There are certain things you expect to happen when you walk to the convenience store for a sugar fix and something chewy. You expect buzzing fluorescent lights just loud enough to be annoying, questionable meat skewers rotating under heat mps since the dawn of time, and maybe debating if today's the day you finally try that suspiciously neon, mystery-fvored energy drink?

  Getting reincarnated into the body of a third-rate vilin in a cultivation world is not on that list.

  And yet, here we are.

  One second I was scanning QR codes and trying to figure out if I could justify dropping another 4.99 on spicy ramen, and the next—bam.

  Pain.

  Violent, thudding, skull-wrenching pain. With a mind-blowing headache.

  My first sensation upon waking up is not the warmth of silk sheets, the softness of a down pillow, or the flickering of candlelight through gauzy curtains.

  It is pain. My head was pounding like I’d just lost a 3-day drinking contest to a Russian bear. But there is some strange feeling coursing through my body like he could feel his blood moving, that was lessening his headache quite a bit. And quite fast.

  That was decreasing from his pregnant-birth-giving levels to mild migraine quite fast.

  Naturally, I did what any sane man would do.

  “Ugh,” I groan, clutching my head like it’s trying to detonate. “Did I get hit by a flying ox cart?”

  My mouth tastes like regret. My limbs feel like cooked noodles. And for some reason, the air smells faintly of incense and… peaches?

  Peaches? Since when did the 7-Eleven start stocking artisanal potpourri?

  I crack one eye open.

  Ceiling. Ornate. Gold trim. Very fancy painted murals, and one particurly aggressive depiction of a dragon and a phoenix engaged in what I’ll generously call... passionate diplomacy. So, either I’ve been kidnapped by a cult with a very eborate interior decorator, or I’m having the weirdest dream of my life.

  I groan again, turning my head—and that's when I see her.

  Curled in the farthest corner, trying to merge with the wall. Small. Trembling. Dressed in torn, expensive-looking clothes, hugging herself like she was holding the pieces together. Long bck hair matted to her cheeks, bare feet clenched into the carpet like she was about to dig a tunnel out.

  She looks like she hasn’t blinked in ten minutes.

  And those eyes—wide, terrified, and loaded with enough "please don’t kill me" energy to power a small city—were fixed squarely on me.

  “…Uh. Hi?” My voice comes out raspy.

  She flinches like I’d asked her to kill someone.

  Okay. Not the warm reception I was hoping for, but still. Less sheer terror would’ve been nice.

  I sit up slowly, muscles compining, and lean back on what I now realize is the softest, most luxurious, probably-murdered-a-hundred-ducks-for-it bed I’ve ever touched. Seriously, the number of geese that must’ve been sacrificed for this mattress? Criminal.

  I take another look at the girl.

  Definitely not a courtesan. Not a maid either. Not with how she was eyeing me like I might sprout cws and start juggling knives—with her as the bullseye. She looks… wrong here. Like someone dropped a scared rabbit into a lion's den and forgot to tell the lion not to eat.

  And judging by her expression, I’m the lion.

  A chill, colder than any freezer aisle, slid down my spine.

  Something was very, very wrong.

  Then my brain helpfully decided it was download time. Memories. Feelings.

  Not mine—or rather, they are mine—but not from this me. A young master’s me. Courtesy of this body’s previous owner. A “descendant of the prestigious Xiao cn” me. A pampered, arrogant, probably-should’ve-been-spped-more-often me.

  My name is—or was?—Xiao Tian. Fourth generation of the Xiao bloodline. Born with only sixteen spirit roots and the moral compass of a depressed wasp.

  And the girl—oh no.

  My new memories handed me her name with horrifying crity: Mei Lin.

  From a vilge three provinces south—where the fields outnumber the people and enlightenment means not getting eaten by a spirit chicken.

  She was a nobody. Sure, a nobody with a face that could sell incense and a figure that made monks rethink their vows—but still a nobody. Except… she was the childhood sweetheart of

  Li Shen.

  That name hit like a temple gong straight to the soul. Li Shen—the quiet bumpkin who my grandfather had brought back from one of his "spiritual adventures" in the countryside. The one with the Heavenly Spirit Roots, the kind of thing that only appears once every thousand years, when the heavens get bored and roll the dice for fun.

