After Transmigrating Into A Novel, My Advisor Became My Master - Chapter 2

A piercing pain shot through her wrist. A certain master had bitten down and refused to let go.

Tears welled in Shen Yun’s eyes, and she hurriedly apologized. “I’m sorry! I couldn’t see clearly just now. I didn’t mean to throw you!”

The little dragon master stared at her with an icy glare, entirely unmoved. She was biting down so hard that even her dragon horns trembled slightly.

Shen Yun struggled to suppress her instinct to shake her off. Knowing she was in the wrong, she endured the bite as her heart steadily sank—

Life inside the novel probably would not be any easier than doing a doctorate. After all, she had begun by hurling her reborn master against a wall, then spent ages prying her back off.

Suddenly, the pain in her wrist eased somewhat.

Returning to her senses, Shen Yun saw the little dragon master hesitantly release her. Her vertical pupils slowly became round again, and her dragon horns drooped.

She licked the tips of her teeth, then licked them again a moment later.

“…Did biting me hurt your teeth?”

Shen Yun blinked away the moisture clinging to her lashes, barely suppressing a laugh.

They were newly grown baby teeth, after all. How could they withstand that much force?

The little dragon master gave her a cold, haughty glance, shifted her body, and turned her jade-white tail toward Shen Yun. She was evidently still angry.

Shen Yun’s lips silently curved.

She raised her wrist and found only two round indentations. The skin did not appear to have bled.

“By my calculations, you have kept watch over her here for three hundred years. Time truly passes like drifting clouds.”

Yan Li’s voice sounded inside the cave, accompanied by gradually approaching footsteps.

“Immortal Lord Yunzhao, it has been a long time.”

Yan Li came to Shen Yun’s side and looked at the old friend resting in her palm. “Do you still remember me?”

With her head resting on her disciple’s fingertip, the little dragon deigned to give Yan Li an aloof, unfamiliar glance.

It was only to be expected that she would lose all her memories after beginning another life. Yan Li did not take offense. A stream of pale green spiritual energy emerged from her sleeve and gently enveloped the dragon.

When she withdrew her spiritual energy, her expression grew slightly grave.

“She is far smaller than an ordinary dragon hatchling, and her coloring is so pale that she resembles a white dragon. Her innate foundations are deficient and frail, and no spirit core has formed in her dantian. I fear she will remain sickly and weak in the future, and her path of cultivation will be fraught with hardship.”

Shen Yun was immediately shocked. “She hasn’t formed a spirit core?”

In the novel, dragons were ancient spiritual beasts born with spirit cores, which allowed them to absorb spiritual energy and rapidly improve their cultivation.

Who would have expected her reborn master to lack a spirit core, reducing her to a frail ordinary beast? Forget taking human form—even a blade of grass by the roadside that had gained sentience could probably bully her at will.

No wonder she had merely bitten Shen Yun when angered instead of uttering a single reprimand.

Yan Li shook her head. “Nirvana is not an innate ability of the dragon race. It was inevitable that she would suffer a backlash.”

“That is enough. Let us return to Tingzhu Peak first.”
She lightly swept her sleeve.

Shen Yun felt the world spin around her. In the next instant, her surroundings had changed completely.

Hundreds and thousands of sects vied for prominence across the land, yet Tengyun Pavilion had always stood proudly above its domain, attracting disciples in droves.
The pavilion was divided into four main peaks, and Tingzhu Peak was where the master and disciple had once lived in the novel.

Amid the swirling clouds and mist, vermilion towers and jade-green pavilions stood in harmonious arrangement, while cascading waterfalls wound between them like ribbons. Whenever the wind blew, waves rippled through the bamboo along the cliffs, producing a clear, resonant rustling—hence the name Tingzhu, “Listening to Bamboo.”

Early spring had only just arrived, and patches of unmelted snow still covered the ground.

Yan Li ascended the stone steps, the hem of her robes drifting gracefully.

Shen Yun followed behind her, holding the little dragon master in both hands as though presenting a sacred statue.

“There is one matter I must explain to you.” Yan Li stopped before the courtyard gate. “To maintain stability within the sect, I concealed Immortal Lord Yunzhao’s death. Aside from the two of us, everyone across the Three Realms believes she is in seclusion. Now that she has returned to the mortal world but has yet to regain her strength, she should go by her original name, ‘Lian Yi,’ for the time being.”

Lian Yi?

Shen Yun stumbled, nearly missing the stone step beneath her. The jolt made the little dragon master dig all four claws into her skin and give her a displeased little bite.

Wait. It was one thing for the female lead to have taken Shen Yun’s name after she transmigrated into the novel, but why did the master also share her advisor’s name?!

The woman’s frost-cold face abruptly surfaced in her mind. It was as though fate itself had seized Shen Yun by the scruff of the neck, leaving her unable to move.

