In the main hall of the Xuanyuan Sect, the Lord of Demons Wenren È had already been in secluded meditation for seven days, door shut tight behind him, the food and drink sent daily by his subordinates untouched. Who knew what profound cultivation technique he had comprehended?
Altar Master Yuan, who managed the main hall, felt quite troubled. The Venerable Lord suddenly entered seclusion without any orders to his subordinates, and no one knew when he would emerge. If he'd really enlightened to a new technique or ascended in realm... shouldn't a celebration be prepared?
The Lord of Demons wasn't extravagant in nature and didn't like formalities. But if he really rose in level, then Altar Master Yuan should at least assemble everyone in the meeting room of the main hall, in order to congratulate him on his increase in strength and discuss the future of the Xuanyuan Sect in conquering the cultivation world.
Altar Master Yuan, after puzzling over his dilemma, finally decided to ask the Xuanyuan Sect's Left Protector, Yin Hanjiang, for help. Yin Hanjiang was the Venerable's closest confidant and had contact with him right before he entered seclusion. He was the one most likely to understand Wenren È's thoughts.
Yin Hanjiang had been guarding the door to the meditation chamber for the full seven days, wearing all black, a frosty expression on his face. He was a man of few words. After listening to Altar Master Yuan's concerns, his indifferent face showed a slightly puzzled expression, and he seemed to be at a loss.
The rather short Altar Master Yuan looked up to meet Yin Hanjiang's eyes, waiting for advice from him.
Yin Hanjiang worked his mouth and forced out a few words. "Not for now."
"Huh?" Altar Master Yuan said blankly. "This one heard that the Venerable received a rare tome seven days ago and immediately entered seclusion. The Venerable has not had a breakthrough in his cultivation for years, and there are very few techniques that might catch his eye. If he's secluding himself, might there not be hope for a breakthrough?"
"Like I said, it's not necessary," Yin Hanjiang said coldly, and the sword in his hand flashed with a keen light. Altar Master Yuan didn't dare to ask any more questions and hurried away.
After he left, Yin Hanjiang turned to look at the tightly-shut door behind him, and his frosty expression became one of confusion.
The Venerable indeed received a book seven days ago. Everyone assumed it was a secret tome, but only Yin Hanjiang, who was nearby at the time, caught a glimpse of the book's title—Abusive Romance: You Are the Unchanging One in My Heart.
The title was mushy enough to make Yin Hanjiang's teeth ache. Nothing about this book resembled a book of secret techniques. Even the romance novels written by mortal scholars had more classy titles than this.
Yin Hanjiang had thought that Wenren È would immediately burn that rubbish work to ash, but who could've imagined that he'd open it, glance at the first page, let out a deep sigh, and immediately seclude himself with it?
For the Lord of Demons, was a mortal novel worth carefully pouring over for seven days?
The longer Yin Hanjiang stood in front of the doors, the more troubled he was.
This was the cultivation world—it couldn't be compared to the Jianghu and Wulin of the mortal world. Wulin and Jianghu were communities of mortals who dedicated themselves to strengthening their bodies in order to stand out as slightly stronger than ordinary men. No matter how much they trained their inner power, it was only acquired strength, and at most they could manage to slay a beast with one fist. However, the cultivation world was a level above the martial world of Wulin. Cultivators left behind the affairs of the mortal world, using various methods to ascend to the realm of immortals. Their innate power also far surpassed the Wulin martial artists' acquired power.
The people of Wulin could concern themselves with love and lust, and stories of heroes and beautiful women, but cultivators tried to abandon the secular world, cut off familial and romantic ties, and enlighten to their own version of the great Dao. And the Xuanyuan Sect was a demonic sect. Those there who cultivated using male-female relations only did so with lust, not love. They were using the art of plucking and replenishing to steal essence from other people, not looking for a heartfelt romance.
And the path Wenren È cultivated was the Path of Slaughter. He had never had sexual relations. How... how could he read Abusive Romance: You Are the Unchanging One in My Heart for seven days and seven nights?
Yin Hanjiang didn't understand. He didn't understand at all, but he was one of the Venerable's protectors, Wenren È's most loyal subordinate. He had vowed he would die before letting anyone give Wenren È so much as a scratch. Anyone who wanted to kill Wenren È had to first go through Yin Hanjiang.
So even if he knew the Venerable was reading a love story, not meditating in seclusion, Yin Hanjiang still held his sword and stood before the doors of the cultivation chamber, still and silent, not moving a step.
On the other side of the door, Wenren È placed the book down, one hand hovering over the cover. For a moment it seemed as if he would disintegrate the book with one blow. But his hand was trembling slightly, and finally he withdrew it, leaving the book intact.
He had his brows furrowed, one fist propped against his forehead, and seemed to be thinking his way through a thorny problem.
