Chapter 168

The disgust and loathing in the Heavenly Way’s voice were not concealed in the slightest. He was so forthright in his disdain, it was almost as if He truly believed Himself above reproach.

Rong Tang, however, was deathly pale, his entire body rigid and cold. The feeling of anger kept rising from deep within, crashing repeatedly into his chest until it ached with suffocating pressure.

He remained silent for a long, long time before finally finding his voice. When he spoke, it was hoarse to the point of being almost inaudible. “Why?”

The Heavenly Way chuckled softly, and echoed: “Why?”

“I’d quite like to know that myself,” He said. “You were perfectly fine. So why come down here?”

The old man remained seated, a seemingly genial smile playing on his lips. With a faint lift of his hand, the surroundings shifted. Rong Tang hadn’t even had time to react before something floating at the old man’s side caught the corner of his eye.

His pupils contracted in an instant. Gripping the armrest, his body instinctively leaned forward.

—It was the system.

The system that had only ever manifested before him on full-moon nights now floated silently at the Heavenly Way’s side—utterly motionless, and eerily still.

Rong Tang croaked, “What did you do to it?”

“Don’t be so tense,” said the Heavenly Way mildly. “I merely returned it to its original state.”

Rong Tang’s heart sank.

Its original state… He had seen it once, in a dream: a tiny vaporous wisp amidst the clouds. Formed of mist, and so insubstantial that a single rain could scatter it into the earth, leaving not a trace behind.

The Heavenly Way asked, “Do you know why you came into this world?”

Rong Tang didn’t answer. The old man clearly wasn’t expecting one. After a slight pause, he continued on his own, tone unreadable. Neither kind nor cruel.

“It was all real at the beginning.”

“The novel, the protagonist, the main villain. Their settings were all real from the start.” His voice was gentle, his tone steady… like a sage who had seen the rise and fall of empires, speaking with the practiced calm of someone used to being listened to.

And yet beneath that tranquillity was an inescapable presumption, an invisible arrogance born of condescension.

“The story unfolded just as you first read it. The protagonist braved endless trials, ascended towards the throne… only to have his fate stolen at the final moment by the designated main villain, altering the course and ending of the tale.”

He recited it dispassionately. Rong Tang could bear it no longer and cut in, mocking, “Are you living inside your own fantasy?”

The other man gave a soft laugh. “This world is mine. In that sense, your words aren’t entirely untrue.”

Rong Tang fell silent. His gaze kept drifting towards the system, calculating how he might get the little fool out of here.

As for what the Heavenly Way had said… it was utter nonsense.

So preposterous, in fact, that each additional word felt like a fresh insult to the ear.

But the old man wasn’t done.

“You liked this novel. You died unexpectedly in another world. And just as this story was locked in stasis, without an ending, you arrived by sheer coincidence. Your duty should have been to keep the minor world running smoothly, to see the author’s intended conclusion brought to life. So why did you change it?”

He sounded genuinely puzzled. “The protagonist triumphs. The main villain dies at the hands of a righteous figure. Isn’t that what readers in your world want most? Why would you alter it in such an illogical way?”

He really didn’t seem to understand. The desire had gone from his gaze, now replaced with a desperate yearning for an answer, tinged with something bordering on madness.

He was the Heavenly Way. His role was to preserve Sheng Chengli’s protagonist aura, to ensure that—no matter what—he would become the one to rule the world.

And now, because of Rong Tang’s interference, not only had Sheng Chengli’s chances of ascending the throne diminished again and again, even the original ending where the main villain succeeded in his rebellion and Dayu burned to ashes had all but slipped from reach.

From the Heavenly Way’s perspective, Rong Tang had accomplished nothing good in all three of his lifetimes inside this world.

It was difficult for him not to hate this man.

Yet Rong Tang simply lowered his gaze and looked down at the bloody marks on his palm.

After a moment of silence, he spoke softly: “I find it quite fascinating.”

The Heavenly Way paused, surprised, and glanced at him with faint curiosity, waiting for more.

