Pay attention now. The blank-faced young woman standing before you is named Sang Nian. After scoring an absolute zero on her thesis plagiarism check, she had resorted to writhing around in pure, unadulterated despair—only to accidentally crawl her way right into the cultivation world.
Right now, she is facing the greatest crisis of her life.
“If you don’t kill me today, I swear I will carve out your heart, strip away your bones, and scatter your ashes to the winds.”
The biting chill in those words sent a shiver straight down Sang Nian’s spine.
Subconsciously, she followed the voice.
The candlelight flickered with an ambiguous, hazy glow. Within the priceless silk curtains, a young man sat with his dark hair cascading in disarray. His wrists were bound to the headboard by red cords and golden bells. The outer edges of his eyes were flushed with a delicate, intoxicating shade of rouge, and his pupils were as dark and glossy as polished lacquer—he looked every bit like a demon about to snare a soul.
Sang Nian: “……?”
She looked down at her own half-unbuttoned clothes, and then over at him, who was stripped down to nearly nothing. Her fully crashed brain struggled to reboot.
Two seconds later, the question mark turned into an exclamation point.
She scrambled off him in a panic, clumsily pulled her garments together, and stumbled toward the door like a headless fly.
“Milady?” Chun’er, the maid standing guard outside, asked in utter confusion, “Why are you coming out?”
Before Sang Nian could even speak, the maid seemed to draw her own conclusion. With a gentle push, Chun’er shoved her right back into the room, grinning warmly.
“Don’t be shy, Milady. We won’t hover out here. Just mind the auspicious hour—consummating the marriage comes first.”
Creeeak—
The door shut, and the lock clicked firmly into place.
Chun’er’s triumphant voice drifted faintly from the other side, “Let’s see him try to run this time.”
Inside the room, Sang Nian clutched the loose lapels of her blouse and looked back at the young man bound by the red cords.
Their eyes met in a dead, suffocating silence.
Sang Nian closed her eyes in sheer despair.
Just three minutes ago, she had been screaming, writhing, twisting, and crawling in utter misery back in her dorm.
Yet somehow, somewhere along the way, a wire had crossed—
She had crawled straight into the cultivation world.
To be precise, into a novel centered around cultivation.
And the person sitting right in front of her was none other than the female lead’s white moonlight, the male supporting character Xie Chenzhou.
According to the book, he had lost both parents at a young age and suffered from intermittent bouts of psychological instability. Blessed with devastating good looks, his entire journey had been a gauntlet of misery: forcefully taken by a female villain, envied by male rivals, coveted by the heroine, and targeted by the antagonists. Talk about a tragic life.
In short, he was an ill-fated wretch whose mental health and psychological state were deeply, deeply concerning.
Sang Nian hadn’t managed to transmigrate into the book’s heroine.
She was the female supporting character.
Specifically, Sang Yunling—the vicious villainess who forcefully abducted Xie Chenzhou, only to subject him to constant beatings, verbal abuse, and every conceivable form of humiliation the moment her fleeting novelty wore off. She had battered his body and mind from every possible angle, eventually driving him straight into madness.
Naturally, the consequence of such behavior was—
He would rather drag her down with him in mutual destruction, running her through with a single sword and slicing her into neat, perfectly uniform pieces.
At this thought, Sang Nian silently chanted a requiem for herself, desperately trying to achieve spiritual transcendence ahead of schedule.
“Carve out your heart, strip away your bones, scatter your ashes… Xie Chenzhou definitely follows through on that.”
A childish voice suddenly rang out in Sang Nian’s mind.
Sang Nian tensed up. “Who are you?”
“Let me introduce myself. I am number sixty-six, the greatest entity in the universe, the Lord God’s true-born system, the terminator of instant noodles and melon seeds, an artist, a singer, the leader of the Little Chicken Cult, a high-ranking devotee of the Pomegranate Gate, and also—”
Sang Nian gasped sharply: “Are there really this many people inside my head?”
Sixty-six: “.”
Ding-dong~ Your system has gone offline.
Following a crisp notification sound, the system went completely dead silent. No matter how frantically she called out, there was no response, leaving her with no choice but to drop the matter for now.
