Return to Before My Gloomy Senior Brother Died for Love

Ning Xi, a low-ranking outer disciple of the prestigious Baiyujing sect, endures a brutal fate in her first life. Framed by her fiancé Helian Wei and his lover Nangong Yin, she is lured into a trap by Kui Mulang, a wolf demon infatuated with Nangong Yin. On her intended wedding day, Ning Xi witnesses Helian Wei consummating his relationship with Nangong Yin. Desperate, she sends a distress signal via a water mirror, but the message is blocked. Just as Kui Mulang prepares to kill her, Pei Bu Chen, her revered senior brother and the sect’s prodigy, arrives. Having sacrificed ten years of his cultivation to send a sword qi strike through a hair ribbon gift, Pei Bu Chen fights Kui Mulang to protect Ning Xi. Both are mortally wounded; Pei Bu Chen dies shielding her, and Ning Xi perishes from her injuries. Haunted by guilt and regret, Ning Xi’s soul lingers as a ghost, watching Pei Bu Chen grieve for her, eventually leading him to suicide. She is then reborn to the past, before the tragic events unfold.

Upon waking in her body as an outer sect disciple, Ning Xi realizes she has returned to a time when Pei Bu Chen is falsely accused of murdering He Lian Han Shan, a young master from the powerful Helian family. In her previous life, Pei Bu Chen voluntarily underwent the ten strikes of the Poxin Hammer to prove his innocence, an ordeal that shattered half his heart and initiated the sect’s downfall. Determined to alter this fate, Ning Xi confronts the steward assigning her duties and rushes to Wen Xian Tang. She discovers Pei Bu Chen is about to ascend the punishment stage. Using a fabricated excuse about a crack in the Poxin Hammer, she delays the execution. When a Helian disciple attempts to seize her, Ning Xi severs Pei Bu Chen’s shackles with a decorative sword and flees with him. During their escape, they discover the Poxin Hammer was deliberately sabotaged, revealing a conspiracy to frame Pei Bu Chen.

The sabotage leads to the hammer’s explosion, killing the Helian disciple and halting the trial. However, the Xuanhuang Bell tolls, signaling an early demon invasion. The great demon Yan Ye, an ancient Yinglong, emerges and attacks Baiyujing’s eastern foothills. Pei Bu Chen, despite his injuries, leads the defense alone. Learning of his peril, Ning Xi steals a sword and attempts to Ride the Sword to reach him. Having never cultivated Qi, she struggles until she witnesses Pei Bu Chen’s battle with Yan Ye from afar. Inspired by his sword technique, she achieves enlightenment, opens her Qi Sea, and successfully rides the sword to the battlefield. She crashes into the fray and is nearly killed by demon beasts until Pei Bu Chen rescues her.

Pei Bu Chen reveals he is inside Yan Ye’s stomach, having cut his way in to attack the demon from within. He plans to sever the dragon’s heart to kill it. As they fight, Yan Ye targets Ning Xi with a lethal claw strike. Pei Bu Chen, temporarily blinded by demon blood, is too slow to react. Ning Xi throws herself in front of the attack, taking the full force of the dragon’s claw through her body. She collapses, bleeding profusely, but her sacrifice allows Pei Bu Chen to sever the dragon’s claw and continue the battle. As Ning Xi loses consciousness, she enters a long dream, drifting between memories of her past life and the chaotic present, uncertain if her actions have truly changed their destiny or merely delayed the inevitable tragedy.