Meiqiu hurried over and handed the Ice Lotuses in his hands to Nie Shiyun. "Here! Put these away quickly. If I’m not careful, what if the space swallows them up as nourishment?"
"Alright. Speaking of which, why didn't you put them in your storage bracelet... Ah," Nie Shiyun realized he had touched a sore spot. "Right, your storage bracelet is gone."
Meiqiu’s expression turned indignant in a second. He threatened Nie Shiyun, saying he would swallow these Ice Lotuses right then and there. If it weren't for him, Duan Mingyu’s group would have swept the place clean after entering, and the two of them might not have salvaged a single petal.
"You’ve worked hard." Nie Shiyun teased Meiqiu for a few moments before sincerely thanking him. Only then did Meiqiu puff out his chest and proudly hand the items over.
"You keep them. Sorry, the situation was urgent just now. You must be quite confused, aren't you?" Nie Shiyun passed the Ice Lotuses to Zhai Bairong.
Zhai Bairong accepted them numbly and asked, "Where are we now?"
"Inside the jade pendant."
Zhai Bairong stared blankly at Nie Shiyun, finally deciding to give up on trying to understand everything on his own. Every time he thought he had discovered Nie Shiyun’s greatest secret, an even larger one would come crashing down on him.
"Wait a moment, let’s see what’s happening outside." Before explaining, Nie Shiyun decided to observe whether Duan Mingyu’s party had discovered anything.
With a wave of his sleeve, a shape resembling a circular door manifested before them. What it revealed was the exact location where Nie Shiyun had been standing before entering the space.
The silent space was suddenly connected to the outside world. Soon, the voices of Duan Mingyu and the others drifted in from a distance, gradually getting closer.
Zhai Bairong instinctively grew tense, but seeing Nie Shiyun’s composed expression, he gathered that this vision was likely one-way. The three people on the other side could neither see nor hear them.
Xu Yehua was the first to enter the room. He looked around warily and observed, "There is a formation on the ground here."
"But it’s already been broken... Could someone have been here before us?" Duan Mingyu murmured to himself.
Rong Lü scanned the room and looked toward the other end of the secret passage. "Besides the room, there are several skeletons over there. Someone must have been trapped here before."
The three of them inspected the room for a long time. Like Nie Shiyun and Zhai Bairong before them, they only found the woman's portrait. Without the content presented by the formation or the Violet Gossamer Immortal Robe, they were naturally left in the dark. After a cursory glance, they headed toward the end of the secret passage.
After a short while, the three returned. All the formations had been dismantled by Nie Shiyun, and since the end was a dead end, Duan Mingyu’s group naturally returned empty-handed.
Rong Lü suggested they leave. Xu Yehua seemed to have lost interest in the place and, for once, agreed with Rong Lü’s proposal.
Duan Mingyu hesitated slightly, looking around one last time with lingering reluctance, but he truly saw nothing noteworthy. He could only comfort himself by thinking that obtaining those several Ice Lotuses was already a great harvest for this trip, suppressing the inexplicable feeling of regret in his heart.
"Then let’s head out early. It’s strange; so much time has passed, yet I haven't received any word from Senior Brother." Duan Mingyu sighed softly.
"It’s better if he doesn't come. We can just split his share." Xu Yehua looked down on the idea of setting aside two Ice Lotuses for Zhai Bairong when he wasn't even present.
"What are you saying..." Duan Mingyu complained. He knew the relationship between them was discordant and found it increasingly difficult to manage their constant bickering. However, on the surface, he still hoped Xu Yehua wouldn't say such things in front of him.
"Stop joking. Mingyu still needs his help with alchemy later, doesn't he?" Rong Lü said disapprovingly.
Duan Mingyu said awkwardly, "It—it’s not just because of that. But... there’s no other way. Senior Brother is only willing to refine pills for me alone. But don't worry, we can think of other ways for the rest. Didn't we hear on the way here? Some cultivators have gathered at the ruins of a village in the middle of the ice plains to exchange treasures and herbs. It’s gradually grown into a small market. We can go there and see if there are any cultivators taking commissions."
"Fine, we'll do as you say." Xu Yehua waved his hand with a nonchalant smile and walked out of the room first.
Rong Lü and Duan Mingyu followed closely behind.
Inside the space, Zhai Bairong, who was eavesdropping on the situation, couldn't help but clear his throat when he heard "only willing to refine pills for me alone." Nie Shiyun, on the other hand, couldn't stop laughing.
Although Duan Mingyu’s group had left, there was no guarantee they wouldn't linger outside. Once they moved beyond the range of the room, it became difficult to perceive them from within the space. For safety's sake, Nie Shiyun and Zhai Bairong decided to stay inside for a few more days.
Taking this opportunity, Nie Shiyun sat down and decided to tell Zhai Bairong everything.
