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Chapter 25 - The Body Rewritten, The World Condemns

The seasons turned like pages in a book he could no longer read.

Spring brought blossoms of pear and apricot, but to Ningxue, their fragrance was no more than a wisp, a fading dream. Summer burned with long days and buzzing cicadas, yet he shivered even beneath the scorching sun. Autumn winds carried the scent of harvested grain, but in his courtyard, the air was thick with bitter medicines and rotting herbs. Winter snow piled upon the tiled roofs of the sect, crystalline and pure—yet he burned the whole mountain's firewood just to survive a single night.

Years passed in this suffocating cycle.

He consumed elixir after elixir—fiery yang pills, blood-boiling herbs, marrow essence of beasts, treasures pulled from secret realms. All were consumed. All turned to nothing.

No flame could melt the cold in his marrow. No sun could pierce the shadow wrapped around his bones. His Immortal Spirit strained ceaselessly to balance the Yin Furnace that cursed his existence, but its glow dimmed with each passing year.

The sect began to whisper.

At first, it was concern—gentle voices wrapped in hope."Senior Brother Ningxue only needs time.""The Elders will surely find a way."

But hope curdled into disdain."He devours resources like a bottomless pit.""What genius? He is a parasite."

Even the servants who once bowed with respect now averted their eyes. Their greetings dulled to shallow nods. Meals arrived cold. Bedsheets unwashed. Corridors silent. Admiration had become suffocating indifference.

The rot spread further.

His father, Ning Tianlei, once a respected Elder of the sect, was stripped of his position. "Favoritism," they accused. "Wasting sect resources on his crippled son." Salaries halved. Retainers fled. Their bustling courtyard shrank into barren silence. The Ning name, once proud, had become a burden.

And Ningxue felt every moment of it.

The longer Yin lingered, the sharper it grew. It coiled around his veins, sank into his spirit, froze the last warmth in his dantian. His body became a furnace of winter itself, swallowing all that touched it. Without yang flame, even the Immortal Spirit faltered.

Then, one night, it broke.

The moon hung full and silver, spilling pale light into his courtyard. Ningxue trembled in meditation. His Immortal Spirit flickered like a candle in a storm. In desperation, it made its final, irreversible choice.

The last remnants of yang buried deep in his body were transmuted into Yin.

The transformation was agony beyond measure.

A scream erupted from him—not merely human, but the rending of soul and marrow. Frost exploded outward. Tiles shattered. Trees withered. Pillars split under sudden ice.

Servants dropped their trays and fled. Some swore they heard weeping voices in the night wind, as if unseen spirits answered him.

Disciples stirred from cultivation, alarmed. Elders frowned in distant halls. Even the outer sect felt the suffocating chill spreading from Ningxue's home.

His cry did not sound like a young genius.

It was the birth-cry of a devil.

The courtyard turned wasteland—frost-bitten tiles, broken trees, cracked walls. Ghostly wails lingered in the air, spirits gathering to his torment.

When silence fell, Ningxue opened his eyes—and realized something dreadful. He no longer felt the warmth of life. His veins flowed with shadow. His flesh was a vessel for death.

He staggered to a mirror. What gazed back was not the youth who once bore the clan's pride.

His frame had softened. Shoulders narrowed. Limbs slender. Skin pale to translucence. His hair shimmered like silver frost. His features, delicate and haunting, belonged not to a man, but to a woman—ethereal beauty carved of sorrow and moonlight.

Behind those wet eyes burned not hope, but hollow despair.

From that night, Ningxue slid into Hell.

He scoured forbidden texts, half-burned scrolls, condemned scriptures. Ghost cultivation. Arts of nurturing life through death. Of burning yin to devour yang.

In the margin of one scroll was written:"Those denied by fate must gamble their soul upon the forbidden road."

Ningxue's lips trembled as he traced the line.

From that night onward, he no longer walked the orthodox path. His Yin Furnace became an unholy vessel. His body, neither wholly man nor woman, was too yin for life, too void for warmth.

And so, with no road left, he stepped into taboo.

Elixirs failed. Pills froze into powder. Yet when his trembling fingers brushed the flame of a lantern and heat seeped into him, his lips curved into a broken smile.

Alone in the courtyard, surrounded by ghost mist, hair loose, eyes hollow—spirits circled him, whispering madness and promises. His cultivation no longer rose by heaven's blessing, but through shadows and the forbidden. His aura grew ghostly, unclean.

His first prey was an outer sect disciple who had long tormented him—a youth brimming with yang vitality. Lured by Ningxue's feigned weakness and uncanny new beauty, the disciple entered his frost-bitten courtyard.

There, shadows moved. Ningxue's hand pressed cold against the youth's chest. His lips moved in forbidden incantation. Yin surged out.

The disciple screamed, body convulsing. From his chest, golden yang qi rose like smoke, drawn into Ningxue's palm, his marrow freezing, his skin shriveling.

When the corpse fell, brittle as paper, Ningxue gasped—not in horror, but in trembling exhilaration. For the first time in years, a flicker of warmth stirred in his dantian.

Thus began his descent.

Each night, another figure vanished. At dawn, withered corpses surfaced—blood drained, yang essence devoured. Rumors spread of a demon haunting the sect, feeding on disciples. Elders debated in low voices, searching in vain.

No one suspected Ningxue. Not yet.

Only Ning Tianlei, kneeling outside the frozen courtyard, beard crusted with frost, tears frozen on his cheeks, suspected. His hands pressed to the door, but he did not enter.

He could not bear to see what his son had become.

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