Rong Tang said, “I’ve been wondering… I never taught Sheng Chengli to lie through his teeth, to twist the truth, to confuse right and wrong, to cloak his bile in righteousness. Excellency Mu wouldn’t have taught him that either, and neither would Ke Hongxue. So where did he learn it from? Who taught him that manner of speech?That way of always posing as the most aggrieved soul in the world, as if everyone owed him something, saying the most nauseating things without the slightest sense of shame or guilt?”

He spoke slowly, every word unhurried, his bearing so composed it could have been immortalised in a master’s painting.

“Now that I think about it, I suppose he learned from the best. You.”

His voice remained warm, his demeanour faultless. Not a single vulgarity. Not the faintest flicker of temper. But when his gaze lifted ever so slightly, a natural authority radiated from within.

The Heavenly Way stared blankly for two seconds, then frowned, displeased.

But Rong Tang went on. “I didn’t really listen to what you said, and I couldn’t be bothered to correct all your mistakes. After all, I’m not your teacher. I’ve no obligation to set you straight or hope you’ll turn out better.”

“But first of all, this world isn’t yours.”

To say such a thing in front of the Heavenly Way was tantamount to hurling a thunderbolt. As soon as the words left Rong Tang’s lips, he saw the other man’s expression shift once, twice, several times… before settling into something between mockery and fury.

“Are you trying to say it’s yours?”

Rong Tang gave a low laugh, only now realising just how unnecessary all his earlier caution had been.

He shook his head. “Of course not. But thank you… for confirming my suspicion.”

The very fact that the Heavenly Way had said the words ‘this world is mine’, whether in sarcasm or in challenge, was enough to prove that Rong Tang hadn’t entered the book as Prince Ningxuan from the start.

He said, “I’ve just come to understand something. And perhaps… it might answer your question.”

The Heavenly Way had claimed that everything was real. But Rong Tang thought: if all of it was real, then why had he been brought into this world? And in what capacity?

He asked, “When were you born?”

The Heavenly Way answered as though it were self-evident: “At the beginning of the world.”

Rong Tang nodded thoughtfully. “The beginning of the world… That would be when the author first conceived the outline of this story.”

“What are you trying to say?” For some reason, a vague sense of unease began to rise in the Way’s chest.

Rong Tang continued, “The idea that a fictional world, born of a novel in the real world, might develop its own self-awareness—that’s not so hard to believe.”

The Heavenly Way said nothing, merely watched him in silence.

“But if that’s the case,” said Rong Tang, “then my arrival in this world becomes… illogical.”

Every word bears its own shadow; no term is born without origin or trace.

This business of crossing into the world three times… it was a fabrication. And yet, if he returned to the very beginning of his first life here, the information he had been given was this:

[The plot line is in critical collapse. The emperor is not tolerated by the Heavenly Way. The world teeters on the brink and requires urgent correction. However, as the small world’s awareness has only just formed, it lacks the power to directly extinguish the villain. Therefore, you must protect Sheng Chengli and ensure his successful ascension.]

That was the stated premise. On that basis, Rong Tang had been dragged here from another world.

It all appeared quite reasonable. But Rong Tang asked softly, “Do you even know what correction means?”

The Heavenly Way didn’t respond. It was as if He had begun to realise what Rong Tang was about to say… and that He wouldn’t like it.

Rong Tang spoke with unhurried clarity. “The way I’ve crossed into this world, again and again, feels like playing a game where I keep loading a save file to try again. I used to wonder why such a mechanism existed. Now… I think I understand.”

The Heavenly Way’s eyes flickered.

Rong Tang said, “In my world, we have something called computer code.”

“Games, programs—whatever they are, at their core, they’re all written in code. When a problem arises, and that problem is identified, one method is to patch over it: apply a fix, reinforce the structure, keep things from crashing immediately. That’s a patch.”

“But a correction… that’s something else. It means tracing the issue back to its origin, to the very line where the error first occurred, deleting the code, and rewriting it from scratch.”

“It’s a massive undertaking. But only by doing so can you avoid a situation where one patch leads to another, and then another, until the whole thing becomes a leaky mess.”

Rong Tang’s smile was mild. “Sound familiar?”

