Chapter 6-The Manga Pariah's Guide to Self-Salvation

Dressed in a gray cloak, Ye Zheng walked down the bustling street. This mysterious attire wasn't out of place in the lower district. The gray streets were filled with masked people and those wearing cloaks. Waving the shield flag of the lower district, they desperately tried to color the dirty, old streets with heated passion, shouting at the top of their lungs—

"Remove the Pig-Headed Mayor!"

"Send more ability users to deal with the Demonic Domain!"

"Give us the disaster relief we deserve!"

...

"Why us! Why does the lower district have to bear everything!"

Some people swung flags, smashing them into innocent shops on the side of the road, others roared and punched at the security officers who had rushed to the scene. A police line was set up, and rows of uniformed guards blocked the path of the furious protesters.

Ye Zheng nimbly weaved through the chaos, gradually leaving the angry crowd behind. She silently turned into a narrow alleyway. She didn't need to look back to know that even though most of the ability user guards were below C-rank, they could quickly and easily suppress this group of ordinary people—but what if such riots happened at countless locations in the lower district?

Ye Zheng gently knocked on a rusted iron door.

Behind the door, a woman wearing an apron cautiously peeked out. Upon seeing the familiar face, she happily welcomed the girl inside. "My Lady Saintess, why are you here today... I'm glad he's not around."

Ye Zheng took off her cloak. "Your husband is an active leader in this area. The mayor of the lower district is giving a public speech today, so he must be organizing a demonstration."

The woman lowered her head in shame, one hand rubbing her other arm. "As his wife, I'm completely in the dark about his activities... I'm sorry to cause you trouble."

Ye Zheng chuckled softly. "Your task isn't to monitor him for me. In fact, he's not worth monitoring at all."

Based on his behavioral logic and situational judgment, she could predict her husband's plans for the next few days. Such an easily seen-through person wouldn't even be on the lower district police's radar.

But it was often such ordinary people who could stir up unexpected waves.

Ye Zheng took the woman's hand. "Wen Xin, your speeches and newspaper articles have a greater influence than your husband's actions."

"Without your words, he's just a mocked brute. He wouldn't have so many people who believe in him."

Wen Xin, flattered, shook her head. "I'm just an ordinary person who's good at writing. I don't have my husband's vision and passion. I didn't even know who the mayor of the lower district was."

"If you didn't have passion, how could your writing inspire so many people to resist?"

"I just wrote about the true feelings of a lower district resident... and those slogans were all provided by you, My Lady Saintess."

Wen Xin's timid eyes shone as she looked at the girl who was so perfect she seemed like a deity had descended.

"You're the one who told me that according to the empire's laws, lower district residents should receive more abundant subsidies and that the lower district has the right to command the Royal Knights and Sei Curia guards during periods of high Demonic Domain activity..."

"You are clearly the biggest contributor to the lower district's resistance, but no one knows..."

Ye Zheng laughed softly. "This is not an honorable thing in the upper district."

Because of the lower district riots, the entire upper district was under a low pressure atmosphere. The lower district was a civilian hive that they discarded like an old shoe, but it was also the Holy Sei Empire's biggest shield against the Demonic Domain. This battle-scarred shield was no longer willing to be obedient, and this worried the masters sitting in the back so much they couldn't even be bothered to see their mistresses.

Wen Xin immediately panicked and quickly said, "No, I won't say anything! Not even if I die!"

Ye Zheng sighed softly, whispering, "I don't need you to die. I need you to publish another article."

"Continue to praise that team from the lower district academy. They are not only the hope of the lower district but also proof of the empire's mistake—that ability user resources shouldn't be allocated based on talent."

"Hmm, let's focus the promotion on the captain, Percy. As an E-rank talent, isn't it very convincing that he can trample the Royal Academy under his feet?"

Wen Xin's eyes widened slightly. Even though she was just a housewife, she knew that allocating resources based on talent was the most fundamental law of the Holy Sei Empire. The empire's research showed that ability user talent was closely related to bloodlines, and the offspring of high-rank ability users generally had stronger talents. These high-rank talents were concentrated in the upper and at best, the mid-district. Therefore, it was only natural for ability user resources to favor the upper district.

Wen Xin swallowed. "Are you saying that opposing the allocation of ability user resources based on talent will... will make people in the upper district very upset?"

Upset was a gross understatement. This was an attempt to shake the rulers' interests!

Ye Zheng curved her eyes. "Yes, it's very offensive."

She suddenly pulled up Wen Xin's sleeve, revealing the woman's scarred arm. Ye Zheng's slender fingers gently stroked it.

Wen Xin hadn't yet recovered from the shock. She stared blankly as a cool current of water wrapped around her ugly arm and stammered, "More and more people have been following him these past few days, and he couldn't help but drink a little more..."

Ye Zheng lowered her gaze, her expression blank, and looked at the woman's scars. "This is the last article you'll publish under your husband's name."

"As long as you agree, from now on, this will never happen again."

Wen Xin watched the girl's elegant retreating figure, her heart pounding.

Should she... should she do it?

