Ye Chenyan stared at him wordlessly, then looked away and said in a low voice, “Either way, don’t get any ideas about him. If you need something done, come to me.”
He turned toward Yu Qingtang, the demonic weapon resting across his shoulder, his back ramrod straight.
“He wasn’t born to be anyone’s savior, and he isn’t anyone’s chess piece.”
“I’d like to see who dares calculate his fate.”
Tianji Zi gave a sly little laugh. “I practically watched you grow up. You think I don’t know what you’re like?”
“The affairs of the world belong to everyone in it.” He lazily shook out the sleeves of his Daoist robe. “I’ve always preferred letting people choose their own path. I can’t stand forcing someone to play the hero.”
“Boy, if you don’t want to be a chess piece, then...”
Ye Chenyan glanced back with a raised brow. “Flip the chessboard.”
Tianji Zi burst out laughing and clapped lightly. “Exactly!”
“Go call him over. It’s time to leave.”
Ye Chenyan glanced at him. “You’re taking us there?”
“Naturally.” Tianji Zi looked perfectly righteous. “This time we really are deceiving Heaven. Other than me, who could evade the Heavenly Dao’s eyes and ears and secretly deliver you two to the Sea of Returning Ruins in Yuezhou?”
Ye Chenyan narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
Tianji Zi’s gaze flickered. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Ye Chenyan looked doubtful. “You used the Treasure-Gathering Basin to steal that many things and didn’t suffer any bad luck?”
“Tch. I told you, I borrowed them.” Tianji Zi smiled slyly. “I borrowed Daoist Idle Crane’s.”
Ye Chenyan froze.
Then realization hit him.
His eyes widened, and he jabbed a finger at Tianji Zi. “Don’t tell me you stole everything in his name and made him take the karmic hit for you. Is Qingtang’s master suffering all the bad luck right now?”
“Aiya, I told you, it was borrowing.” Tianji Zi winked and pointed toward the sky. “Borrowing and stealing are very different things.”
Ye Chenyan: “...”
His mouth opened.
He pointed at Tianji Zi.
“Just you wait. I’m telling him.”
“Hey, hey, hey!” Tianji Zi paled dramatically. “Why would you tell him? We’re of the same lineage. We rise and fall together. If I embarrass myself, aren’t you embarrassed too?”
He hurriedly grabbed Ye Chenyan.
“Besides, I already worked it out with Daoist Idle Crane. I’m helping his disciple too. He was willing.”
Ye Chenyan gave him a sidelong look. “Did you work it out with him, or did you trick him into it?”
Tianji Zi guiltily looked away.
“Well...”
“A bit of coaxing, a bit of trickery.”
He looked at the sky, then the ground—anywhere except Ye Chenyan.
“He knows more or less what’s going on.”
“Heh.” Ye Chenyan sneered and waved Yu Qingtang over.
Yu Qingtang had no idea what was happening, but he quickly came over anyway. “What is it?”
“Remember this.” Ye Chenyan pointed at Tianji Zi. “He owes your master a beating.”
“Huh?” Yu Qingtang’s eyes widened in shock. “You can owe someone one of those?”
“Haha.” Tianji Zi rubbed his nose and muttered under his breath, “Not like he could beat me anyway. Even if I sat there and let him hit me, he probably wouldn’t dare.”
Ye Chenyan: “...”
Yu Qingtang scratched his head and nodded lightly. “True.”
“My master’s a coward. He probably wouldn’t dare.”
“Then—” Ye Chenyan’s eyes darted mischievously. He slung an arm around Yu Qingtang’s shoulders and lowered his voice. “When the time comes, call me. I’ll beat him for you.”
“Huh?” Tianji Zi’s eyes widened. He pointed accusingly at Ye Chenyan. “You little traitor to your master and ancestors! You’re saying that right in front of me?”
Ye Chenyan chuckled, still hanging off Yu Qingtang’s shoulders. “You said taking the Realm Stone makes someone the master of this realm. Once I’ve got it, dealing with you should be easy enough, right?”
“Hiss. Good point.” Tianji Zi nodded solemnly.
Then he abruptly took up a fighting stance.
“In that case, while I can still beat you, I’d better hurry up and get a few hits in!”
“Hey!” Ye Chenyan jumped and ducked behind Yu Qingtang, still gripping his shoulder. “You’re actually serious?”
“Hey, hey, hey—” Yu Qingtang spread his arms and instinctively shielded Ye Chenyan. “What happened? Don’t fight! We can talk this out!”
