Heng Xiaowen cracked immediately.

“I come in peace! I come in peace!” he squawked. “I swear! I come in peace!”

“You—” Lu Xiuying blinked. “What?”

“I don’t know how I got here or what’s going on at all, I promise! I don’t have any bad intentions!” He threw his hands up. “Please don’t hurt me.”

Lu Xiuying narrowed her eyes. “You don’t know how you got here?”

“Absolute fucking mystery,” he agreed fervently.

Lu Xiuying stared at him in disbelief. “Okay, then.” She frowned, tilting her head to the side. “How about I ask you some questions and you answer to the best of your ability?”

“Sure!” Heng Xiaowen did his best to smile. “Could you take your sword off my neck?”

“No,” she said brusquely. “Are you a demon disguising yourself as Heng Xiaowen?”

“Is that something that happens often?”

Her eyebrows raised. “Answer my question.”

“Right,” he said. “I’m not. At least I’m pretty sure I’m not. It would probably surprise me more than you if I were!” Heng Xiaowen laughed nervously.

Lu Xiuying nodded. “Are you a demonic cultivator using a puppet curse to control Heng Xiaowen?”

“No?”

“What about a gu insect?”

“I don’t even know what that is!” he answered somewhere between frantic and cheerful.

“You don’t— Never mind.” Lu Xiuying trailed her sword up his throat, tilting his chin up and squinting down at him. “Those were all ideas I had mostly dismissed already, so either you’re a very good liar or you’ve been telling the truth to me so far.”

Heng Xiaowen took a slow careful breath, acutely conscious of where Lu Xiuying’s sword was pressed into his skin. “I’m not lying,” he said through gritted teeth, trying to hold his jaw still.

“You’re quite the puzzle,” she said. “It didn’t take long to figure out that something had happened to Heng Xiaowen, and it wasn’t hard to figure out that whoever you are—whatever you are—you aren’t him. But most of the ideas I had, fell apart when I looked closer. Even my best guess is shaky. Do you want to know what that is?”

When Lu Xiuying had knocked him to the ground and held her sword to his neck, he’d thought he had reacted extremely reasonably by groveling for his life. But he’d had a little time to calm down and think though his situation now.

So, he looked up at Lu Xiuying, looming over him in the dark. She had put her hair in twin braids to sleep and her face was bare—bare of her usual makeup, bare of her dramatic pouting and coy smiles. She looked very young and very serious.

He fixed her with a decidedly unimpressed look.

“I want you to take your sword off my neck,” he complained.

Lu Xiuying blinked. “Why would I do that?”

“I’m not dangerous,” he said emphatically. “The incompetence isn’t an elaborate ruse. I know you aren’t going to kill me and this is very uncomfortable!”

She tilted her head. “How do you know I’m not going to kill you? You already know I killed Madame Jin.”

Heng Xiaowen frowned. “You just made a big deal out of how you need me to go to the Immortal Youth Whatchamacallit Tournament. We were just talking about that before you freaked out and attacked me!” He pointed to the horse. “You want to go to this tournament so bad you got an old woman killed so we could catch that horse, and apparently I’m the only one eligible to enter, so why would you kill me if I’m not a threat?”

Lu Xiuying raised her eyebrows. “So, you aren’t a complete idiot. Good to know.” She lifted her sword but didn’t sheath it.

Heng Xiaowen sighed with relief, sitting up and stretching his neck. “So, what’s your best guess?” He was genuinely curious.

Lu Xiuying seemed a little annoyed by his relaxed attitude. “You’re a vengeful spirit that is possessing Heng Xiaowen’s body, and you’re powerful enough to hide yourself from Shizun and Shishu.”

“That’s—” Heng Xiaowen thought about it. “Mostly wrong. I think. But good guess!”

“Then what are you?!” Lu Xiuying snapped.

“Would you believe me if I told you that getting my head bashed in with a rock messed up my memories and personality?” he asked.