“Pavilion Master, where are you going…?”
The jade bracelet around Yan Li’s wrist suddenly flashed, transmitting a woman’s urgent voice.

Yan Li lightly brushed it with her fingertips, and the bracelet immediately dimmed. At the same time, a beam of white light shot out, and an embroidered pouch appeared at Shen Yun’s waist.

“My apologies. I have urgent matters to attend to, so I can only escort you two this far.”

“This contains your master’s eggshell. Do not forget to have her eat it.”

With that, she whirled around in haste and transformed into a green blur, vanishing in an instant.

Shen Yun remained rooted to the spot in a daze, still reeling from the shock of hearing the name “Lian Yi.”

“Mm.”

A delicate itch spread across her fingers. Shen Yun’s eyes shifted, and she instinctively lowered her head.

Unlike the dim cave, this place was illuminated by bright daylight, allowing her to see the master in her palm clearly.

She was a remarkably tiny dragon—beautiful, noble, and delicate.

She both resembled the dragons described in mythology and did not. Her deep-blue eyes were like a vast sea steeped in moonlight, her snowy-white mane was as soft and fluffy as fresh snow, her translucent scales resembled colored glass, and her four paws were exquisitely tiny. A dainty pair of emerald-green dragon horns stood upright atop her head, lustrous and translucent.

Shen Yun’s heart relaxed.
They merely shared the same name. They were not even the same species. She had truly been jumping at shadows.

Having never seen a real dragon before, she could not tear her gaze away. She studied the dragon from her closely layered scales, as lustrous as solidified jade, all the way down to her slightly curled tail.

Suddenly, that tail lifted and swept across Shen Yun’s wrist, neither too lightly nor too forcefully.

Shen Yun immediately understood. “Are you hungry?”

Her master had been out of her shell for quite some time now, yet she had not eaten anything.

The little dragon raised her head slightly and cast Shen Yun a sidelong glance, looking aloof and reserved.

The expression seemed somewhat familiar, and Shen Yun unconsciously straightened her back.

“Wait a moment. I’ll find us a room.”

The little dragon was only the size of her palm. Shen Yun held her securely in one hand and freed the other to push open the courtyard gate.

It was the transition between winter and spring, and the thick ice coating the courtyard walls had yet to melt completely.
A fierce, inexplicable wind carrying the biting chill of early spring roared out of the courtyard, whipping Shen Yun’s long hair into disarray.

She narrowed her eyes slightly. In the next instant, she felt the little dragon master’s body abruptly shrink in on itself before beginning to tremble faintly.

“Master?”

Startled, Shen Yun hurriedly turned her back to the wind and lifted the little dragon before her eyes.

Her master’s eyes were tightly closed. Her formerly lustrous horns were rapidly growing dull, and her breathing had become so faint it was nearly imperceptible, as though she might pass away at any moment.

“…”
In a daze, Shen Yun saw her paper being published at a top conference, with Lian Yi listed as the corresponding author and the name of her future junior labmate as first author.

No!

She hastily pulled open her outer robe and wrapped the little dragon master securely against her chest, attempting to protect that fragile spark of life with her body heat.

She had been careless.
Her master was now frail and weak, with no spiritual energy to protect her body. How could she possibly endure the cold wind?

Shen Yun anxiously waited while reflecting on her mistake.

Fortunately, after finding warmth, the little dragon gradually recovered. Her four paws instinctively clutched her disciple’s lapel.
When she opened her eyes again, her deep-blue gaze was veiled in a damp, vulnerable mist.

Shen Yun carefully observed her for quite some time before finally relaxing a little.

“You’re all right now.”
She raised a fingertip and gently patted the little dragon master’s back through her outer robe to comfort her.

She could not help worrying. With such a weak constitution, could she truly help her master ascend within a hundred years?

Shen Yun did not know whether she was reassuring her master or herself.

“Don’t worry. Although your constitution is weak right now, it’s only temporary.”

“I’ll supervise you as you reproduce one cultivation technique every day and hold a weekly group meeting where you share your cultivation insights. We’ll strive to write Three Years to Mahayana, Five Years to Ascension.”

The little dragon master: “…”

Shen Yun did not notice her master’s dragon horns drooping slightly and continued gently encouraging her to study. “You don’t understand. This world operates on an up-or-out system. It’s every bit as brutal as academia.”

The moment she finished speaking, something soft suddenly went limp inside her robes.

Shen Yun looked down and saw that the little dragon master, who had only just recovered, had closed her eyes again, seemingly having fainted once more.

“…Master!”
Her heart instantly leaped into her throat again.

Her reborn master was merely an ordinary beast who could tolerate neither cold nor hunger. This time, she had probably fainted from starvation.

