The Male Lead Always Thinks My Script is Wrong - Chapter 6

Faint light flowed within the temple. The headless Fazhu statue loomed over them like a silent mountain. Chi Li lay huddled in Hong Luan’s arms, but before she could speak, a wisp of flute music drifted through the quiet night.

The melody was intermittent, yet its weeping, lingering notes felt as if they had traveled across a thousand mountains and rivers, only to float directly beside their ears.

“Snapping Willow…” Li Moyan gazed out the door, lost in thought. “Who is playing the flute out there?”

It was a rare moment for him to speak, but the others didn’t have the chance to pay him any mind.

Hong Luan, who had been gentle and attentive just a moment ago, looked as though she had been struck by lightning. Her body jolted, and her expression flickered through a chaotic mix of profound sorrow and sudden relief.

Guided by the music, she released Chi Li and stood up.

“Stop right there!”

Her movement completely triggered Chi Li. The girl no longer looked weak or pitiful; her face twisted into a mask of horror that rivaled the ghosts of legend. She lunged upward, trying to grab Hong Luan in a fit of rage. “What are you doing? You aren’t allowed to abandon me! You aren’t!”

However, Ji Shinian’s previous spiritual strike was no joke. Such a violent movement caused Chi Li to cough up another mouthful of blood. Unable to even catch the hem of Hong Luan’s dress, she collapsed back onto the floor.

Xiao Shu remained as calm and gentle as ever. He offered Hong Luan a soft smile. “Don’t be in such a hurry, Miss. Listening to a flute in the middle of the night, isn’t that a refined pleasure?”

He spoke with an air of pure elegance, looking every bit the refined gentleman, despite the fact that his words were like poison to the heart of the person he was addressing.

Watching Chi Li, who was vomiting blood again and pointing at Xiao Shu in wordless fury, Ji Shinian actually felt a twinge of pity for her.

Xiao Shu really was a “White Lotus” in full bloom—fragrant, beautiful, and absolutely lethal.

The two women, one raging and the other moving in silence, had made quite a scene, but Hong Luan didn’t pause for a second. Or rather, from the moment the flute began, Chi Li ceased to exist in her eyes.

Hong Luan stepped over the threshold, standing still under the hazy moonlight. The night wind felt like a traveler returning home, carrying the rustle of distant valleys and forests. It harmonized with the flute, rushing into her embrace.

The music stopped abruptly. Everything went silent. The woman, slender yet standing tall, turned around. In her hand, a jade-green flute had appeared out of nowhere.

“Heh… heh…”

The girl on the floor no longer had the strength to speak. She stared fixedly at the flute in Hong Luan’s hand. Black energy began to pour from her body, and her frame suddenly shot up in height. Her bones made a sickening, cracking sound, and her sweet, lovable face dissolved like paper meeting water.

When she stood up again, she had transformed into a stunning, blood-clothed woman.

“Why?” Her eyes were bloodshot as she glared at the flute. “You’re dead! Dead! And yet you still choose those two animals!”

“Why don’t you answer me? Why?!” Seeing Hong Luan’s silence, Chi Li suddenly lunged toward Ji Shinian. “It’s all your fault! If you hadn’t brought that horse… was that beast also something you sent?!”

No, actually, Ji Shinian thought. He’s just a dedicated actor looking for his horse!

But Chi Li couldn’t hear his thoughts. Having shed her innocent disguise, her long, slender fingers were now tipped with thick black energy. Her claws tore through the air like a gale, aimed straight for Ji Shinian’s life!

However, when the devil rises a foot, the Tao rises a yard. Before Chi Li’s claws could reach Ji Shinian’s face, they were blocked by a dark blue tobacco pipe.

Li Moyan had clearly learned from his fight with the corpse-puppet. His spiritual energy was thick and pure, and one swing of his weapon knocked Chi Li’s hand aside.

The impact sent the surrounding veils fluttering.

Li Moyan’s face was as dark as a soot-stained pot. “A traitor to the path dares to strike at our Young Mistress?”

