After I Failed to Reform the Female Lead of a Tragic Novel - Chapter 10

Gong Dongling took in the change in Xie Yu’s expression, and her heart stirred. Knowing what Xie Yu was worried about, she tactfully said, “I only heard arguing inside. I was too anxious at the time, so Junior Sister doesn’t need to worry that I heard anything specific.”

What she said was indeed the truth. At the time, she had been afraid Xie Yu would lose control and had rushed in to save her. How could she have cared what they were saying?

Having her thoughts exposed, Xie Yu grew even more ashamed. Like a quail, she lowered her head and stopped speaking again.

Help. This child is way too hard to coax.

Helpless, Gong Dongling could only change the subject. “You came here to investigate Qiu Yan’s identity, right? Did you find anything?”

Xie Yu said dully, “I confirmed that Qiu Yan is the mysterious person who has been giving me information. But it isn’t much use. He isn’t anxious at all. After this, if he can’t scheme behind my back, I’m afraid he’ll just do it openly.”

“Scheme behind your back? Aside from the Xuanji Grass, did he do anything else?” Gong Dongling knowingly asked, firmly establishing her own image as someone who knew nothing.

“I saw a booklet on his desk. There were many things written inside, all related to the times I was bullied before…” As if suddenly remembering something, her voice grew smaller and smaller. She raised her flushed face, ashamed beyond words. “Senior Sister, I’m sorry. There were some things I wrongly blamed you for. I only just learned that you were also used by him.”

Ah, so there was this kind of thing too?

In Gong Dongling’s impression, Qiu Yan had only played the role of someone fanning the flames between the original owner and Xie Yu. How had this turned into Xie Yu letting go of all past grievances and putting the whole blame on Qiu Yan?

Still, if this guilt could ease the relationship between them, then nothing could be better. Gong Dongling silently thanked this convenient scapegoat in her heart. In any case, the original owner had done those things, not her. She waved her hand and said modestly, “No, no, it’s not that serious! Aside from Qiu Yan taking the blame—no, fanning the flames—the fault was still mine. If I hadn’t finally come to my senses, who knows how long I would have kept targeting Junior Sister.”

Seeing that Gong Dongling truly did not mind, Xie Yu barely nodded, though she still looked dazed and dispirited.

“However,” Gong Dongling suddenly put on a stern face and looked at Xie Yu, “did I tell you Qiu Yan was suspicious so you could take such a risk? Sneaking straight into someone’s den—aren’t you a little too bold? You didn’t even discuss it with me. If not for me, you would have fallen right into that old fox’s trap!”

Xie Yu had been lectured by many people before, but they had all looked down from above and carried malice in their hearts. When faced with that, she would usually shrink into the walls she had built around herself. But facing Gong Dongling’s scolding, she found that her heavy mood somehow brightened a little.

“I watched this place for two days, and no one was here…” For the first time, she quietly defended herself, secretly glancing at Gong Dongling’s expression, only to see the other woman roll her eyes at her.

“Maybe he had already noticed you crouching there like a silly little fool and was just waiting for you to take the bait.” Seeing Xie Yu nod pitifully, Gong Dongling’s tone softened. “Let’s not talk about this now. I have something to give you.”

A classic slap followed by a sweet date.

Of course, children would not understand these little tricks.

Xie Yu widened her eyes and watched as Gong Dongling took out a golden silkwood box from her sleeve. Her attention was clearly completely drawn to it.

When the box opened, the light inside became even brighter. It was precisely the Foundation Establishment Pill Gong Dongling had refined before coming over.

The moment she saw that formula and the pill’s effect, she had thought of Xie Yu, who had been stuck at the ninth level of Qi Refining and had been unable to break through. She had decided then that once she successfully refined one, she would give it to Xie Yu. Before coming over, she had not forgotten to bring it along, and now she handed it over.

“This is a Foundation Establishment Pill. I thought Junior Sister might need it, so I tried refining one. It’s my first successful attempt, so I don’t know whether it will work. Junior Sister can just eat it casually.”

