Chapter 718: Chapter 427: Kept a Trump Card
Ningxin Garden.
Li Nuo looked up at the sky, speechless for a long time.
After an unknown period, he finally lowered his head, glancing around him.
King Rui was right, after acquiring this power, indeed, he could see things that ordinary people couldn’t.
Moments later, the power that belonged to King Rui returned to his body.
King Rui looked at him and asked, "What did you hear?"
Li Nuo shook his head slightly and said, "You wouldn’t want to know."
King Rui sighed softly and said, "I understand..."
He looked at Li Nuo again and asked, "Why are you different from us?"
Li Nuo replied, "Perhaps because I am the protagonist?"
King Rui chuckled and said, "You know you’re not."
Li Nuo also smiled slightly and said, "Indeed, I’m not."
Yiren, who had been eavesdropping for a while, jumped out with a puzzled look and asked, "What do you mean by knowing and not knowing, what’s different, what protagonist, who is the protagonist?"
Li Nuo and King Rui didn’t speak, but simultaneously glanced at the elegant figure playing a game of chess in the pavilion with someone.
Subsequently, Li Nuo cupped Yiren’s face with his hands and said, "Nothing, he’s just gone silly from reading too much, don’t mind him."
Yiren, entangled with Li Nian and Li Zhi, had no choice but to play with them. King Rui looked at Li Nuo and continued, "The Minister of Justice, including all of us, are the same; only you are different. You are more special than him. Your story is created by you, perhaps you can create something more unique..."
In the pavilion in the center of the lake, a game had just ended.
King Chun looked at the handsome young man, and his expression changed.
In these many years, it was his first time seeing someone who could reach a stalemate in a game with Xuanjing.
The young man stood up, smiled at Li Xuanjing, and said, "I have not lost, and you have not won. Let us wait and see what comes next..."
With that, he left with his hands behind his back.
As he passed by Li Nuo and King Rui, his steps slightly paused, and he looked at King Rui, saying, "I just recalled, your ability is somewhat similar to the School of Calligraphy but seems slightly different, could it be a branch of it? I admit, the School of Calligraphy is indeed impressive, but at the last stage, they all cultivate to madness, like the Yin Yang School, claiming our world is merely a story written by others, ha, utterly ridiculous..."
He mocked with a sentence, then his tone shifted, a certain confidence emerging on his face, "However, if this world truly is a book, then I am undoubtedly the protagonist..."
King Rui no longer looked at him with a pitiful gaze, merely smiled slightly and said, "As long as you’re happy."
Li Nuo couldn’t bear to shatter the illusion of this current peak power’s fantasy.
If he knew that the one who created him with his formidable Saint Cultivation on the continent was merely a third-rate author, his reaction might not differ much from those of the Yin Yang School.
In fact, those of the Yin Yang School who went mad and died after breaking through to the Saint Realm likely saw the truth of this world.
For these top current era powers, such a result is indeed hard to accept.
Borrowing King Rui’s ability earlier, Li Nuo saw a lot.
He carved out a new path through reading, which King Rui referred to as Reading, or one could say, a reader.
This ability allows him to see everyone’s life experiences, and when he uses this ability, he transcends this world, entering a state of an observer.
That’s also why King Gong and that Cross and Vertical Saint couldn’t touch his body.
However, as an observer, he can see it all but cannot make any changes.
Changing the story is the Calligraphy’s ability.
This novel called "Daxia Mirror," the protagonist is not Li Nuo but Li Xuanjing.
At eighteen, he became the Six Subjects’ Scholar, failed a reform with a fellow disciple, bore the dreams of everyone alone, endured disgrace for twenty years, and eventually overthrew imperial rule, achieving the highest Confucian ideal, the Great Unity...
No wonder Li Nuo has lived in his father’s shadow all these years.
Even if it wasn’t for what he did, his father could accomplish it all alone.
Who can contend with the protagonist’s halo?
As Li Xuanjing’s son, Li Nuo is merely a supporting character.
But aside from being the protagonist’s son, Li Nuo is also a transmigrator. His soul traversed from another world.
And the book "Daxia Mirror" is not a transmigration novel.
The outer world from where the heavenly voice comes is also not the world Li Nuo traversed from.
In other words, aside from the book world he is in, there exists another world of the author of this book and other worlds, and Li Nuo himself is not under the control of that third-rate author.
Perhaps even that third-rate author himself doesn’t realize this fact.
The answer might lie within this "Heavenly Book."
King Rui has already left, but his portrait appeared on the "Heavenly Book" alongside the Thief School.
Li Nuo’s previous speculation was correct, the Law Code replicating criminals’ skills and acquiring their lifespan is indeed a method of the Thief School. After evolving into the Heavenly Book, it no longer requires painstaking efforts to imprison people.
On the Heavenly Book appears a portrait, the Thief School’s Saint.
Judging from the timeline, it should be before the author weakened the Thief School. Last time, that Sect Leader Yan Wuheng also missed the Thief School’s prime.
With a thought, King Rui’s image lit up.
He lacked the key to penetrating the Heavenly Book.
The power of Reading is this key.
Li Nuo looked at these images, with notes of chaotic text emerging in front of his eyes.
After a long time, Li Nuo withdrew his gaze.
Though the first-generation saints of each school are strong, they are merely backdrops in the protagonist’s story.
Their role is to collectively create the "Confucian Scripture." Hundreds of years later, when the protagonist Li Xuanjing’s reform failed, he ended up in the Death Prison, accidentally discovering that the book propping under his bedding was the "Confucian Scripture," inheriting the Confucian Saint’s legacy, thus beginning his glorious adventure...
Wait, Li Nuo thought his father was like him, achieving the Six Subjects’ Scholar at the time because of using the Confucian Scripture’s cheat, but instead, he relied on his own strength...
Truly worthy of being the protagonist...
Overall, this story still follows a common adventure trope, showing that the author who was scolded into changing professions is indeed very average, unable to write anything better, being called a third-rate author is not wrong at all.
When a novel is created, the author can only control a limited storyline and characters. Those not prominently depicted or briefly mentioned characters have their naturally developed lives.
What the third-rate author didn’t expect was that merely being the backdrop saints, their realms already allowed them to see the truth of this world back then.
When the All Saints forged the "Confucian Scripture," they left a hand.
The All Saints collectively, while creating the "Law Code" alongside the "Confucian Scripture," sent it out from the book’s world. Li Nuo doesn’t know how the "Law Code" came to his world, but by a stroke of luck, it brought back his soul, which studied law...
Li Xuanjing’s legend has ended, and that third-rate author has already been scolded into changing his career to woodworking.
However, the world in the book continues to function normally.
This third-rate author, when conceiving the setting, added a lot of personal bias, the biggest being that, as the author, he set the Book as the most potent force in the book, and even he created characters like those in the Book who couldn’t break the shackles of fate.
The All Saints perhaps realized this and thus left this hand.
Li Nuo’s soul doesn’t belong to this world, and hence isn’t bound by this shackle. When he stands at the peak of the Book, wouldn’t he be able to replace that third-rate author?
[ps: To explain, it’s not malicious antics; the original setting was to break the fourth wall, which set the stage since the very beginning when the Yin Yang School first appeared in the book. The hint was deepened countless times in between, and I do not believe after following till near the end, no one saw any hint at all. I’ve vented all other frustrations for you; in terms of storyline structure, this book is complete, and the outline has never changed from start to finish...]
