Don't Offend the Author

A copy of The Legend of the Condor Heroes had passed through the system's hands. What miraculous effects it might have, Ma Feifei himself didn't know.

But Yang Chengzhi's chance at redemption, and the hope that Ma Feifei's original story might be completed, both rested on this book.

What broke Ma Feifei's heart was how slowly Yang Chengzhi read. He was even slower than Zhou Zhuling! The weekend had already passed, and Yang Chengzhi had managed to set a new record for the slowest reader in Mysterious Bookstore history, averaging one chapter a day.

At that rate, Yang Chengzhi would probably need a month to finish the million-word novel.

Ma Feifei was truly worried!

But Yang Chengzhi was even more worried than he was.

Yang Chengzhi wasn't worried that reading slowly was a bad thing. He was worried that he seemed to be running low on Spirit Crystals...

Over the past few days, he'd spent more than seventy Spirit Crystals just reading The Legend of the Condor Heroes. Add in the crystals he needed for cultivation after returning home each day, and there were barely any left in his purse—not even enough to cover tomorrow's reading fee...

That was a bit awkward...

"Ugh..." Yang Chengzhi sighed softly, opened The Legend of the Condor Heroes, and continued reading. But in his mind, he was wondering whether to pawn the spirit sword at his waist tomorrow or head to Nine Heavens Mountain to hunt spirit beasts.

In this day and age, without Spirit Crystals, you couldn't even read a book! What kind of world was this?

Still, this book really was good! Yang Chengzhi also felt that reading it always gave him new insights. When he went home to cultivate that night, his efforts were twice as effective. His cultivation, which had been stuck for two years, had finally begun to budge. It was truly miraculous.

Especially the other day, when he read the fifth chapter, "Drawing the Bow to Shoot the Eagle." The Taoist in the story taught Guo Jing how to breathe, sit, walk, and rest. Yang Chengzhi tried following along and discovered that it stirred the spiritual energy within his body. When he combined the breathing and energy-circulation method with the techniques for sitting quietly and stilling his mind that night, his cultivation speed increased by more than thirty percent.

"Could this be a cultivation manual?" Yang Chengzhi was astonished, and after that, he became even more engrossed in the book. He was more diligent about reading than he was about cultivating.

But he never would have imagined that he'd run out of money!

There had been a time when he was poor and down on his luck, when he'd struggled to earn a few Spirit Crystals.

But how many years ago had that been? Five? Ten? Yang Chengzhi couldn't remember. He only knew that ever since he'd displayed extraordinary talent for cultivation, he'd never had to worry about Spirit Crystals again.

He hadn't had a lot, but there'd always been enough to support his cultivation.

Especially after he'd made the Dragon Ranking. The academy awarded him a thousand Spirit Crystals every year so he could focus on cultivation. As a result, he'd never once reached the point of having no crystals to use.

But now...

"I'd better go hunt spirit beasts tomorrow. Pawning my spirit sword would be a real loss." Having made up his mind, Yang Chengzhi cast aside his distractions and began to savor The Legend of the Condor Heroes.

Ma Feifei had no idea Yang Chengzhi was fretting over his lack of Spirit Crystals. Even if he had known, there'd have been nothing he could do about it.

Reading without paying was absolutely out of the question. Not in this lifetime.

Those were the rules set by the system. No one could get around them.

But Ma Feifei had no time to fret over whether Yang Chengzhi had money. He had a new customer to attend to: Zhou Zhuling had arrived.

It had been quite a while since he'd last seen her, and he'd missed her. As soon as Zhou Zhuling walked into the bookstore, Ma Feifei's eyes began to wander.

Zhou Zhuling didn't look well. She still didn't look as bad as she had the first time Ma Feifei saw her, but her little face had lost all its color, and she looked sickly.

"Miss Zhou, have you been feeling unwell lately?" Ma Feifei asked with concern. He didn't know much about her illness and had no idea it was terminal. He'd simply assumed she'd been frail and sickly since childhood.

Zhou Zhuling seemed not to have forgotten what happened last time. She lowered her face slightly and didn't dare meet Ma Feifei's eyes. In a soft voice, she said, "Yes. I had another attack yesterday."

Ma Feifei remembered the first time Zhou Zhuling had coughed up blood. That had been a symptom of her illness, and his heart immediately went out to her. He said urgently, "You're ill—you need to get treatment right away! Go home and rest. What are you doing at my bookstore?"

When Zhou Zhuling heard that, she looked up at him and said meaningfully, "I came here to get treatment!"

After reading Half a Mu of Flower Fields, Zhou Zhuling had unexpectedly found that the turbulent energy inside her had diminished considerably. It hadn't disappeared completely, but her health had improved a lot. As a result, in all the days since then, she hadn't suffered a single attack—until yesterday—even though she hadn't come to the bookstore to read.

Even when the illness struck yesterday, her symptoms hadn't been as frightening as before. She'd only felt weak all over and looked pale and sickly; she hadn't coughed up blood.

By now, if Zhou Zhuling still couldn't guess why her condition had changed, she'd have to be a fool.

Ma Feifei froze, then thought of how Zhou Zhuling had changed since coming to the bookstore, and of the book she'd read, Half a Mu of Flower Fields.

