Chapter 113 Birthday "The World Is Me" and "I Am the World" are one...
The lights in the tea room were on all night. As soon as Shen Cangyu pushed open the door, white smoke billowed out. Seeing this, Shen Cangyu almost thought that Wan Qianzhong had set the tea room on fire.
Wan Qianzhong lay supine on the ground, with several thick stacks of manuscripts on the table in front of her—suggestions submitted by others. She was adjusting new rules and planning the establishment of an audience council. She wanted to delegate power, allowing them to form a self-governing group capable of development. Just as Shen Cangyu had initially said, after teaching them methods of growth and concepts of right and wrong, she would then let them manage themselves.
Rather than letting these money-grubbing disciples follow Wan Qianzhong's ideas, it's better to let them figure out what they really want. More people mean more ideas, and perhaps their final development plan will be more perfect than Wan Qianzhong's expectations.
"How are you? Still having a headache?" Seeing Wan Qianchong staring up at the roof beam, seemingly lost in thought, Shen Cangyu took the initiative to ask, "Have you encountered a very difficult problem?"
After a long silence, Wan Qianzhong finally moved his eyes: "It is indeed troublesome. You said that if you want to be like everyone in the world, you have to understand their thoughts and put yourself in their shoes. But you are not a fish, how can you know the joy of a fish? I can never truly become them. Even if I think from their perspective, the conclusion I get is only 'If Wan Qianzhong encountered such a situation, what would Wan Qianzhong do?'"
Just as she had timed it perfectly, placing the writing implements in front of Pei Wenjing's room, she thought that if she were Pei Wenjing, receiving such a gift on her birthday would naturally make her happy, since it signified reconciliation and a thaw in their relationship. But unexpectedly, after receiving the gift, Pei Wenjing actually pressed her for its meaning.
That boy's tone was awful; he took the gift as a provocation. Just thinking about it made Wan Qianzhong furious. Sure enough, she and Pei Wenjing couldn't get along at all. If she had known, she wouldn't have put so much effort into preparing the gift. All her hard work had gone to waste, and she had only suffered a lot of anger. It also reminded her of those past memories, making her blood boil.
“If Wan Qianzhong doesn’t know what they want, then Wan Qianzhong can just ask them,” Shen Cangyu sat down beside her. “After all, they are human, not fish. Instead of trying to guess what they are thinking, it’s better to just ask them directly.”
In this respect, Shen Cangyu felt that Wan Qianzhong and Pei Wenjing were remarkably similar. They were both people who liked to keep everything to themselves. Not only did they like to keep their thoughts to themselves, but they also liked to use their own perspectives to speculate about other people's thoughts. If someone said something unintentionally, they would go through a mental battle.
Wan Qianzhong was stunned. She hadn't considered Shen Cangyu's suggestion, or rather, she felt it couldn't be that simple. In her eyes, everyone was fickle and hypocritical; who would truly tell her what was on their mind?
"Even if they really did say it, how would I know if they were telling the truth or lying?" Wan Qianzhong tried to nitpick the details in Shen Cangyu's words and asked in return.
"Then how much of what I told you is true and how much is false?" Shen Cangyu suddenly asked. Only now did Wan Qianzhong realize that she had told Shen Cangyu everything, questioned her words without reservation, and steadfastly accepted her advice. If Shen Cangyu was truly playing her, then…
"Want some cake?" Shen Cangyu asked.
She drew everyone's attention away: "What cake?" A sponge cake? A pastry made from eggs?
Shen Cangyu took a plate out of the Sun and Moon Pot and placed it on the table in front of Wan Qianchong.
Wan Qianzhong stared at the strange food on the table. Its inner layer resembled a shortbread, while the outer layer was covered with a creamy, cake-like substance, emanating a sweet, snow-like aroma. After staring at the cake for a while, Wan Qianzhong finally shifted his gaze to Shen Cangyu: "You made this?"
"I guess so," Shen Cangyu said, pointing to the two flowers on the cake. "I made the cake, and Pei Wenjing carved the pear blossom on it."
Upon hearing Pei Wenjing's name, Wan Qianzhong's face darkened with displeasure: "Why bring it here? Let him eat it himself."
"He still has quite a lot; this piece is for you."
Wan Qianzhong curled his lips and sneered, "You give me leftovers?"
“No, this was specially reserved for you. After all, today is also very important to you, isn’t it?” Shen Cangyu said.
In that instant, Wan Qianzhong seemed to return to that blood-soaked night, the candlelight in the room dim, just like now. The scene before her eyes was blurry and indistinct. In her dizziness, she thought she was really going to die there, but when she thought of what she had to do in the future, she held on and persevered until she heard a child's cry, and everything came to an end.
The birthday is the time of Pei Wenjing's birth, and it is also a "birthday" with countless layers.
Pei Wenjing's birth signifies the death of an old, stale woman. When she abandoned her child, she was determined to become a new person and sever ties with her past.
