Chao Lun Hui had always believed that knowing the future would be an advantage.
Information was power.
Anyone who knew where enemies would appear, which hidden treasures would awaken and which disasters waited beyond the next chapter should have possessed an unfair advantage over everyone else.
That was the respectable foundation upon which countless transmigration stories had been built.
The transmigrator awakened.
The transmigrator recognised the plot.
The transmigrator avoided every death flag and found a quiet corner of the world where nobody important could reach him.
It was a simple arrangement between fiction and common sense.
Unfortunately, Chao Lun Hui had awakened as Luo Yanhe, and common sense appeared to have abandoned the negotiation.
Shen Yan Ting stood before him in robes white enough to make the entire room appear less clean by comparison.
His golden eyes remained calm, but Chao Lun Hui had already learnt that calmness did not mean safety.
A sword resting inside its sheath was still a sword.
Shen Yan Ting : “The forbidden technique.”
His voice carried no accusation.
It did not need one.
The two servants beside the outer screen lowered their heads further, and the younger of them tightened his hands around the medicine tray.
Shen Yan Ting : “Explain.”
Chao Lun Hui remained seated on the edge of the bed while his mind assembled several possible routes of escape.
The first was honesty.
He could announce that his name was Chao Lun Hui, that he came from another world and that everyone inside Azure Cloud Sect had once existed as written characters on his computer screen.
He could then explain that Luo Yanhe would eventually become a tragic villain, Shen Yan Ting would become entangled in his downfall and the entire cultivation world suffered from an author who treated happiness like a limited seasonal resource.It would be truthful.
It would also be the fastest route into a soul-sealing formation.
The second option was amnesia.
Modern identity verification had required cards, passwords and occasionally an irritated clerk.
This world expected him to prove himself through memories he had never possessed.
Claiming complete memory loss would solve one difficulty and create ten more.
Shen Yan Ting was 10 years older, frighteningly observant and currently standing close enough to notice every change in his breathing.
A poorly performed case of amnesia would survive fewer than three questions.
That left the third option.
Selective honesty wrapped carefully around incomplete lies.
Luo Yanhe : “Disciple was careless.”
The younger servant flinched.
It was a tiny movement, no more than a tightening across his shoulders, but Chao Lun Hui noticed.
The servant did not look surprised merely because Luo Yanhe had admitted fault.
He looked as though he expected the admission to become someone else’s punishment.
Shen Yan Ting watched Chao Lun Hui across the silence.
Shen Yan Ting : “You expect me to believe that?”
Chao Lun Hui considered pretending confidence.
The original Luo Yanhe would probably have offered a sharp defence, perhaps accompanied by enough arrogance to discourage further questions.
Unfortunately, Chao Lun Hui did not know what defence that man would have used.
Luo Yanhe : “No.”
The answer escaped before caution could improve it.
Both servants went still.
The older one looked towards Shen Yan Ting, perhaps checking whether the Immortal Master intended to intervene before Luo Yanhe’s temper arrived several breaths late.
Shen Yan Ting’s expression altered by so little that another person might have missed it.
Chao Lun Hui had once spent entire evenings analysing fictional characters from half a paragraph of dialogue.
He recognised interest when it sharpened a pair of golden eyes.
Shen Yan Ting : “The Luo Yanhe who entered that chamber would have denied everything.”
He moved closer to the bed.
Chao Lun Hui’s body straightened automatically, adjusting his shoulders and lowering his chin into a posture of disciplined attention.
Chao Lun Hui had not decided to move.
Shen Yan Ting noticed.
Shen Yan Ting : “He would have blamed the formation, the records or the disciple who reported him.”
The older servant’s gaze dropped to the floor.
That reaction carried the weight of memory, though Chao Lun Hui had no access to the incident behind it.
So the original Luo Yanhe had not merely been proud.
He had built expectations around that pride.
The people in this room already knew how his anger moved, where his blame usually landed and how carefully they should stand when it arrived.
Excellent.
He had inherited a damaged spiritual foundation, a future death sentence and a collection of social debts without receiving the account book.
Luo Yanhe : “Then perhaps this disciple has changed.”
