Chapter 148 The Truth
"Duan Lansheng—"
Lu Yuanyuan's eyes widened in horror, and she lunged forward. She desperately stretched out her arms, trying to grab him as he fell.
The Soul-Crossing Thorns seemed to have guessed her intentions, and wrapped itself tightly around her waist with a force that wouldn't hurt her but wouldn't let her break free.
Lu Yuanyuan was unable to move and could only watch helplessly as the entrance disappeared, her screams also trapped inside the tunnel.
it's all over.
With disheveled hair and red eyes, Lu Yuanyuan knelt weakly in the small boat woven from thorns used for ferrying souls.
After sitting there for a while, she realized that her wounds were healing rapidly, and the bloodstains on her cheeks, palms, and clothes were weathering away, turning into a crimson wind and dissipating into the air.
As if frozen in time, Lu Yuanyuan stared at her hand without moving until the last drop of blood under her fingernails disappeared.
That was the blood that had just flowed from Duan Lansheng's back, and it was also the last mark Duan Lansheng left on her.
It's really all over.
Lu Yuanyuan looked up and turned around.
The time tunnel was not what she had imagined. It wasn't a narrow passage, but a vast universe. Stars shone brightly, and all was silent.
In the pitch-black sky, a silver train track floated up, guiding her through the thorny path of soul-crossing, carrying her through a myriad of dazzling sights, and leading her home.
The orbit below was constantly receding, leaving afterimages, demonstrating the incredible speed at which the Soul-Crossing Thorns moved. However, if one used the distant, unnamed, colossal celestial body as a reference point, one would mistakenly perceive oneself as stationary.
Here, you can't feel the passage of time; there's only endless loneliness.
Lu Yuanyuan slowly clenched her fists, stood up, and roared towards the sky, "System! You're still here, aren't you!"
"Or should I call you Book Spirit?!"
"Book Spirit, I know you're still here! I'm looking for you, the one who was bound to me on the very first day of my rebirth! Not Xiao Ruo's system!"
...
The silent space was too vast. She screamed like a madwoman, but there was no echo. It was as if all the noise and turmoil had been swallowed up by the distant darkness.
She didn't know how much time had passed; her throat was completely hoarse, and she was panting heavily. Only then did a voice, as if just coming to her senses, echo in the empty void: "You were looking for me?"
Gathering her strength in her chest, Lu Yuanyuan gritted her teeth and said, "Yes, I'm looking for you! There are some things I need to ask you about."
System: "I cannot answer your question."
Lu Yuanyuan glared at the void: "I've already left that world, I'm no longer a native. Whatever I hear or do has nothing to do with that world. Stop trying to control me with your rules for maintaining world stability!"
The system remained silent for a while, as if it had guessed what she wanted to ask from her expression: "Now that you can go home, why are you still so fixated on knowing things that have nothing to do with you anymore? Knowing the truth may not make you happy."
Lu Yuanyuan said clearly, "I don't need you to tell me what's good and bad, I just need to know the truth."
She couldn't believe that a person's past and present lives could be so drastically different.
If we disregard past grievances and only consider her actions in this life, then, in all fairness, what she did to Duan Lansheng was far more cruel than the neglect he showed her when they were not yet acquainted.
She deceived Duan Lansheng three times in total. Each time, her actions were filled with murderous intent, aimed at taking his life.
The first time, by the cold pond, she plotted to frame Duan Lansheng. After her scheme failed, Duan Lansheng, without ever confronting her, unconditionally trusted her and vouched for her.
The second time, she stabbed Duan Lansheng in the chest with a sword, crippling his path to immortality. After their reunion, Duan Lansheng brought his child to her to reconcile.
The third time, Duan Lansheng clearly saw through her feigned deception, but in the end, he still willingly granted her wish and sent her away.
Duan Lansheng was fooled by her once, which can be attributed to his youthful ignorance, stupidity, and gullibility.
Two or three times is not something that can be explained away by simply saying someone is easily fooled.
To put it bluntly, even a stray dog that hasn't developed any intelligence, if it gets beaten up one day, will know to take a detour if it encounters the person who beat it up again.
