When a Fanfic Protagonist Transmigrated into the Original Novel

After Zhangsun Zijun won, he remained silent, and only made a slight bow to show his apologetic attitude. Yue Xiaorou frowned. She had already lost, but what happened was definitely out of her expectations. She reached down and tossed Zhangsun Zijun’s sword back.

Zhangsun Zijun caught his sword and walked off.

Yi Xichen almost started to laugh as he reached forward to rub his explosive head. Zhangsun Zijun was so strong that even he didn’t expect the match to go like this. Although he couldn’t attack a woman, the Sword Assembly didn’t require a solid fight. All they had to do was to get the opponent off the platform in order to win. His method of using his sword to fly Yue Xiaorou off was easy and efficient. No matter how strong she was, she wouldn’t even get the chance to show her skills. But if the platform was slightly bigger, or if she recovered from her shock in time, then Zhangsun Zijun would be in quite some trouble.

A match like this has never happened before. This year’s Sword Assembly was indeed eye-opening for everyone.

Yi Xichen took out a piece of water spirit stone and used a healing technique to soften down Zhangsun Zijun’s exploded hair-style, returning his soft and long black hair. “Why didn’t you dodge?” asked Yi Xichen.

Zhangsun Zijun replied lightly, “I just wanted to test how strong she was.”

Yi Xichen was slightly stunned. He knew about Zhangsun Zijun’s backlash after the Confusion Array as well, but he wasn’t able to tell his mood. How could he break through the troubles brought by reality and illusions easily? He started to feel a little worried for him.

He turned his head and saw Yue Xiaorou happening to pass by.

Yue Xiaorou was extremely beautiful, not the soft feminine kind, but rather heroic. But due to the fact of how cold her personality was, it was hard for people to approach her. Looking at their Martial Sister and then remembering what Zhangsun Zijun said earlier, Yi Xichen had a weird thought arise in his head. 

“You think that she is secretly in love with you, but are you…” Yi Xichen asked, “secretly in love with her?”

“No,” said Zhangsun Zijun concisely.

Since he didn’t use the “Humph of course not!” attitude, what he said was probably true. Yi Xichen rubbed the back of his head and suddenly felt rather awkward to ask such a question.

Zhangsun Zijun looked at the distracted Yi Xichen and sighed in his heart. Although it was just his imagination, in his mind, they already had a dozen or so children. Even at this point, how could Yi Xichen doubt him? Ugh, so frustrating!

Because there weren’t many matches of similar-strength opponents facing either other, the ten matches finished before dark. The disciples returned to Shennong Temple to draw their opponents for the next rounds.

When the wooden kites flew up, the strong were not worried by the slightest, and the weak, well, being worried wouldn’t change anything. Those in between were the ones who were truly nervous. The more they win, the harder it would be for them. In the next round, the kites would match the ten winners against each other and the ten losers against each other. After that, it would be the winner against the winner and the loser against the loser again. The further it went, the less luck played a factor. Because not every disciple would get the chance to face every other disciple, the first two rounds were extremely important. If one had his stronger opponents beat by someone even stronger and managed to get chosen with someone weaker, then their final rankings could be slightly higher than their actual strength. The same was true for the other way around. For example, Yue Xiaorou was definitely strong enough to compete for the Prime, but after losing the first round to Zhangsun Zijun, she might not even make it to the top three.

One of the kites landed in Yi Xichen’s hands and led him towards Wu Mo from the Sword Cultivation Hall. Yi Xichen let out a sigh of relief. This was not because Wu Mo was very weak, after all, he was still ranked number two in the Sword Cultivation Hall. It was that every winner of today’s match was strong, so he felt lucky that he got an opponent that was not from the Sword Refining Hall and the Sword Guardian Hall. 

And Zhangsun Zijun got Gong Sundi. Gong Sundi’s face looked very ugly. As number one from the Sword Guardian Hall, although he may not be as talented as some others, he was definitely still one of the best out of the best. In addition, he just beat Jin Cheng from the Sword Refining Hall today, earning some pride for the Sword Guardian Hall. Technically, he should be happy for getting someone from the Medicine Hall, but the person happened to be Zhangsun Zijun, who won against Yue Xiaorou with just one move. The odds weren’t in his favor, and if he lost the second match, it would be difficult for him to make it to the top five.

But the unluckiest person was definitely Wang Qingqiao. In the first round, he got chosen against Lu Ziyao, whom he naturally lost against. The next round was supposed to be his chance to finally show his skill, but guess what! He got chosen with Yue Xiaorou! As number two from the Sword Refining Hall, her loss on the first day was definitely a surprise. So, she was assigned to the losers category, and Wang Qingqiao happened to hit the jackpot. More importantly, Wang Qingqiao had one extra match earlier. If he lost against Yue Xiaorou, that would be three losses in a row! He might be the first Sword Refining Hall disciple to not make it to the top ten since hundreds of years.