  And my grandfather had pns. I remember now.

  The cn elders ughed at first. A peasant heir? Ridiculous. But Grandfather didn’t ugh. No, he got serious. And when that old man gets serious, people either get promoted… or buried.

  He had big pns.

  Pns to change the line of succession. Elevate Li Shen. Make him the heir. Marry him into the family. And to really seal the deal? Not just marry—he was going to bind the cn’s genius daughter—the Xiao Cn prodigy—to him as his wife.

  And I—well, he—Xiao Tian, the original owner of this fine, pampered body, handled the news with all the dignity of a cat tossed into a bathtub.

  Screaming. Scheming. Wine bottles flung like javelins. And then… a pn. A dark, awful pn to teach Li Shen his pce. Involving Mei Lin.

  I look back at her. Still shaking. Still staring.

  She doesn’t move, just clutches herself tighter. Her lip is trembling.

  No bruises, thank the heavens. But her hair is a mess. Her sleeves are torn. Her soul looks like it’s halfway out the window.

  God, what did I do? Or what did I make her do?

  My stomach churn. A wave of nausea hits me—not physical, not magical, just moral. Just pure, soul-deep revulsion. I flop back onto the goose-massacre bed, one arm draped dramatically over my face like a disgraced concubine in a historical drama.

  “Okay,” I mumble to the fancy ceiling dragon, “message received, universe. I’ve transmigrated into the vilinous cannon-fodder scumbag.”

  Out of all the possible roles! I can’t have been the plucky hero? The wise mentor? I would have settled for Background Guard #3 with a one-liner and a swift exit!

  But no. I get the entitled manchild with rage issues and a rap sheet longer than my receipt from CVS.

  I peek through my fingers. Mei Lin hadn’t moved. Still looking at me like I was about to go full vilin clearly expecting me to shout or strip or something worse.

  “Fantastic,” I whisper. “She thinks I’m him.”

  And technically, I am. Except… I’m not. Same body. Very different soul.

  So, to recap: I’m in the body of an aristocratic scumbag with a morally repugnant backstory, lying in a suspiciously perfumed bed, trying not to arm a terrified vilge girl in my corner.

  Fun.

  She still hasn’t blinked. I think she’s using sheer willpower to keep from unching herself out the window.

  “Okay,” I start, raising my hands in what I hope is the universal sign of I am harmless and possibly pathetic. “Just… listen, alright? I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Silence.

  She blinks. Once. Then again. Her arms tighten around her knees. She didn’t say anything, but her entire body screamed: Liar.

  I sat up straighter, frantically trying to remember if this guy, my charming host body, had done anything inappropriate. Her expression didn’t exactly fill me with optimism. I check the bedsheets—no blood. That was good. No strange stains either. Better. The sheet was mercifully clean and white. I don’t feel like a monster, which means there might still be hope.

  “No, really,” I add quickly. “I mean it. Not… not in that way. Not in any way. No touching. Zero touching.”

  She said nothing.

  I took a gamble. “I can help you speak to Li Shen.”

  Her expression morphs, slowly, like watching a rock realize it’s been duped by a squirrel.

  Disbelief.

  Hope.

  And then the hope crashes and burns so fast it probably summoned its own storm cloud.

  “You actually expect me to believe that?” she spat. Her voice cracked—not from weakness, but rage barely contained. “That’s what your servants said st night. Right before they dragged me here like a sack of turnips, bathed me, dressed me, and shoved me here.” Her lip curled. “After telling everyone I was your bedwarmer.”

  I flinched.

  Damn those servants.

  I resisted the urge to groan. Not just at her pain—but at the ridiculous, ironcd rules of this world's cultivation morality theater. Once a woman was “spoiled,” even if she just breathed in the same bedchamber as a noble, the rumors alone could crush her like a bug under a jade slipper.

  “You are a lot more cynical than I imagined,” I muttered.

  “Vilge-raised doesn’t mean vilge-brained,” she snapped. “I’ve read enough old pys to know how this goes. You’re trying to bait me into trusting you, so when the mood hits again, you won’t have to use force.”

