“Cough—cough, cough…”
Ripples spread across the surface of the still lake.
First, threads of scarlet blood surfaced. Then came a mass of black hair, drifting like seaweed. At last, a pale face emerged from the water.
Buoyed by the water, Jiang Rongyi floated on his back. His eyes were unfocused; the scene before him seemed veiled in mist, wavering and indistinct.
It was all over.
Before Jiang Rongyi could even reflect on it, the system’s cold voice sounded in his mind. Machines possessed no such thing as compassion. Even seeing a host it had worked with for countless years reduced to such a state, its tone and frequency did not change in the slightest.
“Do you wish to terminate your binding with the Villain Roleplay System?”
His long, thick lashes fluttered once. Jiang Rongyi gave a one-word reply.
“Yes.”
Having received his answer, the system began to extract the Villain Roleplay System from Jiang Rongyi’s soul.
Yes—the Villain Roleplay System. Through it, Jiang Rongyi had played all manner of loathsome villains from the pages of novels. Just moments ago, after the villain’s role in *Treading the Path of Immortality* had wrapped, the Villain Roleplay System had approved Jiang Rongyi’s resignation request as well.
He would lose the cheat-like advantage that was the Villain Roleplay System. No longer would he be controlled by it, forced through endless cycles of reincarnation, or made to do things against his will in accordance with the plot.
He was free.
The extraction process was excruciating.
Over hundreds upon hundreds of lifetimes spent acting out the assigned plots, the system had long since fused with Jiang Rongyi as one.
Now, it was as though his soul were being forcibly split in two, the system removed from within it. Jiang Rongyi felt as if his soul were a lump of dough, torn apart and kneaded at the whim of invisible hands—then, once the Villain Roleplay System had been extracted, carelessly stuck back together from the shattered pieces.
Throughout it all, Jiang Rongyi stared blankly at a point in the void. Though submerged in the icy lake, he broke out in a cold sweat from the pain.
Yet his pale, soft lips remained tightly pressed together. Not a single sound escaped them.
“System extraction progress: 100%.”
“The host will remain permanently in the *Treading the Path of Immortality* world until death.”
“Because the host has completed the role of the villain Jiang Wuwang, and in recognition of the host’s exemplary past performance, the system has decided to preserve this body and maintain its minimum vital functions for the host’s use.”
“Wishing the host a pleasant life.”
Jiang Rongyi emerged from the unending pain.
The Villain Roleplay System had been completely removed.
At last, he was free.
Jiang Rongyi drew a ragged breath, endured the pain, and swam toward the shore. Groping about, he found something to brace himself against. His fair fingers sank deeply into the mud, and only by exhausting every bit of strength in his body did he manage to drag himself out of the lake.
“Cough…” Soaked to the bone, Jiang Rongyi collapsed onto the ground and laboriously turned his head, coughing up a mouthful of bloody water.
The sunlight on his face was painfully bright. He wanted to raise a hand to shield his eyes, but all he could feel was the agony of shattered meridians throughout his body. He had not the slightest strength left to command his limbs.
Just moments ago, he had completed the villain Jiang Wuwang’s part in the story.
The protagonist had shattered his sword-bone, reducing his thousand years of cultivation to nothing but dust. If not for the life-sustaining power of the heaven-defying Villain Roleplaying System, this body would have long since perished.
Even so, after playing the villain through countless lifetimes, this outcome could still be considered a fairly good one.
Though Zhou Siwei had been a little too ruthless.
Jiang Rongyi slowly closed his eyes. He had no strength left whatsoever. The energy left behind by the Villain System would keep him in this half-dead state anyway, so he might as well get some proper sleep first—
He had not slept peacefully for a hundred lifetimes.
A thousand autumns passed within his dreams. When Jiang Rongyi woke again, he felt as though he had entered another world. Only the pain wracking his body remained sharp and unmistakable, impossible to ignore.
He opened his eyes, but he still could not make out his surroundings clearly. He could only vaguely sense that he was in a crude thatched hut.
“Brother!” A little girl noticed that Jiang Rongyi was awake. She hurriedly set down what she was doing and ran to his bedside.
Jiang Rongyi narrowed his eyes. Only then could he vaguely make out a delicate-looking little girl. Half her face, however, was covered by a frightening dark-red birthmark, so striking that it was the first thing anyone would notice.
“Brother, is there anywhere else that hurts?” The little girl stared at Jiang Rongyi anxiously.
“You...” Jiang Rongyi managed only a single word before the taste of blood rose in his throat. He forced it back down and continued, “What is your name?”
Alarm flashed across the little girl’s face. She answered cautiously, “Brother, have you forgotten? I’m Jiang Yunxi, and you’re Jiang Rongyi.”
From Jiang Yunxi’s explanation, Jiang Rongyi learned that the two of them were siblings from a branch family of the Jiangs in Shangyin City. Their parents had died early, leaving the brother and sister to depend on one another. Jiang Yunxi had just turned ten and was about to go to Shangyin City for her spirit-bone test. Yet at this crucial moment, her brother Jiang Rongyi had collapsed by the lakeside.
Jiang Rongyi had lived through who knew how many lifetimes; he had long been thoroughly familiar with this sort of setup.
This was the final gift of the Villain Roleplaying System.
This body of Jiang Wuwang’s had stirred up bloody storms throughout the cultivation world, and everyone wanted him dead.
If Jiang Rongyi continued using this body and bearing that name, he would likely never know a day of peace. Only the omnipotent System could fabricate an identity without the slightest flaw.
Jiang Rongyi quickly settled into his new identity. He gave Jiang Yunxi a reassuring smile. “It’s nothing.”
