In the pitch black of night, a rustling sound seemed to echo through the air. Chang Le felt a splitting headache, while her back and feet burned with a fiery pain. Her whole body felt as though it had been crushed under something heavy; the slightest movement sent agonizing pain shooting through every bone in her frame.
She let out a low moan and slowly opened her eyes, catching sight only of towering trees and a pure, unblemished night sky half-concealed by the leaves.
"Where... where am I...?"
Chang Le propped herself up with effort, a dazed look in her eyes as she pressed a hand to her head. Hadn't she just been at home, furiously typing away against an online web novel titled *Seeking Immortality*, locked in a three-hundred-round verbal battle with braindead fanboys? How had she suddenly blacked out...?
Chang Le suddenly froze. She looked down and saw that instead of her familiar white slip dress, she was wearing a white ancient-style robe. An archaic bronze medallion hung from her waist, resting conspicuously against the slightly coarse fabric.
The medallion was engraved with a small sword, crafted with exquisite detail.
Chang Le was far from unfamiliar with this object. *Seeking Immortality*, the book she had been defending with her dying breath, was a novel with an extraordinarily detailed setting. The author had even drawn corresponding illustrations for many of the designs. It was precisely because the world-building was so meticulous and the characters so richly fleshed out—giving readers a genuine sense of immersion—that Chang Le had kept reading.
Yet, even the most brilliant world-building could not conceal the plot's shortcomings.
Chang Le had watched with her own eyes as one vibrant, fully realized character after another, upon encountering the male lead, lost all semblance of reason. They grew obsessed with love, tormented by love, and willing to smash their heads against a wall for love. They would surrender their entire fortunes to the male lead, choosing to ruin themselves and their own families just to help him ascend.
This pushed Chang Le's anger to its absolute limit. She had gone on a frantic, three-day-and-three-night binge of typing out one hundred thousand words, enduring countless high-rise flame wars, until finally...
Chang Le remembered. Right before she collapsed, she had felt a sudden, sharp spasm in her chest. Her face turned slightly pale. Could she have died from overwork and transmigrated?
Lost in thought, Chang Le picked up the bronze medallion.
Under the moonlight, every detail of the medallion was crystal clear. As her fingers brushed over it, the smoothly polished bronze scraped against her skin with a trace of chill.
This was the exact shape of the disciple tokens issued by the male lead's sect, the Gushan Sword Sect. It was identical to the illustration the author had released back then, perhaps even more refined.
Disciple tokens were divided by material into four grades: red, purple, cyan, and bronze. Bronze tokens were held by the lowest-ranking outer sect disciples.
Chang Le snatched up the token and inspected it repeatedly, confirming that it was indeed a Gushan Sword Sect disciple token.
Unbelievable as it was, Chang Le knew she must have won the grand prize of modern internet users—she had transmigrated...
According to the laws of transmigration, shouldn't she share the same name? Chang Le suddenly paused. She remembered that there *was* a character in this novel with the exact same name and surname, but she was merely a cannon fodder character who died in less than a chapter!
No way!
Chang Le pushed the pain in her body to the back of her mind. She looked around. She was in a mountain hollow, and a long trail of a slide marked the grassy slope nearby, extending down from a rather steep ridge ahead.
Clearly, the original owner of this body had tumbled down from up there. She touched her face; it felt smooth to the touch, with no trace of pain.
"...With a tumble like that, her face came out completely fine?"
Chang Le muttered a silent complaint, then caught the sound of babbling water. Struggling to her feet, she limped toward the source of the noise. The mountain forests in *Seeking Immortality* harbored Beasts and were far from safe, but outer sect disciples lacked ability, and most avoided the truly dangerous areas.
Right now, she had no other choice. Slowly emerging from the woods, she spotted a serene pool. She cautiously scanned her surroundings first—there were no suspicious animals in sight, nor any strange drag marks along the water's edge. Only then did she approach cautiously, leaning over to look at her reflection in the water.
This face bore a seven or eight-tenths resemblance to Chang Le's former self, but the details were vastly more refined, as though veiled in a layer of filter. A red dot sat right between her brows, like a dab of cinnabar, lending her face a bizarre, otherworldly divinity.
Chang Le reached out and touched that speck of red. Only upon contact did she realize it wasn't a red mole; it felt slightly hard, pressing rounded against her fingertips. It was a red stone.
There was a stone embedded in her forehead! The moment this thought crossed her mind, the stone seemed to sense her intent and vanished, out of sight. Chang Le curiously felt her forehead, unable to detect any trace of the stone between her fingers.
Yet, with a mere flick of her thought, the brow-stone resurfaced.
A red stone between her brows that could turn invisible... and sharing her exact name.
Chang Le's expression shifted drastically. She really had transmigrated into that cannon fodder!
According to the novel, the original owner wasn't human, nor some high-and-mighty Sword Spirit or demon. She was indeed the manifestation of a natural spiritual entity, but merely the avatar of a Scabbard. Unlike a natural-born Sword Spirit favored by the Dao, her manifestation came with an incomplete soul—she was an idiot!
