Stop Trying to Ride on Someone Else's Glory

For the umpteenth time, Xia Yin guarded her master while he recovered from his injuries in seclusion. She stared coldly at the breathtakingly beautiful man on the icy stone, covered in wounds yet still as serene as a gentle breeze.

She had told him eight hundred times not to take on every wretched burden he came across. What lofty ideals? What concern for the common people? Of all those who came to Qingping Jun asking for help, how many truly cared about the Three Realms?

This time, Xia Yin was determined to find a new master.

Halfway through the process of leaving the sect, she suddenly had an absurd dream.

In the dream, the world she lived in was a novel, and her master, Qingping Jun, was the male lead. Because he was gentle and kind, his vicious and domineering direct disciple, Xia Yin, bullied him mercilessly. Later, she brazenly left the sect to find someone stronger to teach her, only to choose Chi Tong Jun, the novel's other male lead, as her new master.

The other male lead was someone who had transmigrated into a book and needed to complete a mission to return to his original world. After Xia Yin callously abandoned the male lead, the System forced him to win over his mission target, who had been dealt a crushing blow.

In the original story, Xia Yin was taken by her new master to meet the sect's founder. When she learned that he was none other than Qingping Jun, whom she had once looked down on, she turned livid and stormed off in fury, eventually dying a miserable death in a beast tide.

Countless people died or were injured in that beast tide. Only the combined efforts of the male lead and the other male lead managed to drive it back, while all the supporting characters they protected survived.

After weighing her options, Xia Yin decided to stay on the male lead's side for now and bask in his halo. She would figure things out after the beast tide was over.

When she woke from the dream, she found herself staring in astonishment at Qingping Jun, whose eyes were red.

The man held her application to leave the sect, tears streaming down his face. "You're leaving? What a... disobedient disciple."

Even when scolding someone, his voice was gentle, its final note trembling.

Xia Yin: The male lead? This man has nothing about him that suggests he's the pursuer, not in his looks or his personality!

Later, Xia Yin was devastated to discover that nothing in that novel had happened, aside from the line about her bullying him mercilessly.

And she paid the price for once looking down on him for being the pursuer.

Whenever Qingping Jun was alone with her and looked at her with that gentle, spring-breeze-like gaze, she couldn't stop her legs from trembling.

If she'd known the plot wouldn't come true, she never should have tried to bask in his halo!

*Blurb written on February 22, 2023

Theme: Good things don't just fall into your lap.