This was Shen Ke’er’s one hundred and thirty-third reincarnation. But this time, her life was different from all the past ones.

After being driven out of Qingling Sect by Ye Kai’s schemes, she managed to secure a modest job in the lower realm, tending pigs for a farm owner.

One night, she dreamed of the senior brother she had always longed for. Weeping, she knelt before him and confessed.
“Senior brother, I truly miss you. I was wrong—I really know I was wrong. I should never have listened to Ye Kai’s lies, never have left you because of him. I was a beast too. You treated me so well, and I hurt you in return.”

After more than a hundred lifetimes, Shen Ke’er finally understood how good her life had once been—and what it meant to repay kindness. Without Lin Mo’s first rescue, the young her could never have survived alone in such a dangerous world. In several reincarnations where Lin Mo had not saved her, each ending was more tragic than the last: she starved to death on the streets, she was beaten to death after snatching a beggar’s food. Only then did she truly grasp how blessed she had been—and that she herself had destroyed that happiness.

She had harmed the one person who had treated her best. Every time she remembered how, for Ye Kai’s sake, she had stabbed her senior brother when he was at his weakest, she felt her own death would be no loss. “Senior brother, I don’t dare hope for your forgiveness,” she whispered. “I only want to repay the kindness you once gave me, to make amends for the sins I committed.” She knew it was only a dream, but even in a dream she longed to speak with him sincerely and apologize. Closing her eyes, she waited for the vision to fade.

Unexpectedly, Lin Mo understood her.
“Shen Ke’er, do you hate Ye Kai?” he asked.

At the mention of that name, she saw again Ye Kai’s hypocritical, ugly face. She had done everything for him, treated him with devotion—yet he had frolicked with other women, abandoned her, and even struck the final blow that killed her. Her face twisted with fury. “Hate? I wish I could slice him with a thousand blades, drink his blood, eat his flesh, and crush his bones!”

Lin Mo was not surprised by her answer. He had already seen Ye Kai’s crimes through his memories. His voice was calm. “In the pigsty you tend, at dawn tomorrow, an old sow will give birth to a litter of piglets. Among them, one will be Ye Kai.”

After saying this, he left.

The next morning, just as he had foretold, the sow gave birth. Among the squealing piglets was one who stared about blankly, utterly dumbfounded—Ye Kai, reborn, with the memories of his former life still intact.

Ye Kai tried to comfort himself. Though no longer human, at least he had escaped Lin Mo’s grasp. Even pigs could cultivate, he thought; perhaps he could one day join the demon clans and muddle through. But just as relief rose in him, a familiar figure appeared. Shen Ke’er.

His eyes filled with disbelief. But Shen Ke’er did not hesitate. Even if he were reduced to ashes, she would recognize him.

With one move, she could have killed him. Yet after so many lifetimes, she had learned that death was the greatest release. She let the thought go, cleaned the newborn piglet, and tended to him as though nothing were amiss.

“Little girl, little girl,” she said softly, “you must grow up well.”

At her words, Ye Kai froze. What had she just called him? Little girl? His expression crumpled as realization struck—he had not only become a piglet, but a female piglet.

“All right,” Shen Ke’er said, tossing him back toward the sow. “Go drink your mother’s milk and regain your strength. That way, you’ll grow quickly.”

His littermates were already crowded beneath their mother, drinking hungrily. Ye Kai’s stomach betrayed him with a loud rumble. “Me? I’ll never drink pig’s milk,” he muttered. But hunger gnawed at him. Before long, he was weak, lightheaded, and groggy. A sweet fragrance drifted to his nose, and without realizing it he had crawled beneath the sow, pressed among his siblings. A mouthful of milk slid down his throat.

He tried to pull away, but instinct won. With soft grunts, he drank again. The sow, seeing her only daughter finally eat, let out a relieved sigh. Hidden in the shadows, Shen Ke’er sneered. Ye Kai’s pig life had only just begun, and she would raise him well—so that he could suffer all the more.

In the days that followed, after that first reluctant taste, Ye Kai returned to the sow again and again. Hunger drove him without mercy. Soon he stopped resisting altogether: eat when hungry, sleep when full. Day by day, he sank deeper into the nature of a pig.

Until one day, the farm owner sent his pig mother away to be slaughtered.

When Ye Kai heard her cries, sorrow pierced him. After living together day and night, he could not deny the bond between them. From her, he had felt something like a mother’s love. “Will I, too, be slaughtered one day and laid on a mortal’s table?” Fear and unwillingness twisted inside him. He had once dreamed of becoming a pig demon through cultivation, but he could not even leap the fence of the pig farm.

Time passed. He grew larger, becoming a fully “qualified” breeding sow. But then came a new misery. His body burned with heat, driving him mad with restlessness. Shen Ke’er watched with a smile of cold delight. “Little girl has grown into a big girl. It seems it’s time for breeding.”

Ye Kai’s heart seized. In the end, I’m just livestock. But how could he accept being penned with boars? He squealed in panic, but it was already too late. Shen Ke’er locked him inside the breeding pen. Around him, boars in heat pawed the ground, their instincts roused by his scent. One after another, they lunged.

He tried to fight, but he was no match for beasts weighing hundreds of jin. His strength bled away. They swarmed him. Strange shudders ran through his body; animal instinct drowned his human mind. His body betrayed him, responding against his will.

From the shadows, Shen Ke’er laughed coldly. “Didn’t Ye Kai like such things? Then let him have his fill.”

The ordeal lasted three days. Months later, he birthed piglets. Watching them nurse beneath him, he found himself wearing the same relieved smile the sow had once given him. Under Shen Ke’er’s meticulous care, his pig’s life dragged on. He had a whole herd of boar “husbands,” a whole brood of pig children—and in the end, he too was slaughtered by the farm owner, his body served upon a dinner table.