"No, we can't let events continue to develop like this!"
Another Ji Buwang watched Liu Jinghong revel in the joy of victory, while Xu Yi retreated severely injured. His eyes seemed capable of spitting fire.
He could not accept that the master he admired was being trampled underfoot by such a despicable person.
"We haven't found Liu Jinghong's secret yet."
Ji Buwang stared in the direction Xu Yi had left and said coldly.
"But I can't bear to see Master bullied like this," the other Ji Buwang said indignantly.
"Soon, I feel it's close."
Ji Buwang looked at the arrogantly smug Liu Jinghong, feeling that her state was not far from exposing her secret.
After the banquet, Liu Jinghong's reputation was widely spread.
Xu Yi, knowing she was outmatched, chose to go into seclusion for cultivation.
Xu Yi's move to temporarily avoid the limelight was taken by Liu Jinghong as surrender.
From then on, she acted ever more high-profile, her arrogance in her eyes and brows unconcealed.
Finally, one night.
Liu Jinghong got herself drunk with spiritual wine and poured out her heart.
"The great heroine Xu Yi? Nothing more than that. The Demon Exterminator Ancestor? Even more of a joke."
"She's just a character on paper, her joys and sorrows all dictated by others. How can she fight me?"
"However, this world of cultivation is truly wonderful. It was worth staying up all night to read the book and die of exhaustion. Hahahaha, this place is truly amazing!"
"..."
Liu Jinghong's words were rambling, sometimes interspersed with phrases they couldn't understand.
However, Ji Buwang was not a dull person. Through the fragmented words Liu Jinghong let slip, he vaguely pieced together a truth.
But the moment they arrived at the truth, neither of the Ji Buwangs wanted to believe it.
How could they possibly be characters in the book that Liu Jinghong spoke of?
Their lives, their cultivation, their spiritual power, all existed as true realities.
The sun and moon alternated, stars shifted, and the Nine Provinces Continent was a complete and magnificent world.
The two looked at the now drunken Liu Jinghong, lost in thought for a long time.
"You say..."
"If this is a false world, then Liu Jinghong couldn't have appeared here," Ji Buwang said.
Regardless of whether this world was fabricated by a mortal as Liu Jinghong claimed, the moment Liu Jinghong, an outsider to the book, entered this place, it already indicated that the truth of the matter had changed.
Liu Jinghong was real.
They were also real.
"You're right, I was being too attached."
"According to Liu Jinghong, Xu Yi is the protagonist of the book. She bears the responsibility of justice and the common people, while Liu Jinghong, for her own selfish desires, stole Xu Yi's opportunities, allowing the demon race, which should have perished, to continue to exist."
Ji Buwang finally understood where the incongruity with Liu Jinghong stemmed from.
She did not belong to this world; she symbolized destruction and ruin.
After Liu Jinghong ascended, the problems with the demon and beast races remained unresolved.
Even now, the demon and beast races were stirring, preparing to tear up previous treaties and re-ignite a new racial war.
And the mastermind behind all of this was Liu Jinghong.
"How can we break this stalemate?"
The other Ji Buwang had wanted to change everything from the moment Liu Jinghong began seizing Xu Yi's opportunities.
His original intention had not changed until now.
But the difficulty of the problem lay precisely here.
Due to Liu Jinghong's suppression, Xu Yi had no chance to rise.
Moreover, given Liu Jinghong's hostility towards Xu Yi, it was hard not to speculate about the subsequent outcome.
If Xu Yi died in this lifetime, what would become of this world?
Ji Buwang was now contemplating another question.
Liu Jinghong's appearance in this world, by all rights, meant that the subsequent developments in his world should be similar.
However, Xu Yi had disappeared before Liu Jinghong's arrival, and from then on, the timeline changed again.
So why did Xu Yi disappear?
And why did she suddenly reappear two thousand years later?
"You mentioned before that Master disappeared. If we help Master avoid Liu Jinghong in advance, would she then be able to avoid everything she is currently experiencing?"
The other Ji Buwang suddenly spoke, a hint of excitement in his eyes.
Ji Buwang froze.
Then a chill spread through him.
At that moment, an unbelievable guess suddenly surfaced in his mind.
Could it be that they were the ones responsible for Xu Yi's disappearance back then?
Xu Yi said she was trapped in a secret realm where the flow of time was different from the outside.
And they two happened to master the art of time reincarnation.
Although they couldn't create a vast time realm like the founder of Kunlun Academy, creating a secret realm that could trap Xu Yi was not difficult.
Because they knew the subsequent developments, they set up the secret realm in advance to trap Xu Yi, allowing her to avoid direct conflict with Liu Jinghong, only to reappear two thousand years later and, following the established path of the book, shoulder the responsibility of exterminating demons and subduing monsters.
So in his world, he himself was the one who altered the timeline.
Ji Buwang's heart was filled with complex emotions at this moment.
It turned out that his interaction with Xu Yi had begun a long time ago.
Ji Buwang stared at his other self and said earnestly, "We can use the method of time reincarnation to reverse time. Before Liu Jinghong entered the sect, we can lead Xu Yi out and trap her in the time secret realm. Two thousand years later, the Demon Exterminator Ancestor will reappear."
"This method is feasible, but two thousand years is too long. We can adjust the time flow within the secret realm. If Master spends one year inside, ten years will have actually passed in the outside world."
The other Ji Buwang didn't need prompting and took the initiative to complete Ji Buwang's statement, further confirming Ji Buwang's guess.
"Agreed."
"There must also be sufficient spiritual energy left in the secret realm to satisfy Master's cultivation," the other Ji Buwang paused, then raised another question, "But before Liu Jinghong became a disciple, Master never had any arrangements to leave the sect. How should we lead her out?"
Ji Buwang pondered for a moment, his gaze falling on Liu Jinghong, and said solemnly, "Liu Jinghong possesses the ability to foresee the future. Then we will let Xu Yi see her true colors in advance."
"You mean a dream?"
"After reversing time, you will be responsible for building the secret realm, and I will weave a dream for Xu Yi. In the dream, I will slightly exaggerate Liu Jinghong's actions, causing Xu Yi to become wary of her. Given Xu Yi's own personality, she will proactively avoid Liu Jinghong's sharp edge and proceed with caution."
After saying this, Ji Buwang himself was slightly stunned.
He recalled Xu Yi's many defenses against Liu Jinghong, realizing that the origin of it all stemmed from him.
The two Ji Buwangs quickly conferred and devised a complete plan.
The two sat down together, mobilizing the power within their souls.
The surrounding scenery began to distort, and all the previous scenes rewound one by one.
The originally solid soul bodies of the two gradually turned pale.
Reversing time was not as simple as they made it sound; neither of them could achieve it alone. Only by casting it together could they barely accomplish it.
They controlled the flow of time while observing the scene before them.
Finally, they fixed the time to the night before Xu Yi's disciple-acceptance ceremony.