Chapter 99 Chunrong: If there is no torch left after this, I will be the only one...
Back then, the Five Evils infiltrated Kunlun, killing its disciples. The karmic fire was intense, drawing a particularly clear line between black and white, good and evil.
The Kunlun disciples died or were wounded, all in the hope of waiting for their savior to arrive.
This is a grand drama orchestrated solely for the protagonist; wherever the protagonist is, good is represented, and those on the opposite side are evil. The author doesn't need to consider why the Five Evils attacked Kunlun—was it to seize the supreme treasure? Was it for fame and status? Or for a grand revenge plan?
All she needed to think about was how to make the battle scenes more exciting and cool, and how to showcase the protagonist's extraordinary combat power and exceptional intelligence...
Looking at the sentence she had unconsciously written in her hand, she realized that she didn't want Wan Qianzhong to die at all. But as one of the Five Evils, the opposing force to the protagonist, Wan Qianzhong had to die; her pride wouldn't allow her to submit to Kunlun. Even in her last moments, given Wan Qianzhong's personality, she wouldn't believe she had done anything wrong.
The author paused at this point.
She began to ask herself, what exactly did Wan Qianzhong do wrong?
The author pauses, looking back at Wan Qianzhong's early life, and discovers that, from Wan Qianzhong's perspective, she was unassuming, resilient, and had saved countless lives; what she wanted to do was something that would change humanity...
Wan Qianchong's biggest mistake was standing on the opposite side of the protagonist. If there were no right or wrong in terms of stance, then Wan Qianchong might well have been able to become the protagonist.
As a child, every book the author read taught her that hard work pays off and that as long as you work hard, you will definitely achieve results.
But she discovered with horror that Heaven doesn't reward diligence, it only rewards its protagonists. Just like many things in life, good fortune often doesn't fall on the most hardworking person, simply because the hardest-working person isn't the protagonist.
No wonder the protagonist always has the best background, the most resources, and the most attention. No wonder even a protagonist from the slums eventually receives a notice revealing they are actually an abandoned child from a wealthy family. No wonder some people, seemingly without any talent, always have someone pouring all their resources into promoting them. They are the protagonists, after all.
No wonder life is mostly unsatisfactory. It turns out that only one in ten people in this world can become the protagonist, while the others are just targets, background figures, stepping stones, and lackeys.
The work embodies the creator's beautiful aspirations, fulfilling things she couldn't achieve in reality. The author also wanted to be the protagonist in a novel, experiencing the thrill of being one—this was her initial idea. However, she realized that this wouldn't bring her any pleasure. If someone is the protagonist, then someone else must be the supporting character or the antagonist.
A change of identity leads to a completely different outcome.
She could have closed her eyes and written the whole story of a wish-fulfillment novel, creating a standard wish-fulfillment story, but when it came time to reach the ending, she hesitated to put pen to paper.
"Shen Cangyu, tell me, what should I do?"
When an author asks this question, it means that the character in their writing is no longer a symbol, but an existing, living person with her own thoughts and choices.
It's a terrible thing for a character to develop ideas, because it means that her choices may deviate from the author's original settings and ideas, and there's no going back.
She watched as Shen Cangyu, contrary to her original plan, did not kill Pei Wenjing when he loved her most, preserving his extreme affection and ascending to godhood to end the story. Instead, she chose to leave Kunlun, travel to the mortal realm, and ultimately detonate her own soul, leaving the story unfinished.
The author, burdened by the readers' criticism, dared not pick up his pen again, and instead locked the notebooks containing his stories in a drawer.
Shen Cangyu received the author's thoughts, and a memory from her first life reappeared in her mind—a memory from before she ascended to godhood.
She remembered why she had chosen to go to the human world.
Shen Cangyu thought to herself, cultivating immortality is too easy. It turns out that as long as you complete the tasks, you can become a god. Compared to her, the hard work of the other Kunlun disciples seems ridiculous. She thought, this shouldn't be the case. She looked at everyone around her, who were like puppets, with only two kinds of appearances. Those who envied her became her followers, and those who hated her died by her sword. This cycle repeated itself. Everyone seemed to have the same face and the same emotions.
Even Pei Wenjing was no different from her other followers.
As expected of a character from a novel, so one-dimensional. Shen Cangyu thought, oh well, once she completes her mission, ascends to godhood, and leaves this world, she can return to reality.
But before leaving, Shen Cangyu still held onto a last shred of curiosity, wanting to see the world beyond Kunlun and whether the people in that world were all like this.
