Chapter 264 The Ninth Day of Entering a Xuanhuan Novel

Chapter 264: Day Nine of Being Transmigrated into a Fantasy Novel

Xie Xuandu stood in place, watching the retreating figure, his smile gradually turning more genuine, touched with delight.

He softly repeated that name: "An Yi..."

His voice was soft and lingering, as if savoring something rich on his tongue.

Then he set off and followed once more.

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Dusk fell, and leaden gray clouds hung low, pressing down on the sky, swallowing up the last of the daylight.

A winding path was swallowed up by knee-high weeds in the desolate wilds, with no village up ahead and no inn behind. Only the wind, whistling through gaps in the forest, carried the damp, earthy smell of an oncoming storm, heavy enough to make your heart feel tight.

An Yi walked leisurely along the path. He'd been wandering the outer edges of this linked mountain range for a while now.

The plants and animals here were wonderfully strange—lots of forms he'd never seen in the worlds he'd traveled through before. They had a raw, wild, yet lively charm that kept him watching with real interest for a long time.

It was only in this world that he really felt like he'd crossed into another world.

The worlds he'd crossed into before, even the apocalypse one, were all too much like the world he'd grown up in.

Honestly, this world was the same deal—mostly alike, just with some unique critters and plants thrown in, which was pretty interesting.

Now that he had a general understanding of this world's wilderness, it was time to head toward the mortal realm and see the everyday hustle and bustle of human life here.

Off in the distance, the outline of a run-down temple showed up at the end of the path.

Most of the upturned eaves and roof corners were broken and battered, and the stained walls were covered in dead, dark-brown vines that clung tight to the building.

An Yi had planned to just walk past it.

Just some abandoned temple in the mountains.

But just as he got close to the fork near the temple gate, a faint, on-and-off sound of a woman crying drifted over on the damp wind, creeping into his ears.

The crying was sad and sharp, like it carried endless hurt and bitterness. In the empty wilds and fading dusk, it wove through the air, thread by thread, creepy and clear.

An Yi stopped in his tracks.

Wilderness, ruined temple, a woman crying.

The déjà vu... was way too strong.

He quirked an eyebrow. Plus, with his sharp senses, besides that creepy crying, there was also a clear, kinda rushed breathing sound from a living person.

From the rhythm and force of the breathing, he could tell it was a young guy.

An Yi turned his head, looking at the temple wrapped in dusk, a flicker of amusement crossing his mind: No way... a scholar?

Wilderness and a ruined temple, a female ghost and a scholar.

If it was a scholar, he wondered if the guy's name happened to be Ning Caichen.

Xie Xuandu, who'd been trailing silently a few steps behind like a shadow, stopped too when he saw An Yi pause and look at the temple.

Xie Xuandu's voice was soft, with a hint of a question in it: "Is An Yi thinking of going in to rest a bit?"

He glanced at the sky: "Looks like we're in for a storm tonight."

An Yi turned his head to look at him but didn't answer, just curving his lips in a barely-there smile.

Of course he'd go—this was the first time he'd run into something like this.

If that ghost tried to hurt someone, and the person inside couldn't fight back, he might even be able to save a life.

He didn't hesitate anymore, walking straight to the ruined temple and pushing open the creaky, beat-up wooden door that looked like it might fall apart any second.

"Creak—"

The screech was painfully loud in the quiet dusk.

Inside, the temple was even more run-down.

Cobwebs were strung across the beams, pillars, and corners. A clay statue of a god stood in the middle of the hall, but it was caked in thick dust, its gold paint flaking off to show the rough, dark-brown clay underneath. Its face was blurry and hard to make out, but its hollow eyes seemed to stare at the intruder with a weird, bone-chilling creepiness.

The air was heavy with the smell of rotting wood and dust.

Sure enough, there was already someone in one corner of the hall.

It was a young scholar in a faded, washed-out blue scholar's robe, huddled next to a spread-out, simple travel pack, with a flickering oil lamp sitting on a broken offering table in front of him.

He was trembling a little, and his eyes kept darting toward the temple door in fear.

When he heard the door creak open, he snapped his head up, showing a face that was decent-looking but now full of panic and... a mix of fear and hidden excitement.

An Yi chuckled quietly to himself.

A scholar, sure enough.

The whole classic package.

And the second he laid eyes on this scholar, the comment section blew up:

"Doesn't the male lead have any abilities right now? Can he really take on a female ghost right off the bat?"

"Of course he can! He's a time traveler!!"

"Tsk tsk... @author, not cool—why is the male lead only 'decent-looking'? We readers need someone to project onto! (angry)"

"So dying really does lead to transmigration? That's great!"

"Binding a system upon transmigration really is the standard trope!"

"Where's my system? Where are you? I've been waiting for over thirty years!!"

"With a system, I hope the power scaling doesn't break, and don't nerf the protagonist's strength! (praying.jpg)"

"+1!!!"

"..."

At the same time, a surge of information about the original story of this world flooded into An Yi's mind.

The world he'd transmigrated into this time was a xuanhuan novel. The male lead followed a no-romance, power-fantasy path. That male lead was the scholar before him, named Gan Feng—a soul from the modern world who'd crossed over after dying from overwork.

He'd bound himself to a "level-up by defeating monsters" system, gaining experience and rewards by slaying demons and monsters, growing stronger until he eventually became the pinnacle of this world.

In the end, the male lead took control of the imperial occult bureau and then explored the elusive path to immortality.

An Yi quickly skimmed through this information, his mind briefly pausing.

This world had demons and monsters, so you'd think there'd be immortals and gods too. Yet in this novel, there was no clear description of them, and whether the male lead ever became immortal was left unclear.

Reading between the lines of the author's tone, it seemed this world had no immortals or gods, and the male lead was the first to forge the path to immortality?

The original just never spelled out whether he actually succeeded in the end.

A barely noticeable smile tugged at the corner of An Yi's lips.

No immortals or gods? That was fine.

The world he had transmigrated into this time was already on a higher level than those he had experienced before, which let him break through his supernatural ability's bottleneck and make a qualitative leap.

However... as he felt the surging power within him and the lingering, higher-level pull from something unseen, he understood clearly in his heart.

It wasn't enough yet; he still had a more distant peak to climb.