Chapter 4: Transmigrated into a Novel??

Meeting ghosts was a terrible experience, but running into Sister Xinxuan was a blessing...

How could someone so captivating exist in this world? Even the cold moonlight paled in comparison to her, and even the purest ice and snow in the world couldn't match the brilliance of her gaze.

She was simply too wonderful!

Qiao Suihuan pressed her hand to her chest, quietly recalling Sister Xinxuan. She was both furious that someone dared to snatch her away and secretly sketching Sister Xinxuan's image in her mind.

Come to think of it, her Sister Xinxuan was quite different from ordinary people. With that aura and bearing, she must be a Daoist priest, right?

Can Daoist priests fall in love?

I've heard some can.

I wonder if Sister Xinxuan can fall in love. I really hope she can. I've never felt this way before in my life, and I don't want to face the horror of my crush being unavailable for romance! I want to date Sister Xinxuan.

But I need to resolve this ghost business quickly.

How does one randomly encounter ghosts? How could I suddenly go from the city center to a remote mountain wilderness? Who could have the power to whisk me away in that sedan chair without my knowledge and transport me to this desolate place?

Qiao Suihuan racked her brain, even considering the possibility of a conspiracy, but couldn't come up with any explanation for how she had been transported here out of thin air.

After all, she had been editing videos in her own apartment just last night!

Who could possibly break into her house and abduct her out of nowhere?

"What are you thinking about?" The young Daoist, who had been left to one side, glanced at her and couldn't help but ask.

She watched his expression shift erratically—one moment he seemed secretly pleased, as if something good had happened, and the next he was frowning as if he were angry. She couldn't help but think that people from the world below were all a little crazy.

Why is she acting like this, changing moods so quickly?

If the Celestial Master hadn't instructed her to give this woman a protective talisman when he returned to exorcise the evil spirits, she would have refused to deal with this mortal any longer. How annoying.

"Hmm?" Qiao Suihuan turned to the young Daoist beside her, suddenly remembering that he might be a source of information.

While she couldn't figure out who had abducted her from home, she could work backward from the outcome.

Whoever had taken her must have had their own motives. After completing their task, they would surely cooperate with the person responsible for the final "disposal" of her.

If she could just find out what this final person intended to do, it would be easy to deduce the abductors' motives. Then, it would be simple to settle the score.

Qiao Suihuan pondered for a moment, then asked, "Did you two save me last night?"

"What else would it be?"

If not for the fact that this mortal knew nothing, the young Daoist would have rolled his eyes. To think she could gain the protection of a Celestial Master just by fainting, and yet she slept all night clutching a Bodhi Fly-Whisk. How lucky!

Damn.

"Evil cultivators run rampant here, and even the ghosts are more vicious than elsewhere. Who else would venture out in the middle of the night to slay demons but my Elder?" the young Daoist snapped.

"And you! With your special constitution that makes you a beacon for evil creatures, you must have suffered greatly since childhood. How can you still not know to conceal yourself, live quietly, and protect yourself? And yet you fall into the hands of an evil cultivator? Are you tired of living?

If my Elder hadn't come here to slay demons and save your life, you'd be dead by the hands of an evil cultivator today! Even annihilation would be a mercy. The real horror would be to be left half-dead, enduring the torment of soul-refining sorcery day after day—a fate of eternal suffering, with no hope of rebirth!"

Qiao Suihuan was stunned by this unfamiliar narrative for a few seconds. She didn't understand what "left half-dead, enduring the torment of soul-refining sorcery day after day" meant, but it sounded terrifying.

Still, she managed to extract some useful information from the young Daoist's words.

Setting aside the superstitious and incomprehensible parts, she could analyze the events in the small courtyard into three distinct groups:

First, there was her own misfortune.

As a pure unlucky soul, she had nearly lost her life. It seemed she had become someone with a "special innate constitution that easily attracts the covetous gaze of evil entities"?

But how could she not know this? She had never encountered anything supernatural in her life. How could this special constitution be related to her?

She would leave this point for later investigation.

Second, there was the middle-aged man the young Daoist called an "evil cultivator." He was suspected of attempted murder, though it remained uncertain whether he had actually killed anyone. However, kidnapping and intentional harm were undeniable facts.

For Qiao Suihuan, finding this man was currently the most urgent task. He was the most likely person to know how she had been abducted to the remote mountains. Beyond finding the group to report them and hold them accountable, she also needed to quickly identify who among those around her was trying to harm her.

It was too dangerous to be surrounded by enemies she couldn't identify.

Then there was the sudden appearance of Sister Xinxuan, who descended from the heavens to save her, along with this young Daoist.

Judging by the young Daoist's words, he seemed to place little value on normal legal procedures for seeking justice. He reminded her of the righteous cultivators from fantasy novels—those who operate outside the public eye, maintaining order through their own methods and silently crushing those who seek to harm others.

If this analysis held true, Sister Xinxuan and the young Daoist likely didn't know who the middle-aged man in grey robes was either. They probably just happened to pass by, beat him up, and then rushed off to save someone else.

Qiao Suihuan felt fortunate to have encountered Sister Xinxuan.

She secretly rejoiced, her mood lifting as she happily continued to ponder the anomalies of the situation.

