By the time Su Luo and her two senior sisters left, it was already quite late. Even though they hurried all the way back, executing Sword Flight after leaving the back mountain, the sky was completely dark by the time the three of them finally reached the main peak's plaza.
The plaza was vast, but completely deserted; it seemed everyone else had already returned.
Su Luo stepped off her sword and let out a long sigh of relief.
She truly disliked Sword Flight. The sword blade was so narrow, and standing on it required maintaining a specific spellcasting posture—you could neither sit down nor move around freely, making it thoroughly uncomfortable.
Although Sword Flight looked very cool, she still preferred a more comfortable method of flight. She might as well buy a small flying artifact!
Wan Lingyue looked at Su Luo. "Junior Sister Su, we must go and report back to our Master. We'll take our leave here."
Su Luo waved her hand. "Alright. Thank you both for today, Senior Sisters. Go ahead and tend to your matters."
"You should head back and report soon too; your Master must be very anxious..." Halfway through her sentence, Yu Linlang suddenly remembered and clamped her mouth shut.
Oh no, she had momentarily forgotten about Su Luo's situation.
Wan Lingyue secretly glared at her.
Who didn't know that Qingyazi had always cared nothing for Su Luo, this nominal disciple? Truly, she spoke without using her brain.
Yu Linlang pressed her lips together, her face full of remorse.
Su Luo, however, merely smiled unconcernedly.
"Master has always been devoted to cultivation and pays no mind to trivial matters. How could I dare disturb him over such a small thing? Besides, it is getting late, so I'll just go back and rest, and report the situation to him tomorrow."
Wan Lingyue nodded. "Junior Sister has had a hard day as well. Go back and rest early."
Su Luo put on an obedient expression. "Mm, I will."
"Then we'll take our leave."
Yu Linlang nodded at Su Luo. A trace of pity and sympathy flashed through her pretty eyes, but in the end, she said nothing more, turning to leave with Wan Lingyue.
Su Luo watched the two of them leave without looking back. After a good long while, she turned her gaze toward the other side of the main peak—the direction of Luoxia Peak—the light flickering in her pupils.
It was too late today; she had no way to go and tell Qingyazi that she wanted to leave the Tianyiji Sect. First thing tomorrow morning, she would go straight to him, request to leave the Tianyiji Sect, and completely distance herself from all this trouble. She believed her nominal Master wouldn't refuse either.
In her past life, Qingyazi had been obsessed with cultivation, going into seclusion at every turn and rarely seeking out his disciples; the bonds between master and disciples were not deep. During his seclusion, he had basically handed all matters, big and small, over to Ye Danqing to handle.
After she became the original host, she had no choice but to follow the female protagonist to complete her tasks. She got along poorly with everyone in the Tianyiji Sect, constantly causing friction and unpleasantness.
The main reason was that Su Luo didn't want to maintain good relationships with them. Thinking she would have to go back sooner or later anyway, she didn't care about anyone, frequently driving Ye Danqing to distraction and even threatening to expel her from the sect.
Pity that before he could manage to chase her away, he was run through by a sword wielded by the Junior Sister Ning he cared about most.
Hiss... What a miserable death...At this thought, Su Luo broke out in goosebumps. She shook her head, summoned her spirit sword, carefully stepped onto it, and set off on a Sword Flight toward Luoxia Peak.
Luoxia Peak was a mountain that the Second Elder, Qingyazi, had claimed and developed for himself after becoming an elder. The terrain here was steep and expansive. Qingyazi's immortal cave was located at the summit of the main peak, while Su Luo and a few other inner sect disciples had their own immortal caves situated halfway up the side peaks. The remaining outer sect disciples and housekeeping servants all lived in dwellings at the foot of the mountain.
Su Luo was grateful that she at least had an individual immortal cave of her own, free from anyone's disturbance.
As soon as she entered her cave, the stone door immediately shut tight, blocking out the prying gaze of a small yellow bird outside.
After circling around and finding that it could not get in, the Cloud-Winged Bird landed on a tree branch not far from the cave entrance, its red eyes staring fixedly at the doorway.
Once inside, Su Luo flopped straight onto the bed and lay completely motionless, her gaze drifting aimlessly. After a long while, she clenched her right fist, pounded fiercely against the mattress, and cursed through gritted teeth.
"Damn this ridiculous past life!"