The strange feeling that had grown over the years had been lingering in her heart. It wasn't until the day Duan Lansheng personally escorted her home that she finally faced it head-on.
The more Duan Lansheng loved her in this life, the more disconnected she felt, unable to understand why the Duan Lansheng of her past life was so different from the one of this life.
Are men really all just cheapskates?
Is it better to criticize him than to praise him?
Is it better to trample on him than to cherish him?
No, she didn't believe the truth could be so simple.
System: "In that case, I will grant you a partial God's-eye view, which I believe will answer your questions."
As soon as she finished speaking, Lu Yuanyuan felt countless chaotic and fragmented images, mixed with sounds, surging into her mind. The scroll of life, with its ups and downs, joys and sorrows, was reassembled and torn apart, eventually transforming into a burning palace.
The palace was littered with signs of a battle; beams and pillars had collapsed, and servants had fled. From the thick black smoke, a small, jet-black monster crawled out of the steps, howling in agony. Sparks hit its back, burning it and making it tremble, its ugly face contorted even more, yet it couldn't get up at all, only tumbling down the steps.
Lu Yuanyuan was startled.
She remembered this palace!
Before Yin Xiaozhu died, he triggered the Sky-Gazing Mirror once. In that illusion, Lu Yuanyuan saw the secret of Yin Xiaozhu's birth.
Yin Xiaozhu and the real Senior Sister of Mount Shu were twins. The Sect Master of Mount Shu disliked Yin Xiaozhu's unusual appearance and only wanted to take his daughter. Because the Senior Sister was born with a deficiency, he also took some things from Yin Xiaozhu before leaving, allowing the Senior Sister to defy fate.
Judging from the scene before us, it's not hard to guess that after the Shushan Sect Master did this, he burned down the palace, took his daughter back to Shushan, and did not kill Yin Xiaozhu, the newborn monster, before leaving.
It's not hard to guess why the Shushan Sect Master didn't eliminate the threat completely.
Even a blind person could see that this little monster wouldn't live much longer and would die young.
He was hunched over, his thin limbs constantly crawling, and finally managed to leave the ruins before the palace collapsed, thus securing a chance for survival for himself.
However, outside the palace lay vast mountains and snowfields, an endless wilderness. No matter which direction one climbed, the outcome would be the same: exhausting one's last bit of strength and dying.
The little monster buried itself in the snow for a while, then regained its strength and crawled forward.
A groove was left in the snow, stretching for a very long distance.
The factory settings of monsters and humans are indeed worlds apart. Newborn babies still need to be held by adults, but Yin Xiaozhu can already climb such a long distance.
No, to be precise, Yin Xiaozhu cannot be classified as an ordinary demon. His appearance at birth was so strange that he may have been affected by demonic magic while in his mother's womb, and may have been subjected to a spell by the sect leader of Shushan. Who can say for sure what he is?
One year, two years, or several years pass by, time seems to be accelerating like a movie scene.
In the wind and snow, a small monster staggered along. He was much taller than when he was born, resembling a thin child; several years had clearly passed. However, his condition was obviously dire. His snake scales were peeling off, blood seeping out and mingling with the snow, turning a pale pink. His body was skin and bones, almost nothing but a skeleton. Finally, as if exhausted, he collapsed forward into the thick snow, black smoke billowing from his body, as if on the verge of disappearing.
Is he dead?
No, that's impossible.
How could Yin Xiaozhu's life possibly end here?
In the near future, he will be captured by the people of Yong and presented to Princess Manjushri.
After killing Princess Manjushri and drinking her blood, he finally absorbed enough nourishment and was no longer the monster that was neither human nor demon. He shed his snake scales and became a handsome young man. After finding his twin sister, he took her place and entered Mount Shu.
This has happened in two lifetimes.
Just as Lu Yuanyuan was filled with doubt and surprise, the little monster on the ground, barely breathing, suddenly twitched. As if a dying animal had caught a whiff of life in the wind, it propped up its emaciated body, took a few breaths, and stared intently at a certain direction in the snow, slowly moving towards it.
Lu Yuanyuan looked closely and saw a small figure lying on the snow in the direction he had gone. The heavy snow was covering the ground in white, almost completely obscuring the figure.
