Chapter 87 The Past: "Who exactly are you?"

"ah?"

Shen Qingyan's expression and tone were not quite right. The referee was afraid that he would suddenly have a seizure and anger the sect leader. What should they do?

Suddenly, his eyes darted around, and the magical artifact covering his head suddenly slammed down. With a loud "bang," Shen Qingyan was struck on the top of his head by the artifact and fell backward.

"What's going on on stage?" The elder heard the commotion and quickly looked over.

As the referee put away the weapon, he helped Shen Qingyan, who had fainted, to his feet. "Sorry, sorry, it was really a mistake. This magical artifact was probably struck by lightning and lost its spirit. It accidentally knocked someone unconscious." Fortunately, Shen Qingyan lost this match. He had also received byes in the previous matches and had already lost his qualification for the finals.

Otherwise, I really don't know what to do in the upcoming matches.

The sect leader frowned as he watched the events unfold on the stage. Just then, he heard a noise behind him and turned around to see a familiar figure walking towards him from a distance.

"Elder Hongyu!" The disciples beside her quickly bowed to her upon seeing this.

Elder Hongyu nodded in response and walked to the seat that had been reserved for her.

"Where is the child you mentioned? Is it this one on the stage?" Elder Hongyu looked towards the dueling platform.

The sect leader shook his head: "No, it's that girl below the stage." The sect leader pointed in a direction.

He pointed in a direction where many disciples were present. He didn't give Shen Cangyu a specific description, but he believed that Shen Cangyu stood out in the crowd; people would notice her at a glance. He was confident that Elder Hongyu knew who he was referring to.

“That child…” Elder Hongyu looked at Shen Cangyu below the stage, following the sect leader’s instruction.

Shen Cangyu noticed the gaze and looked up, meeting Elder Hongyu's gaze.

“I have seen him before,” Elder Hongyu said.

The last time I saw Shen Cangyu was in the Discipline Hall. At that time, they had just returned to Kunlun after completing their training outside the mountains. Many disciples had died at the hands of Wuliangsheng, and Pei Wenjing, as the leader of the team, should have been punished.

At that time, he was receiving punishment in the hall, and behind him stood a strange child. When Elder Hongyu first saw her, she felt that this child was very different.

Unexpectedly, they have met again.

Now, a long time has passed since then, and Shen Cangyu has undergone tremendous changes compared to her then, but she is still as special as before.

"Has she reached marriageable age?" Elder Hongyu asked.

The sect leader paused for a moment, then replied, "Not yet, but it will be in a few months."

“You know my principles.” Elder Hongyu observes cause and effect, but never looks at children. Although cause and effect are mostly predetermined, and many times, even a three-year-old can know the cause and effect they will be involved in in the future, she still feels that revealing other people’s cause and effect too early is like interfering in their path of cultivation, which is not good for anyone.

"It's not much longer, just a few months," the sect leader said. He had many fears. He feared that even if Shen Cangyu knew her true identity, she wouldn't acknowledge him; he feared that if things dragged on, Shen Cangyu would be set on the Heart Sutra Hall and never want to return; he feared that the decline of the Myriad Weapons Returning to the Heart was unstoppable; he feared that without the Kunlun Sword, the Shen family would no longer be able to stand on Kunlun Mountain; he feared that he had destroyed the hopes of his ancestors…

"Liang Hongyu, I'm begging you."

Liang Hongyu sighed: "Shen Yingda, don't let your inner demons blind you."

Shen Yingda stubbornly said, "If the knot in one's heart can be untied, then the inner demon will cease to exist."

Liang Hongyu suddenly recalled what Huang Menglu had said to her when they were young: "Those who are devoted to all things are always the most demanding. No matter what they do, they will go all the way to the end and never repent."

Liang Hongyu felt that Huang Menglu was right.

“Then I will use the causal thread once, but I will not look at her, I will look at you,” Liang Hongyu said. “If there is no thread connecting you to her, then it means that you and she are not destined to be together, not even by blood.”

*

"This is the last one. Whether I win or lose, I've passed this class assessment," Lu Yuan said, wiping his nose. "My older sister won't have to worry about my studies anymore."

Shen Cangyu looked at her, then glanced at the stands in the distance. Qiu Sheng, Lu Qianhe, and Liang Duo were sitting together, but Lu Sheng wasn't beside them. "Where's your sister? Why didn't she come to see you?"

"Her...she has to guard the cave entrance. After all, I brought the Great Fox Immortal out, and there's no powerful demon guarding the cave entrance, so we can only rely on her to guard it."

"Do you have any treasures? Why do you always have people guarding them?" In Shen Cangyu's memory, it seemed that Wen Cangsheng always needed to send people to guard their homes. If Lu Yuan was not at home, Lu Sheng would stay at home. If Lu Sheng went out on a mission, Lu Yuan would have to stay at home to guard them.

“The spirit tablets, the spirit tablets of our Lu family’s ancestors are all kept at home, we must guard them.”

As Lu Yuan finished speaking, Shen Cangyu recalled that Wen Cangsheng had always placed great importance on inheritance and collective consciousness.

Unlike Shen Cangyu.

Shen Cangyu had no memory of her family members. She had no recollection of her mother's face. Everything she knew about her mother came from her grandmother, and now even her grandmother's face had become blurry in her memory.

