Truck-kun is a god of mysterious ways. Few among the living know why he sends the transmigrators that he does: why some are heroes, some villains; some friendly and easygoing, some depressed loners; some incapable of expressing love, others capable, perhaps, of expressing too much; some, the saviours of humanity, others, proprietors of yoghurt shops.

None among the living, however, knew why he sent Jeffrey Throbscottle, self-described hero of this, that, any, and every novel.

This was not because Jeffrey Throbscottle, hero of this (that, any, and every) novel, was a dark and inscrutable man of mystery, much as he might wish it so. No, this was because none now lived who had met him, and were not either dead or his employees: and the latter, you can be sure, were in no hurry to understand him.

Some of them, if they thought he weren’t listening, might even have gone as far as to doubt whether he ought to be described as a hero. But in this they were mistaken. After all, Jeffrey Throbscottle was, in his own mind, the main character and therefore, as he would himself tell you, the hero; hence he was deserving of cheers and support, even if he devoured all in his path.

Not that he ever devoured anyone. That would be unsanitary.

He may, it is true, be described as devouring the souls of all in his path, until they had no more a spark of life than a machine. But that would be unfair to Jeffrey Throbscottle, self-described hero: for his employees were well-fed, and well-watered, and literate, and even if he had carefully removed the cultivation manuals from their environs he’d nonetheless left them with works of greater import. Financial guides, for instance, and works of social criticism.

And if sometimes his employees’ smiles looked a little strained and they nervously eyed what lurked in the corners, well, they were still smiles, weren’t they?

Such were the thoughts that did not consume Jeffrey Throbscottle’s mind as he retired to his tiger skin bed. They did not consume him, for he never thought of his employees at all, especially not when he knew his tiger skin bed was waiting for him.

He meditated on his future investments as he changed out of his suit (he insisted on a suit, cultivation world be damned) and into his bedrobe, slowly pouring himself a tumbler of de-alcoholised wine.

Unfortunately, a cultivation world is a world of violence, and though Jeffrey Throbscottle had banned his employees from cultivating those not yet in his employ weren’t quite so willing to follow his advice.

“Jeffrey Throbscottle,” the cultivator - and he had to be a cultivator, to have made it past them - intoned. “I am here with the Bureau for Transmigrator Affairs.”

Jeffrey pursed his lips. Ah yes, them (and not the them who lurked in the corners and under the floorboards and behind the walls and… down there).

You see, it may have been a slight exaggeration, when it was earlier asserted that everyone who knew Jeffrey Throbscottle was either dead or his employee. There was one group that had met him and slipped out his claws. How they had found him he had never yet determined, and considered the question to be one of those unpleasant but regrettably common mysteries with which life is filled. But it was no great mystery as to how they’d escaped: he hadn’t cared.

After all, who would want to control bureaucrats? Pallid, miserable, feeble creatures, without imagination or drive or skill. Fit only to file paperwork, which they’d done, after having him listen to an exhausting and frankly pointless spiel on their expectations towards him as a transmigrator in mortal society. They’d had him sign some forms, and stared at him with their tired eyes, and then had sent him on his way with an admonition to ‘be good.’ And boy, had he gone, and as fast as he could.

How one of them had found its way into his inner sanctum was beyond him (he’d revised his opinion: they couldn’t be cultivators, since it required vision to do visualisations); presumably, the same way they’d found him the first time. No matter. It would ruin his evening, but would be no more a bother than the initial annoyance. Of that he was sure.

A surety that decreased immensely when he turned around and beheld not the lone bureaucrat who’d spoken, but two dozen, standing afore the windows and on top of the rafters and over every other corner of the room they could get their limpid paws on, barring the tiger skin bed (let's face it: it was too hideous even for bureaucrats).

Nor were they the grey, listless men who had applied the seal to his entry papers six years before. These were proper scholars, with the robes and the hats and the magnificent moustaches, well-muscled, and the way they held their swords indicated that they knew how to use them.

The one who had spoken stood facing Jeffrey in the centre of the room. He was a veritable behemoth, standing over ten feet tall, and Jeffrey debated whether he was merely a freak of cultivation world Nature or whether that was the result of body refinement techniques.

