Reincarnation of the Totem

hello everyone, its cloud77 here. i have been serializing " reincarnation of the totem" for a year now. the work went on hiatus for a long time, but in the meanwhile i have been doing major editing to it. after editing it for some while, i found many plot holes, description and detail mismatch, in summary, a whole bunch of things that needed fixing. i started rewriting it and found that chapters were not aligning to their previous order any more, and needed completely new content order. many plots were added, new characters were fleshed out and some past plot-lines were completely given up. in the end, it wouldn't be wrong to say that it has turned out to be a completely new story, but even then not too unfamiliar. the major settings remains the same. 

just like read this recent piece -

[[["Plop!"

Water. Cold and biting stung her. It was a torture to endure!

"Why? Why should I endure this? Why? Why-Why-Why this fate? Why only me? No, I won't accept this!"

Someone had fallen into the pond - she was drowning. No one came to rescue. At the moment of fall, waves after waves washed up to the shore furiously, but soon all the rippled waves and tremors over the pond's black surface silently settled down like a tossed piece of pebble. The previous silence gripped the scene at chokehold, stifling it as before. It wasn't until a full fifteen minutes later that a pair of bony hands broke the pond's stillness again. 

A figure frantically broke through, came out panting and gasping for life. Her white hands pierced through the black waters, a head arose first then her shoulders emerged and then her nose emerged, choking over a mouthful of dirty water - all while frantically wading to stay afloat. Haggard and desperate, she remained engrossed in that heady adrenaline of having survived, panting for breath, then choking horrifically over it, and then gasping and panting some more while still pushing forward through the dark waters towards the shore. In a few minutes her white hands clenched the grasses over the pond's shore and forced herself out. This brusqueness abruptly ended as she toppled over as if the last bit of protest had stifled out.

Kneeling, Wei Ziya let out a silent cry. No sound came through her strangled neck, yet her eyes were round and hazy and desperately roving in their places - forced to engorge, as the pupils dilated and wavered. Her whimpers finally reached her mouth and then like the most horrific song of a dying bird, her lips trembled and let out a cry. And what a cry it was - like a deer's last breath at approaching death. And then, she kept crying…crying her heart out. She knew not why but she cried and kept crying.

When the sound of her desperate crying ceased it was a long, long while later. Tears still dribbled down warming her cold cheeks, her throat now sore like a piece of sandpaper rubbing together. Having vented much of her helplessness, Wei Ziya lay sprawled on her back gazing upward for an unknown amount of time.

Wei Ziya knew. Tonight she had got a bargain, she had saved herself. She had escaped a fatal point in her life. In her previous life - she remained undiscovered in that pond till the next morning, and when she was finally rescued it was not herself. She, no more than a dying soul, was easily replaced by that woman.

She took away her body, took her name and used it as her own. She still remembered those seemingly parting words - "Don't worry over your karmas. I will take care of your family in your place and cherish them as you would have. Please go worriless on your journey to the netherworld." 

But Wei Ziya hadn't died completely. She couldn't just go off to some netherworld on her own. She helplessly kept struggling on the verge of death, watching that alien soul pretend to be her. Watched her lie, kill and set fire to all things she loved! 

"Ha! What a Heaven's daughter-!" Wei Ziya recoiled aloud. "All along it was her. Or else, who could be this lucky? That famed shell of heaven's daughter…it was me. A soul reborn in fire, they called her, and what about me? That forgotten shell that was replaced by another occupier? Who could have thought-?" 

Heaven's children. The blessing of any world - no, a curse if someone asked her! If one was lucky to be born in years of heroes and heroines, they could achieve anything! Become like those supporting characters in a tale and go all the way to ascension, or be like those pitiable cannon-fodders, dying the most ignoble deaths! Juxtapose with that, if someone fell into enmity with them - his only end could be death. As if the world was a piece of a bard's tale - and everyone else just puppets, waiting to bow down under the light of those heaven's children. Only they were humans, everyone else a mere puppet in their story! 

Wei Ziya laughed.