Shen Yun could no longer concern herself with anything else. She tightened her robes around the dragon, making certain there were no gaps through which the wind could enter, then hurried through the courtyard gate.

She had no inclination to examine the courtyard scenery. Recalling the layout described in the novel, she went directly into the sleeping chamber on the far right and found a cushioned couch to sit upon.

Her hand brushed the embroidered pouch at her waist. The moment the thought entered her mind, a lustrous fragment of eggshell appeared in her palm out of thin air.

Could this really be eaten?

Shen Yun opened the collar of her outer robe and tentatively brought the eggshell to the little dragon master’s mouth.

Sensing its spiritual essence, the unconscious dragon opened her mouth slightly and took a dainty bite.
The eggshell melted the instant it entered her mouth, transforming into warm spiritual energy that flowed throughout her body, causing even her translucent scales to glow faintly.

Perhaps she found the taste reasonably satisfactory, for the tip of the little dragon master’s tail swayed gently from side to side.

She really had only been too hungry. Gathering up her worry-worn heart, Shen Yun patiently fed her one bite at a time until the little dragon turned her head away.

After eating, her master sank back into sleep.

She clearly resembled cold jade and pristine snow, possessing an innate air of nobility. Yet she curled her entire body into a ball, her tail tucked inward and both paws clutching the lapel of her disciple’s inner robe. Her sleeping posture made her appear deeply insecure.

Shen Yun leaned against the cushioned couch and watched her. Suddenly, she remembered the previous night—Lian Yi had slept in Shen Yun’s bed in exactly the same position.

At the time, Professor Lian had forced herself to come knocking in the middle of the night. Once she finished accusing Shen Yun over her paper’s first draft, the alcohol had quickly overwhelmed her.

Shen Yun had swiftly caught her before she could fall.

The university treated its doctoral students well. What they called a dormitory was actually a fully equipped one-person apartment.
Shen Yun surrendered her own little nest and settled Lian Yi inside.

The blanket on the single bed was soft and fuzzy, its cotton filling fluffy and warm.
The woman sank into it, her skin as fair as white jade, making her resemble a handful of clean, freshly fallen snow.

Her lips were lightly pursed, and a hint of exhaustion softened her cool, distant features.

Perhaps because the surroundings were unfamiliar, she curled up insecurely, clutching the hem of Shen Yun’s coral-fleece pajamas with both hands.

Shen Yun silently watched her for a moment before simply sitting beside the bed and gently picking up the manuscript from the table to read through it.

Even while intoxicated, Professor Lian’s handwriting remained beautiful and neat, and her annotations were as rigorous and conscientious as ever.

The only difference was that when Shen Yun reached the final page of the main text, she found the paper strangely damp.

Scattered tearstains bloomed across the page like lotus flowers, blurring the ink of the corrections.

Shen Yun’s mind thundered as she raised a hand to touch those damp marks.

She could almost picture Professor Lian being bullied late at night by her unfilial student’s first draft, her expression cold and her eyes blurred with tears as she stubbornly continued correcting it.

No wonder she had braved the freezing wind to come and accuse Shen Yun in person.

Having painfully reflected on her mistakes, Shen Yun opened her laptop and revised the paper one annotation at a time, unknowingly working until five in the morning.
At one point, the ache in her neck and shoulders became unbearable. She tilted her head back in an attempt to relax, but her vision suddenly went black, and she lost consciousness.

When she awoke again, she had already transmigrated into the novel.

Oh no.
As her recollection reached this point, Shen Yun’s heart abruptly sank. She asked inside her mind, “System, did I actually die from overwork?”

“No,” the system answered immediately.

Shen Yun was unconvinced. “How can you prove that?”

The system explained methodically, “When selecting someone to transmigrate into a novel, the deceased must be avoided because their souls are damaged and they lack sufficient energy. Those who wish to die must also be avoided because they are dispirited and weary of life, leaving them insufficiently motivated.”

“Then doctoral students truly are ideal candidates for transmigration.” Shen Yun could not help sneering. “After suffering for years and finally approaching graduation, they’re suddenly dragged into a novel. Naturally, they’ll have more than enough energy and motivation to complete the mission.”

The system consoled her, “Time passes far more slowly outside the novel than it does within it, at a ratio of approximately one to one hundred thousand. You may consider this a period of rest.”

Shen Yun instinctively performed the calculation. Based on Professor Lian’s usual schedule, she would probably wake in around five hours. That meant Shen Yun had to help the little dragon master successfully ascend within fifty-seven years.

Time had already been tight, yet it had now suddenly been cut nearly in half.

Shen Yun immediately became anxious. She lowered her head and looked at the little dragon sleeping soundly in her arms, wishing she could wake her up and make her begin cultivating at once.

She gently tucked the robe around her and could not help muttering, “How can you possibly sleep at your age?”

The little dragon master, who had hatched only an hour ago: “…”