Returning to darkness.
Ji Xiu closed his eyes, feeling a sense of melancholy. One second, he was holding Xu Yun’s hand, waiting for death and telling Ji Cong to live well. The next, he was back in the Space-Time Bureau, alone.
However, he quickly pulled himself together. While alive, he had done his best to protect them; even if they were destined to part, he had no regrets. In a long existence, one must always look forward.
Suddenly, a strange power surged through his body. Ji Xiu relaxed and smiled. In his original world, he was born with a "trash" spiritual root. No matter how hard he practiced, spiritual energy leaked out of his dantian like water through a sieve. Later, while wandering, he found a new path: the Path of Merit. This path didn't require meridians or spiritual roots; it only required doing good deeds.
Two worlds of saving people had provided him with an immense amount of merit. His cultivation was now skyrocketing. If he were in his original world, he would be the first person in history to ascend through merit. But his debt to the Space-Time Bureau wasn't paid yet, so he couldn't leave.
He entered the next world.
…
This was a Wuxia world.
Ji Xiu, wearing a scholarly green robe and looking refined, stood in a small courtyard, watching the sunset. He reviewed the world-line plot, and his expression turned odd.
In a martial arts world, there's always a "Chief of the Martial Arts Alliance" and a "Leader of the Demonic Sect." His son, Ji Zian, was the Demonic Sect Leader—ruthless, cold-blooded, and a mass murderer. At twenty-three, Ji Zian single-handedly slaughtered the Shen family of the south and the Ma fortress of the north, a total of 800 people.
The protagonist was the young Alliance Chief, Fu Chang’an. Investigating the slaughter, he rescued the sole survivor of the Shen family, Shen Bingyao, who had been hiding in a doghouse.
In a standard plot, the hero and heroine fall in love while investigating the villain. Usually, they would fall off a cliff, find a secret manual, and then lead the righteous sects to storm the Demonic Sect.
But the villain in this world didn't play by the rules. Ji Zian, hearing that someone survived, intercepted the couple before they could announce the crime and killed them both in a single strike. The world collapsed.
The problem? Ji Zian was too strong because he had "stolen" the protagonist's destiny. Fifteen years prior, he accidentally found the secret manual meant for Fu Chang’an. While the hero would have practiced for a few days to escape, Zian practiced for fifteen years. He was invincible. He didn't even need the original Demon Leader to teach him—he killed the old man when he was twelve because he found him annoying.
Ji Zian was a natural-born sociopath. Ji Xiu’s current character was a humble bookkeeper for the Shen family, married to a gentle woman, Shen Lang. They were kind-hearted, but their son, Zian, was born "wrong."
At five, Ji Zian killed a neighbor’s bird because its singing woke him up. At seven, he bit a piece of flesh out of a bully's hand. At nine, when the arrogant young master of the Shen family insulted his mother, Ji Zian ambushed him and beat him until he was bedridden for months.
The massacre of the Shen family happened because that same young master, now in power, beat Ji Xiu and Shen Lang when they asked for back pay. He then tried to send a letter to the Ma fortress revealing Ji Xiu’s past as an escaped slave to have him recaptured.
JI Zian intercepted the letter. The next day, 400 people in the Shen household were dead. He destroyed the Ma fortress too, just to be thorough.
The tragic part? Ji Xiu’s original character never suspected his son. He and his wife just prayed for the souls of the dead and lived their quiet lives, unaware that the "Demonic Sect Leader" everyone feared was the son who was "unemployed and often away from home."
Ji Xiu realized that Ji Zian didn't need fatherly love—JI Zian was the one "protecting" his parents with violence. If Ji Xiu tried to lecture him, Ji Zian might just kill him. How do I fix a character with no weaknesses and a maxed-out combat level? Ji Xiu checked the timeline. Ji Zian was currently seven. He hadn't found the secret manual yet! Ji Xiu’s eyes brightened.
Inside, his wife Shen Lang called, "Husband, dinner is ready."
"Where is Ji Zian?" Ji Xiu asked.
"He went to the street corner to watch the acrobats."
Ji Xiu remembered a specific event from the original memory. At seven, Zian got into a fight with a boy named Zhang Peng and bit him. Zhang Peng’s family demanded compensation, bankrupting the family, and forced the original Ji Xiu to kowtow and apologize to prevent the boy from being jailed. A year later, once Ji Zian got the manual, he murdered the entire Zhang family.
Ji Xiu didn't want to kowtow, and he didn't want the Zhang family murdered. He skipped dinner and ran to the street corner.
He found a crowd gathered. "There's blood! There's blood!" people shouted.
Ji Xiu pushed through, expecting to see Ji Zian biting someone. Instead, he saw a teenager named Zhang Peng pinning Zian to the ground and punching him. Ji Zian’s nose was bleeding.
A surge of protective rage hit Ji Xiu. He was trying to save these people's lives by disciplining his son, but they were actually "seeking death" by hitting his child?
Ji Xiu rolled up his sleeves and roared, "Let go of my son!"
The two figures on the ground looked up at him simultaneously.
Join the discussion
Log in to comment.