“No!” she hissed. “I know you’re a different person! Just tell me!”

“It was worth a shot.” He shrugged. It was surprisingly difficult to admit, even with his cover thoroughly blown. “I guess I might technically qualify as a spirit? I did die. But I don’t have any interest in vengeance, I’m just trying to enjoy myself and avoid causing anyone else too much trouble.”

“Spirits without intense resentment aren’t able to possess bodies,” Lu Xiuying argued. “The resentment is the attachment that prevents them from reincarnating.”

Heng Xiaowen opened his mouth to retort, said nothing, and closed it.

Was Heng Xiaowen—No, more accurately, was Anna Cheng resentful?

Heng Xiaowen didn’t feel particularly resentful. He could admit that his first life was rather short and unfortunate, but he doubted Anna Cheng was angry enough to merit becoming a vengeful ghost. He—She didn’t get bent out of shape easily over things she couldn’t change.

And even if she had become a vengeful ghost, there was no reason for her to possess the body of a fictional character she was only passingly familiar with.

“Maybe I reincarnated… Badly?” he suggested to an increasingly vexed looking Lu Xiuying. He dug his nails into his palm, floating above the anxiety trying to claw up his throat. “I’m from another world. One without cultivators or ghosts or…” He gestured towards the horse that was still sedately chewing radish greens, watching them with vague amusement, though Heng Xiaowen couldn’t explain why he thought the horse looked amused. “Magic horses.”

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

He decided to leave out the part about this world being a work of fiction on his home world. He didn’t want to give Lu Xiuying an existential crisis.

Lu Xiuying’s eyes widened. “Oh.” She nodded slowly and twiddled one of her braids. “That explains it. That makes perfect sense.”

“It does?” Heng Xiaowen asked.

She nodded again, more aggressively. “There are a lot of realms. Demonic realms, upper cultivation realms, lower cultivation realms, heavenly realms.” she explained, almost giddy. “You’re probably from a lower cultivation realm. I have no idea how you got here, or why you ended up in Heng Xiaowen’s body. But we don’t know how many realms exist anyway, and travel between realms isn’t well understood either. You didn’t come here on purpose, right? Did you do some kind of ritual?”

Heng Xiaowen shook his head. “No, I just died and woke up here in Heng Xiaowen’s body.”

She smiled and held out a hand to him. “So, you’re completely clueless?”

“Completely.” Heng Xiaowen took Lu Xiuying’s hand and let her help him back to his feet.

Lu Xiuying giggled. “This is great news!”

“It’s— Why?” Now it was Heng Xiaowen’s turn to look vexed. “Heng Xiaowen, your Heng Xiaowen, is gone and I stole his body.”

Lu Xiuying either hadn’t registered what he said, or didn’t care. She was still holding his hand and swung it gently back and forth. She seemed delighted, like a kid who found out she was getting a puppy for her birthday.

“But that is great news!” She gave his hand a little squeeze. “Because—”

In one swift, brutal movement, she twisted Heng Xiaowen’s arm behind his back. Searing pain lanced through his shoulder and he gasped.

Lu Xiuying leaned in. “You’re at my mercy. I own you,” she said into his ear.

Then, as easily as she’d restrained him, she released him.

Heng Xiaowen stumbled away a few steps and spun around, clutching his shoulder.

“Oh, don’t look so wronged.” Lu Xiuying wasn’t laughing at him outright, but he could see it in her eyes. “This will be good for you. You need me. You really thought you could just bumble around in the dark indefinitely?”

“It’s worked okay so far,” he grumbled.

“It really hasn’t.” She wandered back over to the horse, feeding it another radish. “The only reason no one else has confronted you about being an obvious imposter is they’re too preoccupied with their own guilt to realize it.” Lu Xiuying tossed her hand against her forehead and lowered her voice. “Boohoo! My disciple died under my supervision! What if I caused a bottleneck in his cultivation?” She laid both hands on her chest and pitched up her voice. “Oh no! Da-shixiong threw himself into harm’s way to protect me and now he’s acting strangely! It’s all my fault!” She paused and glanced up. “I suppose Ling Hong probably doesn’t feel guilty. But he’s young and new, so he didn’t know Heng Xiaowen as well as the rest of us.”

