Killer Puzzle: Imitation and Selfhood

[The Plenilune Guild fanfiction and derivative work + Butterfly effect alters a small amount of the plot + Slight OOC + Slight self-insert romance + Secret identities]

After the only friend Jing Zhu Wu cares about dies, she chooses to join forces with the current Gu Master and burn herself and the entire village alive with sacred fire.

But she doesn't die. Driven by an overwhelming desire, she enters the game. As if that weren't unlucky enough, a bug turns her Level 1 game into a Level 2 one from the start.

Just as she slowly lets down her guard, she is pushed down by the very person she trusted, and her Sanity drops to 5.

When the instance ends, she receives her personal identity, Monster Book: The Imitator Who Only Knows How to Imitate. By spending time in contact with someone, she can imitate their appearance, looks, personality, skills, everything. The harder the imitation, the greater the backlash.

She has never had a choice: if she has value, she lives; if she doesn't, she dies.

She makes her way through the instances, moving from aloofness at the start, to stability, and finally to a clear-minded fall from grace, walking from hope into despair.

“System notification: Player Jing Zhu Wu's Sanity has reached zero. Death confirmed. Exiting the game.”

“Qing Zhu Wu: May this boundless illusion be blessed, and may she not exist in this world.”

“Jing Zhu Wu: Though the road ahead is uncertain, may she be as resilient as bamboo.”

“I was reborn in a horror game. I took Jing as my surname. As for Zhu Wu... emerald bamboo and a thin veil of mist.”

Only later does she realize that the Gu God who abandoned her back then was herself.

(A White Liu romance-oriented self-insert, though it's basically pure hatred. They never get together!!! They never get together!!!! They never get together!!! This is important, so I'm saying it three times. I don't intend to make the pure evil White Liu OOC.)

Offline title: Like Bamboo Gazing Through Mist