu Qingshi couldn’t help but laugh. “The Daoist Venerable will stop at nothing for his breakthrough. It makes me wonder—after thousands of years, what is the Dao you truly seek?”
“To protect the common people? Or perhaps…” Her expression turned cold. “To become the sole deity in this mortal realm?”
The Daoist Venerable shook his head, his voice like a sigh: “Mu Qingshi, you truly are obstinate.”
With that, he closed his eyes and raised his hand. The white clouds transformed into a long sword.
When he opened his eyes again, a massive golden Dharma Idol4 had materialized behind him—solemn, majestic, like a deity gazing down upon the entire mortal realm.
“However many selfish desires you harbor, you should not defy the Heavenly Way.”
His voice reverberated between heaven and earth.
A gale rose. Snow filled the sky, surging with the sea of clouds as though to swallow the entire Immortal Terrace.
Mu Qingshi faced that Dharma Idol, sword in hand, standing firm against the wind. She called out in a clear voice: “Does the Daoist Venerable still remember what he did five hundred years ago!”
“…”
“Inverting yin and yang, reversing the array—slaughtering demons first, then slaying gods.”
A flicker of surprise crossed the Daoist Venerable’s eyes.
“The Heavenly Way you speak of is nothing more than deceiving heaven to cross the sea.” Mu Qingshi’s lips curved into a faint smile. “Now you shall taste the same.”
As her words fell, Mu Qingshi summoned Chunsheng and pointed with one hand. The long sword flew into the empty auxiliary position beside her.
She gathered spiritual power in both hands and formed seals, instantly activating the entire array.
Before anyone in the array could react, they found themselves bound fast to their respective array nodes by an unseen force, their spiritual power draining from their bodies like water, pouring involuntarily toward the center of the array.
“The array has been tampered with!” Someone cried out in alarm.
It was too late. All the spiritual power surged toward Chunsheng in that single instant.
Everyone screamed in agony, as though every inch of their flesh was being wrung dry.
In mere moments, the sky had darkened. The sea of clouds turned to black smoke, completely swallowing that solemn Dharma Idol.
The Daoist Venerable was forced to his knees by the reversed array, bloodshot eyes staring in disbelief at everything before him.
Mu Qingshi formed seals once more. All the spiritual power that Chunsheng had absorbed vanished in that instant.
After a brief silence, a pillar of blinding heavenly light suddenly flared on the distant horizon.
“The Forbidden Back Mountain…” The Daoist Venerable’s voice trembled despite himself. “Mu Qingshi!! What are you doing!!!”
He stared fixedly at the disciple he had once cherished most, wishing he could tear her to pieces.
Mu Qingshi swept her sleeve and dispersed the array beneath her feet. An inky black longsword flew from the back mountain and landed in her hand.
She glanced down at it, then slashed her palm with the blade’s edge to awaken it.
In an instant, sword qi cascaded forth, and thunder shook the heavens.
Every person struggling to flee the Immortal Terrace was consumed to the bone and soul by the scattering sword qi.
Only the Daoist Venerable clung to a sliver of life.
His immortal bearing was gone—only endless terror remained in his eyes.
Mu Qingshi cast him a glance, then turned with sword in hand and walked toward him with unhurried steps.
“I suppose I should thank you for nourishing that spiritual flower for me for five hundred years.”
“You’ve gone mad…” The Daoist Venerable’s voice was hoarse.
“This sword is called Powang5.”
“Mu Qingshi, you’ve gone mad!” He roared. “You can’t suppress it!!”
“Daoist Venerable?” Mu Qingshi shook her head, her expression glacial. “I remember the name you once held.”
“Fu Qingsong—” She spoke the name softly. “Your delusion will never come true.”
As the long sword descended, there was not a trace of emotion in her eyes.
SPACE LINE
Another sudden palpitation gripped her chest. Qi Zhi’s eyes flew open.
Her heart was racing. Her breath came heavy and stifled, accompanied by a dizziness and nausea she couldn’t exhale.
It was as if something were silently tugging at her very soul.
The bamboo wind chime outside her window rang softly. She pressed a hand to her chest, listening to the chime’s sound, controlling and slowing her breathing.
She didn’t know how long it took before that strange discomfort finally faded.
Qi Zhi leapt from the bed, pushed open the window, and glanced outside.
Beyond the window lay an unnatural gloom. Dark clouds drifted sparsely across the sky. The light was neither day nor night. In the distance, thunder rolled without rain, and on the horizon hung a moon swallowed by darkness until only a ring of halo remained… um, a moon?
