Yu Yi excitedly pounced on the crane, hugging it tightly and patting its back feathers. She said cheerfully, "That's wonderful, Crane Senior Brother! The world is so big, we can finally go out and see it!"
Crane Senior Brother was in the middle of swallowing a fish, its head tilted back. Yu Yi's sudden embrace caused the fish to get stuck halfway down its long neck, nearly choking it.
Yu Yi quickly let go and grasped its neck with both hands, helping to push the stuck fish down.
After swallowing the fish, Crane Senior Brother angrily pecked her once, then snatched up the last fish on the table. With a light leap of its slender legs, it jumped out the window. After a few running steps, it spread its wings and flew away.
Yu Yi reached out her hand, futilely trying to call back its retreating figure. "Oh, Crane Senior Brother, I'm sorry! Don't be angry..."
Though Crane Senior Brother flew off in a huff, Yu Yi wasn't in a hurry to go look for it. She stayed in town to gather more information about Pei Jingchao's wedding.
The news of the Lishan Sword Sect leader's daughter marrying his top disciple had already spread throughout the cultivation world. However, Rounan County was remote, so news traveled a bit slower there. If not for the group of merchants passing through, it might have taken a few more days for the news to reach them.
Yu Yi was in high spirits. After helping a merchant in town deal with a small ghost stealing money, she packed up early and left the city. She planned to return home to take inventory of her belongings in the cave dwelling and prepare for her journey into the wider world.
The cave dwelling left to her by her wandering cultivator master was called the Bamboo Pavilion, a secret realm deep in a mountain valley surrounded by bamboo.
Amidst the green bamboo stood a two-story bamboo building. In front of the building was a deep, tranquil lake with a wooden bridge spanning it, fishing equipment left on the bridge.
The courtyard in front of the building was planted with many flowers, herbs, and vegetables. Behind the yard, there was a pen with chickens, ducks, and two plump little piglets.
This place didn't look like a cultivator's cave dwelling, but rather like an ordinary rural household, full of the atmosphere of mortal life.
Yu Yi had lived in this secret realm for five years, accumulating quite a few possessions. It took her a full three days to take inventory of everything.
She packed the things she wanted to take into her storage bag and sealed the rest in the secret realm. Before her master passed away, he had specifically taught her how to seal the secret realm. Once sealed, time would stand still here until it was opened again in the future.
Yu Yi finished packing and waited another two days, but Crane Senior Brother still hadn't returned.
Crane Senior Brother was used to roaming freely and often stayed away for three to five days at a time. Yu Yi didn't usually restrict it much.
But this time was different. From the moment she heard about Pei Jingchao's wedding, Yu Yi's heart had already flown to the outside world. She was practically counting down the days, waiting for Pei Jingchao's wedding day.
...
The auspicious hour had passed. Outside, the sun was setting in the west and the moon climbing in the east. By now, Pei Jingchao should be enjoying his wedding night.
Yu Yi finally couldn't sit still in the secret realm anymore. She sealed the realm and went out to look for Crane Senior Brother.
With freedom just within reach, Yu Yi's mood was unprecedentedly relaxed. Her sword-riding posture in the air was even more graceful and carefree than usual. The green sword made from the secret realm's thousand-year-old bamboo carried her, cutting a streak of green light as they flew into the depths of the forest.
Yu Yi searched the places where Crane Senior Brother might go, one by one.
As she was walking out from the cave where Crane Senior Brother hid fish, she suddenly glimpsed dozens of streaks of light falling from the sky, heading straight for the shallow waters in front of her.
Yu Yi's spirit tensed immediately. She quickly shrank back into the bushes concealing the cave entrance. Her hands swiftly formed a seal, and her body's spiritual energy fluctuated, perfectly blending her form with the bushes.
The next moment, the streaks of light plummeted into the shallow waters, splashing loudly. A dark figure fell into the water, followed immediately by more than ten cultivators who landed, surrounding him on all sides. Someone shouted, "Form the sword formation!"
