The moonlight outside the window was like water, gently spilling over Qingxuan Mountain. Bursts of gentle breeze shook the windows of Zhiyi Hall, making rhythmic, slight vibrating sounds, lulling the people inside the house into a deep sleep.
Qiao Yiting dreamed that he was in a state of nothingness, surrounded by pitch blackness. Suddenly, fire flared up, and fireballs rained down from the sky, plunging toward the human realm. Then, his perspective shifted, and he arrived at a village where everyone’s faces were overgrown with dead grass and completely lacked facial features. Seeing him, they rushed forward collectively, shouting in unison, “Save me, save me,” with a horrifying scene resembling a zombie movie. Next, he plunged into deep water; Qiao Yiting swam upward desperately, only to find he could never reach the surface. Looking back, he saw countless waterweeds frantically entangling around him, impossible to shake off. Finally, he drew his sword and slashed all the waterweeds to pieces before returning to that expanse of nothingness.
Then a sound similar to his mobile phone’s AI rang in his ear. The difference was that this voice actually carried emotional color, bizarre and vague: “Yinghuo guards the heart, monsters and evils run amok, the world is in great chaos. You mortals must eradicate monsters and evils and defy the mandate of heaven to trade for eternal peace.”
When Qiao Yiting opened his eyes and woke up, he only felt that his arm was covered in mosaics, burning with a piercing pain. Meanwhile, Zeng Youran on the bed was already nowhere to be seen. He hurriedly got up, wanting to search around and urge him that his body had just recovered and still needed rest.
Yet with a turn, Zeng Youran had already found a broom from somewhere and was diligently helping Qiao Yiting sweep Zhiyi Hall. Hearing the noise inside the house, he hurried over.
“Sixth Senior Brother, you’re awake.”
Looking at Zeng Youran before him, whose hands nervously gripped the broom and whose eyes were lowered submissively, Qiao Yiting felt a pang of inexplicable heartache, “Junior Brother, how is your body feeling?”
“My body is fine, Senior Brother. Why do you ask?”
“How could it be fine?” Qiao Yiting blurted out, exposing Zeng Youran’s less-than-clever lie, “You even fainted at my door yesterday. Have you forgotten?”
Zeng Youran showed visible panic on his face, “I was probably just too tired.”
This time Qiao Yiting didn’t speak up again, only nodding thoughtfully.
Because he knew that after leaving with Eldest Senior Brother and the others yesterday, Zeng Youran must have been assigned a pile of chores by Eldest Senior Brother. Since he already had a weak heart, coupled with a bunch of messy chores and heavy physical labor, dying suddenly from exhaustion wasn’t impossible.
Besides, in reality, one could frequently see people dying suddenly from overtime work or all-night gaming sessions.
“Still, you must pay more attention to rest.”
Qiao Yiting originally wanted to bring out the phrase “our body, skin, and hair are given by our parents,” but upon second thought, Zeng Youran didn’t even know who his mother was right now, let alone his father.
Zeng Youran nodded, “Thank you for your concern, Senior Brother. I’ve already tidied your bedding. Once I finish cleaning Zhiyi Hall, if Senior Brother has no further instructions, I’ll head over to Eldest Senior Brother’s place.”
Qiao Yiting snatched the broom right out of Zeng Youran’s hand, “There’s no need to clean here.”
“Then I’ll go to Eldest Senior Brother’s place.” With that, he turned around and ran off without looking back.
“Run slower!”
Watching the person scamper away, Qiao Yiting reflected on himself, feeling like he hadn’t done anything wrong. He didn’t look terrible either; how could he scare someone away like that?
Indeed, in reality, Qiao Yiting was quite a handsome young man—tall, fair-skinned, and with peach-blossom eyes that, even hidden behind a pair of glasses, frequently caused the junior nurses in his department to daydream, with quite a few head nurses competing to set him up on blind dates.
As for Qiao Yiting after time-traveling, not only had his appearance remained unchanged, but years of cultivation had made his already fair skin look even more bloodless. Practicing swordsmanship year-round also gave his figure an even slimmer, more slender look, though wrapped haphazardly in his clothes, he bore quite a bit of a sword-obsessed aura.
Qiao Yiting still had plenty of questions in his mind, such as wanting to know whether Zeng Youran had any memory of him killing him; and wanting to know why Zeng Youran had appeared at the entrance of Zhiyi Hall yesterday, and since he was there, why he didn’t enter for a long time, lingering at the door instead, until he called out to him and he suddenly fainted.
“Forget it, let him be. I’d better look after my own safety first.”
Thinking this, he walked into the outer room and looked around. What he needed right now was a quiet place with paper and pen to properly analyze his situation.
Calling it an inner room and outer room was actually just a single apartment, but the original owner was quite good at interior design, cleverly splitting the small space into several micro-compartments.
One was the bedroom, located at the very back, containing only a bed and a small round table; another was the outer room, where the wall directly facing the main entrance of Zhiyi Hall displayed a hanging ink-wash painting of bamboo. In front of the painting sat a small guest table accompanied by only two chairs. On the other side leading from the outer room was a tiny study, featuring a low desk holding a few books.