After some thought, she concluded that the most peculiar aspect of the entire affair was the young Daoist's claim that she possessed a "special constitution that makes her extremely susceptible to the covetous gaze of evil spirits."

The middle-aged man in grey robes, known as an "evil cultivator," had clearly performed ritualistic acts during his criminal activities last night. Qiao Suihuan suspected this might be why she had been drawn to the evil temple.

Otherwise, it was hard to explain why she was the one involved.

But she had never sensed anything unusual. She had lived like an ordinary person, never encountering anything strange until yesterday. So, what exactly constituted a "special constitution"?

Qiao Suihuan scratched her cheek in confusion and looked at the young Daoist. "Is my constitution really special? What's different about it?"

The young Daoist, who was carefully wrapping the Bodhi Fly-Whisk in brocade for protection, was startled. He looked at Qiao Suihuan with an expression that seemed to ask, "Are you serious?" Seeing her genuine bewilderment, he scrutinized her from head to toe and said with a hint of pity:

"No way. Based on the birth date the evil cultivator left behind and your innate constitution, you should have been able to see ghosts from birth. After twenty years, haven't you noticed you can see things others can't?"

Qiao Suihuan was even more shaken.

She was absolutely certain that in the first twenty years of her life, she had never encountered anything non-human.

She had never been prone to accidents or mental lapses. To this day, she could clearly recall the reasons behind every action she had taken. Her days had always been packed with purpose and fulfillment, and everyone she met had been cheerful and optimistic. This was why she couldn't fathom who would want to kidnap her.

Could someone like her truly be someone who was "born with the ability to see ghosts" or someone whose "special constitution made them a magnet for evil spirits"?

At that moment, Qiao Suihuan finally sensed something far more amiss.

How had she even ended up here?

Why was everything here so different from the city she knew?

A cool morning breeze swept past, making Qiao Suihuan instinctively tense up.

The young Daoist beside her noticed her troubled expression and, feeling a pang of sympathy, couldn't resist nudging her. "Hey, are you okay? It's not a big deal to see things others can't. Just be careful normally, and you'll be fine. We all live the same way. You don't need to be so... uh, so down."

"Oh," Qiao Suihuan replied, snapping out of her daze. She looked at herself, then at the young Daoist, and asked, "Did you change my clothes?"

"Well, something like that," the young Daoist said, seeing she wasn't seriously injured. "You were still wearing that wedding gown the evil cultivator made. That thing is no good for the living. I helped you take it off before dawn. Don't worry, I didn't do anything else—this is what you were wearing underneath."

Qiao Suihuan lowered her gaze to examine her clothes, falling into even deeper silence. "..."

Judging by the price, the outfit seemed similar to what she usually wore. Yet she'd never liked this brand's designs and rarely wore their clothes. She doubted she even owned such an outfit. What in the world is going on?

With little hope, she asked, "Where exactly am I?"

"Lin'an," the young Daoist answered matter-of-factly. "I advise you not to travel alone at night anymore. The entire Southeast has been unstable lately.

I don't know what the local cultivators are up to... In any case, the evil cultivators in this area are getting too bold. Even with my Elder's efforts, they can't be dealt with quickly. They're hunting people like you. Be careful you don't get captured and refined into something else."

Listening to the young Daoist's words, Qiao Suihuan finally realized what had been vaguely nagging at the back of her mind since last night, and which had grown increasingly strong today.

Lin'an, Southeast, evening outing—these are all keywords!

She had no idea where Lin'an was, and had never been there. The last time she'd seen the name Lin'an was in a novel she'd recently finished reading—a supernatural one at that!!

Everything clicked into place.

In the novel, the first crisis the two female protagonists encountered occurred in Lin'an City, located in the Southeast region. Here, they stumbled upon an evil cultivator practicing soul-refining sorcery and harming ordinary people!

What happened then... Many people died because of the evil cultivator. But when the ordinary world's police investigated, they couldn't find the truth or the missing people. They could only temporarily report the deaths as disappearances.

The two female protagonists in the book accidentally stumbled upon this incident at the beginning of the story. As cultivators, they couldn't stand by and watch. So they began repeatedly trying to break into the supernatural incident sites to save innocent people. And thus, the story of the two heroines began.

Wait a minute... Many people died in Lin'an City in the Southeast. Based on what she experienced last night, could she have been on that initial "death list" too?

A flash of insight struck her from the depths of her memory. Qiao Suihuan suddenly remembered something.

When was the last time a character in this book mentioned Lin'an? It seemed to be near the end of the story... and someone had even mentioned her name back then.

She remembered!

There really was a minor character with the same name as hers in that book. But that character was so insignificant, her presence flickering in and out of existence. With her weak personality, gloomy and radical disposition, and suspected villainous alignment, she had been early to disappear from the story, landing on the list of evil cultivator victims. She only reappeared later when the villains mentioned her, and Qiao Suihuan hadn't even remembered her for a while!

Considering last night's encounter with the vengeful ghosts and the evil cultivator, as well as the young Daoist's assessment of her at dawn, Qiao Suihuan suddenly formed a grim suspicion...

Could she have transmigrated into the book?