I Was the Sun Before I Became an Immortal

Heishan was still savoring the taste of that roasted chicken when he heard the words and immediately stood up.

"Let's go!" he said — he never minded watching a good show.

The three of them settled the bill and walked out of Zuixian Lou.

At the street corner, Si Chen casually stopped a middle-aged man who looked like a local cultivator.

"Fellow Daoist, could you tell me how to get to the Liuyun Sword Sect?"

The cultivator had been walking with his head down in a hurry. Being stopped made a flash of impatience cross his face, and without even looking up, he waved his hand dismissively. "Why is someone else asking? I already said there's nothing left over there now — ugh..."

He trailed off mid-sentence and finally raised his head. His gaze swept over Si Chen, then landed on the two men behind him — both radiating a dense, oppressive aura with piercing eyes — and his heart gave a sudden lurch.

He couldn't see through any of these three!

A polite smile immediately spread across his face, and his tone became considerably more respectful. "Senior, it's about thirty miles west of town. However, Senior, I'm afraid you'd be making a wasted trip. That place... sigh, it's nothing like the Liuyun Sword Sect it used to be."

"Oh?" Si Chen looked at him calmly.

The man hastily added, "Not long after news came back that Sect Master Lü and several Elders had met with misfortune at Wanji Mountain, their old enemies came knocking. Everything that could be taken or looted was stripped clean long ago. There's nothing worth seeing there now."

"No matter. We're just going to take a look." Si Chen said, casually producing a few low-grade Spirit Stones and handing them over. "Thank you for the directions."

The cultivator was momentarily stunned. He took the Spirit Stones, weighed them in his hand, and his face instantly broke into a beaming smile. "Oh my! Senior is far too generous! If you're going to enjoy the scenery, the landscape there is actually quite lovely! I wish Senior a smooth journey!"

Once they left Luoxia Town, thirty miles was nothing more than a brief moment for the three of them.

From a distance, a stretch of rolling mountain ranges came into view. Among them, the silhouette of pavilions and towers could be faintly made out on one main peak — yet...

Just as the cultivator had said, the Liuyun Sword Sect, which still appeared rather grand from afar, now exuded an air of ruin and desolation.

Looking more carefully, the sect's gate seemed to have half-collapsed, with scorched black marks left by magical bombardment still visible on its surface.

Many of the stone steps leading up the mountain were overgrown with weeds, long since untended — a scene of utter bleakness.

"Tsk, tsk. When the tree falls, the monkeys scatter," Heishan clicked his tongue and swaggered along at the front.

Hardly any figures could be seen along the way. The occasional one or two disciples still wearing Liuyun Sword Sect robes moved in hurried, anxious steps, their cultivation bases pitifully weak.

Upon spotting Si Chen's unfamiliar group of three, rather than stepping forward to question them, they shrank away from a distance.

With the sect's high-level combat power entirely wiped out at Dragon's Fall, their old enemies had naturally seized the opportunity.

All resources that could be taken had been taken. Disciples with talent and connections had long since found other paths. Those who remained now were nothing more than a handful of mediocre cultivators with nowhere to go, or old-timers too attached to the sect to leave, choosing instead to guard its ruins.

The moment they reached the foot of the mountain, Si Chen's gaze was drawn to a particular path.

It was an extraordinarily long stone stairway, stretching endlessly upward from the mountain's base all the way to the mist-shrouded gate above — so long the top could not be seen at a glance.

"The Cloud-Ascending Stairway: nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine steps. A trial of will and aptitude. Those who reach the summit may enter the Outer Sect."

On a tilted stone stele nearby, the characters were still faintly legible. This was likely the method the Liuyun Sword Sect had once used to screen disciples.

It was Si Chen's first time seeing something like this, and he found it rather novel.

"What's the point of this thing?" Heishan leaned over, glanced at the stele, and curled his lip in contempt. "Any little demon that's just awakened its intelligence could hop up there in no time. A trial? Who are they trying to fool?"

Chifeng also glanced over but said nothing, though his expression conveyed much the same sentiment as Heishan's.

Si Chen paid no mind to Heishan's grumbling and stepped onto the first stone step.

It felt no different from an ordinary stair.

He walked upward step by step. Gradually, a faint pressure began to build — so subtle that one would barely notice it without careful attention.

Heishan and Chifeng exchanged a glance, then had no choice but to follow.

Si Chen walked unhurriedly, as though absorbing the lingering traces of a sect's past that clung to the stone steps.

