The commotion in the distance made me open my eyes.
Just now...
Had someone been nearby?
My cultivation wasn't high enough, and my spiritual sense couldn't reach very far, so naturally I had no idea who had been around just now.
I paid the commotion no more mind and bent over to look at the mushrooms on the ground.
"Red umbrellas, white stalks" referred to two different kinds of poisonous mushrooms.
I ate mushrooms so often that I'd long since learned how to tell them apart. It had rained a few days ago, making this the perfect time to harvest mushrooms. I could have another feast when I got home.
"Will the little one like mushrooms?" I tilted my head, thinking it over.
Whether it liked them or not, it would have to. We could only eat the same things, anyway.
After casually digging up a few wild vegetables, I happily headed home.
Instead of going to the kitchen, I set up a pot in the courtyard and started stewing a delicious mushroom soup.
Ye Qingxian returned to Wuya Sect.
She looked up at the cave dwelling before her, only then realizing where she'd wandered while lost in thought.
She shook her foggy head, then prepared to leave.
Suddenly, she caught the scent of something delicious.
I glanced up instinctively and saw a figure standing outside the door.
Ye Qingxian?
Why had she suddenly come to see me?
I shielded my mushroom soup and opened the cave dwelling's ward, so the woman wouldn't complain that she'd come all this way and Junior Sister hadn't even opened the door, or spread some other such slander.
Seeing Junior Sister in person again, Ye Qingxian's gaze was still a little dazed.
Hadn't she been the one avoiding Ye Xiaoyao all this time?
Because she still hadn't figured out how she ought to face Junior Sister.
Besides, Junior Sister didn't want to see her, either.
Ye Qingxian had finally figured it out.
Ye Xiaoyao didn't hate her because of anything she'd done. It seemed more like she'd rejected Ye Qingxian deep down, from the very beginning.
"Junior Sister." Ye Qingxian spoke as calmly as she could.
What had happened at the Ye Family a few days ago still left her unsettled.
I looked at Ye Qingxian's seemingly distant expression. My fair little hand hung at my side, lightly pinching the corner of my skirt.
I didn't want to see Ye Qingxian getting close to me.
But when she really became a stranger, I still felt a little conflicted.
After all, she had once been someone who wanted to help me.
I suddenly laughed at myself.
Ye Xiaoyao, why are you such a pushover?
You chose this path yourself. No matter how miserable you look, you have to see it through.
No matter how kind Ye Qingxian was now, she'd turn bad in the end.
Besides, you don't need friends.
I lowered my eyes slightly, not wanting anyone to see my gaze. "Senior Sister, is something the matter?"
Silence hung in the air.
Ye Qingxian had never imagined that one day she'd find herself at the end of her rope.
She was... at a loss for words.
After a long while, she suddenly asked, "Can you tell me why you've always hated me?"
It was something she'd wanted to know for a long time.
Ye Qingxian's face was expressionless. Compared with her usual warmth, her manner seemed almost cold to me.
"There's... no reason," I replied in a low voice.
The soup in the pot kept boiling, bubbling and burbling softly.
Ye Qingxian's lips seemed to curl into a bitter smile, though she might have been feeling something else. "There's no such thing as something without a reason. As far as I know, I never hurt you before, and I've always been trying to help you. You know what I mean—I'm not saying you hate me because I might help you. I mean, I felt from the very beginning that you didn't like me."
"So there's only one possibility left."
"It wasn't the present or the past. So it has to be the future?"
"Do you believe that I'll hurt you in the future?"
Ye Qingxian looked at me quietly, her gaze calm.
I felt as if I'd been struck by lightning.
This woman called the Female Protagonist was way too clever.
What was this, cheating?
If I said another couple of words to her, I was pretty sure she'd even figure out the color of my underwear.
"Who knows what you're talking about? Go, go, go. Don't stand at my door. You're bad luck. I'm closing it." I grumbled, sounding more like someone in a panic after having her secret exposed, and opened the ward at once.
Ye Qingxian still hadn't left.
She knew she'd hit upon the right answer.
"Junior Sister, this future hasn't happened yet. I don't know what made you reach that conclusion, but how can you pin it on the person I am now?"
I stood at the door and called back loudly, "Even if you have a thousand reasons and your logic is flawless, I, Ye Xiaoyao, don't listen to reason. I have my own reasons. And I hate you, so I don't want to hear your theories. Goodbye."
What a joke.
Who'd dare bet that I wouldn't get slapped to death in the future?
Unless the Female Protagonist killed the Male Lead right in front of me, I'd assume that anything this lunatic said was just an attempt to lower my guard.
It was like Russian roulette, the favorite pastime of people with a death wish. Who'd gamble their life on the chance that they might escape death?
Ye Qingxian stood at the door for a long time.
Suddenly, she lifted her eyes and stared at a certain place.
That strange sensation had returned, as if she were the only one outside the world.
Her gaze was fixed on the highest point of Heavenly Sword Peak.
She'd investigated Ye Xiaoyao's past when she returned home this time. It was spotless. None of her elders had any grudge against Heavenly Sword Venerable, and the two of them had never had the slightest chance to cross paths. So there had been a fatal flaw in her previous deduction.
Heavenly Sword Venerable had known about Ye Xiaoyao for a long time.
And even knew more about her than Ye Qingxian did.
The art of divination and prediction.
That was the only explanation Ye Qingxian could come up with.
Ye Xiaoyao's words today had suddenly made everything clear.
Perhaps...
Heavenly Sword Venerable had known all along what would happen in the future, and what Ye Xiaoyao would do. That was why she kept Ye Xiaoyao under her watchful eye, time and time again.