Heng Xiaowen stared at her, mouth slightly ajar.

“What?” she said indignantly.

Heng Xiaowen cleared his throat. “So… You’re not going to tell the others about me?”

Lu Xiuying rolled her eyes. “Obviously not, keep up. What would I have to gain from that? It’s my best piece of leverage against you, that and the fact that I apparently have four more years of cultivation training than you do. But I really do prefer blackmail over physical intimidation. So brutish! Not ladylike at all.”

Heng Xiaowen couldn’t help but smile with utter disbelief. His shoulder still hurt. She was incredible.

Lu Xiuying twirled her braid around her finger. “Where was I? Oh, yes—” She patted the horse’s cheek and then turned back to face him. “I’m going to help you keep up the act, and teach you about this world so you don’t embarrass me.”

It wasn’t hard to see where this was going. “And what am I going to do for you?”

“See! Not a total idiot.” Lu Xiuying practically skipped back over to him. “You’re going to help me marry a rich cultivator.”

“Huh.”

It wasn’t what Heng Xiaowen had expected. Lu Xiuying wasn’t acting entirely different than normal, even before she had pulled her sword on him, he caught glimpses of her being calculating. In hindsight, there were obvious instances of her testing him; trying to figure out who he was. He remembered, even on the very first night hunt he went on, she insisted he check one of the goats himself with claims of his superior cultivation.

For a grand reveal of Lu Xiuying’s true colors, he thought her big plan was somewhat anticlimatic—it was the same goal she proudly declared all the time.

Heng Xiaowen tilted his head. “Why?” he asked.

“What do you mean why?”

“Well,” he said. “If I’m going to be your lackey, I want to know why you’re trying to marry a rich cultivator and not… I don’t know. Become the world’s greatest cultivator or exact revenge on your enemies or something.”

Lu Xiuying rolled her eyes again. She had a knack for it. “Because I’m not an idiot.” She was quiet for a moment. Her gaze turned back to the horse. “You know, I probably would have ended up like Madame Jin if I hadn’t become a cultivator.”

She smiled humorlessly. “Fighting with my sisters over some petty thing because I wouldn’t have anything else to fight over. That’s why they cared about the horse so much—they couldn’t inherit their family’s business, their family’s property. But the horse? The horse was too much trouble for their brothers to bother hoarding for themselves. If they could just catch it, they could inherit something too.”

She turned back to him. “Because I’m teaching you about this world, here is a lesson: cultivators like to pretend that they’re untouched by the red dust of this world. They act as though all that matters is the strength of your cultivation. It’s horseshit. If I want to make anything of my life, I need wealth, and if I want wealth, I need a husband.”

Heng Xiaowen took a moment to absorb her words.

“Alright,” he said. “That sounds reasonable. Honestly, you don’t need to blackmail me, I would have helped you out if you’d asked.”

Lu Xiuying seemed slightly surprised by his response.

“Within reason!” he added. “I won’t murder any innocents or anything. It doesn’t matter what you blackmail me with, I have limits.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she responded dryly.

“So, what’s our first order of business, boss?”

Lu Xiuying made an affronted face. “Don’t call me Da-ge! What’s wrong with you?”

“I got hit on the head!” Heng Xiaowen responded cheerfully. “What should I call you then?”

“Shimei, Er-shimei, Xiuying, something normal!” She scowled at him. “We’re trying to pass you off as Heng Xiaowen.”

Heng Xiaowen had used his reward to purchase the Glossary earlier and decided now might be a good time to look up a few terms.

[Glossary:

Da-ge - Eldest brother. Also used as a term of respect for a man of the same age or older than the speaker. Sometimes translated as boss, especially in relation to organized crime.

