Chapter 4

I screamed all the way from the study to my bedroom.

Inside my head, I seized the system and shook it wildly.

“Did you hear that? Did you hear it?”

“So cool! So incredibly cool!”

I rolled back and forth across the bed.

The system played dead.

I nearly twisted my waist from all the excitement.

Once I had collapsed flat on the mattress, I asked, “After I leave, will I still be able to see what happens to my precious girl?”

“No,” the system answered coldly.

“The instant you die, you’ll return to your original world. The promised ten-million-yuan reward will be transferred to your account at the same time.”

“All right.”

I propped my chin on my hands, a little disappointed.

“I wanted to see how powerful she becomes. She’ll probably be the greatest cultivator alive – the sort who can wipe out an entire army with a wave of her hand.”

The system fell silent.

I ignored it and continued imagining the future, never noticing how unnatural its silence was.

At last, the day came to enter the secret realm.

My companions prepared all kinds of treasures.

I checked only the two things that mattered most: a packet of Meridian-Softening Powder and a teleportation talisman.

One would rob my precious girl of her strength. The other would send her into the deepest part of the realm.

There she would encounter a miracle and advance again.

Then I would frame her, she would return for revenge, and I would be executed and make my glorious exit.

I hummed happily, ignoring the elite disciples’ contemptuous looks.

They revered strength. It was only natural that they despised an ordinary cripple like me.

When someone glared, I was about to glare back.

Then a figure stepped in front of me and blocked every scornful gaze.

My heart melted.

The best girl in the world was protecting me from their contempt.

The system no longer had the energy to comment.

We soon reached the entrance.

The instant I stepped inside, weightlessness seized me. My vision went dark.

When it cleared, Xu Youchan was the only person beside me.

All the whispering had vanished. Beneath the luxuriant plants, only leaves rustled.

The young woman stood tall in an ivory cultivator’s robe that outlined her lean waist.

I looked up and met her unfathomable eyes.

We both seemed to freeze.

Awkwardness slowly filled the silence.

“Why… why does this feel strange?” I stammered to the system.

“Talk to her. Conversation will make it less awkward.”

“R-right.”

I scratched my head and seized on the first topic that came to mind.

“Junior Sister, what does falling into demonic deviation feel like?”

Oh, hell.

I picked anxiously at my fingers.

The question fit my vicious, cutting persona, but asking it while we were alone felt deeply wrong.

“What a brilliant conversationalist,” the system said sarcastically.

Xu Youchan watched me. Wind stirred the loose hair on her forehead, and mist seemed to cloud her smoky-gray eyes.

“Does Senior Sister want to know?”

Our eyes met.

My scalp prickled.

No. Better not.

It felt as though her answer would open Pandora’s box.

I had no idea what lay inside, but every instinct warned me not to ask.

I laughed lightly.

“It was only a casual question.”

“Let’s explore farther in.”

The secret realm was extraordinarily dangerous.

I might have been useless, but I had the heroine as my ultimate weapon.

What was this?

A nether serpent’s egg. I touched it.

Xu Youchan hurled her sword, striking the attacking mother serpent through the head.

What was this?

Man-eating grass. I stepped on it.

Countless blades of grass flew like petals and died beneath Frostfall.

What was this?

A flower that attracted beast tides. I picked one.

Thousands of spirit beasts went berserk. Heaven and earth seemed to change color as they charged us.

Sword light flashed. Enormous beasts toppled, blocking most of those behind them.

Xu Youchan caught me around the waist with her left arm and wielded her sword with her right, cutting a bloody path until we reached a cave.

Her ivory robe was stained with dust and blood. Her hair was disheveled, her breath came hard, and a cut marked her face.

I was perfectly unharmed, my clothes still immaculate.

My conscience took a mighty blow from an imaginary hammer.

I hardened my heart and looked away.

“You’ve entered the cave,” the system said. “Go only a little deeper.”

The beast tide still thundered outside.

“Junior Sister.”

I tossed a bottle of pills into her arms.

“Take this Essence-Restoring Pill, and then let’s go farther in. We’re too close to the entrance.”

“All right.”

We walked down a long tunnel.

A cultivator’s senses were sharper than a mortal’s, allowing us to see even in darkness.

Convention said keeping the tunnel dark would be safest.

But I had come to make trouble.

I lit a torch.

Fire flooded the tunnel, and in its leaping glow I saw Xu Youchan’s face change.

Frostfall left its sheath.

The torch flew from my hand, rolled twice, and went out.

I was about to snap at her when a tremendous crash sounded.

A vine struck the spot where the torch had fallen and left a deep pit.

It had moved too fast to see.

Someone grabbed my hand.

The world shifted, and the vine struck the place where we had just stood.

Too close.

My heart hammered as we dodged again and again.

Soon I was panting.

Xu Youchan glanced at me. Her storage ring flashed, and a Shadow-Concealing Pill appeared in my palm.

“Senior Sister, take this. It will temporarily hide you from the creature.”

“I’ll deal with it.”

I swallowed without hesitation.

A useless person knew when to hide.

Xu Youchan piled several protective treasures into my hands, gave me one final look, and rushed to fight the vines.

The battle was terrifying.

I crouched in a corner and applauded silently.