Though she possessed good looks, her single-track mind made her incapable of understanding double meanings. To put it nicely, she was innocent and romantic; to put it bluntly, she was somewhat mentally deficient. Moreover, because of her incomplete soul, despite spending many years in the Gushan Sword Sect, she had continuously failed to reach Foundation Establishment, let alone enter the inner sect. As a result, she was disliked by others, who could not fathom how someone with her meager intellect and stagnant cultivation had ever managed to enter the sword sect's outer sect.
Even the original text omitted this detail. Probably because she died in a single chapter, cannon fodder didn't warrant such thorough exposition.
Seeing that she was pretty, the male lead would occasionally grace her with a favorable expression. Deeply moved, she had devotedly fallen in love with him.
Chang Le's expression turned ugly. She remembered this character not only because they shared a name, but because she had heard the male lead needed a certain medicinal herb. Disregarding her own meager cultivation, she had ventured into a forbidden zone to gather the medicine, only to die by the waterside.
By the time the male lead arrived, she was already mortally wounded and dead. Consequently, she had given him the stone between her brows—the sword pellet formed by her scabbard form. This very sword pellet later became a crucial prop that allowed the male lead to be accepted as a disciple by the Gushan Sword Sect's Sword Master, the female lead, Qinglian Sword Monarch, for the Sword Master had been forged from the world's only immortal sword.
And an immortal sword required a scabbard!
The female lead had already manifested as a Sword Spirit and spent most of her time in human form—what did she need a scabbard for? It was blatantly a plot device deliberately fabricated by the author to foster the romance between the protagonist and heroine.
It was fair to say that Chang Le, the character who shared her name, had died a utterly worthless death, serving solely as a delivery vehicle for a golden finger.
Wait, died by the waterside?
Chang Le's expression stiffened slightly. She glanced left and right, then touched the space between her brows. She instantly bounced to her feet and started walking away. She had no intention of dying here just to hand-deliver a golden finger to the male lead.
Chang Le stood up, putting a bit more distance between herself and the pool. She looked up at the sky, then scanned her surroundings.
Though she wanted to leave and knew she was inside a forbidden zone, the novel hadn't provided a map, so—
"Where am I? Which way am I supposed to go...?"
Chang Le clutched her head and squatted on the ground.
After a moment, her eyes lit up. Since she had transmigrated here so inexplicably, surely she deserved some sort of cheat?
Chang Le shouted inwardly, "System! System!"
The surroundings remained dead silent, without a single sound in response.
Chang Le: "..."
Was there no system? Chang Le tried hard to sink her consciousness down into her dantian. Her dantian was completely empty, save for a wisp of pale spiritual energy denoting her Qi Refining cultivation. No spiritual spring, no dimension, not even a shadow of one.
Chang Le: "..."Could I really be this unlucky?"
She looked up at the sky and pondered for a moment. Could her cheat be of the unconventional variety? Pointing one hand to the heavens and the other to the earth, she bellowed, "Throughout the heavens and earth, I alone am supreme!!"
A flash flickered across the horizon, followed by a muffled rumble of thunder in the distance, as if even the heavens above could no longer bear to watch.
Chang Le hastily lowered her hand. The heavens and earth in this world possessed an formless will; angering the heavens genuinely invited divine punishment.
"...What are you doing?"
A voice broke the silence.
Chang Le whipped her head around in a panic. Sometime without her noticing, a woman had appeared behind her. The woman looked to be barely in her early twenties, with delicate yet plain features. Paired with her icy, aloof temperament, she seemed entirely detached from the mortal world.
Dressed in a cyan Daoist robe, her hair was tied up, though a few strands had drifted loose. Yet they looked far from messy, instead lending her an air of untethered casualness.
Only her eyes were fiercely piercing yet limpidly bright, as though such an ordinary face hardly matched such breathtaking eyes.
Under the moonlight, the distant mountain forest was shrouded in hazy green mist. Standing before it, she looked like the very master of the woods—relaxed and tranquil.
"I..." Chang Le hastily straightened up, a wave of panic gripping her heart. Not only did this transmigration come with no golden finger, how did she end up missing her memories as well?
Ah, right—she was an idiot!
Chang Le thrust her chin out. "Who do you think you are? It's none of your business."
The woman fell silent for a long time before speaking. "Come with me."
Chang Le frowned. "Where to?"
"Back," the woman replied flatly. "Or do you want to stay here?"
Chang Le blinked in surprise, her eyes fluttering. "You know me?"
The woman turned to look at her. Her eyes were exceptionally pretty—not the round, wide kind of apricot eyes, but harboring starlight deep within, as though countless untold stories lay buried inside.
"...I don't know you," the woman answered. "This is the forbidden forest. I am... considered a forest warden, more or less."
"Oh, I see," Chang Le murmured, tilting her head to think. Did the book mention a forest warden? She couldn't quite remember. The story was told from the male lead's perspective, though; he had simply come in, taken her brow-stone and the herbs the original owner had gathered for him, and left. It was entirely possible he had never crossed paths with this person.