Shen Yan Ting’s attention remained on the posture Chao Lun Hui’s body had assumed without instruction.
Shen Yan Ting : “People rarely change overnight.”
Chao Lun Hui nearly laughed.
Technically, Luo Yanhe had changed between one breath and the next.
The explanation was simply too unreasonable to survive being spoken aloud.
Luo Yanhe : “This disciple agrees.”
He lowered his eyes, partly out of respect and partly because Shen Yan Ting’s gaze made every unfinished lie feel visible.
Luo Yanhe : “But nearly destroying one’s cultivation provides a persuasive reason to reconsider certain habits.”
Outside, bamboo leaves brushed against one another in the evening wind.
Shen Yan Ting’s silence lengthened without becoming empty.
He was comparing this answer with something, perhaps with every argument Luo Yanhe had offered before Chao Lun Hui awakened.
Shen Yan Ting : “You speak differently.”
There it was.
Chao Lun Hui raised his eyes with what he hoped was mild confusion rather than internal catastrophe.
Luo Yanhe : “Do I?”
Shen Yan Ting turned towards the medicine table.
His fingers brushed the rim of the untouched bowl, and the younger servant stiffened as though expecting Luo Yanhe to object to the interference.
Shen Yan Ting : “You once spoke before deciding whether the words would help you.”
Chao Lun Hui watched the servant’s reaction rather than Shen Yan Ting’s hand.
When he reached for the medicine, the servant pulled back instinctively, then seemed ashamed of doing so.
Chao Lun Hui stopped before touching the bowl.
The movement would have been easy to resent.
He had never frightened this person.
He had never shouted at him, threatened him or made him expect pain from an ordinary gesture.
Yet the servant did not see Chao Lun Hui.
He saw the face attached to whatever had happened before.
Luo Yanhe : “May I?”
The servant looked startled by the request.
After a moment, he offered the bowl with both hands.
Servant : “Of course, Young Master Luo.”
His voice was respectful, but uncertainty remained beneath it.
Kindness from Luo Yanhe had not reassured him.
It had only given him a new behaviour to fear.
Chao Lun Hui accepted the medicine without forcing a smile.
He could not demand that people forget injuries simply because he did not remember inflicting them.
Wearing another man’s face did not grant innocence in the eyes of those who had suffered beneath it.
That felt unfair.
It was also understandable, which made it more difficult to dismiss.
Shen Yan Ting : “Luo Yanhe.”
The body responded before Chao Lun Hui consciously processed the name.
His head turned, attention fixing upon Shen Yan Ting with a familiarity so immediate that his mind arrived half a heartbeat afterwards.
Luo Yanhe.
That meant him now.
Shen Yan Ting’s gaze settled upon his face.
Shen Yan Ting : “What was the final circulation sequence you attempted?”
The question struck precisely where novel knowledge failed him.
Chao Lun Hui knew that the forbidden technique had nearly destroyed Luo Yanhe’s cultivation.
The book had summarised the incident in several dramatic sentences before moving on to the consequences.
It had not recorded the circulation sequence, the chamber’s location or the reason Luo Yanhe attempted it in the first place.
The novel had given him the future and stolen the past.
Luo Yanhe : “Disciple remembers the pressure reversing near the spiritual core.”
It was information he could infer from the damage inside his body.
Nothing more.
Shen Yan Ting : “And before that?”
Chao Lun Hui looked into the medicine.
Its dark surface offered no answers.
Luo Yanhe : “The memories are unclear.”
Shen Yan Ting did not accuse him of lying.
Instead, he raised two fingers.
A strand of spiritual energy crossed the space between them and entered Chao Lun Hui’s meridians.
His body reacted immediately.
Breathing adjusted.
The spiritual current beneath his ribs folded inwards, protecting the damaged pathways while opening a precise route for Shen Yan Ting’s examination.
Chao Lun Hui had not known such a response existed, yet his body met the foreign energy with effortless recognition.
More unsettlingly, it did not resist.
The warmth moving through his meridians seemed to know Shen Yan Ting.
Chao Lun Hui sat perfectly still while unease spread beneath his calm expression.
He had feared that the body might retain habits.
This felt deeper than habit.
It felt like a door opening for someone expected.