This moon was terrifyingly large—just one glance sent chills across her entire body.
Am I dreaming?
Qi Zhi tilted her head and stared blankly for a long while, then cautiously pushed open the other door and peeked half her head out.
That single glimpse terrified her so badly she scrambled back to the bed.
Fourth Senior Brother… Ninth Senior Sister…
Both… both lying in her courtyard, drenched in blood… Fourth Senior Brother’s body was even dismembered…
What had happened? Wasn’t Master summoning her?
Why had she suddenly fallen asleep? Why had the outside turned into this?
Qi Zhi clutched her quilt, curling up in the corner of the bed, staring blankly as she tried to process everything for a long time.
Her preliminary assessment: she’d opened her eyes wrong. She must still be dreaming.
So she crawled back under the covers and began repeatedly trying the close-eyes-open-eyes method.
After quite some time of opening and closing her eyes, the sky outside remained eerily strange.
“Could it not be a dream?”
Qi Zhi blinked, pinched the skin on the back of her hand hard, and yelped “Ow!”—jolting fully awake.
She scrambled to dig out the Facing Mirror from beneath her pillow, channeling a thread of spiritual power from her fingertip, wanting to call for help.
But before she could speak, the mirror showed no image—only sound.
It was scream after scream of terror and agony, countless voices of rage and curses.
Qi Zhi’s mind went blank, her gaze turning vacant.
The moment the spiritual power at her fingertip was severed, she flung the mirror as far away as she could. All that echoed in her ears was that one sentence—
Your delusion will never come true.
The mirror’s surface shattered on impact, and the flowers throughout the room slowly withered.
Qi Zhi scrambled to her feet, desperate to leave this place. She had barely frowned and stepped past the two corpses when a bizarre, massive bird dropped from the sky, blocking the not-so-large courtyard gate completely.
Its pair of tiger claws hung before it, dripping with blood. Its crimson eyes watched her with an eerie glow.
“You can’t go out, you know.”
Its voice was like a little girl’s, yet carried a tone like someone coaxing a child.
Qi Zhi shuddered and silently retreated back into the room, pulling her knees to her chest and curling up in the corner of the bed.
She watched the strange bird fly toward the windowsill, its massive form shrinking in an instant to a fraction of its size, until it became the Ah Yun she knew best, perching steadily on the windowsill.
She thought she was probably going to die…
The flower Mu-shijie6 loved most… seemed to be her spiritual root.
She was just a little blade of grass. If someone desired something of hers, whether to give it or keep it was naturally not hers to decide.
She didn’t know what Master’s delusion had been, but she knew that in that instant, her own delusion had been severed by her shijie as well.
Thunder rumbled outside the window. Blood-red hues gradually thickened among the clouds. Qi Zhi clutched her quilt, huddled quietly in the corner of the bed, and waited in inexplicable calm for a very, very long time.
Until the sky outside gradually brightened, and Mu Qingshi pushed open the door and entered—white robes stained with blood—walking slowly to her side.
Qi Zhi shrank her neck and squeezed her eyes shut.
Mu Qingshi looked at the withered flowers filling the room. She lowered her gaze and conjured a jade hairpin from her fingertips, then leaned down and gently pinned it into the girl’s somewhat disheveled hair.
The flower bud was small and slender, half-hidden among her ink-black hair, inconspicuous.
“Shimei, this is my gift to you.” Her fingertips brushed past the bud, moving to the side, gently stroking Qi Zhi’s long hair. “From now on, you may do whatever you wish and go wherever you please…”
“No one will ever bully you again.”
The author has something to say:
Qi Zhi: Huh?
Footnotes
- A cultivation technique for private mental communication, invisible and inaudible to outsiders.
- Pinyin martial sibling terms: shidi (师弟) means martial junior brother and shimei (师妹) means martial junior sister—forms of address between disciples of the same sect.
- A self-referential form used by elite cultivators, particularly sect leaders. The original term 本尊 conveys supreme authority and spiritual elevation.
- A Dharma Idol (法相) is a giant spiritual manifestation projected by high-level cultivators, embodying their cultivated power during battle or ritual.
- Powang (破妄) means 'Delusion Breaker' or 'Dispeller of Delusions'.
- Pinyin for 师姐, meaning martial senior sister—a term of address for female disciples of higher seniority within the same sect.
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