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Chapter 58: Changing the Plot
🕑 Added 2025-04-07 09:20:16 +0000 UTCThe moment the purple figure plunged off the cliff, Ji Rong felt a sharp pain sear through her wrist.
It was as if she were being burned alive, the agony spreading through her entire body, nearly reducing her very soul to ashes.
The pain was unbearable. Gritting her teeth, Ji Rong reached for the blood jade bracelet on her wrist, intending to remove it. But the instant her fingers brushed against it, the intricate patterns carved into the jade suddenly burst into radiant light.
She froze, hesitating.
A silvery tide of light surged from the bracelet, as though it was about to break free. Yet, amid the dazzling glow, a piercing pain struck her heart intermittently.
But only for a fleeting moment.
The light dimmed, and with it, the pain gripping her heart seemed to dissipate as well.
Ji Rong took a deep breath, uncertain about what had just happened.
She was sure that the sensation hadn’t come from the original owner of this body, nor did it feel like something of her own. Yet, it hurt, deeply and inexplicably.
Dazed, Ji Rong staggered as she turned around. When she lifted her gaze, she found Xie Bai staring at her, shock written all over his face.
“Senior Sister,” Xie Bai said, “you’re crying.”
She blinked, thinking he must be joking. Cry? Me? That’s ridiculous. I’m not that sentimental. It’s just a game.
Ji Rong said nothing. She simply raised her hand to her face, only to find it wet with tears.
Xie Bai narrowed his eyes, looking at her with intrigue.
Her face was damp, teardrops slipping from the corners of her eyes, staining the pristine white of her robes. Her white boots, muddied and bloodstained, stood amidst a sea of red blossoms so much so that it was impossible to tell whether the crimson was Gu Baiyi’s blood or the petals of the thousand-petaled cinnabar plum blossoms in full bloom.
It was an eerie sight. Her expression remained cold, yet her tears continued to fall.
Even Ji Rong herself seemed taken aback, staring blankly at the liquid on her fingertips as if she couldn’t believe it.
She frowned slightly.
Then, as if unsure how to respond, she simply echoed Xie Bai’s words in a dazed murmur. “Crying?”
“Why would I cry?”
Xie Bai shook his head. “Senior Sister, that’s something only you can answer.”
Ji Rong thought, How would I know?
She was just playing a game. Gu Baiyi was merely a programmed character.
And yet, when she saw the look in Gu Baiyi’s eyes as she fell off the cliff, she could feel it, Gu Baiyi wasn’t just a game character. She was real, flesh and blood.
If all of this was real… then did that mean she herself was the fake one?
Ji Rong felt lost.
She lowered her gaze to the bloodstains on the ground, the crimson smeared across the soles of her boots.
For a long moment, she stood still. The blankness in her expression slowly faded, replaced by an eerie calm.
But unlike the feigned indifference she had shown before, this calm came from deep within.
A faint smile tugged at her lips as she turned to Xie Bai. “I know why I cried.”
Xie Bai had already fulfilled the task Gong Yu had assigned him. By all rights, he could have left Wanjian Sect long ago.
But now, he found this far too entertaining to walk away. Smiling, he asked, “Oh? Why is that, Senior Sister?”
“Because I was wrong.”
“Oh? And what exactly was your mistake?”
Ji Rong thought back. Her mistake was believing she understood every character’s trajectory. She had followed the script, adhered to the character settings, all in an effort to survive.
Yet despite making different choices, she had still ended up with the exact same ending as the original.
Somewhere, something had already been decided for her.
From the moment she entered this game, she had been neatly arranged into place.
And it was only now, as she reached the same outcome, that she realized—she had unwittingly walked straight into a predetermined script, playing right into the developers’ hands.
That was her biggest mistake.
Why should I follow the script just because it was written that way?
I’m not some pre-programmed NPC.
Gu Baiyi had changed, yet she was still clinging to her assigned role, sticking to the plot. It was absurd.
What was worse, she could have saved the heroine in so many ways. If she had taken the Great Revitalization Pill, she could have defeated Xie Bai. If she had warned Gu Baiyi in advance, she might not have come. If she hadn’t gone to Tianji Peak… If…
Ji Rong thought of countless ifs, realizing just how many choices she had, and yet, in the end, she had done nothing.
Now, she understood completely.
“I was wrong because I only did what I was supposed to do. I never did what I could have done.”
Xie Bai chuckled. “And what can you do now, Senior Sister? Are you planning to jump off the cliff after Gu Baiyi?”
Ji Rong shook her head.
“Then what—”
Xie Bai’s words came to an abrupt halt.
Because at that moment, a flash of white light flickered from the blood jade bracelet on Ji Rong’s wrist. In the next instant, a sword appeared in her grasp.
A sword of pure white, its hilt engraved with intricate silver patterns.
The Divine Sword, Cangming.
Indeed, Xie Bai had once glimpsed a mysterious white-haired woman in the Tianshui Secret Realm. But her face had been obscured by mist, making it impossible for him to see her clearly.
He knew Ji Rong had rushed toward the direction of the Cangming Sword after the battle, but he had assumed it was lost when Yan Haiyao fell into the sea of blood.
But now, with Cangming in Ji Rong’s hand, something shifted.
Her distant, indifferent aura overlapped eerily with that of the white-haired woman.
Not just in demeanor, but even in the way she held the sword, as if they had been cast from the same mold.