The situation right now was far more thrilling than a ninety-eight percent plagiarism match on a thesis. Sang Nian was genuinely worried she might accidentally pass out.
Judging by the original owner’s current physical condition, it was a very distinct possibility.
The original owner, Sang Yunling, was the only younger sister of the Lord of Qingzhou City. She suffered from a congenital heart condition and possessed an utterly atrocious character.
Note: The word “character” here did not refer solely to her physical health.
Because of her illness, her family had spoiled her rotten, making her arrogant, domineering, and prone to lashing out at anyone who looked at her funny. Her primary philosophy in life was quite simple: beat the living daylights out of others first, and never wrong herself in the slightest.
Rubbing her persistently dizzy head, Sang Nian dragged herself over to the table and poured a cup of warm tea.
Before she had even taken two sips, she remembered the person on the bed and asked cautiously,
“Would you like some?”
Xie Chenzhou didn’t answer. He simply continued to fix her with a spine-chilling, venomous stare.
With that, Sang Nian took a few small, cautious sips until the cup was empty. Once her head stopped spinning quite so badly, she walked straight toward him, keeping her gaze fixed straight ahead.
She raised her hand.
The young man glared at her with unyielding ferocity, his eyes overflowing with dark, murderous intent.
A soft piece of fabric drifted gently downward.
A gentle warmth gradually spread across his entire body.
A trace of bewilderment flickered in his eyes.
Bending down, Sang Nian set to work untying the red cords binding his hands. Her fingertips carefully avoided the golden bells hanging from the strings as she spoke at top speed:
“I’m letting you go. From now on, we’re total strangers—we don’t know each other at all.”
Lowering his gaze, Xie Chenzhou stared at the tip of her nose before letting out a soft, mocking sneer after a moment.
“What kind of game are you trying to play this time?”
“Just pretend my brain broke,” Sang Nian replied.
She had no idea what kind of knot had been tied; no matter how she tugged, she couldn’t undo it. In the process, she accidentally brushed against his hand, and it was searingly hot.
Giving up entirely, she paced around the room twice before finally unearthing a pair of scissors from a drawer.
Yet, even until the web of her thumb turned red and raw, that wretched cord remained completely undamaged.
Scouring the original owner’s memories, Sang Nian finally remembered that this was a custom-made rope.
It had protective barriers placed upon it, making it impossible to cut or untie without a specific incantation.
And naturally, the original owner hadn’t bothered to remember the incantation, either.
Dusting off non-existent dirt from her hands, Sang Nian stood back up and told Xie Chenzhou,
“How about you wait a moment longer? I’ll go find someone to help.”
Xie Chenzhou didn’t answer, his body trembling violently.
Startled, she asked, “What’s wrong with you?”
He shot her a glance, the curve of his lips dripping with sarcasm. “You don’t know what’s wrong with me?”
Sang Nian was momentarily struck speechless.
Right. Fearing that Xie Chenzhou wouldn’t submit, her brother had forcefully made him swallow three entire pills of aphrodisiac before dragging him into the bridal chamber.
No wonder his body was burning up like a furnace.
Fatigued to her very core, she didn’t dare look into his desire-laden eyes, let alone gaze at the physical changes happening to his body.
“Just bear with it for a bit. I’m going to find someone.”
“……Come here,” Xie Chenzhou rasped.
“I’d really rather not,” Sang Nian replied tactfully.
“Isn’t this what you wanted?” Xie Chenzhou sneer-laughed.
“I sort of don’t want it anymore,” she said dryly.
Through gritted teeth, Xie Chenzhou growled, “Sang. Yun. Ling.”
His expression was so vicious he looked ready to devour her alive, sending Sang Nian into a frantic retreat.
“Look, this whole mess is genuinely our fault! I’m apologizing to you right now—I’ll hold a full press conference to apologize to the entire cultivation world! Just wait here, I’ll make my brother come and lift the poison right this second!”
“Host, you can’t do that. This is all part of your little play, you know,” chimed in a voice.
Sang Nian nearly tumbled backward in a heap.
Ding-dong~ The system is back online.
“Oh gosh, this internet is so laggy, I just dropped the connection,” Sixty-six chirped. “Have you finished doing everything you’re supposed to do?”
“—