To be honest, Gong Dongling was truly a little worried. The pill she had made looked convincing enough, but no one other than herself had tried anything she refined. Who knew what the effects would be? What if it was poisonous like the disastrous food she once cooked?

That was right. In her previous life, she had tried cooking before. Ridiculous as it was, she had poisoned both herself and her life assistant into the hospital. From then on, her assistant politely declined any food she handed over with a smile.

Thinking of that, she immediately regretted it and wanted to take the pill back.

“This… you refined this yourself?!” Xie Yu’s reaction was far bigger than she had imagined.

“Y-Yeah. I just looked at that introductory alchemy book Junior Sister gave me and tried a little. I often failed and blew up my room too. It’s really nothing…” Seeing Xie Yu’s shocked and admiring expression, the more Gong Dongling spoke, the more she felt like she was humblebragging. In the end, she simply spread her hands and said smugly, “I’m just moderately outstanding!”

Xie Yu was finally amused enough to smile, but a trace of loss flashed through her eyes. “When I gave Senior Sister the book, I never thought Senior Sister would be able to do this so quickly. This is the Senior Sister everyone says is so outstanding I can never catch up.”

“You’re very outstanding too.” Gong Dongling looked straight at Xie Yu and said with exceptional seriousness, “You’ve read so many books, and you can remember all those things. If not for you, how could I have learned about a formula to treat cold energy?

“And in my hometown, there’s an old saying: all roads lead to Rome. Cultivation is the same. The road to immortality isn’t limited to sword cultivation. Look at all the great cultivators in this world—sword cultivators, music cultivators, Confucian cultivators, even body cultivators and Buddhist cultivators. Didn’t they all choose what they were best at before gradually shining in their own way?”

Xie Yu smiled bitterly. “When I was little, I was a mortal who couldn’t even eat my fill. Back then, when I watched the children in private schools recite books and learn characters, I only felt envy. It wasn’t until I came here and learned to read that, since I wasn’t good at cultivation, I started reading books. I read anything. Even if I didn’t understand, my memory was good enough to store it all in my head. I thought that if one day I was driven off Buzhou Mountain and had no choice but to return to the mortal world, I could still rely on those things to make a living.”

At some point, Gong Dongling had already walked up to Xie Yu. She cupped Xie Yu’s lowered face in both hands and said with unwavering firmness, “As a mortal who can cultivate, you are already one in ten thousand. And your spiritual root is the most precious ice spiritual root. Even if it is currently covered in shadow, one day it will shine. A-Yu, you definitely, definitely can become someone incredible.”

As if moved by that sincerity, something shimmered in Xie Yu’s eyes. For once, she did not avoid it. Instead, she clenched her fists and nodded heavily.

That floating feeling lasted until the two of them parted and Xie Yu returned to her own room.

Her heart was beating especially fast. She did not know whether it was because she had shown her ambition in front of someone for the first time, or because someone was actually willing to believe in someone as small and humble as herself.

Lying on the hard bed, she still could not calm down enough to cultivate, so she took out the Foundation Establishment Pill and held it up at a distance.

Sunlight happened to fall on it, and the glow on the pill’s surface seemed even more dazzling than the sun outside the window.

“I definitely, definitely can become someone incredible.”

Xie Yu put the Foundation Establishment Pill into her mouth and swallowed it bit by bit.

There was no strange reaction in her body, but no effect appeared either. Although she had not expected to break through immediately after eating it, Xie Yu was still somewhat disappointed. There was definitely nothing wrong with the pill Senior Sister had refined. The only problem was her own useless constitution…

She sighed.

Perhaps because that bucket of cold water had been poured over her, Xie Yu’s mood slowly settled instead. She turned over, sat cross-legged on the stone bed, closed her eyes, and gradually entered meditation.

This time, Xie Yu once again failed to notice that the familiar red light had surfaced over her body.

But just as it was about to climb upward, it was wrapped in a cluster of golden light. Unable even to struggle, it was instantly swallowed up and vanished without a trace.

At the same time, after completing one circulation, Xie Yu suddenly felt that something was not right. Usually, by this point, the spiritual energy would already have become a trickling stream. But now, it surged up like a vast sea. Her slender meridians even began to ache and swell because they could barely withstand it.