“Get out here!” Tianji Zi rode his cloud in circles around Yu Qingtang, pointing at Ye Chenyan behind him. “Brat, you sure sounded arrogant when you were making threats. Never occurred to you that you might get beaten first?”
“Dizzy, dizzy, I’m getting dizzy.” Yu Qingtang was dragged through two full circles by the pair and nearly lost track of which way was up.
But he still remembered the key words he had just heard.
“Wait. We’re going to get the Realm Stone already? Didn’t he only just reach Integration?”
Both of them stopped at once.
Their gazes snapped toward him.
Even Tianji Zi froze. “You know about the Realm Stone?”
Ye Chenyan knew more of the context and asked quietly, “Was it in that book too?”
“Yeah.” Yu Qingtang nodded slightly and looked from one to the other, baffled by their suddenly grave expressions. “Of course it was.”
“The book?” Tianji Zi fell into thought. “You mean our world is a book from your perspective?”
“Oh—”
“You knew?” Ye Chenyan turned toward him.
“Not before.” Tianji Zi nodded. “But if that’s the case, quite a few things make sense.”
“Perhaps that book itself is the Realm Gate of that world. The person who wrote it must possess extraordinary powers, allowing them to see information from this realm through the Realm Gate...”
Tianji Zi spoke with complete seriousness.
Yu Qingtang’s expression, meanwhile, became increasingly strange.
“Huh?”
He...
Dog Xiaosa possessed extraordinary powers?
Wen Tianxia suddenly interjected, “There are no supernatural powers in his world.”
“Hm?” Tianji Zi rubbed his chin and glanced at him. “Why does everyone know more about this than I do?”
“I asked him.” Wen Tianxia jerked his chin toward Yu Qingtang. “But even without spiritual power, that world must have peculiarities of its own. Whoever wrote that book may indeed possess something unusual.”
“Like... unusually strong inspiration or intuition?” Yu Qingtang tried to follow their logic. “But... that book isn’t quite what you’re imagining. It wasn’t a normal physical book, and it wasn’t a spiritual artifact like the Sage’s Book either. It—it was serialized online. There wasn’t even a printed edition.”
And even if there had been, he might not have bought it.
Wen Tianxia immediately looked interested. “Online?”
Yu Qingtang opened his mouth, then involuntarily raised both hands and began gesturing.
“Uh... just imagine the Sage’s Book and countless copies of it, except all of them can connect to one another, and basically everyone where I come from has one.”
Wen Tianxia’s expression shifted slightly as some thought occurred to him.
“If—if the Realm Gate really has something to do with that book...” Yu Qingtang scratched his head. “Wouldn’t it be the author’s computer that was connected to it? If anyone was supposed to come here, shouldn’t it have been him? Why did I get dragged over?”
He muttered, “Don’t tell me a Realm Gate can flow through the Internet...”
Tianji Zi stared blankly. “The Inter-what?”
It was rare to see Tianji Zi looking genuinely lost.
Yu Qingtang felt inexplicably comforted.
“It’s fine. Not understanding is normal. When I first got here and heard people talking about drawing spiritual power into the body, I made exactly the same face.”
Wen Tianxia recovered from his thoughts. “If some form of energy connects it all, it may not be impossible.”
“If we treat your ‘Internet’ as analogous to spiritual power, then your wandering soul being drawn along that connection toward the Realm Gate would be a coincidence, but not an impossibility.”
Yu Qingtang’s mouth slowly fell open.
So had his transmigration actually been like Sadako?
Had he crawled into his computer, then crawled back out through the Realm Gate over here?
Ye Chenyan watched him worriedly and lightly poked his head. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” Yu Qingtang came back to himself.
Tianji Zi looked surprised. “You figured it out?”
“No.” Yu Qingtang answered honestly. “I’ve just made peace with not knowing.”
He spoke with complete confidence.
“I transmigrated. So what if I don’t understand the mechanics?”
Tianji Zi nodded approvingly. “Exactly. See? What a good child. Knows when to let things go.”
Wen Tianxia: “...”
“If you can’t let it go, you can stay here and think about it yourself.” Tianji Zi patted Wen Tianxia on the shoulder, called the two of them onto his little white cloud, and said, “I’ll go toss these two into the sea first.”
“Wait.” Wen Tianxia stopped him.
Tianji Zi waved dismissively. “Whatever it is, tell me when I get back—”
Wen Tianxia sighed.
“The water-repelling pearl.”
“Oh, right.” Tianji Zi smacked his forehead. “I really am getting old. Look at this memory.”
He took out a glowing blue pearl from which the faint sound of waves seemed to emanate and handed it to them.
