The Male Lead Always Thinks My Script is Wrong - Chapter 16

The corridor offered an unobstructed view, and theoretically, two people couldn’t hide behind a single pillar.

However, the cultivation world had little need for such theories. With a flick of Ji Shinian’s finger, a tobacco pipe magical artifact appeared in Li Moyan’s hand, instantly masking their presence and aura.

“Huh, weren’t there two figures here just a second ago?”

“I thought I saw them too. Did they leave?”

Two people dressed as servants walked to the spot where Ji Shinian had just been sitting, looking around suspiciously.

Of course, with Li Moyan, a Golden Core cultivator, present, they saw nothing.

At such close range, Ji Shinian noticed that although their clothes were similar in style, the one who spoke second wore higher-quality fabric and had a peace talisman hanging from his belt.

Recalling the Xiao family’s financial state, Ji Shinian corrected his first impression: this looked like a master and a servant.

“Maybe our eyes played tricks on us.” After checking the area, the one with the peace talisman spoke again, “I haven’t asked you yet, did you accomplish what Mother ordered?”

“Naturally. I brought back all the money this time. Madam is truly farsighted, that shopkeeper really tried to welsh on the debt, but as soon as I showed him.”

“It’s good that you got it. Go report to Mother. There are too many guests today, and I fear walls have ears. Let’s go.”

Once the man finished speaking, his follower immediately shut his mouth. The two walked silently through the corridor, heading quickly toward the direction Ji Shinian had come from.

“What money?” Once their figures had completely vanished, Ji Shinian released his hand from Li Moyan’s mouth and asked curiously, “Is the Xiao family doing business too?”

“Yes. Noble families usually lease out shops and land to those below them,” Li Moyan said, stowing away his pipe. “But since the previous head… ahem, since the previous head passed away, the Xiao family’s shops and lands have been managed by their own people. How could anyone owe them money?”

The “passing” of the previous head, Xiao Qingjin, was a dignified but misleading turning point. When Xiao Qingjin was alive, she was a person of peerless talent, but during her tenure, she constantly hiked rents and sold off shops and land that no one dared to lease. She consumed the family fortune like a gluttonous beast. Aside from military funds, no one knew where all that extra money went after she died.

One could say the Xiao family’s current predicament was largely the fault of the very head who had brought them so much glory.

However, Xiao Qingjin’s reputation in Phoenix City, and indeed the entire cultivation world, was akin to a legendary hero. Naturally, everyone was willing to grant her a dignified memory.

Ji Shinian’s current character was naturally ignorant of these hidden complexities and the private affairs of celebrities. “You’re asking me? I wanted to ask them! Anyway, this definitely has something to do with the way that woman was looking at me!”

For the first time, Li Moyan looked helpless. “Eldest Miss, perhaps Madam Xiao is simply extending her love for her nephew to you.”

“Did I say I wanted to be part of that family tree?” Ji Shinian crossed his arms and tilted his chin toward the direction the two had left. “Uncle Li, why don’t you go tail them and see what they have to say!”

“I must respectfully refuse. Eldest Miss, my duty right now is to protect you.” Li Moyan bowed, his tone firm.

“Fine, fine, fine.”

The Autumn Appreciation Feast was actually a very frustrating plot point in Slaying the Heavens.

In the book’s timeline, without Ji Shinian’s intervention with the spooked horse, the Ji family’s daughter had returned home early. The Xiao elders invited her to the feast, but in the original story, “Ji Yun” caught a cold and was unable to attend.

Just as the news of Ji Shinian’s attendance had spread through the city in a day, the news of Ji Yun’s absence in the book had also spread everywhere.

Consequently, the male lead, having barely survived his return with his aunt, had to endure insults at the feast from classic “cannon fodder” characters who mocked him for being a “son-in-law living off his wife’s family.”

Under Xiao Qingjin’s absolute rule, the Xiao family had almost no capable elders left. Household affairs were managed by Xiao Qingde. In the book, after she went mad, her husband spent his days wanting to die with her, her son spent his days in tears caring for her, and no one managed the shops.

During this period in the novel, the entire Xiao household ran the male lead ragged with stress. Adding a string of arrogant side characters to the mix had nearly made Ji Shinian drop the book in frustration when he was thirteen.

But now, the aunt was standing perfectly fine, and the “daughter” of the local tycoon had actually arrived.

Ji Shinian stopped at a fork in the road.

I’d better not disturb the male lead’s rare chance to show off. Estimating that the three people from earlier had finished their pleasantries and reached the banquet, Ji Shinian turned toward a different path.

“Is the Eldest Miss not going to the West Garden?”

Ji Shinian waved a hand dismissively. “It’s way too crowded there, it’s annoying.”

As everyone knows, as long as you don’t go wandering into someone’s private rooms while being a guest, it’s not really considered trespassing.

Ji Shinian and Li Moyan took the side path and ran into a few Xiao servants. Hearing that everyone was currently in the West Garden and the back garden was empty, he decided on a “flower viewing” session.

However, when the master and servant arrived, they realized that a place called a “back garden” didn’t necessarily have flowers to view.

The Xiao family’s back garden perfectly matched its fallen and desolate atmosphere. Shrubs and weeds grew in tangled messes, the landscape was withered, and aside from the paths and railings being relatively clean, the occasional pavilions were covered in ivy with drooping, yellowing leaves. It was a sight that could make anyone feel a sense of melancholy.

“No wonder this place is quiet.” Ji Shinian looked at the withered lotuses in the lake, his lips twitching under the veil. “Is the Xiao family so poor they can’t even maintain their own estate?”

The scenery was bleak, yet the furnishings were kept clean and dust-free. It seemed someone was maintaining it, but perhaps due to a lack of manpower or the sheer size of the mansion, the “scenic beauty at every step” pursued by scholars was a goal the Xiao family simply couldn’t reach.