Meiqiu also huddled closer, wanting to hear the explanation. He only knew that Nie Shiyun possessed this miraculous space but was equally ignorant of his background. However, Nie Shiyun’s explanation began with his life back on Earth. Since Zhai Bairong had previously been instilled with modern knowledge and understanding during the illusion, he quickly grasped what Nie Shiyun was saying. Poor Meiqiu, who had been stuck outside for the past month, was left in a fog after hearing just a few words like "cell phones" and "going to work."
Nie Shiyun knew that explaining such things was too difficult for a "toddler" like Meiqiu, so he simply summarized it as "coming from another world."
"Is it a place like the Upper Heavens?" Meiqiu asked, tilting his head.
"Hmm... not quite the same. There are no connections between that place and the cultivation world. My arrival here was truly an accident that even I can't fully fathom."
"Oh, oh, so it’s an even more powerful place," Meiqiu interpreted on his own.
"I wouldn't say... forget it, you could put it that way." Nie Shiyun was too tired to discuss it further and simply admitted it.
Unexpectedly, Zhai Bairong recalled the various scenes from the previous illusion and quickly chimed in, "It’s true. There are devices that can produce images without spirit stones, and transportation that allows mortals to travel just like flying swords."
Nie Shiyun: "..."
Since even the usually steady Zhai Bairong said so, Meiqiu’s eyes sparkled, becoming even more convinced that Nie Shiyun came from a place even more formidable than the Upper Heavens. Thinking this, Meiqiu couldn't help but feel a sense of shared glory. Since this place called Earth was higher than the Upper Heavens, wasn't Nie Shiyun even more impressive than his cheap, scumbag father?
Unaware of what was going on in Meiqiu’s simple little head, Nie Shiyun continued to describe to Zhai Bairong how he had felt targeted by Xu Yehua and how he had intercepted opportunities from Duan Mingyu several times.
"You’re saying that I... I was originally supposed to... coexist harmoniously with those several men?" Zhai Bairong’s voice rose in disbelief. Realizing he had lost his composure, he quickly lowered his voice again.
The term "coexist harmoniously" was already a very euphemistic way of putting it.
"But it didn't happen, did it?" Nie Shiyun gave a dry laugh. "Though the reason the script was rewritten was also because of me."
Zhai Bairong breathed a sigh of relief and said urgently, "A Heavenly Dao like that is better off not existing at all. Truly... it’s a good thing you were able to change it."
"I planned many things after coming to the cultivation world, but anything regarding you was never a predetermined part of it. Looking at it now, I am very glad..."
Nie Shiyun took Zhai Bairong’s hand and spoke to him quietly.
"What are you two talking about!"
Meiqiu was lost again. Completely disregarding the fact that he was ruining the perfect atmosphere, he hopped around beside them.
Nie Shiyun decided to tell Meiqiu something he could understand. Thus, he informed him of his original fate—that he was supposed to be picked up by Duan Mingyu several years later.
Meiqiu’s mouth hung open as he said "impossible" several times in a row. Seeing that Nie Shiyun’s expression was not a joke, he shook his head like a rattle. "I don't want to stay with those guys! Especially that man who hit my butt last time and made my feathers fall out..."
In truth, Meiqiu was overthinking it. In the original work, when he was still an egg and a hatchling, he was often held against Duan Mingyu’s chest. Later, after helping the group contract an Exotic Fire, he grew quite large, and his appearance rate plummeted, basically spending his days inside a spirit pet bag.
Nie Shiyun thought about it but decided not to tell the young Meiqiu such things.
Leaving him to fume on the side, Nie Shiyun leaned closer to Zhai Bairong and asked in a low voice, "Did I say too much all at once?"
Zhai Bairong sighed and gave a bitter smile. "It’s already far too much. If there’s anything else, tell me all of it today. A little more won't make a difference."
Seeing that he was still in the mood to joke, Nie Shiyun felt relieved. He had actually been somewhat worried about how Zhai Bairong would feel upon learning that his entire life had merely been a novel for people’s entertainment.
However, Zhai Bairong was more open-minded than he had imagined. When Nie Shiyun tentatively asked him about it, Zhai Bairong simply shook his head and said, "Even if this world and the people around us were set from the beginning, aren't you and I living according to our own thoughts right now? After being here for so many years, do you still feel that the cultivation world is just a fiction?"
Nie Shiyun was stunned for a moment, then burst into laughter. He had actually been enlightened by an "ancient" in return.
"I was overthinking it."
After experiencing the tension of collecting treasures and hiding, and then explaining the sequence of events clearly, two full days had passed in the real world.
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Transmigrated into a Total Shou Novel as a Cannon Fodder, but Ended Up 1v1-ing the Male Lead | Chapter 78 | The Truth Revealed | Novela.app | Novela.app