Was it because of the Foundation Establishment Pill?!

Thinking this, Xie Yu gritted her teeth and endured the increasingly heavy pressure, trying to circulate the spiritual energy into her dantian.

If someone had been beside Xie Yu and seen her whole body glowing with golden light, they would have known she was about to break through.

Later, that spiritual energy seemed to grow sharp thorns, determined to break through the limits of her meridians. Xie Yu’s spiritual root and meridians were already severely damaged, and under this agonizing pain, they even showed faint signs of being destroyed.

She had never imagined that breaking through would be such a difficult thing. But what Xie Yu did not know was that for others, going from Qi Refining to Foundation Establishment was no different from ordinary cultivation. But in her case, her naturally damaged spiritual root and meridians had to grow until they could carry the spiritual energy required for Foundation Establishment before she could enter that stage.

Aside from reshaping her spiritual root and repairing her meridians, this painful process, almost like body tempering, was the only way.

A sweet, bloody taste surged into her throat, and Xie Yu nearly spat out a mouthful of blood.

Can I not even cross the threshold into Foundation Establishment?

A faint thought like that remained in her mind.

Just when she was on the verge of collapse and could barely hold on any longer, something suddenly coated her body in a layer of warm light. The golden glow that had just wrapped around the red light appeared again. This time, it slipped into her suffering meridians, merged into their surface, and filled in the damaged places.

With this, the pain was reduced by more than half, and there was no longer any danger of the spiritual energy breaking through her meridians.

What followed went more smoothly than Xie Yu had imagined. She only had to withstand the now-bearable pressure and circulate the spiritual energy bit by bit into her dantian.

The process was painful, but the moment her dantian filled, it was as if she had reached a realm Xie Yu had never touched before. A warmth that seemed to cleanse her meridians and even her soul rose up, slowly flowing through every part of her body.

She exhaled a turbid breath, opened her eyes, and looked at her own body.

After a long silence, she said in disbelief, “I broke through?”

Indeed, every change in her body showed that she had officially stepped from the Qi Refining stage into the Foundation Establishment stage and become a true cultivator.

There was no wild joy, nor were there tears of emotion. Xie Yu was still immersed in disbelief. She suppressed the faint joy rising in her heart and began cultivating again, wanting to find that state from just now.

But to her disappointment, that vast spiritual energy had completely dissipated. What rose this time was once again a thin stream, barely any greater than before.

Xie Yu opened her eyes. Before she could feel disappointed, she took out paper and brush and began reviewing this breakthrough.

The greatest help had naturally been that Foundation Establishment Pill. Not only had it pushed her, who had been unable to break through for so long, across the final threshold into Foundation Establishment, it had also aided her at the most difficult moment.

Thinking of that terrifying sensation of almost exploding and dying, Xie Yu still felt some lingering fear.

Aside from that, what had always been obstructing her breakthrough was indeed her severely damaged meridians. Not only could they not gather that surging spiritual energy, they also could not advance to the level required for the next stage of cultivation.

She had always known the root cause. But how to change it was the problem Xie Yu needed to solve. She pressed her lips together and wrote something else on the paper.

Just as Xie Yu broke through, Gong Dongling received a system notification.

【Congratulations, host. The female lead has successfully advanced to the Foundation Establishment stage. Mission progress has reached ten percent!】

“She broke through just like that? Wasn’t she supposed to wait until the Xuanji Grass plot? Don’t tell me it was because of my pill!” Gong Dongling was also exceptionally shocked. Looking at the various pills neatly packed in front of her, an idea formed in her mind.

【Originally, when mission progress reached a certain point, a reward would be issued. However, since the host has already enjoyed a golden finger of equivalent level, no reward will be issued this time. Please keep up the good work and continue striving, hehe.】

“Damn it!”

The system was definitely snickering, wasn’t it? It was snickering, wasn’t it?!

What goes around comes around. Gong Dongling now truly understood the bitterness of that saying.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, someone sneered in the darkness.

“She broke through this quickly? Then I’ll have to speed things up on my end too.”