She is a person without a past.

Shen Cangyu wondered, if she wasn't from this world, if she came from another world and would return to her original world after completing the mission, what would she look like in her original world? She tried hard to think, but couldn't remember.

She has no memory of the other world, nor can she imagine a world she has never seen. Occasionally, she can piece together her impressions of the other world through the comments on the live stream.

[Yes, I've always been curious about Cang Yu's identity before she transmigrated.]

[Probably a student, since most protagonists in transmigration web novels are students.]

Having read books for twenty years, in my memory, the protagonists of time-travel novels used to be mostly special agents, assassins, martial arts geniuses, or doctors.

[The moment the person upstairs spoke, long-forgotten memories returned. What about "Special Agent Princess," "Useless Third Miss," and "The Rise of Phoenixes"... those were my favorite web novels when I was a kid; they were truly my gateway into the world of online fiction. It's a pity that I rarely see novels like those anymore; it's quite a感慨 (feeling of nostalgia/reflection).]

[That's understandable, considering that most readers these days are students. Students can relate more to stories where the main character is also a student.]

[But I was a student when I read this story, and I didn't feel out of place at all (I was so thrilled when the female lead made a comeback!)]

[Another explanation is that, after all, the author couldn't possibly be a secret agent or assassin. If what they wrote was too unrealistic and unrealistic, they'd be criticized. We've all been students, so making the protagonist a student is the safest approach.]

Since you're writing online novels, you need to have some imagination. It's not like it's documentary literature; I'm not here to read about everyday life.

[However, on the other hand, some authors write about certain professions purely based on imagination. I'm a journalist, and I immediately run away when I see a story where the female lead is a journalist. I can't read a single line; I'm afraid I'll embarrass myself to death.]

Therefore, it's safest for the main character to be a student.

Thinking about it this way, Cang Yu might really be a student. After all, only children who haven't experienced the harsh realities of society can maintain that reckless and impulsive spirit that disregards the lives of others.

Ah... another student... I saw that Cang Yu's swordsmanship was superb, she grasped mental techniques quickly, and she could apply what she learned to other situations. I thought she was a disciple of some ancient martial arts family, so she had a foundation (sigh)... Nowadays, so many novels have students as the main characters. After reading so many, it gets boring. I always want to see something more innovative.

"So, who am I, really?" Shen Cangyu wondered to himself.

She had never thought about this question before, assuming that her background was unimportant to her. Tracing one's roots has always been something many cultivators do, but she wasn't among them.

She felt that the past was not as important as the future, because what is past cannot be changed, but what is to come can still be pursued. Rather than knowing the past, she wanted to know what would happen in the future and how to deal with the challenges ahead.

"It doesn't matter who I am, I'm just myself now." Shen Cangyu stopped thinking about it and just looked up at the gongs and drums in the distance.

The gong to start the next match never sounded. The disciples in the preparation area were restless, and the spectators in the stands were also looking around, not understanding the current situation.

"Has the competition not started yet?" Lu Yuan said, as he rolled up his sleeve, tore off the blood-stained bandage, and with Ming Zhao's help, put on a new one.

“Your wound keeps tearing open, and you have to change the bandages all the time. If this continues, the wound will never heal,” Mingzhao said.

Lu Yuan licked his wound, tasting the metallic taste: "It's okay, I'll let this wound heal slowly after the competition. The competition is more important right now."

While Mingzhao bandaged her arm, Lu Yuan took out a medicine bottle from her pocket. Mingzhao, with her sharp eyes, noticed her action and asked, "What kind of medicine is this?"

"Painkillers," Lu Yuan mumbled.

Mingzhao, seeing her expression, did not believe her. Instead, she snatched the medicine from her hand and examined it.

I didn't understand.

She handed the medicine to Shen Cangyu.

Shen Cangyu poured out the pill and saw that the crimson pill landed in her palm.

Zuixianwan.

Shen Cangyu said with a stern face, "This medicine can neither stop the bleeding nor heal your wounds. It can only block your sense of pain and will also damage your nerves." After taking the Drunken Immortal Pill, a person is like a sleepwalker, thinking that they are omnipotent and have no sense of pain, so they don't know how to use their strength.

This drug has serious side effects; taking too much can cause mental instability and loss of emotional control. Shen Cangyu didn't know where Lu Yuan got his hands on the drug, but it was too harmful to the body, and she couldn't bear to watch Lu Yuan take it.

"Give it to me! I'm in so much pain, I can't compete without the medicine!" Lu Yuan said, glaring at Shen Cangyu.

"Are you only going to play this one match? What about your future?" Shen Cangyu asked, staring at her.

Lu Yuan ground his back teeth and suddenly said, "Do you think that since you're going to fight me in the next match, you're deliberately not letting me take the medicine so you can beat me? You're so mean."

Winning or losing is indeed very important to Shen Cangyu, but she doesn't want to win in this way, nor does she want to ruin Lu Yuan because of this competition.

Is there really no way to have both in this world?

"Chen Cangyu!"

She suddenly heard a suppressed roar coming from afar.

On the high platform, Shen Yingda stared at her with bloodshot eyes, his face ashen: "Who exactly are you?"