It was as if she had overcome her emotional tribulation, severed the last thread of love in her life, and from then on walked towards the direction of supreme ruthlessness.
She thought she would always walk alone, without family or friends, all alone in the world, resolutely heading in the direction she wanted, even if she ended up disgraced, as long as the world could see what she wanted to do, she would have no regrets.
But at the same time, she was really wondering why no one could understand her or support her.
It wasn't until Shen Cangyu appeared that Wan Qianzhong saw another way of living in her. Shen Cangyu didn't need the world to understand her; she would take the initiative to understand the world. By living the way she did, Wan Qianzhong could also achieve the goals she wanted.
"The world is me" and "I am the world" are the same principle.
After much thought, could her acquaintance with Shen Cangyu be considered her second rebirth?
Wan Qianzhong propped himself up and sat up, looking at the cake on the table. He picked up a spoon and said, "You went to curry favor with Pei Wenjing, and now you're trying to curry favor with me?"
Shen Cangyu's eyelids twitched. How could this mother and son be so alike? Wan Qianzhong's eyes were shining. He clearly liked the cake very much, but he kept saying hurtful things.
The silver spoon clinked against the porcelain plate. Wan Qianzhong finished the cake without missing a single bite before wiping her mouth with a handkerchief. She resumed her aloof and reserved demeanor and said, "So, besides bringing me cake, what else did you come to see me for?" She didn't believe that Shen Cangyu had come to see her for such a trivial matter.
Shen Cangyu smiled and said, "I came to find you because I want information on all the followers of the Hundred Eyes Mirror."
Wan Qian raised an eyebrow, thinking to himself, "As you know, the Five Evils rarely contact each other. Our ideologies differ, so we don't interfere with each other."
“I know, I also know that back then, you few who were in charge of the Five Evils…” Shen Cangyu thought for a moment, then changed his words, “or let’s call you divine messengers, you once gathered together and plotted to expand the power of the Five Evils, constantly recruiting believers, trying to establish an existence like Kunlun. But in the end, it ended badly, and it was you who broke the agreement first, right?”
Hearing Shen Cangyu's words, Wan Qianzhong was somewhat surprised: "Where did you hear this news from? Judging from the time, you should have been born not long ago at that time. Don't tell me you also have the ability of seeing the heavens."
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to call it having supernatural powers; this is the information Shen Cangyu saw within her original work's system. As her relationships with each person deepened, she could see the stories behind them through the original work in her mind. However, Shen Cangyu rarely looked at the information in the original work, because whenever she read other people's stories, she couldn't help but empathize with them, as if her soul had flown into their bodies, experiencing what they had gone through as their own.
In the past, she didn't want her emotions to be affected by others. For example, when Shen Cangyu first met Wuliangsheng, she knew that he had killed many people, that he had committed heinous crimes, that he didn't deserve any sympathy, that he was utterly wicked, and that he deserved to die.
However, when the plot of the original work entered Shen Cangyu's mind, she had seen the life story of Wuliangsheng, and she would feel sad for him. She couldn't help but think that if he had not experienced all the suffering he had gone through back then, would he not have become the way he is now? The evil deeds he has committed now are all the result of the pain he suffered in the past.
At that time, Shen Cangyu felt that good and evil were clearly distinct, and she should not sympathize with a perpetrator, no matter how pitiful he was in the past, no matter what he had suffered, it should not be a reason for him to inflict pain on others. Wuliangsheng was one of them, then came the second Wuliangsheng, followed by Dongtang, Amitabha... one by one, the past of the Five Evils appeared in her mind.
But Shen Cangyu didn't want to empathize with them, so she sealed away the characters and stories from the original work and rarely read them anymore.
When reading the story, she only wanted to learn about Qiu Sheng's life, to feel her spiritedness, to learn from Shui Linglong's thoughtfulness, to learn from Lu Yuan's passionate love and hate, and to learn from Ming Zhao's thirst for knowledge... At that time, she only wanted to read the righteous stories and not the stories of the Five Evils, but the system was in her mind, and once it was turned on, she had no choice but to read it.
So she simply stopped opening it.
It wasn't until later, when Shen Cangyu realized she was following the path of a "wicked woman," that she understood that so-called good and evil, right and wrong, were nothing more than people's subjective judgments. She reopened the original system, gradually looking at everyone, and gradually merging into the person she is today through shared experiences of different lives.
That's why Shen Cangyu said she could empathize with everyone and wanted to be a kindred spirit to all people. She had seen Amitabha's past and countless pasts. She knew that back then, in the dark mountains and lakes, there was a boat floating alone on the water. The group of young Five Evils gathered on the boat, calling each other "divine messengers" and dreaming together about their future.
They said they wanted to establish a new sect, to become the second Kunlun, or even surpass Kunlun.
However, as time went on, their ambitions were no longer satisfied. They harbored their own ulterior motives, disagreed with each other, and eventually parted ways, breaking their alliance. The first person to leave the Five Evils was Wan Qianzhong.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