Giving her husband such an article to publish was almost the same as—

Murder.

In such turmoil, a significant sacrifice was needed to push the story to the next climax. Since a sacrifice was inevitable, she would carefully select a person who deserved to die.

However, it would be unfair to judge whether a person deserved to die based on her judgment alone, so she placed the final verdict in Wen Xin's hands.

She was very much looking forward to the result of the judgment.

Ye Zheng turned into another alley and entered an inconspicuous house. After a while, she walked out again, nonchalantly wearing her cloak.

[What kind of outfit is that? According to the original manga, you should be wearing a pure white dress, the kind that looks divine.] The system suddenly popped up.

"You really know how to pick your timing to come back."

[Of course. I detected that the manga's plot is about to begin. It's time for me to come back and help you.]

Ye Zheng was noncommittal about the system's help. She walked expressionlessly down the narrow path, as if she were on guard at all times.

Ahead was the Sei Plaza, the most crowded area in this region.

Ye Zheng had Wen De order the knight team to help the Saintess find something in the Sei Plaza. With the team's arrogant style, the plaza should have been cleared out.

Ye Zheng slowed her pace. She could already see the wide plaza ahead. As she expected, aside from the knights in uniform, the ordinary people had left. A gentle breeze blew the scraps of paper on the ground. Ye Zheng watched the dancing paper, which then convulsed in midair and was completely shredded by a twisted gust of wind.

It's here. Ye Zheng looked at the unnaturally blue sky.

"It's a Demonic Domain! A Demonic Domain has descended!"

"Damn it! We were just out here looking for something!"

The knights' curses rang out alongside a desolate cry. Ye Zheng blinked, and the surrounding low-lying houses and old streets disappeared. In their place was an endless expanse of yellow sand. In the boundless desert, only a few scattered figures could be seen.

This was a Demonic Domain, an unknown alternate space. If this Demonic Domain wasn't resolved in time, this desert space would expand indefinitely until the entire Holy Sei Empire was assimilated into a desert.

"F***! Who said the probability of a Demonic Domain descending near the Sei Curia was low? I even pulled some strings to come here!"

"Taking on assignments in the lower district comes with this risk. This place is not like the mid-district. I heard you can enter a Demonic Domain just by going grocery shopping here."

"I'm a person from the upper district, and this is my first time entering a Demonic Domain. It's much more interesting than the endless buildings in the upper district!"

Ye Zheng leaned against a sand dune, listening to the noisy elite knights from the mid- and upper districts, knowing she couldn't rely on them. She tightened her cloak, pulled her feet out of the sand, and walked forward step by step.

[You don't need to move. The manga's plot gravity will arrange for you to meet the main characters.]

[When the time comes, monsters will appear and attack you. The male lead, Pei An, will save you. You just need to wait peacefully.]

Ye Zheng extended her hand, pointing into the distance. "But there are also ordinary people who got caught in the Demonic Domain." Even though she had deduced the general location of the Demonic Domain's descent from the manga spoilers and had managed to get most of the ordinary people away in advance, some were still trapped.

[...]

[Get a grip. You're a healing ability user! Not a combat one!]

[This Demonic Domain is hiding many mutated desert monsters, the kind that swallow ordinary people whole. Your ability is completely useless here.]

Ye Zheng frowned. "In that case, I need to act faster."

She tightened her cloak and started running through the desert. The system was so angry it felt like it was going to faint. No wonder the readers hated her so much! This kind of naive kindness was so annoying! If the creator drew this scene, the system could already imagine what the readers would say: a silly, naive Saintess, a brainless female lead from a bygone era... Damn it! When other fictional characters became aware, they became cold, decisive, and intelligent. But this one didn't get rid of any of her flaws, she just got better at arguing!

"Rest in peace."

A current of water wrapped around the half-man-tall lizard on the ground. The woman the lizard had pinned down hastily escaped its clutches and jumped behind the gray-cloaked person.

The water covered the lizard's face. It struggled violently, as if someone were strangling it, until its limbs fell limply. Only then did the water slowly recede.

"Don't be afraid. Stay behind me."

Ye Zheng kept her voice low. The tightly wrapped cloak and magnetic voice made it hard for the woman to tell her benefactor's gender. But that didn't matter. She had met a powerful and kind ability user in the Demonic Domain. This was her greatest stroke of luck in misfortune!

[...]

[Aren't you a healing type?]

The system looked at everything in disbelief, seeing the several people following the girl who she had just saved.

Ye Zheng raised an eyebrow slightly. "Even an ordinary doctor isn't completely defenseless. A scalpel can save lives, but it can also be a deadly weapon."

[But in the manga, your scenes are all about healing others and being rescued by the male lead when you're in danger...]

"Is there a possibility that..."

"If the male lead didn't save me, I would have already solved the problem myself."

Ye Zheng said calmly.

The system was utterly shocked. This was an angle it had never considered.

Translator's Note: Tada! Revealing a little what Ye Zheng is doing...

The novelupdates' auto updating function is not working yet, made a X account if you want to follow new updates: https://x.com/witchtls

← Previous Chapter Next Chapter →