Days did pass, even when they felt like a string of dough stretching on to forever. After a long and twitchy afternoon, dinner came and passed and at last he was free to return to his bedroom, which he thankfully did not have to share with anyone. The outer disciples did have shared bedrooms, four people each— if Shen Jing was part of the story before he became an inner disciple, he probably had to live out living with four kids about his age, which was a bit nerve-wracking, but gods above did have mercy at times.

<You’re welcome.>

“You’re better than them, Wu-jie,” Shen Jing earnestly said. “You’re here making things happen.”

<Aww, apology accepted.>

The room wasn’t too different from Xuan Lang’s, which made sense; the head disciple’s room was bigger, though, and had more distance from the rest. As it was, Shen Jing could still hear He Jiangshan and Fang Xiaoxiao sparring in the shared courtyard, as well as Ji Hualiu’s occasional comments. Xuan Lang’s voice was missing. But anyhow, inside was a simple room, made even simpler by the fact that Shen Jing had nothing to decorate it with— there was only a bed, a limitless-space chest, a writing table with its four treasures and a partition, presumably for when he wanted to take a bath. Or change clothes…? Or hide from the world. It wouldn’t be very good hiding, but he could make do if he was cornered.

Lying down on his bed, Shen Jing stared at the ceiling for a moment before turning to Assistant 51C. "Wu-jie, can I get a fluffy, soft pillow?"

<Sure. One sec.>

And then one popped in the air, falling straight into his arms. Shen Jing nuzzled it with his cheek and felt the tension drain out of his body.

"Thank you very much. Okay, so Xuan Lang. He definitely shouldn't have blackened, and his story should be about what's most important, not about being the lone king on the hill."

All in all, the novel up to its last chapter could be divided into 3 general arcs: the Mount Song Sect arc, the Finding a New Home arc, and the last one the Dark Wolfdog Mystery, which also encompassed the blackening. Due to its abrupt nature, a lot of the leftover plot threads from that third arc remained, so Big Cat spent a solid 10 chapters after the blackening to resolving those. In the end, Big Cat ended the novel 6 chapters later. Though many readers didn’t doubt that the reasons were personal and involved life circumstances, some posited that the mysteries all being answered made her lose interest, too, and she dropped it like a burning plastic spatula.

<So you're gonna focus on chapter 73 onwards? Earlier chapters could use a bit more substance, though. Big Cat hadn't developed the reasons why the sect got burned down that well early on, and I'm seeing some comments saying it's too implausible.>

Huh. They weren't wrong. This was, after all, an entire sect.

"I remember that it might've been related to Lang-ge's father… didn't they just insert that corrupted wolf, in the end, as the culprit?"

That was weird. Not the presence of a giant wolf— this was a full out fantasy, and beasts were common. But the problem was… well, there was this yet unnamed dark wolf that had been implied to have come from the underworld, or something— the mystery was very much unfinished, and one thing Big Cat emphasized was that information gathered wasn't always the truth. But it was also implied that the wolf had been under Xuan Lang's father's control in the past, and that it had been looking for Xuan Lang. But when it arrived at Mount Song the young man was missing, having gone out on a task with the rest of his martial siblings. Mount Song Sect tried to subdue the beast, but it was too strong and killed them instead. Ji Hualiu survived the attack, but died after Xuan Lang made it back.

The bits that people said they wanted more details on was the wolf itself, as it seemed to have come out of nowhere and just ended an entire sect. What sort of creature could be that powerful and yet nobody had heard of it? Some others replied, though, that this was a fantasy and Big Cat was well within her rights to introduce a beast that wasn’t in mythology, given that any animal could cultivate and become a yao— but that was not a discussion Shen Jing was interested in having. It was clear to him that the wolf was intended to be Xuan Lang’s counterpart; the possible relation to his father, who had abandoned Xuan Lang at birth, the fact that it was a dark-colored wolf, and its ambiguous morality. All of these points mirrored Xuan Lang, and the fact that the blackening and ending involved him meeting the wolf head on and just killing it felt… like a butcher job.

<Author never delved into it too deep honestly, it's free real estate if you want to change the details.>

Shen Jing: ???

"Free real estate?"

<Oh. It's a foreign meme I guess.>

Oh. Okay, then.

Shen Jing mulled over it after some time. He wanted to keep the parallel thing, and keep it as the central source of conflicts and dynamics. The wolfdog could have its own circle of loyal friends, too— a wolf lives in a pack, after all. Murder of its pack members could lead it to more and more murderous fury. But while the wolf gave into that nihilism and wished for the end of the world, Xuan Lang could, in some way, somehow, keep holding onto hope. Even though many people betrayed and hated him, he could never end a world that also had people who loved him, and that had people he loved as well, bittersweet as those memories were. It could very well be a bittersweet ending. But a story whose message was one where ultimately a world was alive enough that the wishes and lives of people other than the main character’s would justify its continued existence… Shen Jing liked that kind of story.

How much value can one human life hold? We are so tiny and insignificant.

Pulling it off was another beast in its entirety, though, which was his next problem. It was hard enough to put together a plot that worked and had meaning. What about getting all the pieces to move into place? He wasn’t exactly good at lying. Not to mention, there was the matter of natural mannerisms and making it not stilted...

"I don't think it's a good idea to… change the plot directly…? I'm… bad at convincing people. Would it be possible to just change the background things so that people react accordingly…? You only gave me my cultivation base at that moment, right?"

