Then he smiled, his brows and eyes lifting slightly as he lowered his head to look at her. "Say your master's name once."
Ning Ning froze for a moment, then obediently replied, "Tian Xianzi."
"'Tian Xian'—when I chose those two characters all those years ago, I did it for the sake of doing as I pleased, of being free and unfettered, so that even Heaven itself couldn't do a thing about it."
His features gradually blurred in the wisps of smoke. Only his bright, clear eyes remained strikingly vivid. It was as if clouds of sorrow had filled the night, until two stars suddenly pierced the darkness, spilling forth a brilliant light.
"People say the will of Heaven cannot be defied, and that we should know Heaven's will and do all we can. It's all nonsense. If the Heavenly Dao is unjust and refuses to yield—"
Tian Xianzi tapped her forehead and raised a brow. "Then we break the Heavenly Dao. We Sword Cultivators answer only to ourselves and our swords—not to Heaven."
After bidding Tian Xianzi farewell, Ning Ning calculated that the timing was just right: Zheng Weiqi was due to appear in the original story.
Following the system's directions, Ning Ning made her way to the mountain gate. She looked up and immediately spotted her senior sister selling goods at a stall.
Zheng Weiqi's name sounded elegant and gentle, but her personality was the complete opposite. To put it simply, she was a true literary prodigy of Zu'an, with a temper that could explode at the drop of a hat. They said that after returning from her trip down the mountain, she'd learned a whole mouthful of vulgarities. Her little mouth was always going "blah, blah, blah." Before she could finish writing an eloquent, tearjerking Guide to