Shimei - Junior martial sister

Er - Two. Can be used as a prefix to indicate order of rank or birth order in siblings or other groups, like a cultivation sect or group of friends.]

Lu Xiuying snapped her fingers in his face. “What are you doing? This is also something you need to fix. You can’t randomly go silent and stare at nothing when people are talking to you! Who does that?”

Heng Xiaowen grinned sheepishly. “Sorry, Shimei.”

“Do you have a name, by the way? What were you called before you came here?”

“Oh. Cheng Anna?” It felt strange to introduce himself that way. He didn’t even think of himself as Anna Cheng anymore. He’d left her behind when she’d died. “You should probably just call me Heng Xiaowen.”

“Even if it’s just the two of us?” she asked.

“It’s easier this way,” he said. “You could slip up and call me Cheng Anna around other people and it would be difficult to explain.”

“Maybe you would,” she scoffed. “Whatever. It doesn’t make a difference to me.”

“What was he like?” he asked. “Heng Xiaowen. The first one.”

“Self righteous,” she said immediately. “An idiot. Insufferably naive and optimistic. He thought that if he worked hard and believed in himself he could do anything. He went on and on about never giving up. It was as trite as it was exhausting.”

“Harsh,” he said. “So, what am I like?”

She raised an eyebrow. “You’re bizarre. Absent minded. Either you seem like nothing affects you or you’re too easily flustered by things that shouldn’t bother you. It’s like—” She clicked her tongue. “You’re aimless. You seem like you just wander through life letting things happen to you. Not even getting into the way you treat your sword like it’s a viper poised to strike.”

Well. He probably should have anticipated a vicious character assassination.

Lu Xiuying sighed and looked away. “You also take me seriously,” she reluctantly admitted. “It was one of the first signs that you weren’t Heng Xiaowen. He never asked for my help or opinions.”

“Oh.” Heng Xiaowen scratched the back of his neck. “Well, I needed them. I still do.”

“Yes,” she said. “You really do.”

He cracked a smile at her. She didn’t exactly return it, but she shook her head in what he decided was vaguely fond exasperation.

It was an odd partnership—somewhere between an alliance and a hostage situation, but Heng Xiaowen was pleased nonetheless. Lu Xiuying might be a ruthless, self-interested, aspiring gold digger, but she was also clever and had straightforward motivations. He could respect that. It felt good to have someone in his corner, even if they had a knife pressed to his back.

“So,” he said. “What are we doing about the horse?”

“Putting it back in the qiankun bag and pretending this never happened.”

“What? Noooooo,” he protested.

“Seriously, what is your deal with the horse?”

Heng Xiaowen drew himself up to his full height. “In the world I’m from, the bond between a horse and a young woman is sacred and very auspicious. If this horse has shown you favor and you feel a kinship towards it, it’s extremely taboo to sever that bond.”

At this point, Heng Xiaowen was starting to admit to himself that he mostly wouldn’t budge on this because he thought it was funny.

Lu Xiuying eyed him suspiciously. “Is that so?”

He nodded solemnly. “As a gesture of goodwill for our fragile new alliance—”

“This isn’t an alliance. I own you.”

“Yes, yes,” he said. “Then as your humble servant I entreat you to listen to my wisdom and commune with that horse before we send it to the fantasy glue factory.”

Lu Xiuying buried her face in her hands. “We have so much work to do on the way you speak.”

“You can Pretty Woman me later, Lu Xiuying!” he said, seizing her by her shoulders and shoving her towards the horse.

Lu Xiuying stumbled towards the horse and sent a baffled glance over her shoulder. Then she sighed, fed the horse another radish, and stared it down with her arms crossed.

After a minute, Lu Xiuying nodded and then stomped back over to Heng Xiaowen. “Tangtao says that he can help us catch a rabbit that’s eaten a hundred people as his replacement.”