“There’s only one, so you two must not let go of each other! You’re cultivators, so you won’t die immediately if something happens, but it’ll still be miserable.”
Wen Tianxia added, “The immortal and demonic energies.”
“I couldn’t possibly forget those. I was just planning to give them the energies when we got there.” Tianji Zi muttered and glared at him. “You and I really have no rapport whatsoever.”
Even so, he turned and called out, “You gave it to him, right?”
“Hm?” Chi Yantian turned around—and jumped at the sight of Girl in the Bamboo standing beside him. “When did you get in here?”
“Just now.”
As calm and expressionless as ever, Girl in the Bamboo walked toward them and looked deeply at Ye Chenyan.
Ye Chenyan gave her a puzzled look. “What?”
“This journey will be dangerous.” Girl in the Bamboo’s gaze was intent. “If you take me with you, and you encounter a situation where death is unavoidable, I can take your place—”
“No need.” Ye Chenyan raised an eyebrow. “I don’t need anyone dying for me.”
Girl in the Bamboo turned toward Yu Qingtang.
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?!” Ye Chenyan immediately stepped into her line of sight, eyes wide. “I’m not taking him along so he can—”
“I know.” Girl in the Bamboo looked away. “I merely envy that the two of you can face life and death together.”
Ye Chenyan gave a soft snort and draped his arm over Yu Qingtang’s shoulders again.
“I’m not dying together with him.”
“I’m living together with him. And anyone who dares mess with him...”
Yu Qingtang cooperatively put on his fiercest expression and drew a finger across his throat.
Ye Chenyan glanced at him and failed to suppress the curl at the corner of his mouth.
Girl in the Bamboo stared at the two of them.
To their surprise, a faintly gratified smile appeared on her face as well, and an unfamiliar warmth entered her eyes.
Ye Chenyan froze, suddenly looking uncomfortable all over. “What’s with you?”
Girl in the Bamboo raised a hand and touched her own face.
“It isn’t me,” she said quietly.
She paused.
“This emotion isn’t mine.”
Before she could explain further, she pushed a sphere of light toward him.
Ye Chenyan instinctively caught it.
Inside the light was a jade bottle. A tiny, vivid green bamboo plant grew from within it, its delicate leaves wreathed in a faint luminous mist. One glance was enough to tell that it was no ordinary thing.
“Tianxuan Nü left one breath of immortal energy within me.” Girl in the Bamboo nodded lightly toward him. “Take it.”
“There is no ordinary method capable of separating this immortal energy from me. The Realm Stone should be the only thing that can.”
“As for the breath of demonic energy...”
Her gaze fell on the demonic weapon in Ye Chenyan’s hand.
Ye Chenyan’s expression shifted.
He followed her gaze and murmured, “...Did they calculate all of this in advance?”
“No.” Girl in the Bamboo looked up. “When they left, they never intended for those who came after them to continue mending Heaven.”
“This is simply what they left for you...”
“Humans become attached to things. They like to place their feelings into objects. When they leave something behind for you, it is as though their longing remains with it.”
Ye Chenyan chuckled quietly. “And then, by some fortuitous coincidence, it gets to save the world one more time.”
A faint smile appeared on Girl in the Bamboo’s face.
She nodded gently to them.
“Safe travels.”
Ye Chenyan raised an eyebrow. “Is that your emotion, or...”
“Mine.” Girl in the Bamboo paused. “But if you wish to regard me as your mother, then you may consider it hers as well.”
With extraordinary generosity, she opened her arms toward Ye Chenyan.
Apparently, she intended to give him a hug.
Ye Chenyan: “...”
Yu Qingtang hurriedly grabbed him.
“Calm down! She definitely didn’t mean anything by it! She just... genuinely thinks that’s how this works.”
Ye Chenyan drew a deep breath.
“...Fine.”
Girl in the Bamboo froze, looking confused. “Did I get it wrong again? Was that not appropriate?”
Yu Qingtang looked at her with genuine regret. “The first part was great. You really had the mood going. It was just that last bit...”
Girl in the Bamboo frowned slightly.
“Mm.”
“Interacting with people truly is difficult.”
She sighed, then took a bag of steaming buns from inside her clothes and handed it to Yu Qingtang.
“This is for you.”
“Huh?” Yu Qingtang stared at her in shock. “I get something too?”
“I cannot show favoritism.” Girl in the Bamboo nodded seriously. “If I give him something, I should give you something as well. Although their values are worlds apart...”
Yu Qingtang’s eyes curved into a smile.
“But I like this.”
Author’s Note:
Girl in the Bamboo: “Being human is so hard.”
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter