When those words, laced with chill and murderous intent, reached her ears, Bai Xiaoxiao almost thought she was about to die that instant.
After all, if she wasn’t mistaken, the person before her had to be the protagonist’s Shizun, the Peak Master of Moon-Gazing Peak, that Sword Venerable Mingyue—Shen Zhiyue.
The sealed object in Void Ruins Valley was extremely sensitive, and this little snake had recklessly barged in without knowing her place. A moment’s thought was enough to know the other would not show mercy—even if this little snake had once stayed by her side for a while and could be considered her pet.
Bai Xiaoxiao hung her snake head low, not daring to meet the other’s eyes, and unable to answer that question.
Her fate seemed already sealed.
The gap in strength between them was too great. She had no power to fight back at all. She wanted to ask the System what to do now—after all, it had forced her to do the mission, and it was the one who had told her to wait here and encounter Shen Zhiyue.
Unfortunately, the System didn’t seem reliable. She called out several times, but got no response.
So Bai Xiaoxiao stopped struggling, lying meek and pitiful on the ground, awaiting the final verdict.
After an unknown amount of time, Bai Xiaoxiao suddenly realized her view had changed. It took her a moment to notice that she seemed to have been lifted by some force, then gently set down onto a fair, pale palm.
Shen Zhiyue’s cold voice followed. “Let it go this once.”
Bai Xiaoxiao snapped her head up, eyes full of astonishment.
Shen Zhiyue was letting her off? Why?
But under Shen Zhiyue’s unarguable gaze, cold and almost tangible, Bai Xiaoxiao hesitated for a moment, then nodded, weakly wagging the tip of her tail.
After a few wags, Bai Xiaoxiao abruptly stopped, realizing that her behavior didn’t seem like a snake at all—more like a little dog wagging its tail.
But she didn’t have the strength to think about that now. After being injured, she felt extremely sleepy, with the weakness of someone who had lost too much blood. Bai Xiaoxiao even thought for a moment she would die of her wounds.
Yet while she was drifting drowsily, her mouth was suddenly pried open by force. Before she could react, a pill dissolved on her tongue. Almost at the same moment, her heavy body became light again.
Obviously, the person who had fed her the pill was Shen Zhiyue.
Bai Xiaoxiao looked up at her, flicked out her tongue, and brushed against the other’s wrist in thanks.
In truth, she was somewhat surprised by Shen Zhiyue’s actions. She hadn’t expected that despite the woman’s cold nature, she treated her pet quite well, unexpectedly so.
Not only had she let such a serious offense as trespassing into the Forbidden Ground slide, she had even given her a pill to heal her injuries.
As for where the injuries had come from…
Bai Xiaoxiao sighed inwardly, feeling that the attack had been entirely understandable. It was the System’s fault, but she was bound to it, and the two seemed inseparable for now. The consequences could only be borne by her.
After thinking it all through, Bai Xiaoxiao suddenly felt a drowsiness welling up from the depths of her soul. It was probably because her injuries had just begun to heal—even with the pill, she wouldn’t truly recover at once. So she instinctively coiled around Shen Zhiyue’s wrist.
She was too sleepy to keep her eyes open and didn’t want to waste energy thinking. In any case, since Shen Zhiyue hadn’t killed her on the spot, at least she was safe for now. She could deal with everything else after she woke up…
Her consciousness gradually blurred, and Bai Xiaoxiao soon fell into a deep sleep. Naturally, she had no idea how deep Shen Zhiyue’s gaze on her was after she fell asleep.
Even while she lay completely defenseless, Shen Zhiyue had already used her Spiritual Sense to probe her.
“How interesting. Her aura has changed, but the soul and body fit together seamlessly—it is not Possession.”
The voice echoed briefly in the air before dissipating. The creature fast asleep, meanwhile, was utterly unaware that she had just brushed past death.
When she woke, Bai Xiaoxiao clearly felt much better, no longer as groggy as before. When she opened her eyes, though, she briefly had the illusion that she had transmigrated again.
It wasn’t until she looked around that she confirmed there had been no second transmigration—it was just that she was suspended in midair, surrounded by mist, which had given her that illusion.
Suddenly, a beast’s roar came out of nowhere, interrupting her thoughts. She looked down and saw countless wild beasts gathered on the ground at some point.
“Those aren’t wild beasts—they’re Demonic Beasts.”
Bai Xiaoxiao was stunned. “System? You’re online?”
“Mm. I dropped offline just now and switched routes. All good now. Shouldn’t drop again.”
Bai Xiaoxiao paused, swallowing back her complaint about the System playing dead earlier.
“Then what’s the situation now? Why are so many Demonic Beasts gathered here?”
As she spoke with the System, she also confirmed that she was currently still coiled around Shen Zhiyue’s wrist.
So it was Shen Zhiyue who had brought her here.
“It’s a beast tide. The Void Ruins Valley is stirring, and Shen Zhiyue came to investigate. A Devil Beast is sealed here. Probably because they’ve been eroded by Devil Qi for years, these Demonic Beasts have already begun to fall into the Devil Path. They’re acting up because that Devil Beast is trying to break the seal and escape.”
Bai Xiaoxiao was startled. She remembered that this scene didn’t seem to exist in the novel.
Thinking back carefully, the character she had transmigrated into was, in the novel, essentially cannon fodder. After being picked up by Shen Zhiyue, she misjudged her place, constantly tricking and bullying the protagonist. Stupid and rotten.
If it had only been that, the little snake wouldn’t have died so horribly. But the one thing she absolutely shouldn’t have done was try to steal the Yin-Yang Life-Renewing Lamp.
In other words, Bai Xiaoxiao had transmigrated at a truly terrible timing—right at the plot point where the little snake was doomed to die.
Yet for unknown reasons, Shen Zhiyue hadn’t killed her, and had even healed her injuries.
Now this was another difference—the Demonic Beasts of Void Ruins Valley had actually mutated under the Devil Beast’s influence.
“This doesn’t match the novel’s plot.” Bai Xiaoxiao frowned.
“It is indeed different. Host, I suggest you take the original plot as a reference only. Once a book world forms and begins to operate, it’s already a real world. Simply put—anything is possible.”
Bai Xiaoxiao fell silent.
Then what was the meaning of her transmigrating into the book?
For a transmigrator, the greatest golden finger should have been foreknowledge of the plot. Yet now the System claimed anything could happen. The difficulty had risen far more than just a little.
“Go, Host.”
The System slowly intoned.
Bai Xiaoxiao was rarely so speechless. She stopped paying attention to this System that neither helped nor offered kind words, and turned to look at the ground instead.
The Demonic Beasts gathered at terrifying speed. Before long, the beasts that had only occupied half a clearing now crammed into a solid mass—a dense sea of them that made one’s scalp crawl.
Yet Shen Zhiyue didn’t make a move, simply watching coldly as the beasts gathered, as if… waiting for the right moment.
After a moment’s thought, Bai Xiaoxiao understood. With the other’s profound cultivation, nearly all the beasts on the ground were no match for her.
For her, the fastest way to settle the beast tide was to wait until all the beasts had gathered, then wipe them out in one blow.
Having guessed Shen Zhiyue’s intention, Bai Xiaoxiao stopped sneaking glances and quietly clung to her arm.
A slender wrist wrapped in such a green snake was a striking visual. Especially since Shen Zhiyue’s skin had a cool pale tone, forming a sharp contrast with her.
Looking at that almost blinding expanse of white, Bai Xiaoxiao didn’t need to feel closely to notice how delicate and smooth the skin beneath her snake body was.
As described in the book, Shen Zhiyue was indeed a near-perfect person.
It was hard to imagine someone like this would show special regard for Rong Qingqing.
Ever since reading the book, Bai Xiaoxiao had never been able to put herself in the protagonist’s shoes. Instead, she had loved several supporting characters—and Shen Zhiyue was one of them.
Probably no one could dislike her. Strong within, profound in cultivation, obtaining anything she wanted with ease, and an existence revered by many.
Bai Xiaoxiao knew she could never become such a person, so she adored such characters even more when she came across them.
Of course, if she hadn’t transmigrated into the book, she would have adored her even more.
While her mind churned with nonsense, Bai Xiaoxiao suddenly realized her perspective was changing. She struggled to look at Shen Zhiyue, but sensed a more piercing, frosty aura suddenly appear.
Bai Xiaoxiao strained toward that aura, and was surprised to find that Shen Zhiyue had condensed a crystalline long sword in her palm, radiating chilling cold.
Before she could react to what was happening, Bai Xiaoxiao felt a chill around her. The next second, she saw a fierce Sword Qi charging straight at the beast pack. The Sword Qi wasn’t aimed at her, but it still made her blood run cold.
With a single sword strike, the dense swarm of Demonic Beasts died on the spot without even time to let out a pained cry. The remaining lucky beasts screamed in terror, pacing restlessly in place.
This unprecedented sight made Bai Xiaoxiao’s eyes widen unconsciously. Only then did she get a clear look at the long sword held in Shen Zhiyue’s hand.
The blade was crystalline, its radiance restrained, forged from Thousand-Year Profound Ice. Its name: Lone Snow.
Shen Zhiyue’s Lifebound Sword.
Bai Xiaoxiao’s eyes gradually lit up. She had never dreamed she could see Shen Zhiyue’s Lifebound Sword, Lone Snow, at such close range.
Indeed, reading the novel’s description was nowhere near as breathtaking as seeing it with her own eyes.
Just as she was marveling, Shen Zhiyue swung a second strike, directly clearing out the remaining Demonic Beasts. The beast roars vanished from heaven and earth, leaving an eerie silence.
The terrifying beast tide had been resolved so easily.
Bai Xiaoxiao felt she could no longer put her shock into words.
The Cultivation World was indeed full of danger everywhere, but being able to witness Shen Zhiyue in action with her own eyes… perhaps it wasn’t so bad after all.
“Hissss——!”
Bai Xiaoxiao forgot she couldn’t speak now. Only upon hearing her own hissing did she remember that she was a snake now.
But that didn’t dampen the excitement inside her in the least.
Unfortunately, lost in her excitement, Bai Xiaoxiao failed to notice the probing gaze from above.
Shen Zhiyue could sense that the little snake had changed, yet it wasn’t Possession, which piqued her interest somewhat.
If before, she had merely kept it as a dispensable pet, now her thoughts had shifted a little.
Shen Zhiyue was curious about this snake’s origins, and her intuition told her those origins would bring her a pleasant surprise. A cultivator’s intuition was never just intuition. She trusted her judgment.
That said, she had always let the little snake run wild. Picking it up at all had already gone against her initial intentions.
After emerging from seclusion, Shen Zhiyue had gained a great deal. So when she saw the snake, frozen stiff until only its eyes could move, yet still staring at her stubbornly, she had been moved on a whim to save it.
But after being freed, the snake didn’t leave. Instead, it tentatively climbed onto her wrist, carefully coiling itself into a circle—
It wanted to follow her.
The snake’s origins were unknown. The wise move would have been to ignore it. But just as Shen Zhiyue was about to shake it off, she found the little snake looking up at her with dazed, innocent eyes, carrying a hint of dependence.
It was the look of nascent intelligence, seeing her as its only support.
After a moment of silence, Shen Zhiyue didn’t drive it away again, silently allowing the snake to follow.
After bringing it back, though, Shen Zhiyue discovered that this little snake seemed mentally unstable. It only reacted to her, looking dull and dazed at all other times.
A bit silly, but since she had brought it back, Shen Zhiyue had no intention of discarding it.
Now, however, it seemed to have brought her some unexpected surprises.
Bai Xiaoxiao, unaware that Shen Zhiyue had noticed her oddity, felt a rare surge of enthusiasm from watching that battle just now.
But the enthusiasm came and went quickly.
Because from the corner of her eye, she noticed that those Demonic Beasts that should have been dead were actually staggering back to their feet.
Bai Xiaoxiao slowly widened her eyes, and in a panic tapped Shen Zhiyue with her tail, signaling her to look at the ground.
But Shen Zhiyue had noticed the beasts’ abnormality earlier than she had. Looking at the beasts rising again, there wasn’t a trace of surprise in her eyes.
“Devils. Truly disgusting creatures.”
Her words were soft, but her tone held bone-chilling murderous intent.
Hearing this, Bai Xiaoxiao froze for a moment, then immediately remembered a plot point.
In the later part of the novel, the Cultivation World clashed with the Devil and Demon Races once more. The Shangqing Sword Sect bore the brunt of it. The root of the calamity was that the Devil Beast sealed within the sect had long since quietly broken its seal, but had been lurking in hiding all along—until the Devil Race attacked, when it emerged from Void Ruins Valley, causing heavy casualties among the Sword Sect’s disciples.
Although the Sect Master and the Elders reacted quickly, they still couldn’t stop the casualties from spreading. The second race war thus began.
In that battle, the protagonist Rong Qingqing had shone brilliantly. She performed outstandingly on the battlefield, and at the critical moment, slew the leader of the Devil Race in one strike. When the war ended, she Ascended on the spot, writing a legendary tale.
So the signs had already appeared back then?
Bai Xiaoxiao was deep in thought when her vision suddenly blurred. When her sight cleared, she found that Shen Zhiyue had brought her down to the ground. And directly ahead was the pack of revived Demonic Beasts, black Qi surging skyward.
Confronted with the devilized beasts at such close range, Bai Xiaoxiao couldn’t think at all. Her mind went blank, and her nose was filled with a stench so foul that she quickly shut her eyes.
But the next second, she felt the tip of her tail being pinched. Bai Xiaoxiao barely opened her eyes and found that Shen Zhiyue was the one holding her tail tip.
The sensation was too stimulating. Bai Xiaoxiao nearly couldn’t help turning around and biting her. Fortunately, she held it in at the last moment.
She raised her head, looking at Shen Zhiyue in confusion, not understanding her meaning.
“Why have you become so obedient this time? Before, you would have already charged out.”
Shen Zhiyue’s tone was indifferent.
But Bai Xiaoxiao felt as if struck by thunder.
Could Shen Zhiyue mean that she was bloodthirsty, always charging forward without regard for her life?
Bai Xiaoxiao’s heart was a mess. Countless thoughts flashed through her mind, but she couldn’t decide whether she should take the cue and charge out, or…
She looked hesitantly at the devilized beast pack. A flicker of fear passed through her eyes, and she couldn’t help shrinking back.
What made Bai Xiaoxiao’s heart pound even harder was Shen Zhiyue’s gaze. For some reason, the woman never looked away, as if waiting for her reaction.
The gaze was light and airy, yet the pressure it carried was unbearably heavy.
Bai Xiaoxiao’s breath caught.