When he reached roughly one-third of the way up, his footsteps paused slightly.

Ahead, a figure was struggling to climb upward.

As the distance closed, he could clearly see that the young man's back was completely soaked through with sweat, and with every step he raised his leg, his body trembled faintly.

Yet even so, his feet did not stop.

One step. Then another.

The three of them quickly caught up to him.

Hearing footsteps behind him, the young man's body stiffened slightly. He instinctively shifted to the side, head lowered, his expression hidden.

A sect that had clearly lost all hope. A stone stairway that even a low-ranked demon beast could scale with ease. A young man of pitifully weak cultivation who looked ready to collapse at any moment...

Why was he still pushing himself so desperately?

"The Liuyun Sword Sect has come to this. Why are you still climbing?" Si Chen asked directly — not with mockery, only genuine puzzlement.

The young man's steps faltered, but he did not stop. He bit down hard and forced himself to take another step upward.

Heishan watched from the side, rolling his eyes dramatically, and couldn't help cutting in. "Seriously, kid — are you stupid? Look at this dump! There's barely a decent person left here. What are you even climbing for? You'd be better off finding a hillside to dig for wild vegetables!"

That struck a nerve, because the young man had literally been digging wild vegetables before this.

He spun around sharply, revealing a face smeared with dust and grime.

"What do you know! If Heaven had not given birth to me, Li Tiezhu, the path of the sword would have been an eternal night! Today you look down on me — tomorrow you will live to regret it! Heaven's way is unjust? Then I shall defy Heaven itself! Fate toys with me? Then I shall rewrite my fate! If one day I become an Immortal Emperor, I will make all the Myriad Worlds understand what it means — Never! Look! Down! On! A! Poor! Youth!"

Si Chen: "..."

Heishan: "..."

Chifeng: "..."

All three were left completely dumbfounded by this sudden outburst.

Heishan's jaw dropped wide open. After a long moment he finally closed it, scratched his head, and muttered, "Those words... why do they hit so... pungently?"

The young man, however, took no notice of their bewildered expressions and remained immersed in his own world.

"Heaven's way turns in cycles — who has Heaven ever spared? Today I, Li Tiezhu, am fallen and destitute, but one day I will surely..."

He never finished the sentence. His breath gave out, his vision went dark, and he was on the verge of toppling over.

Si Chen reached out and caught him.

Beneath his hand, the young man's arm was thin and trembling faintly.

"One day you will surely — what?" Si Chen looked at him, genuinely caught up in the story, and pressed for more.

The young man steadied himself against Si Chen's arm. The grand momentum of his impassioned speech suddenly deflated like a punctured balloon, and he couldn't find the words to continue.

His face flushed red, and he muttered quietly, "One day... one day I'll say it then... anyway, right now I just have to climb up there."

Heishan couldn't help but roll his eyes enormously. He was fairly certain this kid had something wrong with his head.

Chifeng simply turned his face away, unable to bear watching.

Si Chen saw how badly the young man was shaking and assumed he had simply run out of energy from hunger.

So he reached into his Storage Ring, pulled out a meat bun he had packed earlier — still warm — and held it out.

"Here."

Li Tiezhu stared at the meat bun suddenly thrust before him and froze.

In all his years, this was the first time anyone had listened to him say those things without laughing at him, without sneering at him — and instead... given him a meat bun.

In the past, people had either thought him mad or cursed him for a toad dreaming of eating swan meat.

But this young man of clearly exceptional bearing had not only listened to the end, but wanted to hear more — and now was giving him food...

An indescribable warmth surged up in his chest. His nose began to sting.

He took the bun, his voice catching slightly. "Thank you... thank you."

Li Tiezhu could hold back no longer. He bit into it ravenously, swallowing the bun in just a few mouthfuls, and felt some strength return to his body.

Seeing that Li Tiezhu seemed a little more spirited after eating, Si Chen did not linger further.

"We'll head up first." He said his farewell and continued up the stone steps with Heishan and Chifeng, their figures quickly vanishing into the mist.

Li Tiezhu stood where he was, the warmth and fragrance of the bun seeming to linger still in his hand.

He stared blankly in the direction Si Chen had gone, a single thought churning in his heart:

That young man — what a good person!

He licked the last traces of grease from his fingers, then drew a deep breath and once again lifted his heavy legs, climbing upward.

This time, there seemed to be just a little more resolve in his eyes than before.

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