My Disciple Wants to Tease Me Every Day - Chapter 70

: Transmigration Exposed?
Di Jiufeng suddenly remembered that in the original novel, this was not the first place they had arrived in the demon realm, and there was more than one ancient witch’s core.

The ancient witch cultivated the ghostly path, gaining a sense for life and a comprehension of death. Her core was split into a life core and a death core.

In the original, the ancient witch had only recovered the death core. Slaughtering the cultivation world was no obstacle, but she did not have enough power to contend against the Heavenly Way. In her previous life, she had completed both paths of life and death, so she could just manage to fight the Heavenly Way. If she was missing half her cultivation now, Di Jiufeng was certain, she would definitely die beneath the Heavenly Way.

She suddenly realized that the original novel probably remained incomplete not because the author didn’t want to write the ending, but because they couldn’t keep on writing. The ancient witch had no other outcome but being struck down by lightning.

But this life core, Di Jiufeng thought, must be the one Lin Hao’s grandfather had given to Lin Hao. As for that fated person, it was probably not Ning Guang. After all, in the original, she hadn’t even grasped the shadow of the life core.

“Ning Guang, I remembered something, I will tell you when we go back,” she leaned by Ning Guang’s ear and whispered. Seeing her nod, Di Jiufeng said to the city lord, “Everyone is here, let’s return for now. It is already late, we should not stay here any longer.”

The city lord nodded and called a few people to carry the bodies. He himself led Qing Yu and the others back to his estate.

They were housed in the guest courtyards of the city lord’s estate. Surrounded by curling streams and fine, lush trees, the exquisite little rooms were hidden within dense vegetation, a rather quiet and secluded location. The scenery was quite nice, and it seemed rather private too. But, Di Jiufeng was still worried. After she tugged Ning Guang into the room, she set a barrier spell, then entered Shen City with Ning Guang.

“What is it, is something wrong with the core?” Seeing Di Jiufeng so cautious, Ning Guang sensed that something was off.

As expected, Di Jiufeng nodded and said, “Yes, the ancient witch’s core. Have you ever wondered if the fated person Lin Hao’s grandfather described was not us? He does not want you to recover your cultivation, the opposite in fact, he wants to destroy the core completely and get things done once and for all.”

Ning Guang: “What you said makes sense, but you cannot exclude the possibility that the fated person is us, right?”

“No, Ning Guang, you have to trust me. The fated person Lin Hao’s grandfather described was that monk, and, we are already out of time.” Di Jiufeng thought carefully about the novel’s contents, and suddenly realized that there was in fact such a segment right after the ancient witch had entered the demon realm.

“She stepped out of the spatial tunnel, and before she had steadied her footing, she heard a bolt of lightning gallop through the ink-colored sky. In that moment, she felt something disappearing rapidly from her own body, but before she discovered what it was, the thunder came to a halt, and the crow-dark clouds dispersed, as that strange sensation also disappeared without a trace.

The ancient witch didn’t think much of it, only thinking that it was a side effect of her first trip into the demon realm. She continued onwards…”

Di Jiufeng had not lingered on this ordinary-looking segment. But, she never found an explanation for it in the later text, and as time passed, she had tossed it to the back of her head.

Thinking about it now, this section was very likely describing when the life core had been destroyed by that monk.

Di Jiufeng was a bit worried, and she grabbed Ning Guang’s arms, blurting out, “Ning Guang, trust me, I would not trick you. Right, what is the date? How long until the seventh of February?”

Ning Guang did not know why she was bringing up this date, but she dutifully responded, “Today is the last day of January. Subtracting that, there are still seven whole days until the seventh of February. What is it, A-Feng, will something happen on that day?”

Di Jiufeng was distracted thinking about other things, and hearing Ning Guang’s question, she let slip, “That day, the core that Lin Hao’s grandfather had will be purified by that monk!”

As soon as she spoke, Di Jiufeng froze. She turned to look at Ning Guang, and saw her looking at herself with hesitation written all over her face.

Ning Guang did not distrust what Di Jiufeng had said, she just did not understand how she had come to know such precise information. They had been together since the start, Di Jiufeng never had the chance to talk to others, but this was not the first time it seemed that she was clairvoyant. She could always, for some reason or another, predict what would happen ahead of time.

Ning Guang was not suspicious before, but thinking about it now, it seemed more and more strange. She looked all around Di Jiufeng’s face, before finally stopping at her eyes. “A-Feng, you seem to know a lot, why?”

Di Jiufeng froze, her tongue stiff, unable to say anything for a long time.

She looked down, gaze flitting all over the place. If she could move things with her eyes, she would have stirred up a cloud of dust from the ground. “I, I…”

Di Jiufeng didn’t know how to explain to Ning Guang that she was a transmigrator. Should she tell her, “none of you are people, you’re only a character in a novel?” She couldn’t do it. And, in her heart, Ning Guang had already become a flesh and blood, living human being, the one she liked, the lover she wanted to stay with for a lifetime.

Di Jiufeng hesitated for a while, but was unable to figure out how to explain. She didn’t know what Ning Guang would do if she let her know the truth. She never liked to suffer losses, and she liked being controlled even less. If she knew that her miserable fate was all composed by another, would she tear through the sky?

