"Aotian, you're awake!"
The blonde girl's pet was also blonde. Ji Shiyu scooped up her contracted spirit beast, the little phoenix chick named Feng Aotion that had been with her the longest, and turned it over in her hands like she was examining a rare treasure.
"That kid is something else," Ji Shiyu murmured.
"I think so too!"
Aotian flapped his stubby wings, his voice full of agreement.
"I don't know if it's just my imagination," the little phoenix chick said, "but I think he noticed me just now."
The little phoenix chick tilted his head. His feathers were a vivid flame-gold, but his eyes were round and confused, and his clumsy posture didn't really match such a fierce name.
"How is that possible?" Ji Shiyu frowned. "You're already a second stage Phoenix Spirit, comparable to a peak Foundation Establishment cultivator, while he's still at the ninth stage of Qi Refining… or rather, with his Qi Sea cracked, he might have fallen to the eighth, maybe even the seventh stage."
"Who knows?" Aotian clicked his beak. "That kid's soul is exceptionally powerful, perhaps even stronger than mine. He doesn't feel like a sixteen-year-old Qi Refining junior at all."
Ji Shiyu froze. She knew Feng Aotian's background. What kind of human could compare to a Nine Heavens Phoenix Chick in terms of soul power?
"Really? The soul is far harder to temper than cultivation," she said quietly. "It only grows stronger over long periods of time. Without rare materials and absurd encounters, it's absolutely impossible. Unless…"
"Unless he is the chosen one of the Eastern Continent," Aotian finished.
His words made Ji Shiyu's eyes light up with sudden excitement, but after a while she still shook her head.
"Impossible. That's too unlucky. What kind of chosen one has his Qi Sea destroyed right at the start?"
"It's hard to say," Aotian said lazily. "The fortune of the Nine Provinces is extremely mysterious. Blessings and disasters intertwined around each other. A smooth path on the road to enlightenment is not necessarily a good thing. Turning misfortune into fortune is quite common."
Ji Shiyu's lips curved. "Then I'm really lucky. I found a destined one the moment I arrived here."
"Aren't you also the chosen one of Star Island?" Aotian snorted. "Your luck has always been ridiculous. And don't forget, chosen ones attract each other."
The Master and spirit beast exchanged looks, golden hair and golden feathers shining in the light. Their eyes gleamed, and for a moment, they even looked like they were about to drool.
The fortune of the Nine Provinces was priceless to the two of them. Faced with something like that, they would rather mistakenly rope in the wrong person than let the right one slip away.
"We've struck gold this time," Aotian said. "That young couple is no ordinary pair. One has the potential to become a top-grade Flame Empress with exceptional spiritual roots, and the other has an extraordinary divine sense and a clear Dao heart. Both are worth watching. Let's wait and see. If Yun Liu can safely survive this tribulation, he's definitely not someone to underestimate. He's very likely one of the people you're looking for."
Ji Shiyu's journey to the Eastern Continent had two main purposes: to train at the Divine Favor Sect and to seek out the destiny and fortune prophesied to appear here. That was her main quest.
At first, Aotian had sensed something from Xiao Xinran and thought she might be the one. Now he wasn't so sure.
Meanwhile, the person being discussed had no idea what the blonde pair were plotting. He didn't know that they had their eyes set not only on the main heroine, but also refused to let go of the so-called "victim."
In the evergreen courtyard of the Yun residence, a lone figure sat cross-legged on a stone platform, breathing slowly and steadily.
Yun Liu sank his mind inward, letting his spiritual sense sweep through the meridians in his body. In the depths of his dantian, his Qi Sea appeared as a swirling vortex… with a jagged crack running through it. The spiritual energy of heaven and earth that he had painstakingly refined over the years seeped away through that crack, dispersing bit by bit.
If Ji Shiyu was the chosen one, then Yun Liu was the cursed one. Ever since he first crossed paths with that so-called protagonist, nothing good had happened to him.
His Qi Sea had shattered, his mentality had collapsed, the attitudes of everyone around him had shifted overnight. He'd been mocked by fellow disciples, expelled from the inner sect of the Divine Favor Sect, and his fiancée had left him for another woman.
In the original story, it only got worse. His master owed the blonde heroine a huge favor, and in the end, it was only by cashing in that debt that he managed to obtain a Rejuvenation Pill at the last moment to save Yun Liu's life.
But by then, it was already too late.
His cultivation had plummeted all the way down to the first stage of Qi Refining. His Dao heart was shattered, his future ruined, and his spirit broken. Even if his life was saved, he would never be able to rise again.
After that, Ji Shiyu and Xiao Xinran steadily built their foundations and began to shine with the brilliance of women destined for greatness.
The two of them soared, while he sank. A simple "I'm sorry" was enough to dissolve the engagement.
The victim had only ever been a tool to move the plot forward. Because he was an inner disciple, he served as the one who led the two heroines to Divine Favor Academy, where they would truly begin their rise.
After that, his cultivation and status in the sect dropped again and again. He could only swallow his grievances, accept being cuckolded, get kicked out of the main cast, and finally fade into the background as a minor NPC at Divine Favor Sect.
To Ji Shiyu, the fallen youth was nothing more than a side quest used to boost Xiao Xinran's favorability and the goodwill of the other heroines. Once the numbers went up, he was forgotten.
Now, things were different.
They could play out as many dramatic arcs as they wanted, as long as they did not drag him into it. Yun Liu had no intention of lining up to be a prop again.
Based on what he knew so far, his situation was not completely hopeless. The "Cloudflow Soul Fusion" that had fused his two sets of memories together had also brought him an extremely powerful sea of consciousness.
If he focused his mind and pushed his perception outward, he could feel the world with a clarity that had nothing to do with cultivation realm. It was like standing above the city, gazing down at every street.
He didn't know what level his spiritual consciousness counted as in this world, but he was fairly sure of one thing: with a soul like this, going back to his "old profession" should not be a problem. Refining a third-grade spiritual pill following the guides in his memory was well within reach.
After all, in that 100% completion save file from his previous life, every heroine had been raised by his own hands. He had cleared all their routes, dug out all their hidden missions and secret adventures. Protagonist halo or not, when it came to supporting roles, he was the real final boss.