The Light of the Righteous Path Has Gone Offline - Chapter 2

“Have you ever heard of the scripts written in the mortal world?”

“You are cannon fodder in a wife-chasing crematorium script. The chief disciple of a sacred stronghold of the righteous path, born with natural sword bones, a peerless genius—you possess everything expected of a protagonist, yet you are not the protagonist.”

“The plot arranged for you to fall from the cliff merely to draw back the curtain on the story.”

The wind howled fiercely around her, and Ming Jing’s consciousness gradually began to fade.

That ethereal voice pierced her ears. Every word rang like a massive bell, striking her shattered, turbulent heart again and again until she felt as though she were being torn apart and crushed.

Everything around her seemed unreal, blurred beneath a disorienting haze.

A script.

A wife-chasing crematorium.

Cannon fodder.

The protagonist.

Ming Jing understood every word the voice said, but when they were strung together, they became nothing more than utter absurdity and bewildering nonsense.

However, Ming Jing was no fool.

She had been born with natural sword bones and possessed a clear and enlightened Dao heart. Her comprehension surpassed that of countless living beings.

Therefore, the first thought that formed in her mind was this:

Her life had been arranged.

Her fate had been planned out in every detail, and the course of her life had been tampered with.

From the moment the Human Realm Guards descended upon Little Stone Village and repeatedly accused her of colluding with the demon race, she had already lost control over her own fate.

“Who are you?”

Her body was still plummeting at tremendous speed.

Ming Jing was gradually becoming accustomed to the sensation of weightlessness. She parted her lips to ask the question, but her voice had become unbearably hoarse.

She no longer even possessed the strength to speak aloud.

“I am an existence that does not belong to this world.”

The voice could nevertheless hear Ming Jing’s thoughts.

“You do not need to concern yourself with who I am. I will not tell you, either.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” Ming Jing asked silently in her mind.

Something deep within her heart was cooling, little by little.

“Whatever your purpose is, it no longer matters.”

“I am going to die.”

Her body would be smashed to pieces, leaving not even a corpse behind.

Every trace of her existence in this world would be erased by the forbidden seal surrounding this place, and she would disappear entirely from heaven and earth.

This was a bottomless abyss.

Never mind her current broken body—even the former Ming Jing, the gloriously radiant chief disciple of the Wanxiang Dao Sect, would have had no hope of surviving after leaping from here.

“You will leave behind a corpse,” the voice replied, seemingly displaying slightly more emotion. “Your corpse is extremely important to this script. Once Murong Chi leaves these sealed grounds, everyone will remember your name.”

Murong Chi.

A flicker passed through Ming Jing’s eyes.

She continued speaking to the voice within her mind.

“Is that so?”

Her fingers curled tightly, her nails sinking into her own flesh.

As she silently repeated the words cannon fodder, her expression became indifferent.

“How important is my corpse?”

“It is the beginning of everything,” the voice replied, answering every question she asked.

“Your body will not be smashed apart.”

“Beneath Asura Mountain lies a thousand-year-old cold pool. You will fall into it and be carried by the undercurrent at its bottom into a dark cavern.”

“Your corpse will help the cavern’s master break through her seal. After that, the wife-chasing crematorium story of the script’s protagonist—the Dao Venerable of the Wanxiang Dao Sect—will begin.”

The script’s protagonist.

The Dao Venerable of the Wanxiang Dao Sect.

The instant Ming Jing heard those words, her previously lifeless gaze trembled.

A moment later, the corner of her lips lifted, and the coldest, most ruthless laughter welled up from the depths of her heart.

“Why are you telling me all this?”

Ming Jing continued questioning it silently.

Her falling body finally reached the bottom of the abyss.

The instant she struck the thousand-year-old cold pool, an enormous wave exploded toward the sky.

She immediately sank beneath the surface.

An icy chill seeped through every limb and bone. The water surrounded her from all directions, flooding her mouth and nose and robbing her of both breath and vitality.

The undercurrent surged.

It seized her body and dragged her toward the shore appointed by fate.

Crimson ripples spread across the surface of the pool, resembling a vermilion painting created with bold strokes of ink.

Suffocation.

Agony.

Silence.