Why does this scene look so familiar?
Lu Yuanyuan was stunned for a moment, and finally recognized that this was the snowfield she had seen when she first entered Duan Lansheng's sea of consciousness.
That time, she was sucked into Duan Lansheng's sea of consciousness, searching for its master in the snow. When she found Duan Lansheng, she saw an ugly little monster lying on him, doing something unknown. As soon as it saw her, the monster warily fled into the forest.
Sure enough, the little monster back then was Yin Xiaozhu.
At this time, he had not yet been imprisoned in a cage by Princess Manjushri and was still wandering outside.
Within her sea of consciousness, she interrupted the little monster's actions. But the sea of consciousness was merely an illusion.
What is unfolding before our eyes right now is the true history that actually happened.
Without her uninvited guest intruding, the little monster, hunched over, shakily brushed away the snow to reveal the unconscious child buried beneath. The scent of the nine-tailed fox, mingled with the stench of blood, permeated the cold wind.
The little monster brought its head close to Duan Lansheng's chest. After a while, intermittent pale golden light appeared in the air, like smoke, long and pure, and entered the little monster's nostrils.
This scene is strikingly similar to Yin Xiaozhu killing Princess Wenshu years later, but this time, he doesn't take Duan Lansheng's blood.
Soon after the golden light entered his body, the incessant bleeding stopped, and his shed scales began to heal at a visible speed. However, he couldn't seem to absorb indefinitely; as the saying goes, "when the vessel is full, it overflows." Suddenly, a beam of light repelled him. This light seemed to have caused him great pain, and the little monster fled the snow in panic.
Lu Yuanyuan watched his departing figure, then looked at the unconscious child in the snow, her voice stiff and hoarse: "What...is that?"
The system calmly replied, "Those are Duan Lansheng's two souls."
Monsters, like humans, have three souls and seven spirits.
The three souls are the soul, the awareness soul, and the life soul.
The seven souls are joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hate, and desire.
In the original fate of Yin Xiaozhu, as predicted by the sect leader of Shushan, he was born with strange features and later became disabled. He was destined to live a short time before his life was cut short. However, no one could have predicted that Yin Xiaozhu's life was not meant to end. When he was about to die, he encountered Duan Lansheng, who had just lost his mother's clan. He consumed two of the latter's souls, thus extending his life.
In this world, Duan Lansheng is not just some random passerby, but the male protagonist destined to defeat the Ghost Emperor.
His two souls were enough to save Yin Xiaozhu from a desperate situation.
Years later, Yin Xiaozhu replaced her biological sister and came to Mount Shu, where she unexpectedly reunited with Duan Lansheng.
Duan Lansheng seemed unaware that two of his souls had been taken by the person in front of him, and he had no recollection of him.
He recognized Duan Lansheng in the crowd at a glance, and his pupils contracted.
Duan Lansheng's two souls, hidden in his heart, were like the skeleton that nailed his shattered life back together. He had thought of finding a replacement, but found that nothing could perfectly replace them.
He could spare the likes of Princess Manjushri, and sparing their lives would not harm his foundation.
Once he loses these two souls, he will return to his original fate.
If I had been able to devour Duan Lansheng whole back then, there wouldn't have been so much trouble waiting for me later.
It was because he was too young at the time. If he were older, even if he was thrown away, he wouldn't give up easily. Instead, he would find a way to take Duan Lansheng away and then find another way to devour him.
He wasn't sure if Duan Lansheng would recall what happened back then, and eliminating any potential threats was his style. Unfortunately, Duan Lansheng was now a registered disciple of Mount Shu and had memories of the past, making it difficult to find an opportunity to strike.
However, when he finally found an opportunity to strike, he came to a terrible conclusion—he couldn't kill Duan Lansheng at all.
He now occupies two of Duan Lansheng's souls; Duan Lansheng is the true body. If the true body is in danger and near death, the wandering souls will be summoned back to protect the true body's life. The principle is similar to how limbs cannot attack the body's owner; otherwise, they will perish together.
Only by keeping Duan Lan alive can he retain ownership of these two souls.
If Duan Lan dies, he will die too.