If she destroyed this world within a novel, Ning Guang would not survive, and Di Jiufeng did not know if she could keep her life either.

She was not afraid of death, but she did not want to separate from Ning Guang.

Di Jiufeng pondered it from all angles, but still decided that it was best to keep Ning Guang in the dark for now. She thought, then said, “It was that resentful ghost of mine, it told me. If you don’t believe me, you can ask it.”

“Then how did it know?” Ning Guang continued to ask.

Di Jiufeng bit her lip and said, “It, it…”

“I’ve been alive for so long, of course I know a lot of things. You probably don’t know, but all of these events already happened long ago. However, the conclusion was too tragic, so someone turned back time, hoping to change the future.” The System and Di Jiufeng were crickets on the same rope. Even if it was afraid of the ancient witch, seeing its host in trouble, it would still bravely step forward.

It let out a string of aloof and mysterious words, all nonsense it spun off the top of its head, it wanted to give itself an award. “I am not sure of the exact details, I only know the general idea. But I do know that in the end, you will kill everyone in the world. Don’t you know, it was all because of you that I was kidnapped to supervise Di Jiufeng in reforming you. Her life should have been easy and comfortable, she wouldn’t have needed to worry about anything other than eating and sleeping.”

The System shamelessly pushed all the blame onto Ning Guang, a derisive expression on its face saying, it’s you, it’s you, it’s all you!

It was like it wasn’t afraid of the ancient witch at all, but that wasn’t what its body hiding in Di Jiufeng’s hair, trembling all over, said.

It was going to be scared into early dementia, but it couldn’t hide, it could not. It was the hero who was going to save Di Jiufeng, it had to step on rosy clouds and dump all the blame on Ning Guang.

“That was what happened. I drew Di Jiufeng to your side in order to deliver all living things from suffering. And, for those other things, I am only a little flunkey, so I know very little, just some of the general outline. And, because of her involvement, lots of things have already changed.”

The System got everything out in a single breath, then curled into a terrified ball.

It wrapped itself securely in six layers of Di Jiufeng’s hair, pretending it was a silkworm metamorphosing into a moth.

It had blocked this huge disaster for Di Jiufeng, it felt thoroughly moved by its own actions, it had to wave a banner for itself.

The System mumbled to itself, you can’t see me, you can’t see me, and Ning Guang had truly fallen into silence for a while. But in the end, it couldn’t hide forever. A cloud of ghostly energy poured over from all directions, scaring it down onto Di Jiufeng’s shoulder. It gave a perfect military salute and called, “Yes master, of course master, what do you have to ask? I will tell you everything I know, everything!”

Its two stick legs shook like shaking chaff, but its obsequious smile was absolutely perfect.

It heard Ning Guang’s slightly lowered voice, with an almost unnoticeable tremble. “Forget it, I don’t want to bicker about the exact state of things. I only want to know, A-Feng, if she succeeds in reforming me, where will she go? If she cannot reform me, what will happen to her?”

The System thought, then said, “If she cannot reform you, of course she will be destroyed along with this world. As for whether you will die, I do not know. After all, you are the ancient witch. But, even if you die, you will reincarnate again, and a new person will come to reform you. But Di Jiufeng will not, she will die, not leaving behind a crumb.

And if she is able to reform you, maybe, perhaps, probably, she will stay.”

She was already missing many mission items, she probably would not be able to collect enough energy to return to reality.

The System didn’t say the last part out loud. After all, most of this was still kept secret from the ancient wich. But, even if the System said this to itself, some hints of unease still sprouted. The one who created the program must have been a pervert, it had learned so many hacker techniques, but it still wasn’t able to decipher the program entirely. There was still a small piece it was entirely unable to crack.

Its intuition as a System told it that this piece must hold something important, something to do with Ning Guang, something to do with Di Jiufeng, something to do with their future.

The System kept those words to itself, and silently reached out a claw to hide its own face.

After hearing its words, Ning Guang did not speak for a long time. Finally, she said with difficulty, “As you say, even if A-Feng can reform me, we still may separate. Then why don’t we die together? After all, if I die and reincarnate again, I wouldn’t remember anything that happened.”

The System put down its claw, opened its eyes wide and said, “Not possible! Even if you don’t do anything, when that day arrives, everything that should happen will still happen, that is the main plotline… uh, the Heavenly Way we speak of. Only if you reverse the final conclusion do you have a chance of breaking through the Heavenly Way and doing everything you want to do.”

Notes:

This chapter was translated by Lily.
One of the idioms in this chapter translates into a long-ass 19 word phrase and there was no way I could smoothly insert it anywhere so here: 曲水流觞, lit. “wine goblet floats upon a winding canal”, refers to a tradition where after the Fuxi ritual ablution ceremony, the participants would float a cup of wine down a waterway, and whoever the cup stopped in front of would drink the wine. This was done to drive away misfortune, and later developed into an elegant scene often described by poets. Here I believe it is just describing a scenery with curling streams upon which such a ritual could occur.