Dozens of long swords flew into the air, forming an array. The sword lights interwove densely, trapping the dark figure in the middle.
The dark figure glanced around and let out an inhuman roar of rage. Suddenly, it reached back into its own chest and forcefully tore open both sides, peeling off a bloody human skin from its body.
Inside the human skin was a terrifyingly strange demon. The demon was blood-red all over, seeming human but not quite human. Its four limbs were sprawled on the ground, and without the human skin covering its face, its eyes and teeth were exposed ferociously. Its eyeballs rolled about, and its fangs were sharp.
Its body suddenly shook and swelled to several times its original size. At the same time, twenty-four ribs pierced through its back from under its armpits, suddenly elongating and transforming into bone blades that stabbed towards the sword formation on all sides.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
The collision of bone and spirit swords produced a sharp metallic sound that made Yu Yi's ears ring. She heard someone outside cry out in terror, "It's a Bone Demon!"
Before the words faded, the sword formation was broken. The Bone Demon's ribs were as agile as spider legs, its bone blades piercing through the bodies of several cultivators, hoisting them into the air before slicing them to pieces.
Something fell in front of the bushes where Yu Yi was hiding, splattered with fresh blood. She looked closely and saw it was a cultivator whose legs had been cut off, but who was still barely alive. In the bright moonlight, the silver bamboo leaf pattern on the cultivator's sleeve was particularly eye-catching.
Silver thread bamboo leaf pattern.
Yu Yi recognized the emblem and thought to herself, "How unfortunate." This group of cultivators turned out to be Mount Li disciples.
Today was supposed to be a joyous day for the Lishan Sword Sect, yet they still had people out subduing demons and slaying monsters. Truly worthy of being one of the world's top twelve righteous sects.
In the brief moment Yu Yi was distracted, the battle in the shallows had already been decided. The Bone Demon was a high-level demon, and even though most of these Mount Li disciples were at the Golden Core stage, they were no match for it.
The shallows were littered with severed limbs, blood flowing in rivulets. Now, only two Mount Li disciples remained intact.
One of them looked older and had a higher cultivation level. The other was a young man with the lowest cultivation among the group of Mount Li disciples, barely at the Foundation Establishment stage, a full major realm lower than everyone else present. Yet miraculously, he had survived until now.
The older cultivator pushed the young man behind him and stood alone with his sword in front of the Bone Demon, shouting, "Junior Brother, I'll hold it off. You go quickly and inform Senior Brother Pei..."
A long sword pierced through his heart from behind, cutting off his unfinished words.
The cultivator instinctively grabbed the blade protruding from his chest, his expression blank for a moment before his eyes slowly widened in disbelief.
The sword was swiftly pulled out from behind him, its sharp edge cleanly severing his fingers. He spat out a mouthful of blood and turned with difficulty to look at the young man he had been protecting. "Junior Brother, why... you..."
The young man stared at him coldly, his pupils devoid of any human emotion. He raised his hand and swung his sword, stabbing the older cultivator several more times. Fresh blood splattered onto his snow-white clothes, blooming like red plum blossoms.
The male cultivator collapsed to the ground, his rigid eyes forever frozen in shocked anger at the betrayal.
The young man reached into his abdomen and dug out the blood-soaked golden core.
His fingers were long, slender, and white, with prominent knuckles. They were covered in dripping blood. As he gripped the golden core, his five finger joints bizarrely softened, resembling the tentacles of some soft-bodied creature. Tiny suction cups even appeared on his fingertips, writhing and adhering to the surface of the golden core.
The moon had temporarily hidden behind wisps of clouds, preventing Yu Yi from seeing these details. She only saw the golden core growing smaller and smaller in the young man's hand until it finally disappeared.
After the clouds dispersed and moonlight shone down again, he licked his lips and narrowed his eyes in satisfaction.
The Bone Demon, which had been fierce and brutal earlier, now behaved as docile as a dog. It retracted all its bones and crouched at the young man's feet.
