Chapter 8: Snow Path: Reboot

In her childhood, holidays in the Qian family mostly meant going on a trip to China to visit Qian Siyu's paternal grandparents or to visit her mother's ancestral home. They would stay with her maternal grandaunt's family in the suburbs where she would mostly explore the old Wen mansion with her younger sister.

She recalled that when she was ten, she found a room in some corner of the compound filled with boxes and chests, covered in a thick layer of dust. However, somewhere in the middle of the room, there was a small jewellery box that looked clean and polished. Curious, Qian Siyu and her sister opened the box, only to find a notebook with old yellowed pages inside.

The notebook turned out to be an old diary, belonging to a person named Wen Ning. To a young and impressionistic Qian Siyu, the diary entries read more like a fantasy novel. It detailed accounts of a girl's apprenticeship at a place known as Wanshu Tower, which was more than just a private library. The owner of the diary was sent by her clan to study something known as the art of transmigration into books. However, before she had completed her apprenticeship, she discovered that her clan had surrendered their library over to Shibao Pavilion due to an incident that shook up their community, leaving her with nowhere to return to. In the end, she could only return home and cut off all contact with an organisation known as the Association of Private Libraries.

Having read the intriguing secrets of the art of transmigration which Wen Ning had penned down in her secret diary decades ago, Qian Siyu secretly followed the instructions and somehow managed to learn it. After years of practice, she finally mastered it but had never dared to use it, until she heard of an upperclassman known as Shi Ruijie.

He was the current chairman of the mysterious and exclusive Association of Private Libraries.

He was part of the Shi family clan—the family that caused her maternal ancestors to be expelled from that association due to that incident. Wen Ning's diary did not provide details on what that incident was, but it was clear that the Shi family had a part to play.

Qian Siyu knew that grudges from past generations should have nothing to do with the current one. But as a history major, the mystery of her family's history was something she had to investigate. As such, she thought of ways to interact with Shi Ruijie, but encountering him at school was more difficult than achieving straight As. Eventually, she gave up and decided that it was not worth her time.

That was until she learnt of Shibao Pavilion's research library when preparing for her thesis. It was an avenue to kill two birds with one stone — she would be able to do her research and get closer to Shi Ruijie.

But what she didn't expect was that he had sounded so condescending and unsympathetic. It was as if he knew of her roots and had automatically blacklisted her. But, surely she was being overly sensitive. And in her overly sensitive state, she had drank a little alcoholic beverage with her best friend and roommate as they trash talked Shi Ruijie in their dormitory. Which led her, when she was low in sobriety, to send three books that were written by an acquaintance to Shi Ruijie. Those books would cause him to transmigrate into characters with tragic stories. That would teach him a lesson to mess with her. That would teach the Shi clan a lesson for bullying her ancestors.

Somehow, it must have worked since Shi Ruijie seemed to have a change of heart. Not only did he approve her application, but also did not confront for what she had done to him. His lack of anger or retaliation unnerved her and pricked her conscience. Her actions warranted some sort of punishment. Wen Ning had written in her diary that the art of transmigration was not to be used for evil but for good. Perhaps, after she had had her way, it was time for her to be punished.

When she fell to the ground as she ran out of the library that evening, Qian Siyu found herself in the book, Snow Path, and she had remained trapped within the book ever since. Despite trying multiple ways to leave the book, she was unable to. She had not transmigrated into the body of a book character—like Shi Ruijie had. Instead, her whole being had travelled into the novel!

***

The summer sun scorched the earth relentlessly, almost burning the grass by the side of the dirt road. The willow trees along the river bank bent their heads, bearing the brunt of the sun's attack. Hiding in the shade, the cicadas chirped cheerily as dragonflies fly close to the trees, afraid that the heat would melt their wings.

Qian Siyu dapped at her forehead with the edge of her long sleeve, her eyes unwittingly drawn to the crystal clear river sparkling under the sun.

"Qianyu-shimei, hurry up and stop dragging your feet! Otherwise, I'm going to leave you behind." A young man shouted at her as he descended from above on a flying sword.

Qian Siyu glared at him, but surely he couldn't tell. Her forehead had been scrunched up from all the squinting and frowning the entire journey. The person who was hurrying her along was Xiao Yang, the protagonist of Snow Path. He was the character who had been Shi Ruijie's host body, but right now Shi Ruijie was not occupying it.