But she didn't care. Neither for their nobility or fame, nor worried for their struggles. They could dance their favorite dances all they liked, it didn't matter to her. The world was full of geniuses. She didn't envy their fates; she just hated - hated them! Hated their entitlements, their selfishness. It was because of them, their indifference that this small realm had taken its final gasp - her Jinghai was no more. Her world in which she had been born and grew up, watched people laugh and cry, cheered along with them… this world was torn, shredded to pieces. 

That woman who called herself Ying Yueru, she clearly knew many things. Although she couldn't peek into that woman's memories, her actions had fully exposed that she could have done many things if she wanted to save this small realm. But she hadn't. What about taking care of her karmas for her-self, Wei Ziya - that woman hadn't even stopped herself from dirtying her hands, while sharing spoils of that final war or even hesitated for a moment, as she was piling up all that blood-sucked treasure in her coffer!

Nothing had mattered to her in those years, as everything she cared for was dead or destroyed. She couldn't remember why she was so obsessed with living on. But everytime she deliberated vanishing, she found it pitiable. As if a piece of her world was caressing her head, saying -

"O child, but don't I dwell in thy heart? When you recall, I thrive. You see, after your death - there will be no one with my memory…alive." 

With her death, that history of her defeated world would also vanish. As a silent witness of that year's war between humans and 'gods', as the lone survivor of her world's tragic end - wouldn't it be a tragedy that she too died so pitiably? Wasn't the best value of her, a silent witness of that atrocity, be that she reminisces about that piece of past forever? Forever echoing that final scene of death, of parting, that final flash of light when her realm shattered into arms of universe's darkness? 

So, she had lived. But no one knew which clan she, Wei Ziya, belonged to. All relations dead, her birthplace blasted to bits - and she herself only able to watch like a bystander as someone carried on a happy life using her body; she was like a lone star dwelling in endless darkness. Not tonight - that alien soul from another world, lets see how she comes to this world this time around!

"Oh what a loss to the world would be her majestic love, her endless fame and her lore. No one will recount her legend anymore - with nothing there to recall. Because she, that parasitic ghost couldn't replace a fainted soul. Tonight, tonight she dies as I died. I, Wei Ziya, mother goddess have lived a proud life, as you asked. Then as a gift, let me relive that past of shame, of defeat…let me remember it…all alone."

What about children of heaven? It wasn't her own heaven to begin with! Why should it be her, who sacrificed her soul and body to hold that woman's? Whether it was the so-called 'heaven', or that alien soul from 'another world' - what do they have to do with this small realm? Nothing! And it wasn't like there couldn't be two chosen children of heaven in the same era -? She recalled the exchange between those two vile creatures. 

"Ying Yueru-! It is only a matter of time, just a few more years." That man had embraced Wei Ziya's body and cried. "Before long we will be legitimate lovers and no one will come in between us. After we have dealt with this rumor of divined Heaven's daughter - we, yes, you and I will become a Taoist couple! And no one can stop us. No chosen one will ever come in between us! I swear to heaven – I, Chen Jinhua, swear that I will never fall in love with another woman after you, Ying Yueru or else I will have my cultivation ruined, my life shattered under thunder strikes!"

"Don't -! You don't have to do this!"

 "But I do. My love needs no proof lower than this."

"But what about that immortal fate? Master Ming already predicted that you will have a smooth-sailing life if you entered into matrimony with her. What about the love your men have for you? Their expectations…? How will you answer them?" Ying Yueru had cried with her doelike eyes flooded with tears. "What about those Taoists divining that you are the son of heaven and only a daughter of heaven can ever completely get rid of your bad-luck of the lone star? I don't want to be the reason for your death! Moreover, can I believe that you will forgo that temptation - of ascending to heaven with no hurdles in your path?! You will easily succeed and ascend to the spiritual realm with her help. Don't persuade me otherwise - please!"

Wei Ziya remembered feeling disgusted at that tirade. That woman was clearly pretending - as if it was not her who was whispering how the world looked forward to her, the Chosen one's arrival, not knowing that she was already in their midst! Oh how she had looked proud, talking to herself. As if she had hoodwinked the whole world. As if by lying low, she could be the proud benefitter of all the fortunes, without anyone ever realizing her value! 