Those who can affect one's life or death must be kept under close surveillance. This is why Yin Xiaozhu, even disguised as the senior sister, stayed at Mount Shu.
Fortunately, because the two souls within him shared the same origin as Duan Lansheng, Duan Lansheng naturally felt a brotherly closeness towards him. This made it easier for him to gain Duan Lansheng's trust than for others, and also made it easier for him to influence Duan Lansheng's judgment.
Having established a relationship would make it easier to monitor Duan Lansheng's movements.
Yin Xiaozhu was unwilling to remain under someone else's control forever, and he kept searching for a way out. Several years passed in the blink of an eye, and he finally found a way to break the deadlock.
This matter is related to the celestial mirror.
Back then, the sect leader of Mount Shu took his daughter away and also stole the Heavenly Mirror from the demon realm. This item was a treasure of the demon race, capable of connecting the past and the future and revealing the secrets of heaven.
Now, as the daughter of the sect leader, Yin Xiaozhu can easily come into contact with the Sky-Gazing Mirror.
For years, the Heavenly Mirror had never revealed the future. That day, however, was the first time he saw something in the Heavenly Mirror that shocked him—the mirror showed Duan Lansheng ascending to immortality and defeating the Ghost Emperor.
On the path to ascension, there are generally three methods: the path of passion, the path of worldly desires, and the path of indifference. If the difficulty of human ascension is five stars, then the difficulty of the demon race is ten stars.
Monsters are originally animals, lacking self-control and more easily manipulated by emotions and desires. The only way to prove that they have the awareness and ambition to become immortals is to prove their path through ruthlessness and achieve enlightenment in this life.
Yin Xiaozhu knew that Duan Lansheng's two souls, named Love and Evil, were inherently flawed in matters of love, cold-hearted and incapable of falling in love with anyone. This also aligned with the path of ruthlessness that demons must cultivate for ascension.
This was the solution that Heaven had given him to break the deadlock.
To permanently lock away the two souls within the body, one only needs to send Duan Lansheng to a high position and ensure that what happens in the Sky-Gazing Mirror occurs.
Once Duan Lansheng ascends to immortality and attains a golden body, his mortal past will be frozen in time. His two souls will also be severed from him, forever becoming the possessions of Yin Xiaozhu.
He just needs to give it the push and wait for that day to come.
But soon after, a grayish little mouse appeared behind Duan Lansheng.
The little mouse was an ordinary woman named Lu Yuanyuan. She was plain-looking and had average spiritual power. She would foolishly chase after Duan Lansheng every day, showering him with concern.
Yin Xiaozhu usually didn't care who Duan Lansheng associated with. Duan Lansheng was focused on cultivation, had a detached personality, and didn't have any close friends. Most people who liked his face would be scared away.
When Duan Lansheng discussed philosophy with him, he almost never mentioned Lu Yuanyuan, but her presence was undeniable—the small snacks slipped into Duan Lansheng's hand; the dried leaf bookmarks that appeared when Duan Lansheng turned the pages of his book, which he had cut into the shape of a little bird with scissors, quite comical, yet he didn't throw them away...
He hadn't paid much attention to it at first, but little did he expect that this little mouse would cause such a huge mess to his plans.
To everyone's surprise, Duan Lansheng was willing to marry her in order to prevent her from being punished.
Everyone said that Duan Lansheng was a strong man who was afraid of being pursued by a woman. Only Yin Xiaozhu, who knew the whole story, knew that something was very wrong.
Duan Lansheng should have felt disgusted, like he'd swallowed a fly, and coldly watched Lu Yuanyuan being driven away.
Only then did Lu Yuanyuan, this mortal woman, enter his sight for the first time.
At first, I was indifferent to her, like seeing a speck of dust or an inconspicuous blade of grass by the roadside. Now, apart from being wary, all that remains in my heart is a deep sense of disgust.
He loathed losing control, and he loathed the culprits who made him lose control.
But this was just the beginning. Yin Xiaozhu discovered that even though she disliked Lu Yuanyuan, Lu Yuanyuan's influence on Duan Lansheng was gradually increasing.
However, killing one's wife and children, and washing away the dust with blood, is part of the demon's path to enlightenment through ruthlessness.