When Qian Siyu stumbled out of Shibao Pavilion's library that evening, she found herself splayed out in the middle of a hallway, with a wide courtyard surrounded by tall walls and decorated with scholar's rocks and bamboo before her eyes. Glancing at her blue jeans and white sneakers, she noticed that the ground she was sitting on had transformed from old and chipped bluestone slates to polished wooden floors.

From the far end of the corridor, a girl dressed in ancient Chinese clothing yelped, ran towards her and shouted in alarm: "Xiaojie! What are you wearing? What happened to your clothes?"

The girl, whom Qian Siyu soon learnt was Xue Qianyu's personal maidservant, Yunyao, hurriedly pushed her back into her bedchamber, changed her clothes, hair and make-up, all while informing her of the latest gossip that was spreading throughout Canghua Manor that morning. As Qian Siyu sat in front of the dresser, staring at her own reflection in the uneven bronze mirror, she came to the realisation that she had entered the book, Snow Path, to take the place of the male protagonist's "white moonlight", also known as the unforgettable tragic first love who would die halfway through the story.

Perhaps, this was retribution.

For the next few months, Qian Siyu ended up living as Xue Qianyu, the treasured Young Miss of Canghua Manor. During this time, she was kept very busy. Besides having to carry out the duties and participate in the trainings of a disciple of Canghua Manor, she was also trying to find a way home. Initially, she had sought out Xiao Yang in the hope that Shi Ruijie was in possession of his body. However, she eventually learnt that not only was he not in this world, but also that the original Xue Qianyu had vanished. The discovery that she was all alone in this universe with no known way of escape plunged her to the depths of despair.

But only for a short while.

Qian Siyu squinted at the back of Xiao Yang and increased the speed at which she dragged her feet to catch up with him. From deep within her, her fighting spirit blazed like the midsummer's sun. At the present moment, she was on a mission with Xiao Yang to investigate a disturbance at a nearby village. This was also the fated journey where Xue Qianyu and Xiao Yang were attacked by Moon Valley Sect. It meant that she didn't have much time left until her tragic death.

There was no time to lose. She had to up her game to find a breakthrough soon!

Overtaking her senior brother, who had kindly decided to accompany her on foot, Qian Siyu turned around and smirked. "Who's the slow one now?"

"Hey! Don't run off by yourself! Wait for me!"

Of course, she wasn't running in haste to carry out Canghua Manor's mission. She was running towards an ambush set up by the evildoers of this universe.

Although this was a xuanhuan novel, Xue Qianyu had no spiritual roots and was not a cultivator despite being the daughter of one. Perhaps, it was because Xue Qianyu's mother was not a cultivator, which led to her being born without spiritual roots, but it didn't stop Xue Qianyu from pursuing her own path of being an unrivalled martial artist. Unfortunately, apart from having an appearance that was identical to Xue Qianyu, Qian Siyu possessed none of her fighting abilities.

One may say that it was reckless, and even foolish, of Qian Siyu to go along with the plot of the story in such a carefree manner; but to her, it was better than having a lackadaisical attitude. At least she was actively trying to find a live path—even if it meant that she had to jump from the frying pan into the fire.

Her new goal, after planning for months, was to prevent Xue Qianyu's death.

Xue Qianyu met with a tragic end due to the Moon Valley sect's manipulation. Exploiting her affections for Xiao Yang, they controlled and turned her into a weapon to take him down. When she finally came to her senses and discovered all the atrocities that she had done to hurt him, she knew that the only way to protect him was if she disappeared. That was the only way to get rid of Xiao Yang's weakness.

But Qian Siyu was not going to sit back and wait to encounter the same fate. Taking matters into her own hands, she decided that she was going to be like the female protagonist of those transmigration web novels.

Having read the novel diligently and having the author as a friend, she knew that the master of Moon Valley Sect was an extremely handsome young man whose appearance could destroy worlds. The orthodox sects had ostracised him due to his late father, the master of the Blood Sword, who suffered from Qi Deviation when he became obsessively infatuated with ascending his cultivation. It led to him going on a mindless rampage and executing an entire minor sect.

After reading Yu Juan's character analysis, any reader would feel empathy for this antagonist, who was not born evil. From another perspective, he could have been an anti-hero; but of course, it did not detract from the fact that he did deal with his enemies with inhumane cruelty that warranted punishment.

In any case, it was clear that as long as one wasn't his enemy, one would not face his ruthlessness. Call her naive, but Qian Siyu had already made up her mind.

Her goal: to publicly profess her undying love for the tsundere leader of Moon Valley sect in front of all of his followers—and a bonus would be to capture his heart.

*** ***