Shen Yan Ting’s spiritual energy circled the damaged core, then withdrew.
Shen Yan Ting : “You cannot remember the sequence.”
His eyes moved towards Chao Lun Hui’s hands.
Shen Yan Ting : “Yet your meridians still respond correctly to my examination.”
Chao Lun Hui curled his fingers around the medicine bowl.
There was no safe answer because he had noticed the contradiction too.
Luo Yanhe : “Perhaps the body remembers what the mind cannot.”
Shen Yan Ting studied him long enough to make the servants appear grateful that the question was not directed towards them.
Shen Yan Ting : “Perhaps.”
The word offered no agreement.
It merely left the possibility alive.
Chao Lun Hui drank the medicine.
Bitterness flooded his mouth with enough force to make him briefly nostalgic for modern tablets and clean drinking water.
Cultivators could cross mountains on swords, yet none of them had apparently invested in making medicine less offensive.
His expression remained composed.
The younger servant looked surprised again.
Chao Lun Hui wondered whether the original Luo Yanhe had once complained about the taste.
Judging from the servant’s relief, he might have complained about the bowl, the ingredients and the ancestry of whoever prepared it.
Shen Yan Ting : “Why did you attempt the technique?”
The question returned to the centre of the room.
Chao Lun Hui knew several future events.
He knew which villains would rise and which alliances would collapse.
None of that information answered why Luo Yanhe had entered a forbidden chamber before the novel properly began.
He had mistaken the book for an instruction manual.
It was closer to a damaged map with missing roads, false labels and several cliffs included for atmosphere.
Luo Yanhe : “Disciple wanted power.”
The answer was plausible.
More importantly, it required no invented memory.
Shen Yan Ting : “For what purpose?”
Chao Lun Hui paused.
To survive would have been his answer.
He did not know whether it had been Luo Yanhe’s.
Luo Yanhe : “This disciple no longer knows.”
The room changed around the honesty.
The servants did not relax, but Shen Yan Ting’s attention shifted from detecting deception towards measuring what the admission cost him.
Shen Yan Ting : “The previous Luo Yanhe always knew.”
Chao Lun Hui looked down at the dark medicine remaining inside the bowl.
Luo Yanhe : “The previous Luo Yanhe may have preferred an answer to admitting he had none.”
Shen Yan Ting became quiet.
For a dangerous moment, Chao Lun Hui wondered whether he had spoken too sharply.
Then the faintest movement touched the corner of Shen Yan Ting’s mouth.
It was not quite a smile.
That made it more distracting.
Shen Yan Ting : “You have learnt patience.”
Chao Lun Hui recognised the test beneath the observation.
Luo Yanhe : “A delayed lesson remains a lesson.”
The older servant made a small sound and immediately disguised it as a cough.
Shen Yan Ting looked towards him.
The servant found the floor extremely interesting.
When Shen Yan Ting returned his attention to Chao Lun Hui, the near-smile had disappeared, leaving only the calm authority described in the novel.
The written Shen Yan Ting had been distant, flawless and almost ornamental in his restraint that’s why he’s the main character.
The living man noticed servants pretending not to laugh.
He tested lies without humiliating the liar.
He could have summoned elders, guards or soul specialists, yet he had chosen to conduct this conversation privately.
He was protecting Luo Yanhe from public accusation.
That did not mean he trusted him.
The difference was narrow and important.
Shen Yan Ting : “You will recover under my supervision.”
Chao Lun Hui blinked.
Of all the possible outcomes, personal observation by the strongest and most suspicious person available had not ranked highly on his preferred list.
Luo Yanhe : “Master personally?”
Shen Yan Ting : “Do you object?”
Luo Yanhe : “No.”
The reply came too quickly.
Shen Yan Ting raised one eyebrow.
Chao Lun Hui adjusted with the dignity of a man attempting to repair a bridge after stepping through it.
Luo Yanhe : “This disciple means that it is an honour.”
Shen Yan Ting’s gaze moved over his face.
Shen Yan Ting : “You do not look honoured.”
Chao Lun Hui placed the empty bowl on the tray.
The younger servant tensed until it landed safely.
Luo Yanhe : “This disciple possesses a naturally complicated face.”