The deeper Duan Lansheng's feelings for Lu Yuanyuan, the harder it is for him to walk the path of ruthlessness.
As expected, Yin Xiaozhu's worries came true.
Even though he saw the secrets of heaven in the Mirror of Heaven, and even though he had to become the sword immortal destined to kill the Ghost Emperor in the name of saving all living beings, Duan Lansheng still did not want to sacrifice Lu Yuanyuan.
He said that although their marriage was ill-fated, he still hoped that Lu Yuanyuan would live a good life.
Even though the two souls of love and hate are incomplete, they have already subconsciously taken protective actions.
One can imagine the extent to which one would like something if one's soul and spirit were complete and one's likes and dislikes were not contradictory.
It's ridiculous that Duan Lansheng is so infatuated with a mere mortal woman.
The matter had reached its final moment, and he would not allow Duan Lansheng to waver. Therefore, he told Duan Lansheng that he had mastered a puppetry technique that would allow him to transfer Lu Yuanyuan's soul into a puppet before ascending to immortality, thus deceiving the heavens. This way, he would neither betray the common people nor sacrifice Lu Yuanyuan.
Lu Yuanyuan's only reason for staying in Shushan was Duan Lansheng; in fact, she was not happy at all there.
After this battle, she will leave the oppressive Shu Mountain, forget all the unpleasantness and the pain of unfulfilled desires, and be reborn into a new body to have a new life.
Duan Lansheng remained silent for a long time.
Since he couldn't reciprocate the feelings Lu Yuanyuan desired most, rather than watching her vibrant life gradually wither away, he decided to withdraw from her life and let her have a new one.
Is this what he wants?
Isn't that right?
Isn't this what he wanted?
...Yes, that's exactly what he wanted.
After a long silence, he felt himself nod, but a strange emptiness filled his heart.
To avoid leaks, this matter remained a secret between the two of them. However, on the eve of her ascension, Yin Xiaozhu was shocked to discover that Lu Yuanyuan had been pregnant for several months.
Pregnant women cannot be transferred using puppetry; even if the child is killed immediately, there is a possibility of failure. However, if Duan Lansheng finds out about this at this critical juncture, Yin Xiaozhu is unsure whether Duan Lansheng will still listen to him.
In fact, on several occasions before, he had already lost control of Duan Lansheng's thoughts. Fortunately, the influence of the love and hate souls on a person is the greatest, and with the trust he had built up in the past, he could still steer some of Duan Lansheng's key choices toward the side he desired.
In order not to disrupt the plan, he used Duan Lansheng to make the child disappear silently.
Whether the puppetry technique succeeds or not, whether Lu Yuanyuan lives or dies, is not important. All that matters is that the ascension is completed smoothly.
Demons who ascend to the Path of Ruthlessness invariably sever all emotions and desires afterward. Their romantic escapades and deep affections before ascension become as distant as a past life, irrelevant to them.
At that time, even if Duan Lansheng knew that the puppetry had failed, he would probably just say a silent "Oh, I see."
...
System: "His heart contradicts his true self; what has been taken away are the two souls called love and hate."
The initial liking was intercepted by disgust, and the instinctive closeness instantly turned into contradictory hatred.
The inconsistency between hot and cold, between closeness and distance, all stem from this.
So that's how it is.
In his past life, Duan Lansheng's heart was constantly torn apart and in conflict. She chased after his broken self, burning out her life without understanding why.
In this life, the most indispensable step in rewriting her life's trajectory was making Yin Xiaozhu fall in love with her.
In his past life, Yin Xiaozhu was the executioner, and Duan Lansheng was the murderous blade in his hand.
However, she mistook the target of her revenge at the very beginning of her rebirth.
Looking back on this life, when she first joined the Shu Mountain sect, she thought of Yin Xiaozhu as a kind and upright senior sister. She didn't know that he harbored so many secrets, and she didn't know that she was sending herself into the lion's den. She just recklessly went for it.
She thought she had made a terrible mistake, and she regretted giving her heart to Yin Xiaozhu. Little did she know, this would be the key move that led to her victory.
Otherwise, this life will most likely follow the trajectory of the previous life.