Whenever Su Luo thought of her previous life, her teeth itched with resentment.
In her past life, she had inadvertently read a reverse-harem cultivation novel. Only the first part of the book had been published, mainly focusing on the bitter, heart-wrenching romance between the female protagonist Ning Wanshuang—a top-tier cultivation genius in the Cultivation World—and the demonic male protagonist, whose differing loyalties kept them at odds.
Although the novel was utterly absurd, prompting Su Luo to complain from start to finish, she was the type to see things through to the end. So, she had casually asked one question: "Where is the second part?"
As a result, she was suddenly summoned by some mysterious power into this cultivation world. The person she transmigrated into was a female cultivator in the Tianyiji Sect who shared her name: Su Luo, a thoroughly mediocre cannon-fodder senior sister.
The moment she arrived, she absorbed all the memories of the original owner.
Su Luo, meaning the original owner, was a disciple under the Second Elder of the Tianyiji Sect. Gifted with mediocre talent, an unlikable personality, and lacking any background, she was thoroughly despised within the sect.
As for the novel's female protagonist, Ning Wanshuang, she was the quintessential reverse-harem heroine—strong, beautiful, and the kind of person almost everyone adored. By contrast, Su Luo was merely a cannon-fodder existence in the story, nothing more than a stepping stone along the heroine's path to success.
Tch... Comparisons were truly odious.
Ning Wanshuang was indeed formidable. At a young age, her cultivation eventually reached the Nascent Soul stage, and she had a host of male cultivators willing to go through fire and water for her. Yet, brilliant as she was, she was ultimately defeated by a Celestial Demon that emerged out of nowhere.
That Celestial Demon was terrifyingly powerful, with strength surpassing even the Nascent Soul patriarchs. Single-handedly, he slaughtered numerous mighty figures across the Cultivation World, killed the male protagonist's father, and became the king of the Demon Race. This in turn caused the Demon Race to begin wantonly invading the Cultivation World, the Demon Realm, and the Human Realm.
Wherever the Demon Race set foot, it left a living hell in its wake.Su Luo still remembered how the first half of the novel ended: the male and female leads set aside their differences to fight the Demon King together. Yet despite trying with all their might, they could not touch even a shred of the Demon King's robes, ending up battered and covered in wounds instead.
Even just reading the novel, Su Luo could not help but marvel at the Demon King's immense power and terror, and she had even been faintly intimidated by the description of the Demon King in the story—wielding a bloody Demon Sword, dressed in pitch-black robes, and wearing a jet-black mask over his face.
Before Su Luo could dwell on it further, however, an aged voice sounded in her mind: "As the Heavenly Dao, I cannot simply stand by and watch this world be destroyed by that fiend, which is why I have summoned you as a variable to intervene in this world. Your mission is to help Ning Wanshuang save this world and eliminate the fiend."
Excuse me?
At that instant, Su Luo was utterly speechless.
Was the existence known as the Heavenly Dao out of its mind? With so many powerful Nascent Soul masters unable to defeat that fiend, what could a Foundation Establishment good-for-nothing like her possibly do?
Help Ning Wanshuang? Don't make her laugh; what could she possibly do to help her? Pour tea and water for her?
Yet that voice kept repeating the same words, turning a deaf ear to Su Luo's doubts and caring nothing for her thoughts. Its arrogant attitude directly angered Su Luo to the point of laughter.
"This is just fantastic..."
She had been living a perfectly fine life in the modern world, only for this mysterious force to inexplicably drag her into an unfamiliar Cultivation World, forcing her to transmigrate into a cannon-fodder senior sister and make her slave away and sacrifice her life for a female protagonist like Ning Wanshuang! How ridiculous!
Why should she obey whatever he said? Was the Heavenly Dao so great?! By what right did it get to decide her life?!
A dogshit Heavenly Dao, what even is this?! The world was on the verge of being destroyed by demons, yet the Heavenly Dao couldn't even solve the problem of that fiend itself, instead expecting her and Ning Wanshuang to clean up the mess? Its brain must have been wired backward!
She refused to do it!
Su Luo's rebellious streak surged instantly, and she flat-out chose to lie flat, staying in bed for a full month without going anywhere, letting that voice ring out every day while she didn't even bother to lift her eyelids.