The older servant turned away before another cough betrayed him.
Shen Yan Ting : “Your mouth has also become more troublesome.”
Chao Lun Hui looked genuinely offended.
Luo Yanhe : “Master insults his injured disciple?”
Shen Yan Ting : “I describe his condition.”
For several breaths, Chao Lun Hui forgot that he was being interrogated.
He was arguing with Shen Yan Ting.
More astonishingly, Shen Yan Ting was allowing it.
The original novel had described their relationship as cold, distant and built upon formal obligation.
It had never recorded this quiet exchange or the tolerance concealed beneath Shen Yan Ting’s expression.
Either the book had omitted more than Chao Lun Hui realised, or the story had already begun moving away from the path he remembered.
Neither possibility offered comfort.
Shen Yan Ting turned towards the servants.
Shen Yan Ting : “His spiritual foundation remains unstable.
No elder or disciple will question him without my presence.”
The servants bowed at once.
That was protection.
Then Shen Yan Ting looked back towards Chao Lun Hui.
Shen Yan Ting : “Before dawn tomorrow, report to the western training steps.”
That was not trust.
Chao Lun Hui suspected it might be punishment wearing respectable clothing.
Luo Yanhe : “May this disciple ask what kind of recovery training begins before sunrise?”
Shen Yan Ting moved towards the door.
Shen Yan Ting : “The effective kind.”
He left before Chao Lun Hui could request a definition.
Later that evening, Chao Lun Hui stepped onto the covered walkway outside his chamber.
The bamboo forest below the residence moved beneath silver moonlight, and distant lanterns marked the paths between Azure Cloud Sect’s peaks.
Two passing disciples noticed him.
Their conversation ended.
One stepped aside so quickly that his sleeve caught against the railing.
The other bowed and apologised despite Chao Lun Hui having said nothing.
Disciple : “Senior Brother Luo.”
There was no open insult in his voice, only caution sharpened by expectation.
Chao Lun Hui returned the greeting.
Both disciples appeared more unsettled by his politeness than they might have been by anger.
He watched them leave.
From behind a computer screen, it had been easy to judge Luo Yanhe.
The novel had arranged his cruelty into neat scenes and given readers enough distance to decide when he was wrong.
Living inside the consequences revealed all the unwritten spaces between those scenes.
Luo Yanhe had frightened people before becoming the villain Chao Lun Hui remembered.
Perhaps some feared his temper.
Others feared his cultivation potential or the forbidden technique.
A few might simply fear whatever the sect had taught them to expect from him.
Chao Lun Hui could not erase those expectations overnight.
He did not even know which ones Luo Yanhe had earned.
The name felt borrowed, but its debts had arrived in full.
Luo Yanhe : “Fine.”
The bamboo leaves whispered below him.
Chao Lun Hui looked across the unfamiliar sect and remembered the quiet room where he had once read this world as fiction.
Back then, he had believed knowledge gave him control.
Now he understood that he knew Luo Yanhe’s future better than his breakfast habits, Shen Yan Ting’s written reputation better than the man himself and the sect’s coming disasters better than the reason its disciples avoided his shadow.
The plot was no longer a safe road laid out ahead of him.
It was evidence written by an unreliable witness.
Luo Yanhe : “If fate intends to challenge me, then I will challenge it back.”
The words left Luo Yanhe’s voice, but the decision belonged to Chao Lun Hui.
For now, that distinction still mattered.
Far across the peak, Shen Yan Ting sat inside his private chamber with a cup of untouched tea beside him.
His spiritual awareness still held the memory of Luo Yanhe’s damaged meridians opening naturally beneath his touch.
The disciple had lost details he should have remembered.
He had retained instincts that should have required memory.
He spoke with unfamiliar caution, accepted responsibility and concealed something too large to expose through ordinary questions.
Shen Yan Ting opened his golden eyes.
Questions would not be enough.
At dawn, the body would be tested.
The chapter has now been updated to the latest revised version.
I truly appreciate everyone who waited and continued supporting this story while I worked on improving it.
I hope this updated version gives you a smoother and more enjoyable reading experience.
Thank you for staying with me.
Happy reading!