Jiang Yunxi relaxed at once, then scampered off to bring back a bowl of pitch-black medicine. “Brother, drink your medicine. Once you drink it, you’ll get better.”
Jiang Rongyi took one sniff and could identify the herbs within. They would do nothing for his current injuries beyond replenishing blood and restoring vitality. But faced with Jiang Yunxi’s bright, expectant eyes, he could not bear to refuse. He reached out to take the bowl.
Unexpectedly, his body was far too weak. He could not even hold a bowl of medicine steady, and nearly spilled it.
“I’ll feed you, Brother!” Jiang Yunxi simply sat down beside the bed and fed Jiang Rongyi one spoonful at a time.
Jiang Rongyi obediently drank the entire bowl of medicine. Only as he felt the unbearably sour, bitter taste lingering in his mouth did it truly sink in that he had been reborn.
After taking the medicine, Jiang Rongyi lay on the bed with his eyes closed, resting. He did not actually need any medicine right now. All he needed was to patiently wait for the energy the Villain Role-Playing System had left inside him to repair his body.
However, the Villain Role-Playing System was exceedingly stingy. The energy it had left behind could only sustain his body's basic functions. If he wanted to restore it fully, it would take several decades.
Having finally regained his freedom, Jiang Rongyi naturally wanted to live as he pleased and do whatever he wanted.
Therefore, he had to find other objects rich in energy to repair his body. He had no intention of spending the rest of his life in this battered, broken shell.
“When are we going to Shangyin City?” Jiang Rongyi asked as he listened to little Jiang Yunxi bustling about.
Jiang Yunxi's footsteps paused. With a hint of bitterness in her voice, she said, “We’ll go in a couple of days. There’s no hurry.”
Having lived for who knew how many years, Jiang Rongyi immediately recognized it as a lie. He thought of their bare-walled home and that bowl of medicine.
The girl had used their travel money to Shangyin City to have Jiang Rongyi treated. Now, they no longer had enough money to make the journey.
They had to go to Shangyin City.
Not only did Jiang Yunxi need to participate in the Jiang family’s spirit-bone test, but Jiang Rongyi also needed to gather some items to repair his body.
More importantly, Jiang Rongyi did not want to alter Jiang Yunxi’s path in life because of himself.
Jiang Rongyi was currently half-blind. He narrowed his eyes and looked at Jiang Yunxi for a long while before finally making out the hazy outline of the fortune surrounding her.
There was a certain kind of person in this world—someone born favored by the Heavenly Dao. No matter what they did, they would succeed, and anyone who stood in their way would inevitably come to a bad end.
These were the so-called protagonists, and Jiang Yunxi was one of them.
The world of *Treading the Immortal Path* was vast. The setting could not be supported by Zhou Siwei alone as its sole protagonist, so the Heavenly Dao had spontaneously created other minor protagonists.
The luck borne by these minor protagonists was far inferior to Zhou Siwei’s. They would not easily cross paths with one another; instead, each played out their own story within their own corner of the world.
Jiang Rongyi intended to rely on the fortune surrounding Jiang Yunxi to conceal himself from the Heavenly Dao’s gaze, so that it would not discover a character who should, by all rights, have died.
Still, Jiang Yunxi’s fortune could only shield him for a time, not forever.
What Jiang Rongyi needed to do was use Jiang Yunxi to find someone with even greater fortune. Only then could he safely enjoy his retired life.
If Jiang Rongyi were still a villain, he certainly would not be short of such a trifling amount of money.
But the spiritual energy within his body was currently tangled into a knotted ball of yarn. He could not command even a thread of it, much less retrieve the spirit stones and medicinal herbs stored in his storage ring.
Jiang Rongyi rubbed at his sleeve. The clothes he wore had been tailored from shark silk woven by the merfolk of the Endless Sea. Even damaged, they were worth a considerable sum. But if he stripped them off to sell them, he would have nothing left to wear.
After considering it for a long time, he finally removed the jade pendant hanging around his neck.
The storage ring on his finger was clearly no ordinary item to anyone with a discerning eye. It would only bring disaster upon Jiang Yunxi for possessing such a treasure. The shark-silk gauze he wore might not fetch a good price either, if the merchants failed to recognize its worth. Only this jade pendant, made from ordinary mortal jade, had remained with Jiang Rongyi all this time.
It had been a gift from the protagonist, Zhou Siwei—carved by his own hand, then personally placed around Jiang Rongyi’s neck.
He had not taken it off for centuries.
But now, it no longer meant anything. He was no longer Jiang Wuwang, no longer the villain fated to become the protagonist’s trial and calamity.
“Yunxi,” Jiang Rongyi called.
“Brother!” Jiang Yunxi answered, running over at once. “What is it?”
“This jade pendant...” Jiang Rongyi could only make out a blurry figure before him. Feeling his way around, he pressed the pendant into Jiang Yunxi’s small hand.
“Pawn it. Trade it for some silver.”
Jiang Yunxi hesitated. She knew their family’s circumstances well enough. Where had her brother gotten such a smooth, lustrous jade pendant?
“Th-this is...?”
“I found it in the lake,” Jiang Rongyi explained casually, then refused to answer any more of Jiang Yunxi’s questions.
Jiang Yunxi asked a few more times, but received no response. She looked at the frail Jiang Rongyi, then at the jade pendant still warm from his body, and silently made up her mind.
“Don’t worry, Brother. One day, I’ll redeem it for you.”
Jiang Rongyi, who had been lying still, finally stirred and added a single instruction:
“Sell it outright.”
He did not want to see anything connected to Zhou Siwei ever again.