But what about Ye Xiaoyao?
How did she know that Ye Qingxian would hurt her in the future?
That made no sense.
Ye Xiaoyao was just an ordinary cultivator, no more remarkable than any other.
Ye Qingxian firmly believed in the closed loop of cause and effect. Nothing sprang into being without a cause, so Ye Xiaoyao must have had some way of getting information. Even if she'd only learned the answer once, she had to know something about Ye Qingxian's future.
Ye Qingxian immediately recalled her life.
Was there anyone else like that?
Anyone whose behavior and reasoning resembled Ye Xiaoyao's?
Someone who'd never crossed paths with the former in her life and had remained a complete stranger for years, while the latter acted in ways that seemed out of character?
Jealousy certainly existed in the world, but it couldn't explain everything. Ye Qingxian was perfectly capable of telling whether someone's instinctive dislike of her came from jealousy.
One name after another was ruled out.
Heavenly Sword Venerable.
One name gradually surfaced.
Ye Qingxian had always known what her advantage was.
She was the greatest prodigy under heaven, and many people were willing to show her respect.
So whenever she spoke, few people would openly contradict her.
But Heavenly Sword Venerable was different.
She was an almighty powerhouse of the Supreme Realm.
Among all the Supreme Realm powerhouses, Heavenly Sword Venerable was the only one Ye Qingxian could see whenever she wanted. She was also the only one who always gave her some respect.
That alone was an utterly bizarre thing on Heavenly Sword Peak.
Even Senior Brother couldn't meet Heavenly Sword Venerable whenever he wanted. She couldn't even be bothered to spare him a glance; in hundreds of years, she hadn't said a single word to him.
If a consequence had arisen without cause, there had to be a cause already set in place.
That cause was that Heavenly Sword Venerable knew Ye Qingxian's future, too.
Even if that future was one Ye Qingxian didn't accept, one she believed to be nothing but a false future.
Still...
Ye Xiaoyao and Heavenly Sword Venerable had both been affected by that future, and it had interfered with how they handled what was happening now. The thought made Ye Qingxian deeply uncomfortable, as if something beyond the world were keeping her apart from it.
Ye Qingxian had never felt such a chill of terror.
Then, immediately after, she felt an indescribable thrill.
A future... concerning her?
This world was getting interesting.
Even Supreme Realm powerhouses couldn't predict another person's future.
And Ye Qingxian knew at least two people who could.
Wasn't that enough to excite her?
The answer it led to thrilled her even more.
So—
Could she go straight to Heavenly Sword Venerable and use the opportunity to find out the real reason Ye Xiaoyao hated her—or, in other words, learn about her own "future"?
Of course, there was another possibility.
The two of them might know different futures.
But Ye Qingxian already leaned toward believing they knew the same one.
The reason was simple.
Each of them had a future they believed in.
Heavenly Sword Venerable had restricted Ye Xiaoyao again and again. The future she knew must have included Ye Xiaoyao, and she must also have known Ye Qingxian's future.
As for whether—
The former and the latter belonged to the same future—
That could be set aside for now.
The future Ye Xiaoyao knew didn't necessarily include Heavenly Sword Venerable, but it certainly included Ye Qingxian. That was why she kept avoiding Ye Qingxian.
The two of them were like circles slowly moving closer together.
The part where the circles overlapped was Ye Qingxian's name.
That was the foundation that made what was happening now possible.
If they didn't know the same future, there'd be a fatal flaw in the logic.
Deep in Ye Xiaoyao's hateful gaze, some reverence for Ye Qingxian remained in her bones. Wasn't that, in essence, the same thing as the respect Heavenly Sword Venerable had always shown Ye Qingxian?
It meant that Ye Qingxian had always been someone special.
Special, so people treated her differently.
Special, so people feared her.
Special, so many people grew fond of her.
The sky suddenly seemed to clear, the clouds parting to reveal the sun. Ye Qingxian felt wonderful.
Perhaps it was because her obsession had a chance to end. Perhaps it was something else.
At the very least, she didn't want Junior Sister to hate her.
Today,
She'd found a way to solve the problem once and for all.
A chance to resolve the knot in Junior Sister's heart completely.
As long as she could reach Heavenly Sword Venerable—or find some way to pry open her lips—and learn exactly what this "future" concerning Ye Qingxian was, she could prescribe the right remedy and untangle the deep-rooted reason Junior Sister had always hated her.
At that moment, at the highest point of Heavenly Sword Peak,
Heavenly Sword Venerable was flipping through records concerning Ye Qingxian.
She was from the Time and Space Administration, so of course she knew the Female Protagonist in the story.
She also knew that Ye Xiaoyao would later be slapped to death by the Male Lead.
That didn't contradict Ye Xiaoyao becoming the Great Devil King who destroyed the world.
The plot was the plot. Ye Xiaoyao herself was the only variable in it, and she could cause any number of changes to the story.
It was precisely that unpredictable variable that would gradually turn her into the Great Devil King who destroyed the world.
As for a world-destroyer in a fifth-level world, Heavenly Sword Venerable was certain her theory was sound. Only mediocrity could limit her growth. No other method could produce such a perfect result.
At that level of existence, even death might not be the end. It could even be the beginning of her complete corruption.
No one knew whether the Great Devil King could come back to life.
Heavenly Sword Venerable didn't dare gamble the lives of countless people on it, either.
That was why she'd kept Ye Xiaoyao alive.
It was another, deeper reason, beyond the rules of the Time and Space Administration.
She couldn't kill anyone directly, but she wasn't restricted from giving someone the means or arranging for someone else to do the killing.
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