"Walk a hundred meters outward along this path, and you can return to the outer sect."
Under the moonlight, the female cultivator turned her head and pointed to a faint, overgrown dirt path. It was obviously a path no one had walked for a long time; weeds grew thickly, half-covering it, and in the distance, a few green lights glowed faintly—who knew what beasts might be lurking in the dark.
Chang Le wore a troubled look as she turned to the kind-hearted cultivator and shamelessly said, "I—I'm a little scared."
That's right, she was once a model student well-versed in virtue, intelligence, sports, aesthetics, and labor, who grew up upholding core socialist values and beneath the red flag. Weren't her ancestors brave precisely so that useless people like her could live happily? As a descendant of her ancestors, how could she let down the expectations of the revolutionary martyrs!
The peace-loving good-for-nothing lowered her head: "I'm just an outer sect disciple with poor talent, so..."
"And yet you dared to enter the Forbidden Forest," the female cultivator said, her voice carrying displeasure.
How could she possibly dare? That was the original owner's lovestruck brain, not hers.
Chang Le looked up, her eyes full of sincerity: "I'll never dare again."
Yes, she, Chang Le, truly wouldn't dare again. Unless the original owner came back!
The female cultivator fell silent for a moment, and finally handed Chang Le a lantern: "Use this to light your way, and do not leave the path."
Chang Le was just about to say something else when a gentle breeze swept by, and the female cultivator had already vanished. Had it not been for the lantern in her hand swaying in the wind and illuminating the path, everything would have felt like a dream.
Chang Le let out a long breath and raised the lantern in her hand. The frame was woven from bamboo, white paper outlined a little rabbit, and painted patterns traced cloud motifs on the rabbit's body. The red rabbit eyes suddenly flashed, faintly revealing a touch of the uncanny.
Held in her hand, her panicked state of mind gradually calmed, and her rising anxiety was smoothed away by some invisible hand.
It was hard to tell what kind of magical artifact or treasure it was.
"What a good person," Chang Le sighed. She walked along the dirt path and gradually saw sporadic lights in the distance.
Those were the lights of outer sect disciples studying by lamplight.
She looked back at the way she had come, only to see the night fog growing thicker, concealing the path she had taken. Turning back again, the distant lights glimmered, as if returning to the mortal world from the netherworld.
Chang Le gazed at this sight for a long time, then suddenly smiled. And wasn't that just the case?
She, Chang Le, was a wandering ghost from another world, passing from death into life. She reached out and gently touched her forehead: "I owe you my life, so let's live well together."
If she wanted to live, her top priority was to stay away from the male lead. Although she had escaped a dead end for the moment, as the male lead's golden finger, Chang Le well understood the trouble brought by harboring a treasure. If anyone discovered the sword pellet on her forehead, they might just kill her to take the treasure.
Thinking this, Chang Le kept walking, gazing at the mountain ranges hidden in the dark night in the distance.
She could no longer stay in the Gushan Sword Sect.
But before that...
"Where is my house..."
Chang Le stood in the night, holding the little rabbit lantern with a deadpan expression, her eyes completely blank.
The text of *Seeking Immortality* mentioned that Chang Le was disliked by others, so her dwelling was bound to be in a remote location. Although it took some effort and she even stepped on a pair of wild lovebirds coupling under the open sky in the bushes—prompted by which the lovebirds chased her with swords for three miles—she finally managed to find her room, with some narrow escapes.
The original owner's room was simple and plain, notable for being clean and dust-free. The rest of the furnishings could be described in four words: bare walls. Apart from a bed and an ordinary long sword hanging on the wall, there was nothing.
Chang Le searched around and found only a single set of clothes, which explained the phrase "possessing nothing" quite thoroughly.
Tossing and turning all night, she was both tired and thirsty.
She threw herself onto the bed, rubbed her aching eyes, pressed her palms together, and prayed devoutly: "Please, no stye on my eyelids tomorrow, and let me get down the mountain safely."
Clinging to this wonderful wish, Chang Le fell into a deep sleep.
In the dark, someone seemed to sigh, followed by a couple of muffled whimpers. Chang Le found the sounds somewhat familiar—they sounded very much like that pair of wild lovebirds. Shivering with cold, she hurriedly turned over, clutched her little quilt, and wrapped herself up tightly.
The female cultivator outside the window withdrew her gaze and sighed silently. Her eyes swept over the wild lovebirds, and she raised a finger to her lips.
