After My Thoughts Were Read, My Master Led Me to Change My Fate - Chapter 15

Luo Sheng  had spent her childhood wandering between various bridge underpasses and ruined temples, so she had absolutely no concept of such matters. She could only quietly hold her rice bowl and listen to the two of them scheme.

Although Liu Ruoying  had entered the Outer Sect early, her family was relatively wealthy. The things she could think of were all rather expensive. After racking her brains, she finally came up with an inexpensive idea, “Why don’t you carve a pendant for Elder Ran?”

Ning Songwu blinked, “That’s a good idea. Where would I get the money to buy jade?”

Liu Ruoying, “Doesn’t Martial Aunt give you a monthly allowance?”

Little Ning shrank her shoulders, “It’s just the two of us on the peak. We don’t worry about food or clothes, so I never thought about asking for pocket money.”

“Do both of you get one?”

Luo Sheng silently held up two fingers.

“Twenty taels a month? That’s not bad…”

Luo Sheng corrected her, “Two hundred taels a month.”

Ning Songwu tallied it up on her fingers. That’s roughly forty thousand [in modern currency] a month.

Oh, my goodness…

The two then looked at the exceptionally proper young lady of a prominent family. She sighed softly, “One hundred and fifty taels a month, I suppose. After all, there are many people on the peak, and the income from going out to see patients belongs to us, but I’ve been with you two lately, so I don’t have much of that income.”

Little Ning raised her hand to clutch her heart. What kind of hard life am I living!

“When I go back, I’ll have to ask for a monthly allowance too.”

Liu Ruoying nodded, “You definitely should. I asked around about that auction you mentioned to me earlier. You need to pay fifty taels of silver to get in, which is refunded later. As for the defensive spiritual artifact set you were interested in…” She held up a finger, “The starting bid is ten thousand taels, with a minimum increment of one hundred taels each time.”

“If you want to secure it, you’ll need at least thirty thousand taels prepared.”

Ning Songwu drank a mouthful of hot water, trembling, and lamented, “It might be more than that.”

She remembered that in the original novel, someone was still bidding when Lin Yuxue  raised the price to eight hundred thousand taels. Although she planned to be a bit shameless this time, the price might not be low.

Finally, Liu Ruoying considered, “Otherwise, why don’t you channel your spiritual power and make something that can change the ambient temperature to give to Elder Ran?”

Luo Sheng nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly.

[Sure enough, the gifts everyone gives their teachers ultimately can’t escape a hand warmer, a U-shaped neck pillow, or flowers?]

Ran Fanyin looked up. Her disciple was standing at the doorway, clutching a small pillow-like object, her face full of hesitation. Only when she was discovered did she firm up a little and shove the small, soft pillow into Ran Fanyin’s hand.

“Master, wait a moment,” Ning Songwu said, forming a hand seal. The mark left on the pillow gently flickered, emitting a faint white light.

After a long while, Ran Fanyin heard the little one ask, practically through gritted teeth, “Master, do you feel any warmer?”

After figuring out what the young girl was trying to do, Ran Fanyin rarely laughed so heartily. She pulled the red string to bring her disciple closer and asked gently, “What is this Venerable One’s spiritual root attribute?”

“Heaven-grade Fire…”

Ran Fanyin patted the young girl’s shoulder, “If you want to cultivate the art of temperature control, I will naturally teach you once you reach the Golden Core stage.”

Ning Songwu deflated, not knowing what to give her now.

I can’t possibly really sew a U-shaped pillow, can I?

But since Master can control temperature, why does she always catch a cold from a slight breeze? Only through careful attention these past few weeks, keeping her from the wind, has she gotten a little better.

Innate feebleness of the heart and lungs, insufficient function—how is it feeble, and how insufficient is it?

Ning Songwu couldn’t figure it out, but there were more important things at hand.

Taking advantage of the break, she told the other two that this path wouldn’t work, asking if there were any other options.

Liu Ruoying was also perplexed. The feasible ideas she could think of now all seemed impossible. What should they do?

Seeing both of them deep in thought, Luo Sheng straightened her back and said, “I have an idea.”

Luo Sheng cleared her throat, “How about, Ning Songwu, you make a meal for Elder Ran?”

“When Master makes food for me, I feel very, very happy.”

The young girl’s eyes sparkled, as if she were talking about her own treasure. She even nodded at the end, adding weight to her own words.

Liu Ruoying looked at the one lost in thought and gently nudged her, “Can you cook? The Laba Festival is approaching. Want to try it?”

“Elder Sister is right. I also think that Laba… Laba congee can’t possibly kill anyone, right?”

Ning Songwu caught the key phrase and sneered, “I am the oldest. Why don’t I hear you call me Elder Sister? You don’t even call me Senior Sister.”

Luo Sheng cleared her throat twice, silently lowering her head to eat her rice, pretending not to hear.

Ning Songwu let out a short laugh, “I suddenly thought of a great gift, A-Sheng (阿笙)~”

“Wh- what is it?”