The young man raised his foot and stepped on its head, grinding down hard enough to make the Bone Demon's skull crackle. He said, "To be discovered even like this, you're truly useless."
The Bone Demon's teeth clashed together, producing a series of rhythmic clicking sounds.
"You dare argue?" As he spoke, the young man pressed down harder with his foot, crushing half of its skull into the gravel of the shallow waters.
Yu Yi heard intense breathing from the legless cultivator beside her. He was staring at the scene unfolding in the shallows, his eyes bulging, clearly about to explode with anger.
Disregarding the need to hold his breath for self-preservation, he propped himself up on his arms and cursed furiously, "Xue Chenjing, you son of a bitch! You dare collude with demons and betray Mount Li?!"
Xue Chenjing.
Yu Yi's heart skipped a beat when she heard this name. She was all too familiar with it.
After all, he was also a significant male character in the original novel, being both the gentle and caring second male lead and the cold-blooded, cruel mastermind behind the scenes.
Before his descent into darkness, he almost lured the female lead away from Pei Jingchao. After turning evil, he nearly sent Pei Jingchao to meet the King of Hell.
Of course, a supporting male character remains just that - no matter what he tried to do, he always fell short by a little. In the end, under the leadership of the Lishan Sword Sect, he was surrounded and killed by the twelve great immortal sects in the Demon Sealing Formation, cementing Pei Jingchao's reputation as the "Number One in the World."
In the moonlight, the white-robed youth turned his head at the sound, removing his foot from the Bone Demon. He kicked aside a nearby corpse and walked towards her, treading through the shallow, blood-stained stream.
He wore the same sect uniform as the Mount Li disciples, except for a soft fleece lining at the collar, making him appear more warmly dressed than others. The silver bamboo leaf embroidery on his white robe shimmered like water in the moonlight as he moved.
The young man was tall and slender, not yet of age to don the formal cap. His long hair was tied high with a crimson-gold ribbon, the ends curling like seaweed, fluttering in the night breeze. The moonlight illuminated his face, revealing delicate features and a straight, noble nose.
If not for the blood splatters on his white robe, he would have been a truly pleasing sight to behold.
Xue Chenjing approached, stopping a step away from the cursing Lishan Sword Sect cultivator. He called out in a rather obedient tone, "So it's Senior Brother Li."
The crippled sword cultivator spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva and formed a sword seal with his hands, intending to summon his spirit sword to cleanse the sect. In response to his call, the whistling spirit sword, before it could reach Xue Chenjing, was cleaved in two by a bone blade that shot out from the Bone Demon's back.
The sword cultivator vomited a mouthful of fresh blood and cursed in anger, "You're nothing but the son of a lowly merchant! If it weren't for your father's groveling and bribery, you'd never have entered the Lishan Sword Sect. How dare you..."
Xue Chenjing bent down and gripped his jaw. "Of course I wouldn't dare," he said.
The night breeze swept by, gently swaying the loose strands of hair on his forehead. A drop of blood clinging to the tips of his hair slid down to the corner of his upturned eye, tearing away his gentle facade and revealing his true, ferocious nature.
He blinked and said matter-of-factly, "So, if you all die tonight, no one will know, right?"
Xue Chenjing's fingers tightened, and the skull beneath his palm exploded. Red and white matter splattered onto his robe, staining the white cloth with a jarring crimson.
Yu Yi covered her mouth, barely managing to suppress a retch.
After killing the man and extracting his core, Xue Chenjing turned and walked upstream to wash his hands. The Bone Demon remained motionless where it lay, its head half-buried in the shallow pebbles of the stream, its grotesque and terrifying body not daring to move.
The shallow stream fell completely silent, save for the gentle flow of water. Dismembered body parts were scattered everywhere, making it almost impossible to piece together a complete corpse. Human blood had dyed this entire section of the stream red.
Yu Yi, crouching in the bushes, stared at a section of intestines caught between the rocks in the stream. The nausea in her stomach grew increasingly intense.