A cold that pierced straight into the bones.

This was the price the thousand-year-old cold pool demanded after saving Ming Jing’s life.

The current churned beneath the surface.

Clinging stubbornly to her final breath, Ming Jing clenched her fist and grabbed a charred piece of wood standing upright in the pool, hoping to use it to escape the undercurrent’s pull.

The instant her hand touched it, lightning seemed to strike directly into her soul.

The pain was so intense that she nearly died and came back to life.

Blood poured from her wounds.

She bit through her lip to keep herself from losing consciousness. Ruthlessness rose within her heart, and she clung to the charred wood as if it were her only lifeline, refusing to let go.

“Of course, I merely wanted you to die knowing the truth.”

The voice’s belated reply drew away a fraction of Ming Jing’s attention.

She turned her head and looked across the surface of the pool.

She saw bamboo forests swaying beneath a blood-red sky. Around her stood shattered walls and ruined structures, resembling a battlefield left behind after a bloody war.

“You are already inside the plot. You no longer need to do anything.”

“Let go and allow the undercurrent to carry you away. That is all.”

Ming Jing tightened her grip instead.

“If I let go, I will die.”

“But you were already meant to die,” the voice replied, sounding confused. “There is no more plot for you after this.”

Ming Jing’s gaze froze.

Her body began to tremble almost uncontrollably.

The cold pool was freezing, but it could not compare to the bone-deep chill of her blood turning cold.

She reached out with her left hand.

Ignoring the pain that seemed to shatter her soul, she wrapped both arms tightly around the charred wood.

Her voice was low and heavy as she spoke.

“There is no more plot for me?”

“So—”

“My twenty years of life are insignificant and irrelevant. Is that what you mean?”

“Because I am cannon fodder rather than the protagonist. Is that it?”

The voice’s tone carried an almost cruel innocence.

“That is correct.”

That was correct.

Within a script, only the protagonist, supporting characters, and villains possessed any reason to exist.

Their love and hatred, their grudges and passions, were magnificent and earth-shattering.

None of it had anything to do with cannon fodder.

From the moment Ming Jing could remember, she had grown up holding a sword.

She practiced at dawn and rested only when the night had grown deep.

With a sword in hand, she had traveled across thousands of miles of mountains and rivers. Alone, she had slain high-ranking demons and monsters.

Her natural sword bones were her gift.

Her status as chief disciple was her supreme honor.

Her title as the light of the righteous path was heaven and earth’s acknowledgment of her.

Yet behind all that brilliance lay hardships and suffering too painful to describe.

She had spent twenty years tempering a single sword.

For Ming Jing, the sword path had once been the faith toward which her entire life was directed.

Now, the voice was telling her that her faith, her sword path, and her entire past were nothing more than insignificant dust within a script.

She had spent twenty years forging her sword heart, only for it to become a corpse in a cold pool that would help break a seal.

Her cultivation had been destroyed.

Her sword bones had been shattered.

Her meridians had been severed.

A Black Lotus Demon Mark had been branded upon her.

She had been imprisoned and forced to endure the torment of three thousand surging sword auras.

Zhe Yu did not believe her.

The people of the world remained silent.

Even when the entire world had become her enemy, Ming Jing’s eyes had remained bright as she looked upon it.

Now, that brightness was beginning to sink.

The water of the cold pool was bitterly frigid.

It flowed through her torn flesh and seeped deep into her bones, bringing pain that pierced her heart.

Ming Jing raised her head.

The light of dusk entered her eyes, but it could not drive away the deadened darkness within them. Instead, it was swallowed up and tainted by the same gloom.

The surface of the pool was stained dark red.

The thick, bloody crimson refused to disperse even beneath the churning current.

Ming Jing lowered her head.

Her floating body was soaked in blood.

She drew in a deep breath, then suddenly released her grip.

The undercurrent instantly swept her away.

“Cannon fodder should possess the self-awareness of cannon fodder,” the voice said again, as though approving of Ming Jing’s decision.

Hearing those words, Ming Jing could no longer restrain herself.

She laughed softly.

As the current carried her past a protruding pile of sharp rocks beside the pool, she reached out and pressed her mangled palm against them.

