After returning to the Floating Peak for their rest break, Lonemoon immediately pulled Yi Qing into the house. He looked more serious than usual.

　　“Tell me what you think about that Green… Hui Ling?”

　　“What?” asked a baffled Shen Ying. “What’s there to think?”

　　“Don’t you feel there’s something strange about her?” Lonemoon said, “She’s Chen Ge’s disciple and came from the Lower Realm. The fact that Chen Ge always lets her have her way. He treats her differently from his other disciples.” This was no way to treat a disciple.

　　“You are saying…” Winking, Shen Ying answered gravely, “They’re lovers.”

　　Lonemoon: “…”

　　Yi Qing: “…”

　　Although it was put a little crudely, but… that summed it up.

　　“Don’t you find her a little familiar?” Lonemoon asked a little anxiously, “Isn’t it obvious that she’s the character setup of the female lead?”

　　Now that she mentioned it… it did resemble her.

　　“Isn’t Xuan Dan still in our sect?” asked Yi Qing, frowning.

　　“Yes, that’s why I find it strange.” Lonemoon explained somberly, “By right Xuan Dan is the female lead. The one called Hui Ling doesn’t appear at all in the original story, and from what I’ve gathered, this person was brought back four years ago by Che Ge to Heavens beyond Heaven. It was also the same time that Shen Ying brought Xuan Dan back. Moreover, this Hui Ling, apart from having a different character from the female lead in the original story, fits the part of the female lead exactly in terms of how Chen Ge takes her in as a disciple and the way he treats her. It’s exactly as if… the female lead has been changed!”

　　This led him to surmise that the deviation in the script was because of their interference. The female lead had disappeared, so the script auto-corrected by replacing her with another female lead?

　　“You’re saying… Hui Ling is the substitute for Xuan Dan’s role?” asked Yi Qing. “But Xuan Dan was created from his mental demons. How can Chen Ge not recognize himself in her?”

　　“I don’t mean that Chen Ge got the wrong person. Maybe she’s only a substitute for Xuan Dan’s role in the story.” That girl Xuan Dan was a real jinx in the novel, her body seemed to be possessed by Conan ¹ . The more Lonemoon thought about it, the more likely this seemed. Nudging the person by his side, he asked, “What do you think, say something will you?”

　　“Er, I think…” Shen Ying answered lazily, “That… Salted Fish Boy didn’t have the chance to fall in love with Little Shortie, so he turned his attention to another girl. This is quite normal.” You can’t let him stay single his whole life. “Even if the girl he likes is a little wret-… there’s nothing wrong. You shouldn’t be prejudiced against her.”

　　“…” You were going to call her a wretch, weren’t you. Who’s the prejudiced one?

　　Frowning, Lonemoon said, “You mean that there’s nothing wrong with the script?” Had he read too much into this matter?

　　“There’s something wrong!” Shen Ying nodded her head. After some thought, she added, “From the time we were in the Lower Realm.” Everything went wrong from then on.

　　Yi Qing: “…”

　　Lonemoon: “…”

　　“Holy shit! What do you mean? Can’t you tell us everything in one breath!”

　　“It’s the Chef.” Shen Ying pointed to Yi Qing.

　　The two men were baffled.

　　After a while, Lonemoon thought of something. “What you mean is … the script started to deviate ever since Yi Qing came into the story?”

　　“Yes.”

　　Lonemoon recalled that there were two characters in the script, one was Yi Qing, the other was Bai Zhe.

　　Yi Qing was the sword immortal character who appeared at the end of the novel. As an itinerant Immortal in the Lower Realm, it would have been very hard for him to ascend to the immortal realm. But because of Shen Ying, he had a few epiphanies which boosted his cultivation so much that he reached the level of ascension.

　　But at that time, the Azure World was still controlled by the Qing Tong Immortal Abode. In the original script, if he had wanted to ascend, he would have to fight a big battle with that Qing Tong group and it would be a long process.

　　As for Bai Zhe…

　　According to Bitao, the antagonists in the story had discovered the existence of a divine race; that was why they delayed the annihilation of the world. Bai Zhe was definitely a member of this divine race. As a result of Bai Zhe being sent back by Shen Ying to the divine world, the antagonists launched their annihilation plan.”