In truth, I could see almost nothing. Dust and debris filled the cave, and only the clash of sword against vine reached me.

“How much longer?” I asked.

“The tree demon is nearly dead,” the system replied.

“It is this powerful near the entrance. Imagine what lives deeper inside.”

The system eyed me.

“You’re not getting softhearted again, are you? This is an essential plot point. You must use the talisman to send her inside.”

“Only then can she find the great opportunity waiting for her.”

I nodded absently, failing to notice that the pill’s effect was fading.

The tree demon could not defeat Xu Youchan.

Perhaps it decided to take one life with it before dying.

When the vine stabbed toward me, I had no warning.

“Qiu Ci!”

“Senior Sister!”

The cries were heartrending.

Something sharp tore through flesh.

Warm blood splashed across my face.

I wiped it away by reflex.

Red.

Metallic.

A woman’s body sagged into my arms.

I caught her, too afraid to look down.

Xu Youchan pressed one hand to her abdomen and held her sword with the other. Blood surged between her fingers.

The vine attacked again.

She blocked, but her sword nearly slipped from her weakening grip.

She lowered her head in disbelief.

The Meridian-Softening Powder had taken effect.

The pill I gave her had not been medicine.

She understood.

Yet when the vine attacked once more, she still forced her sword up.

My hands began to shake.

She never needed to suffer such a terrible wound.

Why had she saved me?

Even for a kindhearted heroine, was this not too much?

Her fingers could barely hold the sword, but she stepped forward again.

She coughed up blood, forcibly breaking through the drug’s effects.

“Don’t!” I cried.

“You’ll die!”

Xu Youchan did not turn.

Raise the sword. Strike.

She moved like a machine and left herself completely undefended.

Blood soaked her white robe.

Her movements grew slower, but she refused to stop.

Run.

Please stop and run.

“Let’s escape -”

“Qiu Ci!” the system shouted over me. “Don’t you want to go home?”

Home.

Home.

Tears slid down my face as I stared at Xu Youchan’s blood-soaked back.

Frostfall hummed.

She thrust it deep into the tree’s heart.

The vines thrashed.

She did not let go.

At last they fell still.

All strength left her at the same moment, and she crashed to the ground.

“Go,” the system said. “Use the talisman. Send her deeper into the cave.”

I did not move.

It sighed.

“She won’t die.”

“When she comes out, she’ll be stronger than ever.”

I took one step.

“Don’t give her healing medicine. If you do, the next plot event won’t trigger.”

I said nothing.

Only a few yards separated us, yet crossing them seemed to take centuries.

I dropped to my knees beside Xu Youchan.

Dust and blood covered her face. Her breathing was barely perceptible.

“Frostfall,” the system reminded me. “Do what you did last time.”

Mechanically, I took the sword from her hand.

It neither resisted nor struggled.

It came to me with frightening ease.

I lowered my head, and tears struck Xu Youchan’s face.

“Senior Sister…”

Lying on the ground, she raised a trembling hand as though to wipe my tears away.

“Don’t… cry…”

I froze. The hand holding her sword began to tremble.

“Hurry!” the system urged.

I slashed wounds across my own body, then drove the blade into my abdomen.

Blood poured out.

As if matching her injuries could lessen the tidal wave of guilt inside me.

Her robe no longer retained any trace of its original color. Blood from her abdomen had soaked the earth beneath her, filling the cave with its smell.

Something deeper inside the cave stirred. Spirit beasts waited outside.

Her smoky-gray eyes began to lose focus.

I had always called Xu Youchan my precious girl because she was still so young.

By the standards of the cultivation world, she was little more than a child.

I rarely spoke of her past.

It was the familiar story of a daughter born into a family that valued sons and treated girls as worthless.

She was sold like merchandise, beaten, escaped, and sold again. The cycle repeated as she wandered from place to place.

Then she heard that the Sword Sect was accepting disciples and that joining could guarantee food and shelter for life.

So she came.

She spent several years as an outer disciple’s servant before someone discovered her talent and promoted her to the inner sect.

After that came cultivation, slaying demons, and more cultivation.

A barren, joyless life.

The world praised her brilliance and forgot that she was still a child.

A child should be allowed to pout, play, hide behind someone else sometimes, and live without enduring endless pain merely for the road to immortality.

The protagonist was destined to suffer. Readers wanted twists and turns.

A protagonist had to meet obstacle after obstacle, fall to the bottom with every bone broken, and claw her way back up on one last breath.

But if I had a choice, I wanted Xu Youchan’s life to be smooth and peaceful.

Safe.

Happy.

“Qiu Ci!” the system shouted. “Now!”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”

My tears mixed with the drying blood on her face.

The hand holding the talisman shook.

Xu Youchan’s pupils had almost scattered. She seemed to be looking at me and yet not seeing me at all.

I slipped my storage ring, filled with healing medicine, onto her finger.

Then I gritted my teeth and pressed the talisman to her body.

Just before it touched, something flickered in her eyes.

Her lips moved with enormous effort.

Then she vanished, leaving only blood-soaked earth behind.

All strength left me. I collapsed, sobbing like a child.

The wound in my abdomen tore with every movement.

She had spoken.

She had said –

“It’s all right, Senior Sister.”