When she had this thought, the world seemed to come alive. She finally met different people, and even Pei Wenjing, who was following behind her, gradually became different. At least he was no longer a two-dimensional character.
Shen Cangyu did many things that would have been meaningless to her past self, but she did them because she wanted to, and her time in this world was running out. When the countdown ended, she would ascend, this world would come to an end, and she would return to her original life.
Shen Cangyu thought this way until she gained divine power, ascended to immortality, tore through space and time, and wanted to return to her original world. Only then did she realize that there was no such thing as "another world".
The ending after her ascension is blank, because the author didn't write it. She was never a true "time traveler"; she was merely a character created by the author.
There is no such thing as "going home." It's all just background to the story, a "programmed setting" in her mind. After she becomes a god, she won't go home; she will only face the end of the story.
Since that's the case, Shen Cangyu chose to ignite his own soul to start everything anew.
As long as this story doesn't truly end, this world will never end.
A self-destructive author and an awakened protagonist overturned the story, putting everything back into a long cycle of restarting.
The author wanted to write a story that would satisfy everyone, a story that would be accepted by the market, but she was also reluctant to change Shen Cangyu and make her that kind of protagonist.
Therefore, Shen Cangyu disappeared from her story, and Shen Qingyan became the protagonist.
Shen Qingyan was a child she had hated from beginning to end. Making such a child the protagonist made her grit her teeth. No matter how she wrote him, she could never be satisfied.
It wasn't until the thousandth revision that the author suddenly realized that another character had been added to his story.
Shen Cangyu is back.
The author had already altered the story beyond recognition, and she thought it would eventually fall apart in her hands. She never expected that Shen Cangyu would return at this moment.
I never expected you to come back, even though this story is no longer worthy of you.
Shen Cangyu is her first protagonist, and the eternal white moonlight in her heart.
Shen Cangyu said, “The moment an author puts pen to paper for the first time, this world is born. Even if you don’t write, this world will continue to turn. You might want to spend ten years honing your skills, but you’ll never be able to forge the sword you want. We can never create a perfect ending because we are always improving. A play eventually needs a curtain call, and a story needs an ending. I came back to tell you, stop waiting. You know very well what you want, and what you’re doing now is the right decision. You’re writing the story you want most.”
All things under heaven are born from existence, and existence is born from non-existence.①
Whether it's a work of art, a character, or life itself, everything is built step by step. Even if it can't be perfect, starting from nothing is already a huge step forward.
Getting it done is far more important than getting it perfect.
Moreover, Shen Cangyu, who has constantly emerged from and returned to the world, is far more powerful than her past self. She has the ability to help the author weave a better plot for this story. Just as the author used the system to guide Shen Cangyu step by step to complete the plot and see the world clearly in the past, she can now lead the author step by step forward, allowing this world to reach the best ending they can achieve now.
When the Five Evils attacked Kunlun, each of them had their own reasons, besides the needs of the plot.
Just like Wan Qianzhong, she overthrew Kunlun in order to eliminate the cultivation template and allow more Taoist methods to appear in the human world.
Amiga entered Kunlun to absorb the power of the Heavenly Fragrance Goddess, making it his own and becoming even stronger.
Xu Qiubai betrayed Kunlun because he had endured too much criticism, so he decided to confirm the charges and became a follower of the Hundred Eyes Mirror.
The Five Evils spared no expense to achieve their goals, staining Kunlun with blood, which led to the first life's mutually destructive outcome.
They clearly had a way to achieve both goals; they had a choice.
While Kunlun may be decaying, it is also a vessel that has carried the Dao for millennia. All things return to their source; changing it is not as difficult as they imagine. Shen Cangyu does not seek to destroy it from the outside through brute force and resistance, but rather to bring about change within Kunlun from the outside. The same applies to the Five Evils; everything has two sides. She wants to see the white within the black, she wants the Five Evils to cease to be evil, she wants to prove that things are inherently neither good nor evil, and that even the Owl God is a god.
The road ahead is winding and uncertain.
"But there is still light."
[If there is no torch after this, you will be my only light.]
"No, your light is yourself. You won't just write this one story. You'll experience more than just this one world. A bright future awaits you. You shouldn't stop here."
After saying this in his mind, Shen Cangyu heard a crisp notification sound in his ear.
[Character Shen Chunrong, current favorability rating: 100]
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Let us congratulate Chunrong on having her own name from this day forward.
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