The lovebirds looked at their confiscated swords and their tightly bound bodies, nodded tearfully, and were then tossed back by the female cultivator to the spot under the open sky where they had previously been coupling.
Chang Le knew nothing of this as she sank into a deep slumber. In the darkness, light spots seemed to flicker. Chang Le looked at them curiously; the light spots were like colorful little bubbles surrounding her. She felt both close and familiar, so she curiously reached out and touched one.
The bubble burst, and countless scenes emerged, enveloping Chang Le.
It was a peaceful and boring mountain scenery: the blazing golden crow rose in the east and set in the west, and the bright jade toad waxed and waned. The mountain forest turned green and then yellow, and the stream flowed babbling after the ice melted. Animals in the forest came and went, curiously scratching themselves with their snouts or paws; it neither hurt nor itched, quickly making them lose interest and wander off.
She seemed to be with something, watching the passage of time and the changes in the mountains together.
Days passed by, and all time seemed to be in a cycle, except that they were eternal.
Boring and peaceful.
Until her companion finally disappeared, and it took her a very, very long time to finally understand.
Such a vital thing was gone, and she had to go look for it. Unfortunately, as a being born of heaven and earth with an incomplete soul, even when she reluctantly took human form, she remained bewildered and ignorant, much like a toddler.
"Is this... the original owner's memories?"
Chang Le lowered her head, looking at her outstretched fingers, then raised her eyes to the sky. The confusion and loss welling up in her heart matched her post-transmigration state of mind. In an instant, the once-unfamiliar memories suddenly became clear, merging with Chang Le herself. At that moment, Chang Le felt that she had truly and completely merged with this body.
The morning birds chirped, and sunlight filtered through the paper-windowed frame onto the head of the bed, slowly pulling the dazed Chang Le back to her senses. She sat up, still somewhat dazed for a moment, unable to tell whether she was still in that long-past mountain forest or somewhere else.
It wasn't until she saw the poor, empty walls that Chang Le finally came to her senses. She was Chang Le, and at the same time, she was the human-shaped incarnation of the sword sheath spirit born of heaven and earth.
She rubbed her throbbing head and felt a stroke of luck.
A spiritual entity's time is long; had the original owner's soul not been incomplete and her understanding of worldly matters shallow, just that endless passage of time would have been enough to crush Chang Le's brief life as a transmigrator and devour her outright. Fortunately, although Chang Le's era was brief, it was brilliant enough, backed by a five-thousand-year history and culture that was constantly filled with change and wonder.
This managed to maintain the core of "Chang Le," allowing her to consume and assimilate the original owner's consciousness rather than becoming a part of the original owner.
It was just that now the two were combined into one, with the transmigrator's mindset taking the upper hand and self-identifying as the transmigrator.
Having sorted out her thoughts and retrieved the memories of what had just happened, Chang Le reached out, and as her heart willed, a cluster of invisible spiritual energy immediately floated onto her fingertips. Perhaps because her origin was a sword sheath, this wisp of spiritual energy also carried the sharp aura of a weapon. She had entered the outer sect with a Metal Spirit Root, which was related to this wisp of spiritual energy.
Only, the original owner's cultivation method as a spiritual entity was different from that of humans. To put it simply, it was like trying to force a tree to imitate a human—there was a barrier between the two!
Not to mention that the original owner had a flawed soul and couldn't reach Foundation Establishment, remaining stuck at the Qi Refining 9th Layer, unable to break through.
If not for the long lifespan of spiritual entities, she probably would have run out of years and died long ago. But this long lifespan also attracted the covetous eyes of many. In Chang Le's memories, quite a few people had deliberately approached and sucked up to the original owner just to swindle her out of her wealth and belongings.
Yet the original owner couldn't tell good from bad; whenever someone said a few nice words, she took them for truth. If someone showed her a fraction of kindness, she repaid them tenfold.
The tragic state of these bare walls had come about precisely this way.
Fortunately, in recent decades, seeing how poor the original owner was, people couldn't even be bothered to swindle her anymore. The original owner became increasingly ostracized and poorer, which was why the male lead had managed to exploit the opening.
Chang Le frowned, instinctively wanting to write something down, but when she looked up, she saw the empty room. Forget a brush; finding a single wood chip would count as having surplus grain in the house!
Chang Le slowly walked out of the room. Outside the door was a little yellow dog; seeing Chang Le come out, it suddenly perked up its ears, trotted over, and circled around Chang Le.