Perfect. Ji Shinian blinked. Sensing Xiao Shu’s gaze on him, he met Chi Li’s eyes with practiced composure. “Exactly. Did you think a Golden Core guard from the Ji family was just for show?”

He couldn’t help but marvel: Uncle Li is so reliable!

If he had been relying on his own actual attendants, he probably would have had to let his puppet-body “die” and leave the stage early today.

He took a moment to vent his own grievances. “Besides, how were we supposed to know our horse would run off to your place?”

He had only scared the “Dark Iron” horse a bit when he blew up the carriage. Who knew that when they met again, it would have become a gentle transport for these two women? In this regard, Ji Shinian felt truly innocent.

“A traitor to the path…” Chi Li laughed as if she’d heard a joke, ignoring Ji Shinian entirely.

She pulled her hand back and pointed at Hong Luan, her tone shifting sharply. “What does that matter? If she hadn’t broken her promise, would I have ended up like this?” Her voice grew more mocking. “You can pretend not to hear me, but you’re the one who promised to watch over me forever and ever!”

“I went through so much trouble to get the chance for us to be together, but even in death, you’re giving up on me!”

Ji Shinian listened to the heart-wrenching scream. Just as he suspected the woman with the flute outside was about to ascend to heaven in silence, Hong Luan finally spoke in response to the classic “scumbag” accusation.

“Stop talking.” She didn’t step back into the temple, but looked at Chi Li calmly through the rotting, blackened door frame. “Miss, I never gave up on you.”

“My life was given to me by you. Since I can remember, I have followed your every wish, protecting your smile and your innocence. Not a single day I lived was for myself; it was all for you.”

“But now that I am dead…” Hong Luan spoke slowly, her jaw trembling uncontrollably. After a moment, she seemed to find her strength again. “I want to be a little bit selfish.”

“I must go back.”

The woman’s voice wasn’t loud—it was almost gentle—but Chi Li turned deathly pale upon hearing it. It was as if every word Hong Luan spoke was a slow blade flaying her alive.

“No, no…” Chi Li shook her head, her face a distorted mask of pain and rage. “What right do you have to be selfish? I saved you! It was me! This is a debt of lifetimes! How can it be wiped clean just because you died?!”

Ji Shinian really wanted to point out that if logic worked that way, Satan could probably enslave the whole world just by “saving” people.

But clearly, this wasn’t a conversation he could join. Hong Luan had been trying to control her trembling, but at Chi Li’s words, she suddenly froze.

The Dark Iron horse let out a mournful neigh. Hong Luan gripped the flute tightly and eventually let out a long sigh.

“Very well,” she said, raising the flute to her lips. “Please forgive my selfishness.”

“No!” Seeing this, Chi Li tried to fly toward the figure outside. But the moment she moved, she was bound by invisible threads in the air, rendered motionless. She could only watch as Hong Luan began to play.

It was the same familiar tune, “Snapping Willow.” As the woman played by the window, her thin red dress seemed to melt into the night wind. On the other side, the woman in red screamed in fury, struggling with every ounce of her strength.

The next moment, the ground beneath them shook violently without warning! The entire temple creaked under an unbearable weight, and dust rained down from the rafters.

“What’s happening?!” Li Moyan cried out, grabbing Ji Shinian. “Miss, don’t let go!”

Ji Shinian nodded, using his other hand to hold down his fluttering bamboo hat.

“This illusion was likely built upon Hong Luan’s painful memories. Now that the ‘protagonist’ wants to wake up, the illusion can no longer sustain itself.”

Xiao Shu spoke suddenly. He had already stood up, his words clear and rapid. Despite the violent shaking, the youth stood as straight as a tree, exuding an air of calm in the face of danger.

Still posing? Ji Shinian silently looked away. Comparing the wobbling Li Moyan and himself to the perfectly poised Xiao Shu, he felt his inner “dog” was being far too kind with its insults.

As the earthquake intensified, Hong Luan’s figure began to fade, and the world outside the temple blurred. The entire structure felt like a small boat tossed in a stormy sea.

Chi Li ignored the chaos. She finally broke free from the invisible restraints and lunged toward Hong Luan, but the other woman’s shadow vanished instantly.