Xue Chenjing's method of killing was excessively brutal. Coupled with the self-satisfied smile on his face as he killed, it was truly spine-chilling.
Could it be that because she, the female lead, had run away, Xue Chenjing had lost his role as the second male lead and thus turned evil prematurely?
Momentarily too shocked, her concealment technique wavered slightly. Yu Yi immediately noticed and hurriedly formed hand seals to recast the spell.
Her figure only briefly appeared in the bushes for an instant before perfectly blending back into the surrounding foliage.
Yu Yi anxiously looked towards the shallow stream. She was pressed against the cliff wall here, with slanting tree branches blocking the moonlight. The patch of bushes where she was hiding was pitch black, surely she wouldn't be discovered, right?
She clung to a glimmer of hope, but just then, in the dead silence, a sudden chattering voice rang out.
"Oh my goodness, Master, look, look! It's your wife! She's finally online, aww. She looks so cute curled up hiding in the bushes!"
This voice interjected so abruptly, its tone so cheerful and excited, completely at odds with the current scene. Yu Yi's heart, which had just settled, leapt into her throat again. She thought with trepidation, what bushes? Oh no, surely it couldn't be talking about her?
It wasn't just Yu Yi; even Xue Chenjing was startled by this sudden voice. He paused in washing his fingers, momentarily confused. "Whose wife?"
"Yours, of course! Master, she's the wife you've been searching for these past five years!" The voice grew even more shrill, sounding almost piercing in its excitement. "Look, she's even wearing a red dress. You're matching!"
Yu Yi clutched her pomegranate-red skirt tightly. Now she could be certain that the voice was indeed referring to her.
She glanced at the hem of Xue Chenjing's robe. What matching outfit? Wasn't that just stained red with blood?
The blood-soaked hem of Xue Chenjing's robe was a horrifying sight. She kept her eyes fixed on him, nervously watching his every move, her hand reaching into her sleeve to touch the teleportation talisman.
Whatever nonsense about being someone's wife, she had absolutely no desire to become the wife of a villain.
Just as she was about to activate the teleportation talisman to escape, she suddenly noticed a hazy glow materializing in the void, condensing into the form of a book.
Above the book, a ball of light appeared, from which a paw extended, patting the book cover forcefully. The voice spoke with conviction.
"Master, after triple-checking, this system confirms that she is indeed the female lead of this book, your one and only true wife. Indeed, your fate is heaven-ordained. No matter how many times you miss each other, you're destined to meet in the end."
Yu Yi paused in activating her teleportation talisman, shocked as she looked at the book floating in the hazy light. On its exquisitely designed cover, a line of dazzling golden characters was embossed—"After Transmigrating into a Book, I Got a Happy Ending with the Villain"
What on earth? What kind of book was this? Hadn't she transmigrated into a novel called "Tidal Shock"?
And that ball of light claimed to be a system. How could the villain be bound to a system?
Wasn't a system supposed to be the standard equipment for transmigrators like herself? If a villain had a system, wouldn't he go on an unstoppable killing spree?
Yu Yi's mind was filled with question marks. She had a feeling that her previous understanding might have been seriously flawed, which made her hesitate in her attempt to escape.
Xue Chenjing flicked the blood from his fingertips, his gaze casually sweeping towards the bushes. As if finally remembering something, he said with sudden realization, "Ah, it's her."
The book hovering in mid-air disappeared. The system made a 'ding' sound and its tone suddenly became formal.
[Ding— Congratulations, host. The mission target has appeared, and the main storyline mission is now officially launched. Please pursue Yu Yi, heal her deeply wounded heart with your love and tenderness, increase her favorability, and achieve a 100% happy ending. To save the world, we're in this together. This system will wholeheartedly provide guidance and assistance.]
Yu Yi: "???"
Whose love and tenderness? This demon spawn, who in the original book committed every evil deed from killing to robbing corpses, and was explicitly written to want to destroy the world - did he really possess such qualities?
And when did her heart become deeply wounded? How come she herself didn't know about it?!
