Chapter 7: Snow Path

Shi Ruijie's third transmigration dream ended as soon as it started.

Upon entering the book, he found himself stabbing a beautiful young woman in dark red and black robes with a straight sword. As she fell to the ground, he rushed to her side and cradled her in his arms. Wincing and bearing the excruciating pain, she mustered her remaining strength to extract the bloodied sword from her abdomen before handing it over to Shi Ruijie. Coughing and sputtering fresh crimson blood, she managed a weak smile as she cruelly whispered: "Xiao Yang, I love you."

Shi Ruijie watched in shock and horror as the life drained from her familiar eyes. He couldn't tear his gaze away from the stiff and frozen expression that remained on her familiar face. He recognised that face.

His host body held the still-warm body close to his chest and screamed towards the grey and gloomy skies.

It was her. It was her. And it was also her.

Princess Yong'an, Zhu Lirong, Qian Siyu. They all looked the same!

For some reason, he was unable to recall their faces when he was conscious, but now that he was dreaming, their faces were crystal clear in his memories.

Princess Yong'an, Zhu Lirong and the woman in his arms were clearly book characters who did not appear to be controlled by Qian Siyu. How was it possible that they all looked like her? Unless... the author Yu Juan was acquainted with Qian Siyu and had written her into her stories as minor side characters?

Shi Ruijie watched helplessly as his host body, Xiao Yang, plunged the sword into his own body.

Seconds later, he was lying down on a battlefield with a straight sword embedded in his abdomen, gasping for air. The sounds of shouting and swords clanging faded into the background as flashes of Xiao Yang's life appeared before his eyes. It was like clips of a movie adaptation of Snow Path. The events of the book played out from Xiao Yang's perspective.

Xiao Yang was the main protagonist of this story. He was a neglected prince of the ruling dynasty, whose mother was a concubine who had passed away from an illness. He was smuggled out of the palace by a servant and brought to Mount Canghua, At Canghua Manor, he met with the top cultivators of the cultivation world, Master Xue and Teacher Wang.

Master Xue was the owner of Canghua Manor and had a daughter, Xue Qianyu. Teacher Wang was a guest at Canghua Manor and knew Xiao Yang's mother, and so he took Xiao Yang in as his disciple after seeing that he had a good foundation for cultivation. Teacher Wang also had a son, Wang Zirong, who was a disciple at Canghua Manor.

Xiao Yang, Xue Qianyu and Wang Zirong grew up together like siblings. However, Xiao Yang had a secret crush on Xue Qianyu. On one fateful day that changed their lives forever, Xiao Yang and Xue Qianyu left the sect to investigate an anomaly that happened near the village. They were ambushed by members of the evil Moon Valley sect that had been controlling members of the royal family. In the attack, Xue Qianyu ended up being kidnapped by the attackers.

Snow Path began with Xiao Yang and Wang Zirong embarking on a journey to search for their missing younger sister. Along the way, Xiao Yang and Wang Zirong encountered various events and situations that would cause them to be separated, reunited, and separated again, with each of them having their own missions to perform. On one of his solo journey, Xiao Yang met the female protagonist of Snow Path, who took a liking to him.

However, Xiao Yang was still pining after Xue Qianyu and sought long and hard for traces of her. Eventually, he found her, but to his dismayed discovered that she had joined the Moon Valley Sect, with no memories of him. After a fight and wounding him, Xue Qianyu escaped; but he would encounter her again and again. Each time he encountered her, Xiao Yang found that his affection and longing for her grew deeper and stronger.

At the climax of the story, the battle against the Moon Valley Sect took place. During the fight, Xue Qianyu sacrificed herself to help Xiao Yang. That way, the Moon Valley Sect would no longer be able to use his weakness against him. Heartbroken and overcame by grief, Xiao Yang tried to kill himself with the same sword.

As someone who had read the whole book, Shi Ruijie knew that Xiao Yang didn't die. He was saved by Wang Zirong and the female protagonist, with whom he would later fall in love with.

But right now, Shi Ruijie had woken up from the dream the moment Xiao Yang lost consciousness. It was the shortest nightmare that he had, but it left him rather upset.

Qian Siyu's revenge on him had started out strong, only to finish with a weak tragic love story?

Hah, he was going to show her what it meant to execute proper revenge.

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Qian Siyu stood in front of a glass door with a heavy heart. A few days ago, she received an email from Shibao Pavilion, informing her that her application for permission to access the museum library had been approved, and that she just needed to make an appointment before showing up at the museum. Following the instructions in the email, she wondered why the museum's decision was reversed. Could it be because of the evil things that she had done to torment Shi Ruijie?

She shook her head to rid the guilty thoughts.

No, what she did was pretty harmless. It was just to teach him a lesson. It was not as if he had died in all three dreams — those characters were merely badly injured.

Perhaps she ought to apologise to Shi Ruijie after she was done with her research paper. He seemed like a nice and benevolent person. Despite the mean things that she had done to him, he still approved her application. But maybe it was his conscience that told him to do it?

Whatever the case, she managed to get the permit that she had wanted. Waiting behind these doors was an A+ grade!

Pushing open the doors, Qian Siyu was greeted by a rush of warm air which carried the comforting scents of wood and vanilla, with an underlying mustiness. The librarian at the counter by the entrance took a look at her approval letter before directing her to the location of the books she was looking for—half of them were microfilmed but the rest required careful handling of the original antiquated books. Thanking the librarian, Qian Siyu found a seat by the window and quickly got to work. She had only three days to go through all the books required for her research... hopefully that would be sufficient time.

On the first two days that she spent camping in the museum library, Qian Siyu noticed that there were a few individuals who were just like her—poring over the books and noting down their findings somewhere. She had even ran into a professor who had taught her in her freshmen year. However, at the end of the third day, Qian Siyu suddenly realised that apart from her lunch break at the museum's cafe, she had not encountered a single soul since the moment she stepped into the library that day. There was no librarian at the front counter, no security guard by the entrance and no other visitors.

Although the library had always been quiet, there were always still sounds coming from the air-conditioners; but that was not the case right now. Qian Siyu looked around the shelves behind her, the hairs on the back of her neck slowly rising. She shuddered.

Something felt amiss: as if there were eyes on her. Before she knew it, her hands were busily piling up the reference books and packing up her belongings that were scattered about the table. Her legs shook as she stood. She wasn't sure if it was because she had been sitting down all day, or if it was because of the irrational nervousness coursing through her.

"Thank goodness I've gotten everything that I need," she murmured to herself as she slung her tote bag over one shoulder and hauled the stack of thick books up into her arms. Talking to herself did gave her some courage, but it wasn't much.

Placing the books onto the nearest book trolley, Qian Siyu hurried towards the exit. As she neared the exit, the lights in the library suddenly flickered twice before the whole place plunged into darkness. Yelping, she glanced down at her phone: 7:00 PM.

The library closed at 7 sharp every evening, but the lights were never automatically turned off like this!

Qian Siyu immediately dashed towards the glass doors, fearing that they could be locked. As the door swung open, she heaved a sigh of relief before stumbling out of the library. However, her relief lasted only a split second, for she stumbled not into the coolness of a late winter night but a serene and beautiful summer day.

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