After returning to her room, Bai Qingxue sat cross-legged on the stone bed but did not immediately begin her cultivation.
She kept her eyes open, watching the twilight deepen outside the window. The shadow of the old plum tree swayed in the wind, falling across the window paper like a hesitant hand.
Su Zhaoyan had left. The courtyard had grown quiet.
But those words still lingered in her ears, refusing to dissipate.
“She did this every day. Did you even know?”
She knew.
Of course she knew.
But even if she knew, what of it? She couldn't even figure out why she hadn't pushed Lu Xueqing away while she was unconscious, so how could she possibly know how to respond now that she was awake?
Bai Qingxue closed her eyes and suppressed those thoughts.
She shouldn't think about it; she wouldn't think about it.
She opened her eyes again and began to guide her spiritual power through her meridians. One cycle, two cycles.
Shen Yuan. The Xuanyin Demonic Sect.
Suddenly, these two names surfaced in Bai Qingxue’s mind.
From the moment Su Zhaoyan spoke them, they had been like two nails driven into her consciousness, impossible to pull out.
Why did these two names feel so familiar?
She hadn't seen these names in the records of Xueji Peak, nor had she heard them from Liu Ningshuang’s lips.
It was from much earlier.
From her past life.
Bai Qingxue halted the circulation of her spiritual power.
She closed her eyes and sifted through her memories.
In her past life, she had read many novels. She read them while slacking off at work, while squeezed onto the subway after hours, and late at night when she couldn't sleep.
Most of them she had forgotten as soon as she finished them. The plots blurred together, the characters were misremembered, and very little remained.
But there was one whose beginning she remembered.
The novel was titled 《Path of the Abyss》. It told the story of a boy adopted by the Xuanyin Demonic Sect who suffered endless bullying at the bottom of the sect's hierarchy. Later, he awakened an ancient demonic art, counterattacked all his enemies, and eventually became the supreme sovereign of the demonic path.
The boy’s name was Shen Yuan.
Bai Qingxue opened her eyes.
She remembered this novel because she had dropped it after only reading the beginning. It wasn't that it was poorly written; it was just that she had been following another one at the time that was more to her taste.
That one was called 《Immortal Path Turbulence》. The protagonist was Ye Feng—a broken engagement trope, a face-slapping power fantasy. It was much better for killing time while slacking off.
Ye Feng. Shen Yuan.
Two different novels, two different protagonists.
And now, they were in the same world.
Bai Qingxue’s fingertips turned slightly cold.
She remembered the day of the annulment, Ye Feng standing in the hall with his handsome face and a brow furrowed with impatience. He was the protagonist of the novel she had read.
She thought of Ye Qingyao, the younger sister who was supposed to have feelings for Ye Feng in the original plot.
She thought of Lu Xueqing and Su Zhaoyan. Some of these names came from the book she had read, while others came from the one she hadn't. She didn't know what roles they played in the original novels, nor did she know where their story arcs were originally meant to lead.
But she knew one thing.
The character “Bai Qingxue” in Ye Feng’s novel was a stepping stone meant to be face-slapped. Her ending was miserable.
That was her original fate.
But if this world contained more than one novel, then her fate was not influenced by just a single storyline.
Ye Feng was one line; Shen Yuan was another. What would it look like where these two lines intersected?
At this thought, Bai Qingxue clenched her fingers.
She had thought she had transmigrated into the world of a single novel. As long as she avoided Ye Feng’s path, as long as the engagement was broken cleanly, and as long as she didn't play the role of the stepping stone in the plot, she could survive.
Now she realized that this world was far more complex than she had imagined.
At this moment, Bai Qingxue felt like a chess piece placed at the intersection of multiple boards.
There were players at every board, all making their moves. And she might be a specific piece, or she might be nothing at all.
Bai Qingxue took a deep breath and suppressed these thoughts.
There was no point in thinking about this now.
No matter how many storylines this world had, and no matter what heights Shen Yuan and Ye Feng eventually reached, there was only one thing she needed to do first.
Survive.
Only after Foundation Establishment could she completely suppress the backlash of her Ice Spirit power. Only after Foundation Establishment could she possibly transition from being a chess piece to being a player. Only after Foundation Establishment would she have the right to contemplate the things she currently couldn't understand.
But does surviving really have any meaning... A faint thought appeared in Bai Qingxue’s sea of consciousness, only to vanish an instant later.
Bai Qingxue closed her eyes and resumed circulating her spiritual power.
The spiritual power flowed slowly through her meridians, much smoother than when she had first woken up. The stagnant nodes gradually dissolved like ice melting into water, silent and unseen.
Outside the window, the twilight had completely settled into night.
The moon had not yet risen, and the courtyard was pitch black, with only the silhouette of the old plum tree swaying gently in the wind.
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