The entity claiming to be the Heavenly Dao seemed wary of something and unable to do anything with her. In the end, having truly run out of options, it compromised and promised that as long as Su Luo helped Ning Wanshuang get rid of the Demon King, it would send her back to the modern era and guarantee her a life of wealth and luxury for the rest of her days.
Thinking of her lazy, unemployed lying-flat lifestyle in the modern world, Su Luo shamefully felt a tug at her heartstrings.
For the sake of a bright future, putting in some effort wasn't completely out of the question! It wasn't like being the female lead's lackey was a big deal, anyway! After all, the other party was the protagonist, and the protagonist always wins in the end!
So, harboring this mindset, Su Luo ultimately agreed to the Heavenly Dao, taking the initiative to show goodwill toward the female lead in hopes of securing a position as her most capable assistant.
Yet for some reason, Ning Wanshuang—who should have been a universally adored female lead—did an about-face, wearing a veil and rejecting the good intentions of those male cultivators. Her entire personality and temperament had undergone a certain shift.
None of that mattered; what mattered was that Ning Wanshuang didn't have the slightest hint of ambiguity with the male lead! Instead, she inexplicably latched onto Su Luo! It was one thing for Ning Wanshuang to have her running errands all day, but in the later stages, she even monopolized all of her space and time, occasionally going completely unhinged right in front of her.
Su Luo grew increasingly exhausted from being hounded like this.
Seeking help from her cheap master and senior brother didn't work either, because they couldn't do anything with Ning Wanshuang either, and ended up brushing her off with perfunctory remarks: "Since Shuang'er likes you, as her senior sister, it's only right for you to stay by her side at all times and take good care of her."
Su Luo was so angry she wanted to vomit blood, and she turned around to flip the bird at those two biased, scumbag men. At the same time, she began hesitating whether she should abandon her wonderful modern lifestyle, stop staying by the female lead's side to complete her mission, and leave the Tianyiji Sect.
Staying by the female lead's side was simply too suffocating.
Before she could fully consider it, however, a group of the Demon Race from who knows where breached the Tianyiji Sect's mountain-guarding Array. The demons slaughtered their way in, turning the Tianyiji Sect into a sea of blood.
And what shocked Su Luo the most was that the mastermind behind it all turned out to be Ning Wanshuang! Even the Demon Race young lord and a host of demonic generals followed obediently behind her, holding her in supreme reverence.
The original novel completely shattered into smithereens!
Next came the tragic massacre of the Tianyiji Sect by the Demon Race. People from the sect died or were injured left and right, and Su Luo failed to escape as well, falling victim to a sneak attack by that scumbag of a male lead.
As her consciousness dissipated, Su Luo's hazy vision seemed to catch a flash of red rushing toward her, accompanied by a shrill, despairing cry.
"Su Luo!"
Su Luo jerked awake, and upon opening her eyes, she once again saw the familiar immortal cave, the daylight already streaming brightly through it.
This was her immortal cave...
It turned out she had unconsciously fallen asleep last night while reminiscing about her past life.
Su Luo subconsciously touched her chest. There wasn't a single injury there, which allowed her to lower her hand and quietly sit up.
It seemed yesterday's events weren't a dream; she had truly been reborn, reborn to a time before any of it had happened.
Su Luo hopped down from the bed in one swift motion, wiped her face, and a spark of determination settled into her eyes.
Whether Ning Wanshuang wanted to save the world or destroy it had nothing to do with her anymore. She was done! She didn't want the promises the Heavenly Dao had made her, either!
It was a pity she wouldn't be able to lie flat in the modern world and enjoy a wealthy life, but upon second thought, she didn't really have anyone worth clinging to in the modern world anyway. She might as well just live out a steady, honest life in this Cultivation World!
Besides, she could make money by selling Talismans, and with a bit of cultivation of her own, once she headed to the Human Realm, she could completely guarantee herself a leisurely life. When the time came, she could just find some sparsely populated little island to retire on. Even if that lunatic Ning Wanshuang wanted to go crazy and destroy the world, it would have nothing to do with her.
Today, she was definitely leaving the Tianyiji Sect to get far, far away from this bunch of lunatics and trouble!
Lying low and surviving was the absolute truth.
Immersed in the excitement of her impending free life, Su Luo momentarily forgot one thing: clearly, she had been reborn, yet the Heavenly Dao never came to pester her again. By the time she finally realized this, a long time had already passed.