Can an NPC Be the Protagonist Too?

Ask the Heavens is a massively popular full-dive Eastern fantasy MMO on Blue Star.

Lu Fengyu used to be a veteran player of the game, but now she has transmigrated into Ask the Heavens as an NPC with a game interface.

With the countdown on her System panel showing that the closed beta is still three years away, Lu Fengyu can only accept her fate and endure three years in the game world.

Three years later, the closed beta begins, and countless players flood into the game. The forums fill with all kinds of posts, until one with a bizarre title rises to the top of the front page:

# Everyone, Come Watch God Lu Train Her Dogs

(Video attached): On a stormy night, a blade-light like the moon tears through heaven and earth. When it fades, only a woman remains, standing with her blade sheathed. Her open umbrella is patterned in blue and ink-black, like a traditional Jiangnan ink painting, and not a drop of rain touches her.

The video ends on a screenshot of the NPC information panel, captured by the original poster:

[Character: Lu Fengyu (Orange)]

[Race: ???]

[Level: ???]

[System Evaluation: ???]

[System Suggestion: Call her “Grandmaster Aunt,” and maybe she’ll spare you a glance.]

NPC names in the game are color-coded by rank, with orange names being the highest.

Players: An orange-name NPC? The game just launched and you’ve already run into one?

Then they notice the poster’s ID: [God Lu’s Dog].

•

That night, after clearing away the Calamity and rescuing a group of players along the way, Lu Fengyu sheaths her blade and holds her umbrella as the endless rain keeps its distance.

Just as she is about to show off in front of the players, a System notification sounds:

[Congratulations! You have obtained the hidden title “Blade in the Rain, No Umbrella”]

[Special Trait: Unique]

[Effect: All stats +100% on rainy nights, Moon-Sunder’s power ↑, blade-related techniques ↑↑↑]

[Passive: When in the rain, you remain untouched by a single drop, Charisma ↑↑↑]

[Equip title?]

Lu Fengyu, holding an umbrella: ?

Should she put away the umbrella she’s holding?

After the game launches, a player posts an analysis arguing that Lu Fengyu is the protagonist of Ask the Heavens.

Lu Fengyu can hardly believe it: Have you ever seen a protagonist with a Luck stat of -1?

Another player analyzes why Lu Fengyu sits firmly at the top of Ask the Heavens’ NPC popularity rankings.

Lu Fengyu is a little embarrassed: Keep it low-key, keep it low-key.

Another player analyzes the secret, forbidden feelings between Lu Fengyu and her master, the Lord of Mount Bujin.

Lu Fengyu looks guilty and innocent at the same time: We really are just ordinary master and disciple.

A pair of master and disciple who have done all sorts of outrageous things, yet neither of them thinks there’s anything wrong with it.

And so, year after year passes in the game world. Until one day, Lu Fengyu discovers someone on the forums claiming that Calamities from the game have appeared on Blue Star. The authorities even state outright that the game is about to descend into reality, calling on everyone to unite and fight the Calamities.

By then, Lu Fengyu has already attained immortality and can travel freely between the two worlds. She concedes: All right, she admits she’s the protagonist.

After all, only the protagonist can be the savior.

•

PS:

1. A power fantasy. The heroine becomes the strongest later on, and even before that, she’s still awesome.

2. Some of the Calamity-related elements in this story are cosmic horror.

3. Romance: male master and female disciple. A righteous yet wicked, sweet-on-the-outside, dark-on-the-inside heroine x a true sage who follows the Way of the Common People but harbors selfish desires.

4. For a detailed breakdown of cultivation realms, see the author’s note in Chapter 1.

Coming soon: Eighty-One Days Under the Love Gu

Blurb:

A timid yet daring, delicate villainess x a lofty, aloof man who later becomes consumed by love and hate, dark and twisted

•

Yu Zhenlan cultivates the Heartless Path. Born with a natural Dao physique and a sword bone, he destroyed the Seven Killings Demon Venerable and his demonic followers single-handedly in his youth. One sword shook the Nine Provinces, earning him the reverence of countless people in the immortal sects as Lord Jianjun Minghui.

The day Yu Zhenlan was invited to the Chaoxian Sect to discuss the Dao, Jiang Wangshu saw him from afar and immediately wanted him.

She wanted his natural Dao physique.

Born with incomplete meridians and unable to cultivate, Jiang Wangshu has endured mockery and bullying from her fellow sect disciples. She swears that if she ever sets foot on the path to immortality, she will make them pay dearly. Her confidence in getting revenge comes from a pair of Gu worms and a manual she obtained by chance.

The Gu worms are called Love Gu. There are two, a male and a female. Whoever bears the male Gu will be consumed by uncontrollable desire for the person who bears the female Gu, unable to control themselves.

The manual is an evil dual-cultivation technique that allows someone to steal another person’s cultivation physique after spending eighty-one days cultivating together.

After obtaining these two things, Jiang Wangshu secretly begins choosing a target for the male Gu. Then one day, seeing Yu Zhenlan surrounded by admirers like the moon among the stars, she decides to plant it in him.

After a great deal of effort, Jiang Wangshu finally succeeds in planting the male Gu.

Even Yu Zhenlan, who is on the verge of ascension, cannot resist the Love Gu’s effects. Jiang Wangshu gets her wish and spends eighty-one unforgettable days with him.

When the eighty-one days are over, she pushes the Yu Zhenlan, whose cultivation has been nearly crippled, into a demon pit to silence him.

After successfully embarking on the path of cultivation, she finally makes the disciples who bullied her pay for it and enjoys a life of being adored by everyone. What bliss.

Jiang Wangshu is so pleased with herself that she soon forgets all about Yu Zhenlan.

Until one night, she goes to the Plum Grove as invited, to drink and admire the moon. But when she arrives, she finds the ground covered in blood, and the man who invited her lying there, his life hanging in the balance.

Jiang Wangshu senses trouble and turns to flee, only to see a face she knows all too well.

The usually cool, strikingly aloof face is given a hint of alluring color by the demonic marking between his brows.

It’s Yu Zhenlan. He didn’t die. He’s even fallen into demonic cultivation.

*

That day, Yu Zhenlan was invited to the Chaoxian Sect to discuss the Dao, but that was not his true purpose.

He had previously spent years in seclusion, seeking the opportunity to ascend. In doing so, he realized that he still had one tribulation to overcome in this world, and that his cultivation was not yet complete.

This tribulation was called the Tribulation of Love.

That was why he accepted the invitation to the Chaoxian Sect. First, to destroy the remnant soul of the Seven Killings Demon Venerable.

Second, to undergo his tribulation.

His tribulation was a mortal girl, frail to the extreme. Mortals live for no more than a hundred years. So why not spend those hundred years with her? Once her life ended and she died, his tribulation would be over.

But he never expected the girl to be brazen enough to plant a Love Gu in him, steal his natural Dao physique, and then ruthlessly push him into a demon pit to silence him.

The tender promises of those three months all turned to dust. His Heartless Path shattered.

Yu Zhenlan hated her to the bone. He hated how cruel she was, how she truly felt not the slightest affection for him.

Through the countless days and nights after returning from the demon pit, Yu Zhenlan looked down at the girl beneath him, weeping and begging for mercy. All he wanted was for them to die together in that bed.

•PS: Both leads are each other’s first and only; happy ending; the lofty, aloof man falls from his pedestal.

Theme: Carry jade in your heart through a thousand mountains, and meet jade along the way.