Seven days ago, Wenren È had been discussing with Yin Hanjiang how they should teach a lesson to the righteous cultivators always threatening Xuanyuan Sect, when a thick volume suddenly appeared in his hand. Wenren È was one of the most powerful figures of the cultivation world. Unless an immortal had descended from the upper realms, no one in this world could place a book into his hand without him noticing, and without leaving any sign of their presence.
Wary of this situation, Wenren È didn't destroy the book and, managing to look past the title, opened the cover and found a few lines on the first page: "Due to an overabundance of plot holes, this story has been rejected by its readers. Thus, the most popular character among the readers has been selected to personally verify the story's consistency, and make suitable changes."
After reading this line, Wenren È immediately secluded himself, spending a full seven days reading this novel of over one million words cover to cover, word by word, several times over. With his strong powers of cognition, he had memorized it by the first read and had no need to reread, but he still did so several times, considering the meaning of every sentence.
After spending all this time, if there was something he still didn't understand, he never would.
He understood all the words and sentences. He could even visualize what was described when they were linked together. But in the end, he just didn't get it!
The book told the story of the love and resentment of a man and woman's entanglement across two lifetimes.
The female lead, in her previous life, was a primordial goddess of heaven. Unlike a mortal who had acquired godhood, she was born as a god, at the same time as heaven and earth. She was in charge of calamities, spreading plague, disaster, and death across the mortal world. It sounded like she was an evil goddess, but in fact she maintained the balance of the cosmos. Life and death must always coexist. In the cycle of the universe, all things have a beginning and end. She was absolutely just and impartial, never targeting any race of people, doing her work for uncountable ages without joy or sorrow.
After an indeterminable number of eons, most of the primordial gods had fallen, and the divine realm was populated by many ascended gods. These gods were those members of humanity, chief among all living things, who had awakened to the ways of heaven, gathered the essence of heaven and earth inside their bodies, and passed thousands of trials in order to gain power on the level of the primordial gods and ascend to the divine realm. The male lead was one of them.
The male lead was someone who saw all lives on earth as his responsibility. In the divine realm, he learned that the female lead was one of the rare primordial gods, in charge of unleashing disasters. Many natural disasters he had heard of as a human were in fact caused by her. Thus he began constantly making appeals to the female lead, hoping for her to change her ways.
The primordial goddess was as emotionless as the cosmos. To her, the male lead was no different than the drifting clouds, the soaring birds, or the buzzing of a fly near her ears. All he could do was bother her, so she would often use a silencing spell to seal his lips and toss him down from the thirty-three layers of heaven.
But the male lead was stubborn. He climbed back up every time, found a way to get rid of the silencing spell, and went back to earnestly begging her to have empathy for mortal lives.
Millions of years passed like this, and the goddess's predetermined trial came.
The cosmos must undergo the three calamities of wind, water, and fire, being destroyed and recreated innumerable times, and this applied to gods as well. The female lead accepted her own fate and actively faced the tribulation. When she was prepared to undergo it, the male lead showed up.
The tribulation of a primordial god far surpassed any normal one. The female lead knew she would certainly die. Only if she could maintain her soul, undergo reincarnation, and comprehend again the principles of heaven did she have a chance of survival. Therefore, before she underwent her tribulation, she left behind her divine essence, sealed somewhere in the human world, so that in the future she could reclaim it, regain her power, and return to the divine realm.
As she was undergoing her tribulation, about to relinquish her body and enter reincarnation, the male lead arrived and blocked a lightning strike for her, effectively taking on part of the tribulation in her stead. The two entered the reincarnation cycle together.
Unknowingly, the male lead had created a karmic relation with her. After reincarnating, the naive and innocent female lead was inducted into a cultivation sect, and when she laid eyes on the sect's chief disciple for the first time, she was met with a sensation like her heart being struck by lightning. A lightning strike was how Wenren È judged the book's description: "A tingling sensation spread through her body at first sight, and she was unable to move her gaze away or take a single step." Wenren È had never experienced love, and assumed that these symptoms could only be caused by lightning strikes.
The two fell in love at first sight. The female lead, named Baili Qingmiao in this life, had her heart stolen by Hè Wenzhao, the chief disciple who as before cared wholeheartedly about mortal lives. This was the beginning of a masochistic story of the female lead being abused body and heart, yet never relinquishing her love, and finally giving up the divine essence for Hè Wenzhao, only wanting to live happily ever after with her beloved.
An overview of the specifics would be false accusations, misunderstandings, Baili Qingmiao being imprisoned, being abused, being poisoned, being hunted down, Hè Wenzhao marrying someone else, several important supporting male characters being wholeheartedly devoted to Baili Qingmiao, protecting and cherishing her, but Baili Qingmiao only loving Hè Wenzhao, ignoring everyone else's goodwill, insistent on finding Hè Wenzhao and marrying him, then after being hurt by her enemies or fellow disciples, another male character would save her, and after recovering she would run off to be abused again.
This kind of plotline went on for over 800,000 words, and Wenren È nearly had a qi deviation from reading it. If Baili Qingmiao appeared in front of him right now, he would crack open her skull to see just how her brain worked.