"But Ying Yueru…there is still no such person in this world right now! And I fell in love with you -and that is a fact! There will never be anyone better than you, purer than you, more loving and kind-hearted than you! How could I ever dream of leaving you? And did not the master Ming of the Qiyun sect foresee that it is more likely that the woman had already appeared? If it was my fate to love her - then why don't you believe that you, Ying Yueru are the one being talked about in these divinations? Because that is more likely than thinking I would ever betray you!" The young man had traced her body's falling tresses and whispered into her ears. "You are the youngest Mahayana cultivator. There is no one who can compete with you when it comes to luck or resources or ability - they cannot even do that in their dreams. Who doesn't know of your high accomplishments in alchemy? If there is a heaven's chosen daughter with heaven piercing luck, a blessing for the whole cultivation realm, then in my heart it can only be you!"

"But what if-?! What if there is a soul who owns such a fate? Who is the protagonist of this world – who should be your one true love and the one who you should have loved, not me! What if she suddenly knocks on the door one day and then you just leave me behind?"

"But there is no such person!"

"What if!?"

"Then I can only disappoint others, and go against heaven! We cultivators were originally destined to go against the heavens from the day we start practicing cultivation. Our existence on its own is a huge resistance against this natural order of heavenly rule. Attempting a worthy struggle to keep my love for you and be with you in all the difficulties and pleasures of life - how could I disappoint you in that vow? I promised, I will only love you -Ying Yueru! I will fulfill that, no matter what comes in my way. You just need to believe in me."

And he was right, that man. That woman really was heaven's daughter - even if just one of them. 

Wei Ziya thought. Imagined with great intensity; a world where Ying Yueru was missing. What would such a world look like? Another woman will be the first to rank in halls and lists of greatest cultivators. Another person will snatch that alchemy inheritance she prided on. And that lover - he will lie in the laps of a different woman! All that just because she couldn't snatch a mere mortal soul-! Hilarious. 

Wei Ziya panted tiredly, squinting out the water from her eyes. New tears kept flooding down her cheek, warming her face.

Yet still she had been unfortunate to only come back at this point. A year or two more - she could have done so much to help the resistance. But now, everything was already on the path of no return. Wei Ziya thought as she wrung water out from her cloak, which was now hanging heavily on her body. She wrung her long tresses. Wiped her cheeks of the tears but some more poured out. Salty water, drenching her face full of drops of heated liquid; making her lose all her grace and bearing. Her cracked lips lined into a whimper, shivering in emotion and cold.

But was it really her soul's rebirth tonight? Not a cruel joke by that woman's father - or those high immortals of the spiritual realm? Showing her what she wanted the most to only snatch it away later - haven't they already done that a millions of times? But this event, to-night, was so personal to that woman - how could she let a soul know of this night? She hadn't even shared that secret with her lover! After all, it was a taboo -to take over someone else's body.

Was that all that happened in her previous life rather a dream, a premonition that unfolded her destiny foretelling all her fallings and victories? A forewarning? A blessing from the dark- from some unknown force that wanted her to escape those dark days and those vile men and women? Mother goddess-?

But Wei Ziya shook her head. No, the mother goddess is dead. ]]]]

you can see the settings are same but many characters have been added. i apologize to everyone who has already collected this story and was looking forward to an update. i couldn't do the previous storyline a justice. i will not update here - i changed the name of the story completely to do it justice, because to me it felt like completely new. for those who have already read those 33 chapters, if you want to still give this story a chance please collect - " wei zhiruo's journey to immortality".

https://www.webnovel.com/book/wei-zhiruo%E2%80%99s-journey-to-immortality_30931940300360105

if there is anyone who found my story interesting, or wei zhiruo's story compelling, you can find it following this link. thankyou for being here and i hope you will continue to support wei zhiruo on her journey.

thankyou all~

and goodbye, see you soon.