Qiao Yiting walked over to the weapon rack holding the original owner’s sword, picked it up, and drew it from its scabbard. The blade gleamed brightly without a single blemish, reflecting Qiao Yiting’s handsome face. Then he placed it back on the rack, sat squarely before the low desk, and picked up the unfamiliar writing brush.
“Logically speaking, time-traveling should come with heavenly anomalies, five-star alignments, nine-son struggles for succession, and all that.”
Qiao Yiting scratched his head. Because of his profession, he rarely checked weather forecasts, living a rigid two-point-one-line routine every day and caring nothing about astronomy.
“Ah… So what anomaly happened on the day I died… Did the original owner’s Sixth Senior Brother die?” Thinking of this, Qiao Yiting began questioning himself—unfortunately, absolutely no one answered him.
He felt rather irritated. Living without a smartphone or computer was extremely inconvenient; he had to write character by character with a brush, and fortunately, he had joined a soft-brush calligraphy club back in university.
Yet to Qiao Yiting, a soft brush was never as easy to use as a hard pen. Writing stroke by stroke lacked any real rhythm, and before long, the floor around the low desk was littered with balled-up pieces of paper.
Ultimately, however, he determined his goal in this world: since he was here, he would make the best of it. The original work didn’t describe him in excessive detail, which actually provided plenty of convenience for him to move about freely.
Therefore, the top priority was to leave Qingxuan Mountain. Once he left, whatever happened later wouldn’t be pinned on him. Since this so-called Sect Master and so-called Junior Uncle were nowhere to be seen, he could only diligently hone his magical arts and defeat those mountain-guarding boy disciples as soon as possible.
“Those two little brats came from who knows where, with an endless supply of bull strength!”
Little did he know that the “little brats” in his mouth were actually illusions conjured from twenty percent of the Sect Master’s own internal energy. Coupled with the fact that Qiao Yiting was no martial arts expert and was completely unfamiliar with the original owner’s techniques, losing to them was only natural.
Secondly, on top of that foundation, he needed to properly build favorability around Zeng Youran, striving to set an example as a good senior brother and steering him toward the righteous path! At least when Zeng Youran turned dark later on, he might spare his life for the sake of their senior-junior brotherhood.
That low desk was genuinely cramped for Qiao Yiting, so he stood up, stretched lazily, and walked over to the window.
He watched the bright, warm sunshine of today illuminate the emerald bamboo, making the bamboo look as if it were dripping with green and filling the air with vibrant vitality.
He thought, is it late spring right now?
Seeing such a scene, Qiao Yiting felt he ought to compose a poem, but try as he might, racking his brain yielded no verses capable of describing the scenery before him.
Sighing, Qiao Yiting turned around, picked up the slightly thorough plan from the table, and headed to the inner bedroom. On a hidden spot on the wall, he slowly drew a horizontal line, muttering to himself, “Should I count this as one day’s experience, or two days’?”
With that, he added a vertical stroke beneath the horizontal line he had just written, “Let’s treat it as two days’ experience. After all, things feel really disjointed.”
Looking at his masterpiece, Qiao Yiting smiled contentedly, “Hopefully, once I collect one hundred zheng marks, I can return to my world.”
Sitting in Zhiyi Hall for a while, Qiao Yiting thought back and forth and finally decided to visit Qingxuan Mountain’s Library Pavilion.
First, to see if there were any wondrous books that could help him research the path he took to get here; second, to check just how formidable his magical power actually was.
After all, the original book only summarized the original owner Qiao Yiting with a few grand phrases like “obsessed with cultivation, rivaling the Sect Master,” but entirely omitted to what stage his cultivation had reached. Besides, even if he knew, it would be useless if Qiao Yiting himself didn’t know how to use it, and the original book gave even less clarity on how he treated others.
A complete blank slate!
Yet right now, nothing restricted or dictated how Qiao Yiting should develop, leaving his path wide open for free improvisation! Qiao Yiting felt that not only could he improvise freely, but coupled with his knowledge of the first half of the novel’s plot, compared to Zeng Youran, wasn’t he practically someone who could foresee the future?
As long as the protagonist didn’t die, the plot would continue to unfold. Equipped with a God’s-eye view, doing things would be like having divine assistance!
Thinking this, on his way to the library, Qiao Yiting’s mood was vastly cheerful. Many disciples greeted Qiao Yiting along the way, and he returned every single greeting. The disciples who received his replies were immensely astonished—that notoriously cold-faced Senior Brother Qiao, whose sole pursuit was enlightenment, was actually greeting them back?
Especially after hearing rumors about what this Sixth Senior Brother had done to their junior fellow disciple yesterday, this smile inevitably made people feel there were ulterior motives.
As the protagonist of the gossip, Qiao Yiting was completely oblivious to the situation, let alone why everyone acted so stunned when he offered a kind smile.
To survive in this world of immortal cultivation, “being gentle and kind should never be wrong,” Qiao Yiting thought to himself.
Yet in truth, Qiao Yiting’s greatest flaw was his overflow of excessive sympathy and empathy. Gentleness and kindness are essential social rules for survival in reality, but the world of cultivation recognizes only “strength” as “reason.” Only by becoming truly powerful oneself can one command respect at any time.