The last page had no more story but a bunch of odd messages, labeled as a reviews section. The reviews were mostly along the lines of—
[This MC is insane, giving up being a god to stay with a previously married scumbag!]
[Trash, underdeveloped, kept me waiting for over a million words for MC to reclaim her divinity and punish the scumbag, but she was a wh*** until the end.]
[Hè Wenzhao loves the MC, but the world is more important than her, the sect elders are more important than her, the common people are more important than her, everything else is more important than her. Hè Wenzhao can toss her aside whenever he wants. This love is far too humble, I can't handle it.]
[Hè Wenzhao ruined MC's life twice. She was a primordial goddess, she saw things in a different way than an ascended god. Causing disasters was her duty, and it was also in order to balance the universe. He kept pressuring her to favor humanity and messed up her heavenly tribulation, making it so her next life she couldn't help but be bound to him. This guy is too terrifying, torturing the female lead for the sake of righteousness!]
[Falling in love at first sight can be treated as the karma from their past life, but how come this karma is nothing to Hè Wenzhao? Yet it's Baili Qingmiao who wants to die for him? Hè Wenzhao can marry the Violet Spirit Pavilion Master, so why can't Baili Qingmiao marry Zhongli Qian or Wenren È? Is the heir to the number one cultivation family not good-looking enough, is the Lord of Demons not cool enough? Why do you gotta hang yourself on Hè Wenzhao?]
[Wenren È was the only thing keeping me going for 1 million+ words. I wanted to see him tear the male lead a new one, but in the end the female lead still got him killed.]
[Wenren È, Zhongli Qian, Yin Hanjiang, any of them are better than Hè Wenzhao, the MC is blind!]
[That may be true but let's forget about Yin Hanjiang, he's too scary.]
[Cross out Yin Hanjiang, just seeing that name is gonna give me nightmares.]
[Cross him out +1, let's just talk about Wenren È.]
These names that kept appearing in the comments, Wenren È, Yin Hanjiang, Zhongli Qian, and other familiar names, were the reason the Lord of Demons endured reading through the book.
Wenren È knew the one written in the book was he himself.
Just like the first lines in the book said, Wenren È was Abusive Romance: You are the Unchanging One in My Heart's haughty but infatuated second love interest. The world he lived in was but a story in a book.
A normal cultivator who learned such a truth about the world would probably take a heavy psychological blow, either apathetically living out the rest of their days, or deviating and going mad. Even Wenren È was in a daze for a while, but he was a person who sought enlightenment in the midst of death and slaughter, and had an unshakable will. He quickly realized that the cultivation world was only one of the myriad worlds of the cosmos. In other people's eyes, his world was only a novel, but the novel Abusive Romance: You are the Unchanging One in My Heart only recorded the love, hate, amity, and animosity of a few dozen people. The things not included within it were enough to make up an entire world. The book was only a record of the lives of certain people at certain times, not a world in itself.
Wenren È knew that he certainly existed, his thoughts and actions weren't subject to anyone else's control, and the world was real, so that was enough for him.
The thing that Wenren È really couldn't figure out was that the book said he would, in the future, fall in love with Baili Qingmiao, take on the world for her, and give his life for her. The cold and dispassionate Wenren È couldn't understand this.
Just by reading the book, he wanted to yank Baili Qingmiao's soul out of her body, make her forget her feelings for Hè Wenzhao, then shove it back in. How could he, for the sake of protecting her, risk his life to help Hè Wenzhao because she asked him to?
Wenren È knew that if he didn't get to the bottom of these things, the obsession might give rise to an inner demonthat would obstruct his cultivation. He had to figure out these matters, not necessarily to fulfill the assignment he was given at the start of the book, but just to settle his mind.
After contemplating for three days, he made his decision—that he would figure out why Baili Qingmiao was such a shameless... ahem, why she was so hopelessly infatuated. He himself couldn't figure out, and maybe Baili Qingmiao was also muddleheaded—she'd been struck by lightning, after all, so maybe her brain wasn't working right. But the other people in the book, in particular Baili Qingmiao's romantic rivals, probably knew what they were doing. After all, they also loved Hè Wenzhao, and were willing to fight each other to the death for his sake.
If one person wasn't enough, then he would just have to find more. If he asked enough people, he was certain to get an answer. When he figured out the problem, the difficulty of changing the plot would decrease.
After he made his plans, Wenren È opened the doors. As Yin Hanjiang, standing guard just outside, saw him, he dropped to one knee and set his sword on the ground, quietly awaiting the Venerable's command.
Wenren È looked at his Left Protector whom he trusted above anyone else and remembered that he was also in the novel. "Protector Yin, your thoughts on love... Actually, nevermind."
After he said only a few words, Wenren È remembered Yin Hanjiang's actions in the story that caused all the readers to be so creeped out and decided against asking.
Yin Hanjiang probably also didn't understand love.