Song of Plum Blossom Mountain (梅花山之歌)

Prolouge

A pillow flew across the small bedroom of a 1DK apartment followed by a muffled scream of frustration.

Mu Li was seething with anger. She glowered at the phone in her hand as if it owed her money. In a sense it did, she'd just finished reading 《Demon Fire Cultivator》, a chapter-by-chapter web novel she'd paid for, and the ending could only be described as an utterly disappointing trash-fire.

The novel was never anything good to begin with. It was written by an ameuter author with next to no knowledge of ancient china writing a cultivation themed xianxia novel. The only reason Mu Li ever started reading the crappy xianxia-YY novel in the first place was due to the fact that she had been attracted to the fan art of the stallion protagonist, who was surprisingly a female, and reluctantly bought the first sixty chapters.

Said female protagonist, Yu TianMin, was an orphan who gets adopted into the Yu family. The Yu family picked her up out of a whim due to the main wife wanting a daughter but being unstable to give birth to one. However, two years later the entire family, save for the patriarch, and third concubine, died due to a demonic attack, and Yu TianMin becomes the only legal heir to the family.

"Hold up, they all died?! Right after Yu TianMin was adopted for basically no reason?! Isn't this a famous family of cultivators?! Killing everyone in less than two pages for the sake of plot development is bit too convenient isn't it?!"

No one was happy that Yu TianMin was now the only legal heir to the great Yu family's wealth but it was too late to adopt another heir. The Yu patriarch decided to train Yu TianMin and raise her into someone to take over the family. From sword arts to calligraphy, she was forced to master everything her brothers had and more during the few short years she had before the sect entrance exams started. Under the strict vigilance of the Yu patriarch, she could not slack off. After a day of hard training, Yu TianMin would then have to face the difficult third concubine who'd became delusional after the death of her child. She treated Yu TianMin as her son and became hysterical whenever Yu TianMin would imply she was not.

Yu TianMin matured quickly in this sort of warped environment, putting in everything she had just to survive. She became a top martial artist for her age and a good scholar to boot. When she turned ten, she was scouted as a possible disciple of Qing Tang, the greatest sect of the human realm. It's then revealed that Yu TianMin had a pure yang body and a rare heavenly fire spiritual root.

Her talent is recognized by the Sect Master, Mu YangXi, and she gets accepted as the Sect Master's disciple. However, as soon as she enters the sect, instead of ring respected, she becomes the target of harsh bullying. The eldest disciple, who is the instigator of all the mistreatment towards the protagonist is, of course, the story's main villainess, Mu RongXue.

Mu RongXue was a child born and raised in the sect. Her mother was the only disciple of the previous head of Qing Tang and her father was an outer disciple. It was an unconventional and forbidden love, blah blah, her parents eloped and were disowned from the sect, blah blah, Mu RongXue was left at the doors of the sect with a note to the current head. Pitying the child, and also facing the necessity of needing a direct succeeding disciple, Mu YangXi adopted the infant as his own.

Mu RongXue turned out to be a prodigy.
She possessed a heavenly ice spiritual root and was quick to pick up knowledge as soon as she obtained it.

Her manner was always aloof and cold. She kept mostly to herself so no one around her knew how scheming and prideful she actually was. On the outside, she would keep an uncaring and more or less magnanimous façade all while sneering and deceiving others for her own benefits in the dark.

When Mu YangXi personally brought Yu TianMin back, Mu RongXue suddenly felt her position as top disciple being threatened by the endlessly talented child. As a result, Mu RongXue casually incited others to bully and antagonize Yu TianMin. Soon all of the disciples on Mei Hua peak viewed Yu TianMin with distain and isolated her completely. Many disciples would even try to curry favor with Mu RongXue, who'd shown her vague dislike for the new disciple, by bullying Yu TianMin in front of her, to receive her veiled approval.