At this thought, Chang Le hurriedly raised a hand to touch her forehead. It was just ordinary skin; the brow-stone was hidden. She let out a silent sigh of relief, only to look up and find the woman watching her thoughtfully.
"What—what are you looking at me for?" Chang Le asked, feeling a guilty pang for no apparent reason.
The woman turned away, bending down to pick something up from the ground. She turned back and shoved it into Chang Le's hand. "You dropped this. Hold onto it and come with me."
"Huh? Oh, right..." Chang Le lowered her gaze to see two or three red, raspberry-like berries dangling from a stem of wild grass in her palm. This seemed to be... the medicinal ingredient the original owner had retrieved for the male lead? Did it have the effect of strengthening one's constitution?
Splendid. Now it belonged to her.
Chang Le clutched the medicinal berries tightly and followed behind the woman. She looked at the woman with curiosity. The woman wasn't walking particularly fast, seemingly taking Chang Le's pace into account.
"Are you also a disciple of the Gushan Sword Sect?" Chang Le asked.
The woman let out an affirmative hum.
"Then how did you end up guarding the forest? Are you going to report me to the Punishment Hall?" Chang Le pressed on.
The woman turned her head and glanced at Chang Le. "Do you want me to report you?"
Chang Le answered honestly, "I don't."
"Then don't ask," the woman said.
Chang Le let out an "oh." Although the woman looked chilly, she answered every question asked of her, lacked the explosive temper typical of cultivators who might backhand someone into the stratosphere at a moment's notice, had no intention of handing her over to the Punishment Hall, and had even returned her medicinal herbs.
She was a good person.
A good person whose kindness could be pushed a bit further.
A trace of slyness flashed in Chang Le's eyes. "My name is Chang Le. What's yours?"
The woman: "There's no need for you to know."
"Tell me," Chang Le cajoled, tugging gently on the woman's sleeve and swaying it slightly.
The woman turned, looked at Chang Le's hand, paused for a moment, and then met Chang Le's gaze. "Why do you want to know?"
Chang Le smiled, curving those pretty apricot eyes into a pleasing, cheerful crescent. "You're my benefactor, of course I want to know so I can repay you."
The woman thought for a moment. "You are an outer sect disciple. If you can make it into the inner sect at the outer sect grand tournament three months from now, I will tell you my name."
Chang Le stiffened. The outer sect grand tournament was in three months? Wasn't that the turning point where the male lead made a name for himself? The male lead would consume her medicine, take her brow-stone, refine all the Spiritual Power stored within the stone to successfully advance to Foundation Establishment, and then use the scabbard formed by her brow-stone to trounce everyone in the outer sect, drawing all eyes and animosity while capturing the attention of the female lead down the line.
It had laid the groundwork for his future encounters with the heroine.
"What? Is something wrong?" The woman turned her gaze back to Chang Le.
Chang Le shook her head. As someone who had read countless novels, she naturally knew that in transmigration stories like this, the force of the plot usually existed. If she didn't die today, she might well die of something else, pointlessly serving as a delivery boy for the male lead's golden finger.
The best course of action was—
Run!
Chang Le made up her mind; she had to leave the sword sect. Though plotting an escape in her heart, she wore an outwardly romantic and naive smile. "Alright then, let's make it a deal!"
At her words, seeing Chang Le's expression, the woman's demeanor softened slightly. "Mn. Just do your best, don't push yourself too hard."
Chang Le nodded vigorously. "Got it! You really are a good person!"
A hint of bashfulness seemed to cross the woman's features. She turned her head away, quickening her pace slightly without answering. Suddenly, she stopped in her tracks. Chang Le hurried to catch up, a bit flustered as she was unaccustomed to walking mountain paths. "Wh-what's wrong?"
The woman glanced back toward where they had come from, but ultimately shook her head. "It's nothing, let's go."
Back by the serene pool in the distance, a man abruptly descended, his gaze sweeping over the surroundings. The area was deathly quiet, completely empty.
Within his spiritual sense, an elderly voice asked, "What is it?"
The man hesitated and shook his head. "Elder Fan, it's nothing, I just felt... a bit strange."
"Indeed, the forbidden forest shouldn't be this quiet. Be extremely careful," the old man's voice replied. "As long as we find the Dragon Pearl Fruit, your bottleneck will break, and you'll naturally be able to reach the Qi Refining Great Perfection."
Qi Refining Great Perfection... It seemed he ought not to stop merely at the Qi Refining Great Perfection.
The man knitted his brows, his gaze sweeping over the serene pool. Something ought to have been there originally. That was... something that belonged to him; he felt as though some destined opportunity had just slipped away.
A wisp of irritation welled up in the man's heart. As he stared at the spot, he suddenly let out a soft exclamation, lowered his head, and picked up a sword token lying by the water's edge.
"This is... Senior Sister Chang's sword token?"
Could that opportunity have been snatched away by Senior Sister Chang Le? The man cast a glance in the direction of the outer sect in the distance, and finally, urged on by Elder Fan, turned around and headed deep into the dense forest.