Shift! The Side-Character Heroine

Zhao Youyue was not a fan of thriller novels. She only watched the movie adaptations of his novel.

However, she remembered him as a rational person. He was an influential author that emphasized on tradition. His novels often led readers to contemplate and reflect upon themselves. A man with considerable cultivation.

The question was, Ou Yang was an author in her reality. Why would he appear in this world?

Did that mean his inspirations came from this world?

Of course, he did not need to possess the ability to cross over dimensions. The inspirations he received from this world could be scattered, fragmented. With considerable refining and molding, these fragments could be shaped into a complete novel.

Zhao Youyue observed the situation with her keen, cat eyes. She realized that private investigator; Ou Yang was rather good at flirting. He was bold and spirited, and some of the girls in this donkey group admired him greatly.

Zhao Youyue was speechless. This was a completely different Ou Yang!

The Ou Yang in reality, was a shy introvert. He was not married, even with such accomplishment in terms of fate and wealth. Perhaps all of his playboy-related talents had manifested themselves in this other world, instead?

What little she knew of Ou Yang came from the internet and her friends. She was completely unaware that Ou Yang was very particular about the state of a female’s hymen. The first question he threw during a date always concerned the virginity of his date, followed by his proclamation of being a virgin...

Perhaps Ou Yang was as virginal as virgins went. But judging from how he flirted with the young ladies in this world, he had to be rather skilled in some forms of exercises.

It was obvious, from the way Ou Yang expatiated on courtship and partnership in his novel. One could not convey those actions in details without any experience. Perhaps he has done all of it in another world?

Such was an acceptable presumption for Zhao Youyue. While Ou Yang converged all his inspirations into a novel’s script, he could never imagine that all of them came from another version of himself in another world. If only they could communicate with each other, face to face...

He had once dreamt of being a private investigator. Even so, he could never recall most of his dream upon waking up.

It was a common case for everybody. Who would remember the details of a dream, when they could not even remember what did during the day...

Most people called it “déjà vu.” They might be doing something, or exploring a place that they had never been to, when suddenly a feeling would wash over them: telling every fiber in their bodies that they had experienced this exact moment before. There were a lot of explanations regarding this phenomena; some even called it the “hippocampal effect” [1]

Who knows, if it was another self from another world who had experience this before?

Déjà vu occurred at that moment when the two of them were resonating with one another.

Inspiration could be classified as a similar process. Most people thought that authors brainstormed and wrote whatever they could think of, especially when they drafted stories where protagonists could tear the sky apart with their bare hands, or shattered three thousand worlds with one slash. Some messed up authors were just trying to be funny, coming up with ridiculous climaxes. However, when famous authors illustrated such storylines, they would portray the genuine actions performed by their counterparts in another world. How else do we explain the flawless portrayal of events from these famous authors, when they were so tangible, so real?

Science believed that it was their natural gifts, imprinted within their genetic threads. For example, the author responsible for Dong Ge, [2] which involved a few majestic grand scenes. An average writer would not be able to come up with such plot. He had even made up some his own phrases and proverbs to get some of his grand scenes across. Of course, he had witnessed all these grand scenes in person. Of course, he could write according to his experiences!

However, these talented authors were obstructed from determining the origins of these remarkable gifts. The ability that so many envied was simply recollecctions of experiences from another self in another world. No matter how much effort common writers put into their storylines, they would never produce such epic and realistic scripts.

Gifts were nothing but connections to a copy of another self in another realistic dimension. Authors who lacked “gifts” could only follow the trend and write something sellable. Someday, when they find their own copy in another world, they would gather more fragments of “inspirations” and make their masterpieces!

Some famous authors would run out of fire as they worked on new titles. They had probably killed themselves in the other world. They would revert to mediocre writing, unless Zhao Youyue dives in and causes another fuss.

Was this set of theories completely absurd?

It should be absurd, yet it answered its own questions. This was the connection between iconic novels and reality. Authors communed with their copies in another world. It could be a world of fantasy, a mythical realm, a wasteland, a spiritual world and so on...

Zhao Youyue had reason to believe Ou Yang was not the only one who had a copy in this realistic spiritual world. It might not be a mirror image, yet they served as information transponders, sending inspiration back to their real selves.

She might even meet someone she knew...

Ou Yang and the rest of the donkey gang watched, as Zhao Song carried a weak young girl on his back. The curiosity in their hearts grew even stronger when the saw her pretty face. They surrounded Zhao Song and started to question the identity of this beautiful dame.

Zhao Song could not shake the feeling that these people were being watched. They had their overwhelming courage to blame for that.

“I have no idea who she is, I saw her lying unconscious on the hill, so I saved her,” Zhao Song omitted the fact that he had planned to abandon her. He would not save her, if his cat had stubbornly stayed until he did so.

“Teacher Zhao, I never would have taken you as a warm-hearted guy. As a hardcore fan, I am proud of you!” Ou Yang patted Zhao Song on his shoulder, his face beaming with respect.

“The hill was littered with tombstones, and you brought an unknown person back to the camp. Isn’t that a little inappropriate?” a soft female voice echoed in the crowd.

Everybody felt a chill running through their bones!

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Translation Notes:

[1] Déjà vu is a French term that literally means “already seen”. Studies have reported it had occurred in 60-70% of people, most commonly between the ages of 15 and 25. The researchers (from France!—who better?) found that synchronized neural firing between the rhinal cortices and the hippocampus or amygdala were increased in stimulations that induced déjà vu. This suggests that some sort of coincident occurrence in medial temporal lobe structures may “trigger” activation of the recollection system.

[2] Dong Ge is a nickname given to eldest princess YeheNara clan(Chinese: 叶赫那拉氏; Pinyin: Yèhè Nālā Shì), which was never mentioned in any of official history. In 1996, a drama named “Princess Yehenara” named the princess as “Singer of the East” (Chinese:东歌）In 2005, the television drama “The Secret History of Taizu” she was named as “Dong Ge” (Chinese:东哥）which was in the language of Manchu that means a beautiful grass that grows on the water’s edge.