“Why don’t you pluck some of your fur for me? I’m no good at cooking, but I can knit a scarf.”

Don’t ask. If you do, the answer is an idle female university student. In my first year, I followed the trend and bought needles and thread, intending to knit a scarf for myself. I only knitted for a little over a week.

Actually, giving her the needle and thread might also be a good idea.

Luo Sheng subconsciously covered her tail, twisting her body to lean toward Liu Ruoying, “What are you doing? I’m a gray fox, it wouldn’t look good.”

Hearing this, Ning Songwu’s eyes widened, “Huh? You’re gray fur? Not red fur?”

Luo Sheng looked very confused, “If I were red fur, wouldn’t I be of the pure Demon King lineage? Why would I be wandering outside?”

Strange. This is another area that conflicts with the original novel.

After Ning Songwu returned to the peak, she burrowed into the study and didn’t come out until the night was deep.

However, the inner voice, which couldn’t keep a secret, didn’t stop. Ran Fanyin knew what she was doing. She adjusted the schedule for her disciple’s cultivation tasks for the day and said nothing more.

[How can there be so many conflicts with the original book?]

She held her pen, itemizing the differences between the current situation and the original plot since the story began.

First was Luo Sheng. She was neither the Heaven-grade Water Spiritual Root written in the book nor a red-furred fox. However, this character barely appeared in the early stages of the original novel, so perhaps she had some unexpected adventure midway through.

Could such an adventure happen? To allow someone to jump directly from a Middle-grade Water Spiritual Root to a Heaven-grade, and even change their fur color?

Next was Lin Yuxue, the Female Lead. She had easily changed too much of the plot.

She now suspected that there must be something about the Female Lead’s character that the author didn’t write, or didn’t write in detail. Her obsession with becoming Ran Fanyin’s disciple was a little too strange.

She had considered another possibility—that the Female Lead was being forcibly influenced by the plot to act this way.

But if that were the case, the next three people couldn’t be explained.

She and Liu Ruoying could be considered cannon fodder who escaped a disaster and thus broke free from the plot. But what about Elder Ran, her dearest Master? How could one explain this person, whose character design was so unlike the original?

[Innate feebleness of the heart and lungs.]

[Prone to illness.]

[And constantly rejecting the Female Lead’s advances…]

She summoned the subtitles in her mind and looked at the ending for the few of them again. Besides Liu Ruoying’s changing to “doubtful,” Luo Sheng still returned to the demon clan to become king, and she and Ran Fanyin still ended in death.

In reality, she could check it eight hundred times a day, like those two days in her past life when she checked her final exam grades, knowing the result was set but constantly refreshing, hoping for a turning point.

But the plot hadn’t even developed yet. Several plot points hadn’t even occurred. How could a change happen?

Ning Songwu propped up her head, poking her cheek with the pen barrel, looking at the paper in difficulty.

In the original novel, Lin Yuxue would give Ran Fanyin a very lavish gift on her birthday. The author didn’t specify what it was, only writing about Elder Ran’s reaction.

The usually cold person also softened her expression that day and allowed Lin Yuxue to rest for a day. It was likely not a meager gift and was very much liked by Elder Ran.

Ning Songwu was a little afraid that Lin Yuxue would present that gift again and then pull Ran Fanyin back onto the track of the plot development.

Not just for the sake of her own life and death…

Ning Songwu curled up her legs and hugged herself, her gaze fixed on that name.

She didn’t want her beautiful Master to walk the path in the plot—clearly a righteous person, yet branded with the title of a villain, and finally dying so ridiculously.

When facing her, those phoenix eyes were always filled with a faint smile, little by little melting into her heart.

[I think I really kind of like her.]

[Is it… a little absurd to fall for a character in a book?]

Ning Songwu softly sighed, temporarily turning the page on this matter.

Her cultivation was too low, and her spiritual sense wasn’t strong either. She naturally didn’t notice the person standing outside the door, nor did she hear that light sigh.

The hand resting on the door hesitated repeatedly, finally pulling back, and the woman in purple left this small corner of the world with it.

Ning Songwu hesitated for a long time, eventually stuffing the pages she had covered in writing into the bottom layer of the bookshelf.

She hadn’t fully adapted to life here yet, most obviously reflected in her handwriting. While her handwriting was good, she wrote in modern simplified characters, which seemed quite out of place here.

If others saw it, it would likely bring trouble, but after all, she had painstakingly written it all night, and destroying it felt a bit unbearable.

After much thought, hiding it in a crevice was the best option.

Not long after she left, the woman in purple approached with extremely light footsteps. She raised her hand and retrieved the papers that the girl thought she had hidden well, holding them in her hand.

However…

Ran Fanyin fought a long ideological battle with herself, considering it repeatedly, and finally stuffed the papers back into their original spot, exactly as they were.

Forget it. It’s pitiful enough that Ning Songwu’s thoughts can be heard by her. Whatever is written on this paper, it’s a rare little secret for little Ning’er to keep.

I won’t be the spoilsport.