Xiao Kui got matched against Bian Liang from the Sword Guardian Hall. He was ranked number four in the Sword Refining Hall, and Bian Liang was number two from Sword Guardian Hall. In terms of cultivation, Xiao Kui’s should be higher, but only by a little bit. He knew that he would be facing an uphill battle tomorrow.

After the competing order was determined, everyone went to prepare for tomorrow’s fight.

Today, both Yi Xichen and Zhangsun Zijun won, but Yao Budu didn’t come to spectate. Therefore the first thing they had to do was to go and report the good news. Yi Xichen also wanted to check to see if Yao Budu had any new spiritual materials that he may find useful for tomorrow’s match.

As they were going there, they met the elder of Sword Refining Hall, Qiu Jian.

“Elder Qiu.”

Zhangsun Zijun and Yi Xichen both bowed.

Qiu Jian studied Zhangsun Zijun with a complex expression. He was the judge for Zhangsun Zijun’s match today. What he wanted to see was a fierce match, but instead had to witness Yue Xiaorou being sent down with only one move. He felt rather upset, not because one of his best disciples lost, but because he didn’t get to see Zhangsun Zijun use full strength. He really wanted to see how strong this talented Heavenly Spiritual Root disciple really was. And also because Zhangsun Zijun changed from calling him “Master” with a cold tone to now “Elder Qiu” with a cold tone. 

“Zijun,” said Elder Qiu, “come with me, I have something to tell you.”

After all, he was an elder. Although Zhangsun Zijun wasn’t his disciple, he still followed him and left.

After Zhangsun Zijun left, Yi Xichen went to find Yao Budu alone.

When he got to Yao Budu’s cabin, Yao Budu wasn’t there, so he went through the portal and entered the medicine fields.

Yao Budu rarely went to places other than his cabin and the medicine fields. He spent great efforts to build up the medicine fields, and by now, they grew herbs of all kinds, and the fields had different temperatures and terrains, including mountains, plains, streams, deserts, and cliffs. Any rare herbs that the disciples found outside could be brought back and planted here.

Yi Xichen flew across the medicine fields on his sword and still couldn’t find Yao Budu, so he landed next to the Tongxiu Spring. This was where he stupidly knelt for seven days looking stupidly at the stupid Zhangsun Zijun standing outside the medicine fields.

Thinking about what happened, Yi Xichen smiled and sat down near the spring water, “Where did Master go? What did Qiu Jian want Zijun for?”

At this time, he saw Yao Budu across the Tongxiu Spring running back in a hurry.

On the other side…

Qiu Jian brought Zhangsun Zijun to his sword refining room before stopping and studying him even closer.

Zhangsun Zijun felt very uncomfortable being looked at by him like this, and couldn’t help but ask, “Elder Qiu, is there something you would like me to do?”

Qiu Jian sighed and patted him on the shoulder, “You’ve grown so big already.”

For cultivators who have reached the Golden Core stage, they no longer have to worry about growing old and being sick. They would only die if they were killed by others or if they failed to overcome a Heavenly Tribulation1. As for after the Golden Core stage, the progress would be much slower. Many cultivators fail to make progress even after a hundred years of cultivation in the Golden Core stage, and when their Heavenly Tribulations arrive, it would mark the end of their lives as well. But regardless, before that, they still have hundreds of years. During those years, those cultivators usually only have a few mere choices though.

They could choose to continue to cultivate alone, but due to how slow the cultivation process may be, it would inevitably seem boring over time. They could choose to give up on becoming immortal and enjoy their lives for their remaining years. Or, they could choose to accept disciples and pass on their knowledge.

Those who served as elder positions or even started their own sect were obviously those who liked to have disciples. For some, it was to strengthen their own reputation, for some it was so that they could find people to serve them, for some, it was just to kill boredom. And of course, for others, it was because they want to enhance rare talents – and Qiu Jian was that last type.

Qiu Jian looked at the pure white disciple clothing on Zhangsun Zijun and then looked at his tattered bronze sword and said with sadness, “You seem to have suffered in the Medicine Hall these years.”

Zhangsun Zijun replied with a little irritation, “Not at all.”

“Is Elder Yao treating you well?”

“Pretty well,” Zhangsun Zijun said coldly, “Elder Qiu, I’m not going to deliver the love letter for you. If you have nothing else, then I’ll be going now.”

——Although the fanfic author wouldn’t be crazy enough to make the elderly love him as well, they could still do a twilight love2 along with the MC!

Qiu Jian: “???”

What the heck? Is this what’s trendy among the young people these days? It takes a love letter to accept a disciple?!