Su Yao transmigrated into a book, ending up in a harem fantasy about a domineering hero's rise to power.
The good news: She had become the childhood sweetheart of the domineering hero. Early on, she had shared hardships with him before he came into his own, earning his deep trust.
The bad news: Just when his childhood sweetheart was about to enjoy a hard-won happy ending, one of the women in his harem killed her. Her soul was destroyed, and she was dead before the story's conclusion.
To stay alive, she bound herself to the "Protect the Domineering Hero" System and was forced to play the ideal childhood sweetheart, taking hits meant for him.
She thought that after she took the hit in the final scene, she and Yan Ruohan could part on good terms and each set off on the path of cultivation. But then she ran into one of the green-tea members of his harem.
A fox demon kidnapped her and the green-tea spirit, forcing the young hero to choose.
"Between her and your dear little Yaoyao, one lives and one dies today. You can only choose one!"
Su Yao thought that after they'd spent years together, as his childhood sweetheart, she had at least an eighty percent chance of being chosen, right?
She never expected to be proven wrong so quickly.
"I choose Shuang'er."
Something quietly shattered in that instant.
Su Yao looked up in disbelief and gazed deeply at Yan Ruohan.
Yan Ruohan watched his dear little Yaoyao die before his eyes. He would never forget the look she gave him.
He hated and despised himself for falling into the fox demon's trap and losing Su Yao forever!
He spent seven years in a daze. By then, he'd become someone the entire cultivation world looked up to, yet in countless moments of longing, he kept thinking of the girl who had been willing to give her life for him.
After turning down yet another woman trying to get close to him, he turned around and saw a familiar figure.
A pink ribbon fluttered softly in the breeze, tugging at his heartstrings.
As if in a dream, he stood rooted to the spot, reaching out but afraid to touch her, in case this was just another dream.
When the girl turned her head, his heart ached and, in a whisper, he called out the name he'd said a million times before:
"Yaoyao..."
This time, he would never let her go again...
*
After faking her death, Su Yao set off on a journey to seek immortality with a shabby little sword in hand.
With no spiritual roots at all, she met with one setback after another. Even the Seven Treasures Diagram urged her to seek shelter with Yan Ruohan, the child of destiny.
Su Yao wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, raised her shabby little sword, and said with stubborn resolve, "No! I'll change my fate and the story! I'll find my own path!"
Who says a good-for-nothing can't cultivate immortality?
She was going to forge her own path to cultivation and attain the Dao!
*
"Do you know how the greatest sword cultivator in the Immortal Realm three thousand years ago attained the Dao?"
"Her path was one of a kind. I only remember that, one year, a single sword strike split Cangshan Mountain. That flash of sword light became eternal in the hearts of everyone who saw it!"
[Quirky, clever heroine x upright, devoted hero]
My own take on cultivation. A good-for-nothing attains the Dao! The hero only loves the heroine, and there will be a groveling-to-win-her-back arc~
Theme: Persevere and strengthen yourself
Damn, is this a story about changing the male protagonist?