Chang Le also liked dogs. Before her transmigration, she had kept a little dog. It was just a pity that her parents felt keeping a dog would make her neglect her studies, so they found an excuse to give it away to someone else.
This little dog looked very much like the one she used to have. Seeing it wag its tail into a helix and show such an affectionate appearance, a wave of warmth surged in Chang Le's heart, as if an old regret had finally been fulfilled.
This dog was raised by the original owner. Although she didn't understand human nature and wasn't liked by the Human Race, animals liked the original owner very much, often gathering around her and bringing her scraps of food to share.
"Good dog," Chang Le patted the little dog's head, broke off a tree branch, and squatted on the ground to draw and write. The little dog also quieted down, resting its chin on its front paws to keep Chang Le company in silence. Fortunately, this place was remote, so she didn't have to worry about being seen.
Actually, if she had to say, in this terrifying world of cultivation, the Gushan Sword Sect wasn't a bad place to be. This was the male lead's sect; during the later Contention for the Great Fortune, the Gushan Sword Sect would expend a large number of talents, giving the male lead the opportunity to become the sect master of the Gushan Sword Sect in one fell swoop.
One could say that as the male lead's sect, the Gushan Sword Sect hung on safely until the very end, even though the people inside were basically swapped out entirely. But the early stages were still quite safe.
However, precisely because the male lead was here, it wasn't so safe for Chang Le anymore.
Chang Le narrowed her eyes. She had the original owner's memories—what did the chaos among the Human Race have to do with her? The original owner had entered the mortal world to look for that important person, but in the end, she failed to find him and instead lost her own life. She wasn't the original owner, nor was she a lovestruck fool; she had no reason to stay here.
Leave! Run away immediately, right now!
Chang Le bent over, and suddenly an herb fell from her bosom. Chang Le then remembered this was the Dragon Claw Fruit the original owner had picked for the male lead to cleanse his meridians. The male lead had managed to enter the Gushan Sword Sect, yet he was only an outer sect disciple—was it because he didn't want to enter the inner sect?
Of course not; it was because he possessed mixed spirit roots and an impure bloodline.
In the early stages, Chang Le not only used her identity as a spiritual entity to enter the Forbidden Forest and pick this herb for him, she even staked her own life on it. Later on, the male lead didn't even offer a word of thanks, acting as though it were all her duty.
How could he have the nerve?!
"Woof!" The little yellow dog curiously sniffed the Dragon Claw Fruit, its eyes lighting up as it looked up at Chang Le with a sparkly expression around its mouth. It was clear that it wanted to eat it very much, but without Chang Le's permission, it still tried hard to control its appetite, just looking at Chang Le with shining eyes.
What a well-mannered little dog! Wasn't this much better than some scummy male lead?
Chang Le herself was a spiritual entity, and eating such things was useless to her. She let out a cold laugh—she'd rather feed this stuff to a dog than give it to the male lead!
Chang Le grabbed a Dragon Claw Fruit and placed it in front of the little yellow dog. The little yellow dog jumped for joy, then glanced at Chang Le, seeming to hesitate.
Chang Le smiled at it: "Eat."
Only then did the little yellow dog lower its head and gobble it down. It quickly finished the fruit and looked up; Chang Le noticed its eyes seemed a few shades more human than before.
Looking at its eager expression, Chang Le rubbed her chin: "Having eaten my fruit, you're my dog now. I need to give you a name..."
As she spoke, she took out another Dragon Claw Fruit, and while feeding it, she said: "Your whole body is yellow, so I'll name you... Xiaobai!"
From now on, she'd call her Xiaobai. When others saw it was just a little yellow dog, they certainly wouldn't react—classic element of surprise, catching them off guard!
Xiaobai looked up, giving her a somewhat human-like look of rolling its eyes, but it only wagged its tail without objecting.
"Well then, since you don't object, Xiaobai it is!" Chang Le said happily, "There are still more fruits here, don't rush, take your time."
Having given it a name felt like establishing an extra thread of connection with the puppy, and even toward this world, she seemed to feel an added sense of belonging.
Chang Le smiled: "I'm leaving. Are you coming with me?"
Xiaobai flicked its tail. Chang Le nodded: "Got it, you're very happy to come with me."
Xiaobai rolled its eyes with human-like disdain and didn't speak.
"Senior Sister... that—that's a Dragon Claw Fruit! How could you!!"
Suddenly, a clear young man's voice rang out from the doorway, carrying disbelief.
Chang Le clicked her tongue. Why was she so unlucky? Before she could even run away, she ran straight into the male lead blocking her door.