Could that book have treated this girl's illness? That has to be it.

The fact that Zhou Zhuling had said this proved that Half a Mu of Flower Fields really had helped her. Her illness hadn't been cured, though; she'd had an attack yesterday, so she'd come back to read today.

"Unbelievable! Reading can improve your cultivation, and now it can even cure illnesses! I've really learned something today." Ma Feifei couldn't help exclaiming.

He'd made plenty of guesses before, but guesses were one thing. Having proof was far more shocking.

Ma Feifei might have been the system's owner, but he was no different from anyone else. He had no idea what kind of benefits the books provided by the system could bring to their readers.

He'd become certain that reading could increase one's cultivation after seeing Zhao Xiaodao jump six levels.

Now he'd seen Zhou Zhuling's illness improve as well.

Could the books have other effects, too? Ma Feifei couldn't help wondering.

"Shopkeeper?"

Zhou Zhuling saw that Ma Feifei had suddenly spaced out and hadn't come to for a long time. Unable to help herself, she called out to him.

"Ah!" Ma Feifei snapped back to his senses and awkwardly rubbed the back of his head. He'd been thinking too much and had drifted off. He laughed it off and said, "Go ahead. Browse to your heart's content."

As he spoke, Ma Feifei seemed to remember something. He pointed to the shelves and said, "A few new books came in over the past couple of days. One's been taken by that customer over there, and another is beside Half a Mu of Flower Fields. It's called My Fair Princess. It's pretty interesting—you could give it a try."

Zhou Zhuling was a regular customer. Reading Half a Mu of Flower Fields again wouldn't add to her reading count, so what was the point of earning a few Spirit Crystals? As the shopkeeper, Ma Feifei couldn't resist promoting another book.

"My Fair Princess? What an interesting title." Zhou Zhuling considered it for a moment, left the exact number of Spirit Crystals, then strolled to the bookshelf. She found My Fair Princess, sat down, and began to read.

She'd come for treatment, but she also loved the stories in the books. Besides, the books here seemed to suppress her illness, so she was very interested in anything new.

As it happened, Zhou Zhuling sat on the north side, with her back to the shelves, while Yang Chengzhi sat on the south side, also facing away from the shelves. That put the two of them opposite each other, with two tables and a small open space between them.

Yang Chengzhi looked up and saw Zhou Zhuling.

Their eyes met.

Zhou Zhuling smiled faintly in greeting.

Yang Chengzhi was stunned by her smile and stared at her blankly.

What a beautiful girl! Yang Chengzhi marveled to himself. In his twenty-six years, she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. No contest.

That faint smile in particular had melted his heart.

"Brother Yang, are you going to keep reading or not?"

Suddenly, a figure appeared in front of Yang Chengzhi, blocking the two of them from each other. Yang Chengzhi looked up and saw Ma Feifei's smiling face, though there was something false about the smile.

"Ahem." Yang Chengzhi came back to himself and said awkwardly, "Of course. I'm reading, I'm reading."

Why did it feel like he'd been caught sneaking a look at someone else's wife by her husband? Yang Chengzhi found it a little strange. Still, he pulled his attention back to the book. No matter how beautiful Zhou Zhuling was, she couldn't compare to The Legend of the Condor Heroes. He'd truly gained a great deal from it, especially the farther he read.

"I should be able to break through to the seventh level of the Spirit Master realm in a couple of days!"

"This book really is miraculous."

While Yang Chengzhi marveled at how extraordinary The Legend of the Condor Heroes was, Ma Feifei was hopping mad.

"Yang Chengzhi is definitely getting killed off. Definitely!" Back at his seat, Ma Feifei glared at Yang Chengzhi's Revenge Chronicle, the unfinished book he'd written with Yang Chengzhi as its protagonist, and muttered furiously.

Damn it, she's such a cute, beautiful girl, and I haven't even made a move yet. And you're already getting ideas? As he spoke, Ma Feifei jabbed at the unfinished manuscript with his pen. But the paper was so sturdy that he couldn't even make a hole in it, no matter how long he poked.

Still, Ma Feifei was already thinking about how Yang Chengzhi would die in the story.

"Yang Chengzhi has to die, but I need to think of a death that won't disrupt the plot. Readers mustn't object to his death."

"Readers shouldn't just accept it. Ideally, they should feel regret and sadness over the protagonist's death, yet find it satisfying, with just a hint of lingering disappointment. That might even raise the quality of the book!" Ma Feifei thought.

The more he thought about it, the more feasible it seemed. Many widely loved books, television series, and films from his past had tragic endings.

Take Titanic, for example. The male lead died at the end, yet the movie became a huge hit. Nine out of ten people who watched it came out in tears.

Then there was the novel To Live. The protagonist's loved ones died one after another, until at the end, only he and an ox remained to keep each other company. That novel was just as remarkable. It was made into a movie that won awards at international film festivals, and its author even received the French Order of Arts and Letters. The novel was also translated into all sorts of languages and published around the world. It became an enormous hit.

See? Only a tragic ending could bring out a work's excellence and greatness! Yang Chengzhi had to die!

Yes, never offend the author.