Xie Bai narrowed his eyes at Ji Rong, sensing a difference after all. The white-haired woman had carried an air of desolation and solitude, but Ji Rong did not.
Besides, Ji Rong was not strong enough, at least not yet. At present, she couldn't even defeat him, let alone slay Yan Haiyao.
Yet despite this, Ji Rong still raised Cangming and slashed at Xie Bai.
Feeling the chilling sword intent, Xie Bai's expression shifted.
This was not something a cultivator at the Heart-Seeking Realm should be capable of comprehending. Moreover, the move felt oddly familiar, like something he had read in a sword technique manual before.
The sword aura surged like a thousand waves, silver tides crashing toward Xie Bai’s position.
In that moment, he finally remembered why the move felt so familiar.
It was the opening stance of Canghai Yue Ming—"Washing Tassels in the Azure Waves!"
Ji Rong's strike borrowed the might of the Cangming Sword, making it incredibly fierce, far beyond what her current realm should allow. Xie Bai had no choice but to raise his sword in defense.
He barely withstood the crashing tide and was still puzzling over how Ji Rong could use Yan Haiyao’s techniques when, unexpectedly, she struck again.
This time, the posture was once again identical to "Washing Tassels in the Azure Waves."
Xie Bai frowned.
With Ji Rong’s cultivation at the Heart-Seeking Realm, executing two moves from Canghai Yue Ming in succession should have drained her spiritual power completely. Was she insane?
But Ji Rong's attack came too quickly, he had no time to dodge and could only take the hit head-on.
Even so, Xie Bai remained unconcerned. In the world of cultivation, even a minor difference in level meant a world of disparity.
No matter how much Ji Rong borrowed the power of Cangming, her cultivation was still limited. How powerful could her sword strikes really be? Even if he took them directly with his body, he doubted they could cause serious harm.
Once this last strike drained her spiritual power, he would like to see what tricks she had left.
Thus, Xie Bai merely smiled faintly, not taking Ji Rong’s attack seriously at all.
But he had not expected that this time, what struck him was not crashing waves, but a flowing stream.
The water merely brushed past his feet, causing no actual harm.
Yet his expression changed drastically.
Something was wrong.
This was not "Washing Tassels in the Azure Waves"—it was the second stance of Canghai Yue Ming: "Washing Feet in the Azure Waves."
According to the Sword Techniques Compendium, the true power of "Washing Feet in the Azure Waves" was not in attacking the enemy, but in restraining them.
Xie Bai watched as the gentle stream morphed into chains of flowing water, binding his legs. In an instant, his spiritual power was cut off, and his body was frozen in place.
As Ji Rong approached with her sword in hand, he forced a smile and said, "Senior Sister, there’s no real enmity between us. Besides, I just saved you, surely there’s no need to draw your sword against me so soon?"
Ji Rong herself had no idea why she was suddenly able to use Yan Haiyao’s sword techniques. But as the burning sensation from her bracelet intensified, she vaguely sensed that Cangming desperately wanted to be released.
So she unleashed Cangming and struck Xie Bai twice.
She had won.
Yet she had no intention of actually harming Xie Bai, she only wanted to test what would happen if she deviated from the game’s intended course.
Slowly, she walked up to Xie Bai, raised her sword, and thrust it down only to stop an inch away from his heart.
Xie Bai was immobilized. He could only stare at the blade hovering above his chest, his face growing paler by the second.
He was not afraid of death.
But Wei Zhiyuan was still alive, which meant he could not die yet.
Ji Rong pondered.
In the game’s storyline, the original host did not kill Xie Bai. But she had just attempted to—and nothing had stopped her.
Had she not halted her strike, Xie Bai would have died.
His survival was not dictated by some preordained script, it was simply because she had chosen not to kill him.
So the plot could change.
It all depended on whether she acted or not.
If everything that had happened today was a result of her previous choices…
Suddenly, Ji Rong realized something. She retracted Cangming back into her jade bracelet and rushed to the cliff’s edge, staring into the seemingly bottomless abyss.
Damn it. Could the protagonist really survive a fall from here?
Back when she first played the game, she had been careless and skipped the quest to collect the jade pendants. She only learned about their importance later from a guide.
But it hadn’t mattered at the time, because even without the pendant, when she reached the main storyline at Wuji Peak, she had still encountered Bai Yushuang after falling off the cliff.
She had assumed that meeting Bai Yushuang was a scripted event.
But thinking back now, if the game wasn’t strictly following a predetermined script, and if the protagonist had not shattered the jade pendant…
Then why had Bai Yushuang appeared beneath the cliff in the first place?
Unless…
A thought flashed through Ji Rong’s mind.
Unless someone else had shattered the jade pendant for the protagonist.
That "someone" could have been anyone.
But if past events had already changed, then she could no longer be sure that person still existed.
Ji Rong understood now.
The only one who could guarantee that the jade pendant would be shattered and the plot altered, was herself.
At this realization, she spun around and dashed away, not sparing a glance at Xie Bai, who was still trapped in the flowing stream.
"Hey! Senior Sister, don’t just leave! At least release me first!"
But Ji Rong had no time to deal with him anymore, because at that moment, the system’s mechanical voice chimed in:
【Beep! Protagonist’s life is in critical danger. Available player control time remaining: 30 minutes.】
【Countdown begins now.】