<It's a viable way, but you'll still need to nudge them into it. Anyhow, you'll also have to listen by ear the events and world building. When we change something so fundamental as someone's backstory, it tends to have a domino effect. So you'll want to continue to nudge the cast around in case they miss out on something big.>

Shen Jing scratched his cheek. "That's true. I can't really imagine where things might go yet, though… I don't know how the world will develop. Will the, uh, system help with everyone’s characterizations?"

<The algorithm that generates this world is version 133.8.1, adjusted over the course of a long ass time and approximately 2 million worlds. It's gotten pretty good at extrapolating backstory and motivation from minor characters and villains. It does, however, generate the less important characters sort of on the go at first. So they might not have… fleshed out personalities until you interact with them, so to speak.>

"Does this mean there could be someone suddenly developing a hatred for Lang-ge out of nowhere only after they met him?" Shen Jing asked, head tilting.

<Eeh, only if they have a reason to in their backstory? Like some random villager won't suddenly call for his death unless the backstory says he's killed their family or something. And when their entire characterization and backstory fully generate, it’ll inform other characters as well and they’ll treat things like it makes sense for them to act that way.>

Ooh. That made sense. That was pretty neat… "Can the system detect something that readers might not, then?"

<Like interpret and develop it differently? Oh yeah, definitely. Happened once with this guy, he was playing up a minor villain and well… you see, because the novel was a pretty traditional danmei, the algorithm kinda assumed that this other minor villain had this secret love for him and it spiralled out into something preeetty hilarious. It derailed the entire story into like a tumultuous love rectangle and the contractee almost asked for a total restart.>

Shen Jing: ??!

"Almost?"

<Well, he liked this other character too much to bear actually restarting… he got together with a third guy instead and afaik he's still there, just living out the rest of his years. He renounced going back and settled on sending to his family a sum to pay for the costs of his hospitalization and funeral.>

"Wait. That's possible?"

<Yups. It used to just be that they get to go back to their lives, but after a change in directors they added in other options, since a lot of contractees expressed a desire to stay. Not to mention, we have a bunch of people who've had pretty rough, if not traumatic lives back in their worlds and don't wanna return and pick themselves back up.>

Huh… Shen Jing stared at the ceiling, contemplative. 

"I suppose for now we'll just finalize the bits about the wolfdog?" Shen Jing asked, nuzzling his pillow with his nose. His next words came out muffled as he buried his face into it, relishing in its softness. "It's really Lang-ge's father's… pet…? Or at least owed him its life. But I don't think it's purely bad. Maybe it was just dealt a bad hand, and continued to be seen as the villain, but held onto repaying Lang-ge's father's kindness, but was instead… attacked…"

<So, Xuan Lang's parallel?>

Shen Jing's vision doubled as they unfocused. "Mm."

<What about the character deaths? This isn’t going to be a white moonlight case thing, right? Since you’re deciding on that other course. Which is great, by the way. I think white moonlight stuff is shit. I had an ex a long ass time ago. Guy can’t hold a candle to my girlfriend now, she’s so amazing and beautiful and smart. And that poor ex was my good childhood friend, so it wasn’t exactly like I hate him or anything.>

Shen Jing, “???” He’s back to full wakefulness now, and out of pure confusion.

“Huh?”

<I’m scrolling through author’s blogs right now. My opinion? Ji Hualiu doesn’t need to die. What was the point of her death anyway? She just died to be tragic. I think your Lang-ge only pined for her like… 7 times over the course of like 46 chapters. What kind of white moonlight is that, huh? I call bullshit.>

Shen Jing, “......” Wu-jie, your opinions are so strong…

“Can we put this one off to when the plot develops more? I don’t know if Second Shijie would, uh, die, mmm… oh, the wording on this is bad. But if she… You know.”

Assistant 51C, <......> She doesn’t, actually.

“If there’s an understandable reason why she would sacrifice herself, I mean,” Shen Jing said. “Then I think we shouldn’t disrespect her… wishes? Sacrifice? These wordings are so bad when I’m applying it to real people.”

And they were real, as far as Shen Jing was concerned— he’d interacted with them and they had lives and existences outside of his own, and thus even if they were generated by a system, they were real. After all, if he had a history, motivations and his own thoughts and feelings, wouldn’t he want anyone and everyone to treat him that way? To not have his humanity doubted? Shen Jing wasn’t the smartest person, nor was he particularly bright. The best he could say of himself was that he tried to be thoughtful and receptive to others’ needs, which was why he chose to study what he did.

Outside, he could hear He Jiangshan calling out for him, then loud shushes stopping him. Something was thrown and must’ve hit the poor teen— the thunk and accompanying yelp almost made Shen Jing jolt with laughter, before he shoved his face back into the pillow to muffle the sound.

“Serves you right!” Fang Xiaoxiao admonished, voice lowering midway through the sentence. Shen Jing could imagine that someone had come over to get them to stop making such a ruckus. After a moment of exceptional silence, life returned, quieter this time.

See? Shen Jing turned to lie on his back, pillow tucked into the nape of his neck. The world outside was so full of life and lives, all woven into each other to form a web of love, hate, familial fondness and exasperated affection, bone-deep disgust and apathy. Shen Jing was just one of the specks, with a crushingly tiny sphere of influence.

“Maybe we can still check to see if Xiao-shidi is really asleep ba.”

“Oh, shut it. Do you really want to go to the discipline hall?”

When Shen Jing rapidly blinked and stared at the nothingness above, his eyelashes carried a hint of dampness.