Then she wrapped her arms around the rocks and held on with all her strength, refusing to release them.

“Ming Jing, what are you doing?” the voice asked in complete confusion.

The mocking smile on Ming Jing’s lips deepened.

“You told cannon fodder about her predetermined fate because you wanted her to accept it.”

“How adorably naïve of you.”

She gasped for breath in the current and struggled to steady herself.

Clinging to the pile of rocks, she pulled herself over them and crawled inch by inch onto the shore.

“I do not want to die.”

“I refuse to accept this fate.”

Ming Jing’s lips curved into a smile.

Across the emptiness, she could almost sense the voice becoming furious and exasperated.

Her pleasure deepened, and even her clouded consciousness cleared slightly.

“Where is that cavern?” Ming Jing asked.

After a moment of silence, the voice pointed out the direction.

As it watched Ming Jing struggle forward while gasping for breath, it sounded partly curious and partly bewildered.

“You intend to go to that cavern?”

Ming Jing did not answer.

Her actions made her choice clear.

The path beneath the cliff was difficult to climb.

The winding trail was covered in loose stones. Bamboo leaves stirred in the wind and sliced across her bloodstained face.

The icy chains around her wrists and ankles swung with every movement, restricting her.

Her suffering was as deep and endless as the sea, never ceasing for even a moment.

A distance she ordinarily could have crossed with a single step took Ming Jing an entire night to crawl, using both her hands and feet.

By the end, only a fragment of defiance and rebellion buried deep within her soul continued to support her.

It kept her final breath from fading.

The sun set at dusk.

A curved moon rose in the depths of night.

Then the morning sun appeared at dawn.

Ming Jing looked at the dark cavern now within reach.

Her lips curved, but the smile did not touch her eyes.

Beneath her body lay a long, crimson trail soaked in blood.

The voice sounded utterly baffled.

“Since you intended to come to this cavern all along, why did you go to so much trouble to escape the cold pool’s undercurrent?”

“The undercurrent ends at this cavern. Had you remained in the water, you would already be deep inside it.”

She would not have needed to endure the heart-piercing agony of the sharp rocks tearing through her palms.

She would not have suffered the cold pool’s icy water drowning her very soul.

Nor would she have endured the hopeless torment of that endless night.

“Because crawling inside on my own is different from being carried here by the undercurrent.”

As Ming Jing dragged her horribly mangled elbows forward and continued crawling deeper into the cavern, she answered the voice’s confusion within her mind.

“I want to meet her while I am still alive.”

Because the plot had said she would die in the surging undercurrent of the thousand-year-old cold pool.

The cavern was so dark that daylight could never reach it.

The path leading into its depths twisted and turned.

While the voice continued muttering in confusion, Ming Jing dragged herself forward, leaving a trail of blood across the ground.

Then she raised her head and met a pair of cold, shadowed eyes.

Their owner was a person.

A stunningly beautiful woman.

Ming Jing had seen countless beautiful faces before, but even her deadened heart could not avoid being astonished by the world-overturning beauty before her.

Red robes.

White hair.

Cold and indifferent.

The gaze directed at Ming Jing was careless and unconcerned.

The woman held in one hand the chain that imprisoned her freedom.

With a languid posture, she sat upon a white-jade couch with one leg crossed over the other, watching Ming Jing with visible interest.

The instant she sensed the demonic aura surrounding Ming Jing alongside her pure and righteous sword aura, a trace of hostility flashed across her brows.

She said nothing.

Nor did she appear to care.

Her indifferent expression was like that of someone who had watched a stray kitten wander inside but possessed no desire to reach out and pet it.

Ming Jing raised her head.

Still sprawled helplessly on the ground, she looked up at the woman.

She knew that she had reached her limit.

If this woman refused to save her, she truly would die.

But she did not want to die.

Thus, she moved forward little by little.

Enduring the woman’s dark gaze and overwhelming aura, Ming Jing stretched out her blood-drenched hand.

She grasped the hem of the red robe hanging before her and whispered,

“Save me.”

“Murong Chi.”

With her eyes closed, Ming Jing spoke those three syllables.

Then her head tilted to one side.

At last, she lost consciousness.