When she approaches Duan Lansheng and attempts to carry out her revenge plan, she will inevitably come into Yin Xiaozhu's sight at the same time.
In terms of scheming and plotting, she knew she couldn't outwit Yin Xiaozhu. In this life, she would most likely repeat the same mistakes, ending up either being expelled from Mount Shu or dying in a confused state at Yin Xiaozhu's hands, becoming a wronged ghost.
As a result, Yin Xiaozhu, the villain who kicked her aside like a stumbling block in her previous life and plotted to get rid of her, fell in love with her in this life.
This directly affected Duan Lansheng.
Even though his two souls had not yet returned to his body, Duan Lansheng's heart no longer opposed him. He was finally able to express his affection without being disobedient.
Although this love is still incomplete, it is like a surging ocean that has been drained down to a small pond.
Not only Duan Lansheng, but her rebirth also subtly altered the fates of many others. It was as if a small gear shift had changed the entire machine's operation.
With her intervention, Duan Lansheng was no longer the future sword immortal, but fell into the demon realm. Therefore, the Heavenly Mirror, a magical artifact that could predict events of the present world, would naturally no longer reveal the secret of his ascension.
In other words, Yin Xiaozhu in this life did not know that Duan Lansheng originally had the path of ascension to immortality.
It's easy to see that, given Yin Xiaozhu's intelligence, if he loved her and knew that Duan Lansheng would ascend to immortality in the future, he would have many ways to drive a wedge between her and Duan Lansheng. As long as she didn't marry Duan Lansheng, and Duan Lansheng ascended to immortality in the future, there would be no need to kill her to prove his Dao.
The rival disappears on his own, rolls off to Jin'ao Island, and he can still keep her by his side—killing two birds with one stone.
Unfortunately, without the guidance of the Sky-Gazing Mirror, Yin Xiaozhu naturally did not expect Duan Lansheng to be taken away by the ascension.
As someone who possesses two souls, Yin Xiaozhu is quite wary of Duan Lansheng in this life. However, his methods for dealing with Duan Lansheng are completely different from those in his previous life. Instead of trying to make him an ally and help him ascend to heaven, he tramples him into the mud.
Once Duan Lansheng's cultivation is stripped away and he becomes an ordinary person, he will no longer be a threat to Yin Xiaozhu, and she can be treated as she pleases.
Even if he were to accidentally discover in the future that he possessed two souls within Yin Xiaozhu, he would be powerless to reclaim them.
Even though she only learned the truth now, she has actually gotten her revenge.
That year, she stabbed Duan Lansheng in the heart with a sword, and Yin Xiaozhu died as a result.
Unintentionally, she succeeded in returning the two lost souls to their rightful owner.
That day, when Yin Xiaozhu bled from all seven orifices before her eyes, he probably already felt the two souls within his body being drawn away and returning to their original form. His calling her "Quan Quan" in his dying moments likely meant that during the fusion, he saw Duan Lansheng's memories.
Was he deliberately leaving her with a mystery she would never understand in her entire life, so that she would remember him forever?
Lu Yuanyuan thought to herself that she should laugh heartily and say "karma" now. But for some reason, her body was trembling and her eyes were filled with tears.
As for Duan Lansheng, his two souls had resided in another person's body. After returning, he naturally discovered many of Yin Xiaozhu's secrets—puppetry, her interactions with Yin Xiaozhu, and the secret that she was once Princess Manjushri and seemed to be able to switch between several bodies...
Suddenly, the dizzying God's-eye view disappeared from her sight.
Lu Yuanyuan raised her head in a daze and found that she had been tightly gripping the edge of the Soul-Crossing Thorns without realizing it. In the void in front of her, a brilliant exit appeared.
A faint sigh came from above her head, as if a force had brushed over her head: "...Today is like dying yesterday, just consider it a dream, go home."
...
Lu Yuanyuan woke up with a feeling of weightlessness. She lifted her dizzy head and found herself slumped over a desk, in front of a brightly lit computer screen. The time in the upper right corner was ticking; it would be one o'clock in the morning in five minutes.
The air conditioner was blowing cool air, and the glass next to me was filled with cola, bubbling away.
This is her home, her room.