The Heavenly Way said grimly, “Stop being coy.”

Rong Tang said, “If the World’s Consciousness realised that Su Huaijing’s ascension would bring about its destruction, and this outcome was an irreversible consequence caused by faulty code, then the most efficient solution would have been to send the task-bearer—me—back to before Su Huaijing was ever born, and erase him at the source. That would have been correction.”

“But I was never given that task. On the contrary, I was told to protect Sheng Chengli.”

“Whichever way you look at it, this feels like someone half-understood the correction process, patched together their own crude version, and came up with something that looks vaguely like a plan, but behaves like a bad imitation.”

It was like watching someone try to paint a tiger, only to end up with a dog.

The Heavenly Way’s composure cracked. That pious, righteous façade vanished in an instant. In its place, a flush of rage and humiliation.

Rong Tang closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, his voice was steady.

“And that leads me to suspect… that whoever gave me the task already knew of other assignments, other mechanisms. But their understanding was limited. Their skill incomplete. They wanted to overwrite the original task but were constrained by the initial framework. In the end, what I received was a clumsy reconfiguration: protect the protagonist from being killed by the main villain.”

“I keep dreaming,” he said quietly. “In the dream, I’m still a transmigrator. But I’m not sent here as any particular person. And my task… was never to protect Sheng Chengli.”

“No. In the dream, the clearest message is always this: Stop it all from happening.”

He laughed then. There were only the two of them in that vast hall, but there was no mirth in his eyes, only weariness, and irony, layered like sediment over time.

“To stop something before it begins. Isn’t that the truest form of correction?”

The Heavenly Way’s face darkened. He growled, “What exactly are you trying to say?”

Rong Tang pinched the bridge of his nose, visibly tired. “You people. Always pretending to understand what you don’t, and pretending not to understand what you do. It’s exhausting.”

“You say everything is real. That, perhaps, I can accept. But answer me this: if a fully self-contained world had indeed developed its own awareness, why would it not simply do its job and preserve the world as best it could?”

“Why would it reach beyond itself? Why would it drag in someone from another world?”

He looked up at Him. “Every outsider pulled in doesn’t belong here. Each one introduces instability. Unpredictability. Why would it take such a risk?”

The Heavenly Way’s brows furrowed tightly. He stared at Rong Tang in silence.

Rong Tang met His gaze coolly, and said… word by word, low and clear:

“Because it was trying to save itself.”

“It was never Su Huaijing who doomed this world. It was you… and your so-called protagonist.”

Every being born into a world, person or otherwise, possesses one primal instinct: the will to survive.

The World Consciousness had it. So did the Heavenly Way.

The World Consciousness had foreseen it: if the original story was allowed to proceed, then Su Huaijing would inevitably seize the throne, Dayu would fall into civil war, and its people would suffer untold ruin. The world itself would perish.

So it reached out. It drew someone in. Someone who could stop all of it from unfolding.

But the Heavenly Way saw it differently.

He saw that if those events were truly prevented, then He and His male lead would become obsolete. Their very existence would be reduced to a mistake. A flaw. A bug to be eliminated.

And so He took hold of the original rules. Rewrote them. Refashioned them. Cloaked fiction in half-truths. Crafted a lie that seemed just plausible enough.

A lie designed to legitimise His own existence… and usurp the authority of the World Consciousness.

Power.

“You lied,” said Rong Tang softly.

There was no sadness in his tone. No joy. Not even accusation. And yet, the words sent a shiver through the air, as if something ancient and deep had just stirred.

“It wasn’t you who was born at the start of this world. It was the World Consciousness.”

“As for you… your origin lies with Sheng Xuyan’s rebellion.”

Sheng Xuyan made his move. Laid his plans. Sheng Chengli was born. The seer cast his divination.

That was the true beginning of The Emperor’s Journey.

And the being now calling Himself the Heavenly Way—was born from that.

Rong Tang sighed, as though he’d been sleepwalking for lifetimes, and had only just now remembered what he had come here to do.

“I came here to stop you,” he said.

And that was originally what “correction” meant to be.