(Actually, he was a half-giant on his father's side: his mother had been a washerwoman from Albuquerque, who one day had failed to notice that her washing pail was full of electric exploding piranha-squid and had then gone on a very unexpected but nonetheless pleasant surprise adventure in the Western Wastes, where she'd met his father while fighting the dreaded Insufficient Sauce Monster in Kungpao Chicken Holy Land. Currently they lived in a lovely little cottage in North Xiaoji, where his mother kept daffodils and knitted Christmas sweaters for appreciative pigeons, and his father collected stamps and ate the occasional highway robber.)

The speaker stared at Jeffrey with wide, steady eyes, and reiterated his earlier statement. "It is Jeffrey Throbscottle, correct? Owner of Throbscottle Holdings, Inc.?"

Jeffrey spread his arms. He'd been a lawyer in his past life, and a highly successful one at that (barring that one time he'd been skewered in court - but that had led him to this world, so it had turned out for the best), and had no doubts that wherever the conversation turned, it would turn in his control.

"No, my dear sir - it's Jeffrey Throbscottle, visionary founder of Throbscottle Holdings, Inc. Now tell me, how can I help the noble arm of the law today?"

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

But the scholar didn't answer. He simply nodded, satisfied, and stepped to the left and back.

And the person who'd been standing behind him stepped forward.

She was not the sort of woman Jeffrey would look at, normally, even if she'd been draped in gold (which was, I am sad to say, about the only time he did look at women). Short, and narrow, and while her clothes were clean and well-kept they were so unutterably plain he felt himself getting drowsy just looking at her. As to her head - he could see nothing under her weimao, barring her ahoge, which poked through a hole in the top.

In short, she could have been any Confucian lady, and Throbscottle would have dismissed her immediately were it not for the brief nod of deference the behemoth gave her, and the looks of expectation from the rest of the bureaucrats. This alone would have told him her rank, had she not reached down to her side - past a sword, attached to her belt - and lifted up a seal. Her voice, when it came, was crisp but low.

"Mr. Throbscottle, please spare us the theatrics. This is no friendly visit, nor do we need - nor, for that matter, particularly care for - your 'help.' This is a legal call."

Jeffrey did not let the smile fade from his face. It was important, to smile: it was an omen of one's invariable triumph, and he wanted to let them know it.

"A legal call? My, whatever for? Has there been a question about the legality of my services?"

"No," said the lady tersely, and it was true. Whatever else one might say about Jeffrey Throbscottle (and there was an awful lot one might say about him) one could never accuse him of flouting the law, even when the law did all sorts of silly things like ban dumping or mandate quality checks.

"And have my employees filed a complaint against me?" He asked innocently, as if they could.

"We did ask," and he felt her gaze, behind the veil, boring into his eyes, "but they didn't even say no."

"So then what's the reason for your impromptu visit?"

The lady withdrew a scroll from within her sleeves and, unrolling it, began to recite the charges.

"Mr. Throbscottle, three moons back you sold one hundred thousand artificial spirit stones to one Wan Pu-"

It was then, for the first time, that Jeffrey Throbscottle lost control of himself.

"Wait, hold on, you got a complaint about me from the head of the Demonic Sect?"

The lady threw back her head in fury. "And? Because he's a vile and wretched stain on humanity, does that mean you can do unto him with impunity? Mr. Throbscottle, those 'high grade' spirit stones you sold him barely worked a week."

Jeffrey got a hold of himself. Now that he knew the substance of the charges against him, it was time to reveal why, in his past life, a judge had called him 'the Master of the Viper's Tongue' (shortly before stabbing Jeffrey with his own umbrella).

He opened his mouth to sing a song of silvered tongue and honeyed thorns, and had to close it just as fast as the lady’s blade sprang from her sheathe, reaching for him like a viper. He jumped backwards in a panic. “What- what- what are you doing?”