Lu Yuanyuan stared blankly at the computer screen, which displayed the latest chapter of "The Enchanting Fairy Tale". She recognized all the words, but her brain seemed unable to process their meaning; it was just a bunch of meaningless squares.
Yes, she remembered. At that time, she had just finished reading the serialized part of "The Enchanting Fairy Tale" when she transmigrated into the book and then lost her memory.
It seems that after she left, the world stood still for that one second. When she returned, the pause button popped up, and the play button was pressed.
Lu Yuanyuan, leaning on the computer desk, stood up with slightly unsteady steps, pushed open the door, and found the living room simply furnished and very quiet, with a desk lamp on.
As if she had fallen into a dream, she slowly walked to the middle of the living room and stood there blankly for a while before her brain finally picked up the disconnected electrical signals.
This is the apartment she rented. She has started working and moved out of her family home to live independently. Her parents are currently at their home on the other side of the city.
Her phone was in her pocket. She pulled it out with trembling hands, intending to call her mother, but changed her mind before pressing the button.
It's so late, her parents are asleep. If they call her suddenly, they'll probably think something happened to her.
She swiped up the screen and saw the voice message from her parents in the family group chat. She pursed her lips, tapped the message, and heard the familiar voices of the elderly couple coming through the receiver. The feeling of returning to the same era as them overwhelmed her.
It was as if the emotions that had been frozen inside her had broken free and were released. With the phone still to her ear, she listened and laughed, tears silently streaming down her face. Like a madwoman, she cried uncontrollably.
She really went back to her parents.
Suddenly, she remembered something. Lu Yuanyuan, forgetting to wipe her tears, stumbled back to the table and pressed the refresh button on the computer webpage.
She still didn't know what happened to Duan Lansheng after she left.
The webpage refreshed quickly, but the number of chapters for "The Enchanting Fairy Tale" remained unchanged.
Moreover, all the plot points mentioned above are exactly the same as the melodramatic original story in her memory, without any change due to her time travel and rebirth.
In the book, Lu Yuanyuan was expelled from Mount Shu, Duan Lansheng ascended to become a sword immortal, and the senior sister in the book still appeared to be a woman in public.
Lu Yuanyuan released the mouse and stared blankly at the novel's cover.
That world has long since existed independently of the original story; now, it only exists in her memory.
But can she really treat that world as a long dream, as the system says?
.
The next day, Lu Yuanyuan went home for dinner. To avoid frightening her parents, she deliberately applied ice to her eyes and put on makeup. But upon entering and seeing her parents, she couldn't control her emotions and burst into tears. Afterwards, she had to use the excuse of being scolded by her boss at work to smooth things over.
Subsequently, Lu Yuanyuan requested three days off from the company, citing physical discomfort.
Over the past three days, she has read through all of the more than one million words of "The Enchanting Fairy Tale" that have been serialized so far, confirming that the plot has not changed at all. She searched online for names such as Duan Lansheng, Lu Yuanyuan, Yin Xiaozhu, and Xiao Ruo, but found nothing unusual. She even considered chatting with the author, but was afraid of being mistaken for a delusional fanatic.
After three days of ostrich-like isolation, Lu Yuanyuan returned to work.
She hadn't worked in an office for many years, but thankfully, she had crammed at home for the past couple of days. The work wasn't too demanding, and although she was a little rusty, nothing went wrong.
It took her a while to match her colleague's face with his name.
...
At 5 p.m., Lu Yuanyuan declined her colleagues' invitation to go to karaoke and stepped out of the office building.
As the sun sets, its afterglow like blood. City lights come on, and the lively atmosphere of everyday life spreads through the streets and alleys. At the intersection, the green light flashes, and a bustling crowd crosses the road.
Lu Yuanyuan walked through the crowd, the wind tickling her face. She didn't want to go home so soon; she just wanted to wander around alone.
As darkness fell, the riverbank stretched out before us. The river breeze dispelled the heat, and the streetlights began to illuminate the scene one by one.
Lu Yuanyuan stepped forward, rested her hands on the stone railing, and gazed at the surging river in a daze.
After an unknown amount of time, she heard footsteps behind her, followed by a hesitant "Hey."
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