　　So the setting that was not mentioned in the book was most likely the one in which Bai Zhe and Yi Qing, having wrecked the Qing Tong Immortal Abode’s conspiracy plan, ascended into the Upper World.

　　In other words, the script had fast forwarded from the very beginning.

　　And after the ascension, Yi Qing, as Shen Ying’s disciple, could not take in any disciple until he had finished his apprenticeship. So that meant that his master disciple relationship with the male lead Ning Zi’an was broken. A male lead could not be called a male lead unless he was powerful.

　　However, they had still met up with Ning Zi’an. They not only cured him of his sword Qi malady but also helped rid him of his mental demons. This allowed him to resume his original role as an emperor. Naturally, he no longer needed to be Yi Qing’s disciple.

　　All this looked like a coincidence, but on further thought, it did seem like the script was auto-correcting itself.

　　Because of Yi Qing’s epiphanies, he had completed his ascension earlier than what was stated in the original script. Therefore, the male lead had also appeared earlier.

　　As Yi Qing did not take in the male lead as his disciple, the male lead’s cultivation was fully restored and he became the highest-ranked emperor.

　　As Shen Ying had snatched away the original female lead, Hui Ling appeared to take on the role of the new female lead.

　　Although everything that had happened turned out differently from the script, after many twists and turns, everything seemed to follow the plot again. It seemed that a huge, invincible hand was secretly directing the events before anyone knew what was happening. Just like when you patch something up— if there was a corner that was chipped, you patched that corner up. All ways and means were being tried to let the plot run its course.

　　Lonemoon’s spirits sank. Looking at Shen Ying, he asked, “When exactly did you realize this?” He was the one most familiar with the plot, yet he had not spotted the changes to the plot.

　　Shen Ying thought for a while before answering, “I think it was when the gate to the Demon Realm closed.”

　　“That gate… wasn’t it closed by the Demonic Tribe?” Lonemoon was surprised, he had thought all along that the demons inside had closed the gate because they had had enough of being beaten up by Shen Ying.

　　Now that he thought about it, the Demonic Realm was the setting where the male and female lead’s acted out their final scene, so naturally it would not be written off so quickly. So it meant… that the gate was closed because of the requirements of the plot?

　　Did the plot have such a strong power?

　　“Does this world exist only in the novel?” Or was this a world that operated according to the plot of the novel? Who was the one who directed the script? Was it the author?

　　The more Lonemoon thought about it, the more confused he got. In the end he stopped thinking about it. Who cares, it had nothing do do do with them anymore. He was too lazy to bother about the going ons between the male and female leads, just as long as they did not provoke the Invincible Sect.

　　“But… has Hui Ling really become the new female lead?” If the lead was changed, it would benefit them. After all, Xuan Dan was now a member of Invincible Sect.

　　Shen Ying thought about it for a moment before suddenly asking, “Father Niu, what is the next scene described in the book?”

　　“What next scene? Lonemoon was a little puzzled by her question but he quickly realized what she was getting at. She was right, if they wanted to know whether Hui Ling was the substitute female lead, all they had to do was to see whether she acted according to the script. “The first thing that the female lead did after becoming Chen Ge’s disciple… I think she got herself abducted?” Lonemoon vaguely remembered that a scene in the story depicted the male lead played the part of the hero who rescued the damsel in distress.

　　“Who abducted her?”

　　“I forgot, it was too long ago. I think it was the male lead’s arch enemy?”

　　“… Chu Xuan!” Yi Qing suddenly spoke up.

　　Lonemoon pondered over this. Holy shit! This was really possible. This meant that the next scene would be acted out tomorrow?

　　“Little Missy, we’re back!” At this moment, the radish suddenly kicked open the room door and charged towards Shen Ying like a human cannon ball. Just as he was about to dive into her arms, Yi Qing, who was at her side, quickly caught him by the lapels, lifted him up and flung him away. Get lost, you rascal!

　　“Hmph!” Radish turned to glare at him. However, he dared not do anything except look at Shen Ying with a pitiful expression. “Little Missy… Radish misses you very much.”