“Did you think we came here arbitrarily? Jeffrey Throbscottle, Owner of Throbscottle Holdings, Inc., you stand accused of the crime of False Advertising: having sold Wan Pu of the Demonic Sect spirit stones which you claimed to be high grade but which were, in point of fact, clearly of subpar make and quality. Investigations by the Bureau of Transmigrator Affairs - Advertising Division confirmed that the stones were resold used spirit stones, which were you entirely aware were inferior, but which you ordered to be relabelled and advertised as the ‘The Finest Spirit Stones You’ll Ever See.’

“This claim, however, was patently false: consequently, you were found guilty on all counts of False Advertising, for which was pronounced the sentence of death.”

“Death?!!” Throbscottle cried, edging backwards as he watched the squad of bureaucrats begin to surround him. The plain woman strode forward, her face still hidden, but her tone clearly furious. Jeffrey, however, was too confused to even be able to begin rationalising this anger. “Why is the sentence for False Advertising death? That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard, and I worked in law!”

“Crazy? You think it’s crazy to be honest, to ask for sincerity from others? ‘Sincerity is the end and beginning of things; without sincerity there would be nothing.’ So says the Master; yet you, who would be a leader of men, cannot bother to bring them virtue. What then do you bring them -”

“Food! I bring them food,” Jeffrey cried, as he desperately parried her blade with a luxury vase. It shattered into porcelain fragments on the floor.

“Even the dogs have food. You bring them food; and you deprive them of honour, and beauty, and love. What then is their food? No more than ashes in their mouths.” By this time the woman was truly furious, her blade striking again and again and again as Jeffrey Throbscottle, hero(?) of the novel, continuously tried to dodge. He had backed up all the way to his bedroom wall, and each of her blows blasted holes in the wall. He felt the cold air and bitter rains of a spring night’s storm whip him as the two continued their physical and verbal fight.

“You ask why, pray tell, your lies bear such a harsh penalty. Why, when a transmigrator declares that his is the World’s Greatest Pizza, must we bother to test his sincerity? …Is it not obvious? In making his falsehood, he not only fails to Rectify, but destroys, the Names, and in doing so produces naught but falsehood. And in a world of falsity, there can be no truth; destroy truth, and there can be no understanding; destroy understanding, and there can be no love. Thus, for the sake of the Names, you must die.”

Jeffrey would have argued more, but by then she had punched so many holes in the wall that the wall itself could no longer bear its own load, and disintegrated. The wind continued to whip about him, the rest of the guards came in close. He realised then that his fight was doomed.

The mansion of Jeffrey Throbscottle, self-declared hero of this, that, any, and every novel, was built atop a great cliff - all the better to see his many factories, and take pleasure knowing that behind each windowless monolith worked a thousand workers, their lives free of frippery and the evil of aesthetics.

Thus as his wall collapsed and he backed him one final time he found himself at the edge of a precipice, his feet tipping, pitching, plunging over the edge. Plunging, for Jeffrey knew that he could not win, and with a great cry plunged over the cliff, falling to his doom.

The plain lady was about to pursue him, when a voice stopped her.

“My lady,” the messenger intoned, going to his knee as he climbed in through the window behind her. “I bring a message from your father. He begs you to return to the capital with all conceivable haste.”

The woman sighed, sheathing her blade. Without a word she turned her back on the precipice from whence had gone Jeffrey, leaving out the window. The bureaucrats lined up behind her, following in a military formation.

Our Readers need not fear the loss of a main character who, I doubt not, is already dear to them. For Jeffrey Throbscottle had lept off a cliff, and even minor characters who leap off a cliff are likely to survive, and return later.

And sure enough, upon descending the cliff (slowly, and more cautiously, than did our treasured Jeffrey), though we find a great amount of blood we nevertheless find that part of it moves off, and towards a cave where Jeffrey had stashed bandages and food and cultivation pills in case just such a tragedy as this should happen.

And upon entering the cave we will doubtless find Jeffrey bandaging himself, and already plotting out his horrible (but heroic) revenge against the evil bureaucrats who stood in the way of…

Oh.

Oh dear.

Well, dear Reader, let this be a lesson to you: it doesn’t matter what your employees look like, always make sure to feed them.