  I recoil. “What kind of monster do you think I am?!”

  “The type that kidnaps people on lies,” she said dryly. “That’s already strike one.”

  I sigh, dragging my fingers through my hair.

  Digging through this scumbag’s memories, desperate for some detail, any detail, that might help. Cn politics. Spirit veins. Binding Contracts.

  I could force her. With my status alone, she couldn’t refuse me. That thought made my stomach turn. Especially since the only person reted to me—Grandfather—was actively trying to repce me with a living cheat code.

  If I pushed Mei Lin now, even a little, and word got out? There’d be no saving me when Li Shen finally evolved into protagonist mode and came back for revenge.

  Maybe I should just let her go.

  That thought fluttered in weakly like a dying moth in a storm.

  Just open the door. Tell her to run. Be free, butterfly. Start a new life. Forget the aristocratic young master who ruined your reputation.

  But it was too te for that. There’d be rumors. Scandal. Shame. People would assume things, and in this society, "assume" might as well be the truth. She’d be ruined.

  Or maybe… maybe I could negotiate. Offer her something. An exchange. A favor?

  Argh. My head throbbed.

  And then—

  A golden shimmer exploded in my vision, increasing my migraine.

  Unveiling Connections of Karmic Gratitude and Deep Resentment

  Please choose your target?

  I blinked.

  “…What the hell?”

  My pulse quickened. My spine straightened. My eyes darted around the room like a squirrel caught between two hungry cats.

  Was this a cheat?

  Yes. Yes. Thank the heavenly reincarnation lottery, I actually got a cheat. Transmigration wasn’t just the free body upgrade—it came with a golden ticket. A divine interface. A system.

  Which meant—

  There might also be a mysterious higher power yanking the strings behind the curtains like some bored cultivator god pying chess with my soul. But hey, that's Future Me's problem. For now, Present Me had an edge.

  My gaze snapped back to the glowing interface.

  Please choose your target?

  “What target?” I muttered aloud, looking around the room. There was only me… and—

  My eyes locked onto Mei Lin.

  Still trembling. Still furious. Still hugging her knees like she might unch them at my face.

  The shimmer pulsed brighter.

  Target Acquired: Mei LinAnalyzing...

  Resentment: 99.98% (FATED DEMISE)

  I froze.

  I mean, froze. Brain stopped, lungs halted, my heart tried to flip a U-turn and escape through my ears.

  FATED DEMISE?!

  What do you mean by Fated Demise?

  FATED DEMISE—A critical karmic condition wherein the target is overwhelmingly likely to become the direct or indirect cause of your untimely, humiliating, and most likely painful death.

  What?! No, no, no, there had to be a mistake. She was just mad, right? Sad? Maybe traumatized? But murderous? That’s a bit much!

  I stared at her again. The girl is still trembling. Still gring.

  She wants to kill me?

  That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it?

  Okay, maybe she has some reason to hate me. Maybe even good reasons. But murder?

  That’s not reasonable. That’s not sane.

  That’s—okay yeah, maybe if she thinks I touched her, and then I left her to get mocked and exiled from polite society… maybe she’s not entirely unjustified.

  Great. Now I was stuck in a room with a walking death fg with pretty eyes and exactly zero chill.

  Panic set in.

  My brain unched into a frenzied death spiral of defense. Maybe I should kill her first. Tie up loose ends. Bury the body, silence the witnesses—

  No.

  If I did that, I’d definitely trigger Li Shen. The maybe protagonist.

  If I hurt Mei Lin, he would find out. He’d power up out of guilt and heartbreak, get a divine sword, master a secret inheritance, and show up at my door in six chapters or less, probably accompanied by a phoenix girlfriend and a small army of orphans I wronged.

  I’ll be dead. In all the ways.

  No. I need something drastic.

  Something binding.

  Something no noble scumbag would dare to offer.

  And then, lightning struck.

  Time to go nuclear.

  “I’ll swear a Heavenly Oath,” I said.

  She jerked.

  She blinked. Slowly. “You’ll… what now?”