Gu Er had often dreamed of Gu Yi starving to death at home due to his laziness and lack of physical labor since arriving at the Twenty-Eight Heavens' Void Gate from the mortal realm.
Or perhaps Gu Yi would be so annoying from bothering cats and dogs that he'd be thrown in jail, left to freeze and be bullied. In any case, in his imagination, Gu Yi couldn't fare well without him.
However, as soon as he recalled what had happened back then, his heart still felt choked with anguish.
Years ago, immortals from the Void Gate had descended to the mortal realm to search for a lost treasure of great importance to them.
After a roundabout search, they had inquired in his impoverished village and eventually reached him.
One Nascent Soul cultivator, upon seeing his articulate and appropriate responses, took an interest in testing his physique. He discovered Gu Er's excellent potential and asked if he wished to become his disciple and cultivate immortality.
Gu Er was overjoyed, as if a pie had fallen from the sky.
He certainly did.
Even in their remote and impoverished mountain village, people knew that above the imperial powers and nobility in the mortal world, there were higher cultivators. Becoming an immortal, one who lives as long as heaven, and possessing the divine abilities to move mountains and fill seas, this was what mortals truly yearned for.
However, upon thinking of Gu Yi, Gu Er calmed down. Despite his fervent desire and excitement, he did not immediately agree.
He mentioned he had an elder sister. The people from the Void Gate thought she might also be a promising candidate, but upon examination, she turned out to be a waste with a constitution that lacked even a spiritual root.
Gu Er was disappointed and internally conflicted upon learning that Gu Yi could not cultivate.
But after careful consideration, he decided to give up as well.
What he never could have imagined was that the sister he was willing to sacrifice everything for, even content to feed her with huskgrains and wild vegetables, would, that very night, stand by his bedside with a dark and sharp wood-chopping knife, intending to kill him.
Her trembling voice, unable to conceal her jealousy and hatred, said, "Gu Er, why should you get to cultivate immortality while I cannot? Since you're going to abandon me, you might as well just die here!"
Gu Er hadn't been asleep, his mind preoccupied with too many things. He narrowly dodged the swing of the knife and turned to look at her with a pair of shattered, tear-filled eyes that were nevertheless as sharp and fierce as a snow wolf's.
"Gu Yi!"
The boy's indignant shout, before his voice had even changed, was like the fierce whimpers of a puppy being kicked by a human.
From then on, he no longer called her "sister," because she was unworthy!
And he would probably never forget her heart-piercing words.
Seeing him awake, Gu Yi's face turned ashen. With a clang, she dropped the knife and turned to flee.
At that moment, he truly hated her with all his might!
But the more hatred he showed, the more tears streamed from his eyes.
He had decided to stay for her, only to discover she was utterly unworthy.
She was truly ungrateful!
In the end, he chose to leave with the people from the Void Gate without looking back.
However, as time passed, his resentment and hatred gradually faded. Since he had always been the one to bear more responsibility from a young age, he often found himself acting like a mature elder towards Gu Yi, always finding excuses to understand and forgive her mistakes.
Mainly because he kept having nightmares.
Later, he made peace with his inner conflict. He ultimately couldn't stop worrying about her, so he planned to bring her up, grit his teeth, and somehow take care of her for the rest of her life.
But she was a mortal with no cultivation. If she ascended to the highly dangerous Twenty-Eight Heavens, he feared she might die accidentally if he wasn't careful enough to watch over her.
Just then, he inadvertently learned about the "Nirvana Pearl."
In order to live together with Gu Yi, he spent nearly a year gathering information and steadily working towards his goal. He eventually infiltrated the disciple team responsible for delivering the "Newcomer Rankings" to other heavenly layers.
Initially, Gu Er did not know that the "Nirvana Pearl" could not be used on living beings.
He successfully stole the "Nirvana Pearl" from the coffin in Daoist Du Sheng's tomb. However, he didn't realize that Tian Yi, who had been following him, witnessed the entire event.
Gu Er knew that Senior Brother Tian Yi possessed the "Eye of Insight." Fearing that the hard-won "Nirvana Pearl" would be snatched away, he panicked and, enveloping the pearl with spiritual energy, swallowed it, intending to dig it out of his stomach with a knife after he had deceived everyone.
It must be said that Gu Chuhao and Gu Junshi were quite the siblings in some aspects.
Both were ruthless when it came to achieving their goals!
He believed that the "Nirvana Pearl" was not a pill and would not dissolve or lose its efficacy if ingested.
However, he did not expect that the moment it entered his throat, the spiritual energy enveloping the pearl would dissipate.
The pearl, which was pure white and resembled a moist pearl, turned dark green upon entering his body. Numerous filament-like glands grew on its surface, piercing into his flesh and blood.
Gu Er was unaware that it had caused a mutation in him, transforming him into a red-eyed, pale-faced, black-lipped monster.
Upon seeing his terrifying appearance, his fellow disciples from the Void Gate who arrived were horrified and fearful, claiming he was possessed by a demon.
At this point, Gu Er was still lucid. He tried to explain to them repeatedly, denying that he was a demon.
But not a single one of his fellow disciples, with whom he had spent his days, was willing to believe him.
Ultimately, he was killed, and Tian Yi even disemboweled him to retrieve the "Nirvana Pearl."
He couldn't clearly recall what happened afterward. All he knew was that Tian Yi, for some unknown reason, also swallowed the "Nirvana Pearl," and subsequently, he also mutated.
Gu Er's soul, along with the "Nirvana Pearl," entered Tian Yi's body. Later, Gu Junshi summoned souls, and his soul was summoned forth from the "Nirvana Pearl."
The entire sequence of events sounds convoluted and bizarre, but in reality, it becomes less surprising once one understands what the "Nirvana Pearl" truly is.
The "Nirvana Pearl" is also known as the Netherworld Pearl, an item originally from the Netherworld.
A thousand years ago, when Daoist Du Sheng served as a soul messenger, he could only interact with all kinds of Yin spirits and ghosts, much like a ghost cultivator, by wearing this item.
It is an object of extreme Yin. Placing it in a decaying corpse can preserve it unchanged for ten thousand years. However, once it enters a living body, it devours the person's Yang energy and the seven Yang souls, leaving only the Yin soul. When the Yang energy and seven souls are gone, the person can no longer be called human.
Instead, they are commonly known as a "jiangshi."
After listening to Gu Er's explanation of the "Nirvana Pearl," Gu Er finally understood that he had been drained of his Yang energy and seven souls, becoming a jiangshi. He scratched his face and asked, "Then, I am dead now, but I can move and think. What does this make me?"
After Gu Junshi listened to his past story with the original Gu Yi, the "karma" of the Heavenly Dao arrived with great haste.
She was now Gu Yi, and the karma between the cannon-fodder siblings, Gu Yi and Gu Er, was directly imposed upon her by the arbitration of the Heavenly Dao.
But was she the kind of person to submit to destiny?