Chapter 74: Light Rain

Gu Baiyi knew that Jiang Fei could see through her true cultivation level. But Jiang Fei had always been indifferent to everything, so Gu Baiyi didn’t bother to hide much from her.

After all, her most pressing reason for coming to the Bodhi Sect this time was to find that demonic sword which had been guarded by Mei He for seventy years.

Though she did have some personal motives for joining the Wanjian Sect’s group, the most important reason was still because she happened to pick up Xie Bai.

Had Xie Bai not taken a Wanjian Sect token with him when he ran off, and had he not been so familiar with Gong Yu’s formation techniques, Gu Baiyi wouldn’t have been able to break through the barrier and enter the Wanjian Sect so easily.

On the other side, Jiang Fei looked at Gu Baiyi and asked earnestly, “You’ve seen that wall too?”

Just as Gu Baiyi had expected, Jiang Fei didn’t actually care much about who she was.

All that truly concerned her was when the plums would ripen, whether the boss lady in Tianshui Prefecture still sold osmanthus cakes, and that immovable, insurmountable wall standing before her.

Gu Baiyi nodded slightly. “I haven’t seen it myself, only heard a bit about it.”

Jiang Fei asked seriously, “What do you mean by ‘heard a bit’?”

Gu Baiyi responded with a faint smile, “According to The Hidden Records of Cultivation, the Sanhua Immortal, who forged the five divine swords, came from a crack in the sky.”

“Based on what you described, when the clouds split open, you saw a pair of giant eyes beyond the barrier. That might mean those eyes were not of this world, and that barrier could very well be a gate to a place beyond.”

Jiang Fei was silent for a moment before saying, “So you believe what lies beyond the barrier is a world outside ours?”

But Gu Baiyi shook her head. “Perhaps. Or perhaps not.”

Jiang Fei frowned deeply.

She wasn’t sure what to make of Gu Baiyi’s answer.

But when Ji Rong heard the words “a gate,” she immediately understood what Gu Baiyi was talking about.

In the eighty-seventh side quest of Sword Deity, there was a randomly triggered event.

The condition to unlock it was reaching the Cloud-Chasing Realm and heading to the Moonlight Pavilion before midnight. There was a 50% chance it would trigger.

There wasn’t anything particularly special about that quest, but Ji Rong remembered it because completing it granted the player a handwritten journal by Chu Changli.

What surprised her was that, despite the developers’ usual laziness and overreliance on filler, they’d actually created a journal from the former Demon Lord, complete with daily notes from Chu Changli herself.

Of course, most of it was nonsense, and most players never bothered to read it.

But Ji Rong had.

She didn’t know why. Even though she knew the developers were amateurs and the game felt slapped together at times, Sword Deity still gave her an inexplicable urge to keep playing.

The word “barrier” had come up twice in Chu Changli’s journal.

The first time was right after she became Demon Lord. She had written:

“Today, I ascended to the position of Demon Lord. I was in a good mood and celebrated by killing three people. Afterward, I still felt bored.”

“So I picked up a random book, something called Mystic Records of the Unknown. It was written by some muddleheaded Daoist. That guy hinted that beyond the barrier lay a place outside the world.”

“Tch. I asked Yue Qianqiu about it. She said there’s nothing beyond that barrier. It’s like a mountain behind a mountain, just another barrier behind it.”

“The book was dull. Yue Qianqiu was even duller.”

The second time the “barrier” was mentioned was a year before the Battle of Demon Suppression. These were the last few entries in the journal:

“Today, I went to the far south, to the ends of the world.”

“Seeing that barrier reminded me of a question I once wrote. I hate answering questions, and I hate that wall. But Yue Qianqiu liked it.”

“She liked writing questions, and she always stared at that wall. No, she said it wasn’t a wall. It was a door. A door that kept all of us trapped in the same box.”

“She said that one day, she would open that door. That would be the day everything would be complete.”

“Where will Yue Qianqiu go? I don’t know. But one day, I’ll open that door too.”

“I’ll go where Yue Qianqiu went.”

There were no more entries after that.

Because one year later, Chu Changli was defeated by Yue Qianqiu, fell into the Ghost Tomb, and died.

Recalling this plotline, Ji Rong was now fairly certain: whatever Gu Baiyi knew about this world was more or less aligned with her own knowledge.

Which meant Gu Baiyi was either a transmigrator like her, or someone reincarnated into this world.

But… there was one more possibility, one Ji Rong really didn’t want to think about.

That is…

Everything she had experienced wasn’t a game at all, but a real, living world.

And everyone here… was real.

Ji Rong’s mind spun. If these people were real, did that mean she was the fake one?

Because if this world was real, then her past life might’ve just been a game.

Maybe she was the NPC, and these “game characters” were the real players.

Just the thought made Ji Rong’s scalp tingle.

And yet, she had to admit, her once firm belief in materialism was beginning to crumble.

Ji Rong’s eyes welled with tears.

Please, give me a break. I’m just a salted fish.

While she was lost in thought, Gu Baiyi spoke again, her tone slow and calm: “Perhaps. Or perhaps not. After all, the book was just something a Daoist made up. Seeing is believing, hearing is deceiving, his words shouldn’t be trusted so easily.”

Jiang Fei nodded thoughtfully.

Then she turned to Ji Rong and asked, “Junior Sister, what do you think?”

You’re asking me? What am I supposed to think? Ji Rong groaned internally.

Still, she pretended to ponder for a moment before replying, “Makes sense.”

Those two words “makes sense” were as vague as they were mysterious. No one could tell what exactly made sense, or who exactly made it.

But considering the topic itself was already cryptic and mysterious, her answer didn’t seem too out of place.

Jiang Fei wasn’t satisfied, though, and pressed further, “Then, what did you write for that question? ‘What lies in the far south? And what lies in the far north?’ What was your answer?”

Ji Rong: “……”

Truthfully, she’d written something completely random at the time. But judging by her unexpectedly high score on the essay section, it seemed she’d accidentally gotten it right.

So Ji Rong replied calmly, “I wrote that beyond the far south is still south, and beyond the far north is still north. That’s all.”

Jiang Fei was stunned.

She hadn’t expected Ji Rong’s answer to be so simple.

But it actually made sense. The far south would still be southward. The far north would still be north. Even if blocked by a barrier, the directions of the world remained eternal.

[Ding! Favorability increased: Jiang Fei +30, Gu Baiyi +30]

Ji Rong: “……”

She could understand Jiang Fei’s favorability going up, but why Gu Baiyi too?

[Dear player, we’re not sure either. That’s just what the data shows.]

Gu Baiyi stood beside Ji Rong, her face expressionless. But as she lowered her eyes to refill her tea, a faint smile curled at the corners of her lips.

Her answer… had been exactly the same.

Ji Rong would never have guessed that Gu Baiyi’s favorability boost came from having the same test answers.

After Jiang Fei finished her tea, the thick mist in the valley finally began to lift. It was already close to mid-morning.

The three of them set off together, heading toward the Grand Hall of Treasures.