It was currently autumn. As the master and servant stepped into the garden, the autumn wind howled past, rippling the stagnant water and swirling dead leaves. It felt heavy against the chest, and every breath of air was bone-chillingly cold.

When Ji Shinian read the book, the author, Hard to Grind a Ten-Year Sword, only wrote about the male lead dealing with various people and events while the suffering remained constant, which often made readers want to quit and curse. But now that he was physically in the male lead’s environment, it was a completely different feeling.

It was one thing for his life to be tragic, but why was his living situation so miserable too?

As the saying goes, “the fragrance of plum blossoms comes from the bitter cold,” but the “bitter cold” in Slaying the Heavens was truly intended to grind the plum blossoms into dust!

The author was definitely a psychological masochist.

Li Moyan looked at the scenery with disbelief. He turned to Ji Shinian, his tone solemn. “Indeed, I didn’t expect the Xiao family to have fallen to such a state.”

“Let’s go.” Ji Shinian stopped before a rockery, preparing to lead Li Moyan away from this bleak, eerie place, when he heard chaotic footsteps and rowdy voices from the other side.

“Oh? Look who we have here. Isn’t this the great Young Master Xiao Shu?”

“I thought that once you climbed onto the phoenix’s back, you wouldn’t recognize us old buddies anymore?”

Across the rocks, two mocking voices mixed with the sounds of jeering broke out, dripping with malice.

Ji Shinian’s footsteps paused. Li Moyan stopped immediately, his gaze drifting toward the thin veil of his young lady.

This was clearly one of those bullying scenes common in every web novel, and the protagonist of this scene was Xiao Shu, whom Ji Shinian thought was busy being impressive elsewhere.

Is this bullying some kind of mandatory plot point of the Heavenly Dao?

Just as Ji Shinian was questioning his life, Xiao Shu’s voice rose slowly from behind the rocks amidst the malicious laughter.

“Thank you all for your high regard. Since you went to such lengths to invite me here, I assume it wasn’t just to say these things?”

His voice still carried a hint of a smile, his tone gentle and approachable, as if he were constantly bathing others in a holy light.

Ji Shinian got goosebumps hearing it, thinking that if the time and place were different, he would have thought the male lead was talking to a lover.

However, the group didn’t buy the male lead’s gentle attitude. One of them led the charge, saying, “What are you acting for, Young Master Xiao? Didn’t you crawl over like a dog the moment you heard our news?”

“Exactly,” another chimed in, “The money for the shops that Liu Xianzong smashed a few months ago… the Xiao family still hasn’t paid up, have they?”

“Eighty million! we’ve let you run up a tab for so long. Young Master Xiao, you’re only willing to show up now because you’re afraid if we speak out at the feast, your aunt won’t be able to show her face, right? Hahahaha!”

Hearing them speak, Ji Shinian finally recalled the plot from the original book.

These people were from minor noble families in Phoenix City. They were either people who had sucked up to Xiao Qingjin when she was alive and then turned cold and hateful once the Xiao family fell, or they were people who had been oppressed by Xiao Qingjin and saw the Xiao family as a thorn in their side. Or, they were simply jealous that the “fallen” Xiao family could still produce someone like Xiao Shu.

In short, these pests hated the Xiao family, and especially Xiao Shu. The opening of the story described their repeated harassment. This current “debt” was a trap they had carefully laid, tricking Xiao Qingde’s son into damaging some insignificant shops and then inflating the price to extort millions from the male lead.

Of course, in the book, these people kept acting up until the later stages when the male lead destroyed their families. Their endings—becoming human jars, being skinned alive—were stories for later.

After hearing this, Ji Shinian decided he had no intention of rescuing the male lead.

After all, he had been in the web novel world for six years and had read hundreds of Xiao Shu fanfics. According to the tropes, if he stepped in to help, the next chapter would immediately turn into a romance novel where he was the protagonist.

Ji Shinian believed that readers should maintain a healthy distance from the protagonist.

However, before he could take two steps away, the male lead across the rocks fell silent for some reason, and the noble sons began to say things that were increasingly out of line:

“Heh, everyone in Phoenix City knows you’ve landed yourself a good marriage. What, do you think that by clinging to the Ji family, you’re actually someone important now?”

“Yeah, we thought she’d be some refined lady from a prestigious family, but it turns out this Eldest Miss Ji is just a wild chicken flying back from the countryside. She’s actually a mortal! It’s hilarious. A cultivator marrying a mortal… Young Master Xiao, you really are unscrupulous in your efforts to suck up to the Ji family!”

“You’ve got to hand it to Master Xiao. I heard that Miss Ji is like a yaksha coming down from the mountains, so ugly she doesn’t dare show her face. She just entered the Ji residence and started putting on airs. After our little master finishes serving us, he has to go serve a wild—ack!”

The man dragged out his tone, but his eccentric laughter was cut short as if someone had suddenly choked him. An immense pressure descended from above, making his bones creak. He was forced down until he was practically twisted on all fours.

This massive pressure was like Mount Tai pressing down. In an instant, everyone present except for Xiao Shu was forced to the ground, their heads slamming into the earth.

Amidst the sounds of “thud thud thud” as they kowtowed, a purple figure gracefully appeared where they were kneeling. A man followed a step behind her, none other than the famous Golden Core cultivator, Li Moyan!

At this point in time, the only person who could make this trusted aide of the Ji family walk a step behind was, naturally, only that person.

However, it was already too late for them.

“Wild chicken?” Ji Shinian mocked. “I didn’t realize that a bunch of trash who aren’t even worthy of carrying my shoes would be here chatting about me.”