“Chi Li!”

“How could she…” Li Moyan was mid-sentence when Ji Shinian felt the ground give way. The floor of the temple rippled like water, and they all plunged downward into the collapse!

Warm, copper-smelling water rushed in from all sides. Ji Shinian kept his eyes open, watching Li Moyan, who refused to let go of him. He performed a “panicked and helpless” struggle for good measure.

Visibility in the water was low. He couldn’t see Xiao Shu or Chi Li anymore; even Li Moyan was just a vein-lined arm holding onto him.

He could feel Li Moyan struggling to pull him upward, but a strange force in the water kept dragging them deeper.

Just as he calculated that a normal person would have run out of breath, the dragging force vanished. Li Moyan pulled his puppet-body upward, and they finally broke the surface.

“Miss!” Li Moyan’s anxious voice rang out. Ji Shinian delivered a performance that was perhaps the best of his life, coughing violently.

Clutching his chest, he slowly looked up. He and his loyal servant were in a dim, secret passage. Behind them was a shallow, still pool of water.

“It’s my fault. I didn’t bring any Water-Repelling Talismans this time…” Seeing his state, Li Moyan hurriedly pulled out a white pill. “This is a low-grade spirit pill; even mortals can take it. Miss, would you like to try it?”

“Th… thank you, cough.” Ji Shinian didn’t refuse. He swallowed the pill and felt wisps of spiritual energy drifting through his limbs. He pretended to feel a bit better. “Uncle Li, don’t blame yourself. If that person hadn’t suddenly gone mad, we wouldn’t be in this mess!”

A perfect, tsundere response that maintains the relationship!

Li Moyan didn’t notice anything strange. He helped Ji Shinian to a corner to sit down and frowned at the water they came from. “If I’ve guessed correctly, this should be the ‘True Illusion’ that was hidden beneath the collapsing outer layer. But Chi Li just called Zhou Hong Luan ‘Chi Li’…”

“Isn’t it obvious? In a world of truth and lies, those two probably swapped identities from the very beginning.”

The puppet-body couldn’t feel the cold, but Ji Shinian hugged himself anyway as a disguise. His mind drifted back to the last thing he saw as they fell.

The woman who was likely the real Chi Li—the one acting as Hong Luan, had looked at him in the final moment. Her lips moved, and Ji Shinian saw her mouth four words with absolute clarity.

“Benefactor, thank you.”

He had suspected a connection between the half-demon corpse-puppet and the demoness Chi Li before, but “Hong Luan’s” behavior toward him had been bizarre. Now his initial hunch was confirmed, but why did the real Chi Li thank him?

Was it really just because he played the “good person” first and got the exclusive reward?

Ji Shinian sighed inwardly, his thoughts getting tangled. Unable to figure it out, he turned back to his character role. “What do you mean by a ‘True Illusion’?”

Li Moyan pulled out a fire talisman. A spiritual flame ignited in the air without fuel, and he dutifully began to explain.

“A realm of false images is called an illusion. You may have read books about Mirage Demons and their thousands of transformations; that is their innate talent. But when ordinary people or demons create an illusion, the scope is limited by their power. Creating a small world is common, but to populate it with millions of living beings requires the power of a Great Master.”

“Therefore, to hide the truth, illusions not made by Mirage Demons usually have a layer of ‘False Illusion.’ To save effort, these false layers are usually built from someone’s memories, just like the one we were in.”

Toasted by the fire, Ji Shinian began to relax. He listened to things he already knew, but for once, he felt a genuine spark of curiosity.

His veil had been lost somewhere in the water during his performance. He rested his head on his knees, the firelight dancing in his eyes. “Uncle Li, if that’s the case, does the owner of the memories always suffer as much as Chi Li did?”

“Not necessarily,” Li Moyan said, tapping his pipe. “Most people who drown themselves in memories do so to escape pain, after all.”

“And another thing…”

Li Moyan’s gaze fell on Ji Shinian. “Truth and lies… it seems the Young Mistress can tell them apart quite clearly.”

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