Chapter 73: Old Memories.

“Ugh…” Xie Qiyang rubbed her throbbing temples, feeling like her brain had been churned into mush.

The endless white stretched to the gray horizon, chilling her to the core.

In her past life, she was a “triple-dizzy” mess—carsick, seasick, airsick. Who’d have thought, even as a cultivator, a lousy teleport would leave her this queasy?

Right before landing, she’d even entertained a “might as well crash and be done with it” thought—that’s how miserable it was.

“Huh? Wait… where am I?” Rubbing her head, she froze, confused.

One second, she was free-falling toward the snowy ground; the next, after a blink, she was… lying in a ramshackle wooden shack?

The place was so barren it’d make a mouse cry. Just a hard plank bed—nothing else. No furniture, no trace of life.

“When did I get here?” She racked her brain, recalling only blacking out from the dizziness, waking up here.

Outside, winds howled like wailing ghosts, rattling the shack, threatening to make the roof vanish.

Oddly, Xie Qiyang didn’t feel cold. Her body felt… at ease, like a fish in water. The chilly Lunar energy in her surged eagerly, while her hard-earned Solar energy… wilted, like it was starving.

“Something’s off!” With a thought, she tried summoning her Lunar energy.

Pfft~

Chill condensed in the air, and… a tiny, crystal-clear ice cone, the size of a fingernail, wobbled at her fingertip.

Cute? Sure. But this thing was too small to even trim a mosquito’s nails!

“Where’s my cultivation?!” Her eyes nearly popped out. This ice cone was the most basic Lunar technique—even a First Realm newbie wouldn’t produce something this pathetic.

Worse…

Grrrr… Her stomach roared, a deafening protest. She was hungry.

Starving, like her stomach was glued to her spine.

Since reaching the Acquired Realm, she’d ditched mortal food, sustaining herself on spiritual energy like photosynthesis. Now, she was ravenous like a mortal, eyes glowing green?!

She hurriedly checked her inner state—her introspection barely worked—and was horrified: despite the thick ambient Yin energy, her body absorbed it at a snail’s pace. Her Solar energy? Dead, playing possum.

“Did I… drop back to square one? A mortal again?!”

She stared at her smaller, paler, weaker hands, dumbfounded.

This dungeon was toxic! Shouldn’t she be looting treasures or chasing legacies? Why start by nerfing her to a level-zero noob?!

This Nether Ancient Realm had no honor—her system panel’s “Realm” slot now screamed a glaring, eye-searing “Mortal (Uncultivated).”

“What a scam!” Xie Qiyang wailed, clutching the thin, tattered blanket.

Not for warmth—she was just so hungry she needed comfort. Scanning the empty “newbie spawn point,” there wasn’t even a table leg to gnaw on—just that creaky bed!

Outside, the blizzard shrieked. She flopped back, listening to her stomach’s opera, praying for dawn or a pie to fall from the sky.

After what felt like a century, a faint light seeped through the shack’s cracks.

Dawn, maybe?

Then—

“Zhang! Are you sneaking food to that little hussy next door again?! We’re almost out of winter rations—what about Yu’er? Want us to starve, you jerk?!”

A shrill woman’s voice pierced the storm.

“Keep it down! She’s a sick girl, alone—what’s wrong with sparing a bit? I’ll risk another trip to the village tomorrow!” a weary man’s voice shot back.

The rest of the argument was muffled by the wind, but Xie Qiyang caught the gist: a couple’s spat, the husband “charitably” aiding a sickly neighbor girl? This plot… felt familiar.

“Could it be… I’m living the childhood of the Nether Ancient Heavenly Venerate?” Xie Qiyang mused. Was this illusion making her reenact the Venerate’s early life?

As she pondered, the creaky door squeaked open.

A scruffy, weather-beaten young man with kind eyes poked his head in, holding something, his voice warm with concern. “Ningshuang, starving, huh? Big Bro brought you food.”

Ningshuang? Me?!

Xie Qiyang’s brain short-circuited. Jiang Ningshuang? This illusion didn’t just hand her a script—it auto-renamed her after the Venerate?!

But… this man felt oddly familiar.

Big Bro?

She scoured Jiang Ningshuang’s memories for clues, but it got weirder.

Before age ten, her memories were a blank slate, like a wiped drive.

After ten? As the Jiang Clan’s once-in-a-millennium Lunar Sacred Body, their hope, she should’ve been pampered, drowning in resources, elders fighting to mentor her.

But in her memories? She was just an ordinary Jiang kid, living a plain life with “average” clan-leader parents.

Only those without cultivation talent, stuck managing minor clan businesses, showed her respect. Higher-ups treated her lukewarmly.

Her parents were indifferent, only solemn when handing her a cultivation manual: “Good girl, practice this. Focus, don’t waste your talent.”

Then… nothing. No joy, no sorrow—just bland neutrality.

Her high-realm uncles and aunts? They’d just awkwardly praise her: “Our Jiang Clan’s future empress, gifted, self-taught! Comprehend it yourself—that’s true mastery!” Guidance? Nope.

Now that she thought about it… was this normal?! Xie Qiyang’s inner monologue went wild. Back when she first accessed these memories, as a former mortal, she hadn’t questioned it.

But now? Other prodigies got clan-wide support, secret arts, and personal tutors. Jiang Ningshuang? Left to “self-comprehend” in a free-range upbringing?

She recalled Ye Zhuxian saying she’d practiced the wrong technique, missing her prime foundation-building years.

Was she… adopted by the Jiang Clan? Why else the cold shoulder?

Her stomach growled louder as the “weathered” man offered food.

Whatever—eat first! Food’s the priority!

She reached out her small hand for the “relief rations.”