[”A Daughter of the Emei Sect…”
If these past few minutes had taught me anything, it was that Liang Feng could be managed—reeled in, even—if I gave the task my absolute, undivided attention. Picture wrestling an overexcited dog, convinced beyond reason that humping every leg it encountered was an entirely appropriate course of action. Now add the complication of trying to plug a hundred leaking holes at the same time. That was my brain.
The young man cleaning blood from my face flinched as our eyes met. Too much of Liang’s glare had slipped through, but I didn’t have the luxury to care. I was busy keeping the bigger dam from bursting. His mouth needed to remain shut.
The Feng name might have bought me precious moments, but patience was a finite thing. Coin and word would only keep me alive for so long, and bigger fish always lurked in deep waters. And I was out deep, having come face to face with one of Dao of the Divine’s key characters.
She sat across from me, poised and collected, at a table that had only just been returned to its rightful position. The shards of broken porcelain were gone, whisked away like an inconvenient memory. Only a roughly put together Zhēngfú board remained to fill the surface between us. Its pieces were not arranged in any state legal moves could ever reach, but such a small OCD part of my brain didn’t matter. Not right now.
“I apologize for the misunderstanding, Master Feng,” she said, lowering her head just enough to seem respectful without losing an ounce of composure. Mei Faolang. She was younger than I’d expected—her skin smooth, unmarked by burns, and free from the layers of makeup trying, and failing, to conceal the subsequent scars. Her eyes, though. Her eyes were what struck me most. They lacked the quiet pain and shadowed regret I’d come to associate with her character—or rather, her person.
This wasn’t some scene from my phone screen, and she wasn’t a tragic figure yet. Just a young woman, hardly more than a girl, sitting in front of me, real and alive in a way I could scarcely fathom. And despite her youth, she carried a poise and gravity that Liang Feng—hell, even I—couldn’t hope to muster on our best days.
But it was a subtle thing, and the shallow part of me that was Liang had already dismissed her. She wasn’t the most alluring girl. Not even in this room—where polite figures moved with quiet efficiency to restore the aftermath of the earlier chaos—was she the standout. She was a bit too thin, freckles dusted across her nose, and the angles of her face strayed far from any conventional beauty standard. But still, something about her, perhaps the sharp gleam of her cat-like eyes or a subtle, unspoken charm, tugged at me. Or maybe it wasn’t her at all. Maybe it was the Victor part of me, the part that knew too much of her story. The woman she was destined to become.
It was surreal, meeting her like this. Not like meeting some celebrity or historical figure you’d read about. No, this was like being told Son Wukong himself was real, only to be seated across from him over a cup of tea, your life floating somewhere at the bottom of the lukewarm liquid.
For better or worse, Liang Feng wasn’t half as awestruck as I was.
Demand her head Threaten to burn the place down Be snarky
The choices paraded before me like a cruel joke. There was never a real choice to begin with.
[Be snarky]
“Which part was the misunderstanding?” Liang snorted, leaning back with practiced ease. “The part where you served me poison, or the one where it didn’t kill me? Because your friends certainly tried to correct that last bit earlier.”
“The misunderstanding,” Mei Faolang said smoothly, “surrounding my friends’ treatment of you. One which was born from a report of a lunatic being loose in your room, threatening to burn this place down and kill us all. From what I’ve gathered, your actions upon their arrival did little to dispel those claims.”
I barely spared the screen a glance as it flickered before my eyes.
Threaten Argue Dismiss
There was no way I could simply dismiss the mistress of this establishment, no matter how young she seemed, and trying to threaten her was sure to get me killed.
[Argue]
“How careless of me,” Liang drawled, “bursting into someone’s room in the middle of the night, waving my sword around like a flaccid cock.” He rolled his eyes dramatically.
“From what I’ve heard,” she replied, unfazed, “someone was, actually, waving a rather unseemly thing around in the main hall last night, causing quite the ruckus. None of those present were particularly impressed.”
This time, the blue screen didn’t even appear. It was as if my choices had already been set to auto-select as long as I didn’t make a conscious effort to inject. Perimeters: don’t threaten anyone, don’t escalate the situation, and try not to be too much of an asshole.
Liang clearly struggled with the latter part.
“I’d beg to differ,” he said, unflinching. “I’d say most of the people were impressed, it’s just that some prudes have too much pride to admit the part. Gentlemen lacking confidence, and ladies trying to comfort them despite stealing constant glances.”
Mei sent us a scathing glare.
“That aside,” she said, “you made some rather unsubtle threats about poisoning the establishment’s wine earlier, did you not?”
“About getting poisoned,” Liang corrected, the faintest edge of annoyance creeping into his voice. “Bitterthorn. In. My. Wine.”
“Then that warrants an investigation of its own, aside from any misunderstandings born from the poor behavior of all parties involved,” Mei said evenly, leaving little room for argument. Liang could have argued—he was about to—but perhaps sensing the snark coiling in his throat, Mei waved her hand with a practiced grace.
The reaction was immediate. The servants bustling about the room stilled, then departed with respectful bows. Their absence left the room unnervingly quiet for a full second before the manager-like man entered, his steps breaking the stillness.
“Any success in finding where Nao disappeared to, Bi Han?” Mei asked, her tone as light as if she were inquiring about a misplaced teacup.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“None so far, ma’am,” the man said, dropping to one knee as though in deference to a queen. It struck me then, how peculiar it was to see someone so young commanding this kind of respect. Even when the room was filled with courtesans and servants, they had moved around her like their center of gravity. It wasn’t the grudging, fearful reverence someone like Liang could coerce with threats and coin either. This was the deeper kind, the “I would die for you” kind of respect. It made me uncomfortable. “I had intended to keep an eye on her, but she vanished during our... misunderstanding with Master Feng here.”
My eyebrows rose at that.
In a sense, it was a relief being able to defer some control of Liang’s body just then. All of this—Dao of the Divine being real—remained as jarring now as when I first awoke here. But now, there was the increasing sense of something being off. Beyond the fact that I’d been reincarnated as a game character, that was.
A plot point I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
I needed time to think. To process.
Though, maybe leaving Liang in charge was more reckless than I’d realized.
[Error. Script Failed To Load Properly.]
“Brilliant,” Liang snorted, picking up the damp cloth, left behind by the young man who’d been cleaning our wounds, to press it against our swollen face. “And here I thought the great Mei Faolang was supposed to be someone impressive. But instead, I find a child who can’t even keep her own employees from trying to assassinate me.”
The room froze, and so did I.
How the hell did he know that name? She’d introduced herself as Chunfen earlier. I only knew Mei Faolang’s real name because I had played Dao of the Divine.
But there was no time to dwell on it. The last word had barely left my lips as the manager’s blade appeared at my throat in a blur of steel.
[Reassessing Scenario…]
“How do you know that name?” he hissed, echoing my confusion. His knuckles were white against the hilt, his eyes narrow with murderous intent.
Even Mei had gone still, her earlier command of the situation crumbling like paper under a heavy rain.
That seemingly amused Liang to no end. I could feel it in his body—in a smirk that was enough to make my skin crawl. “Did you let the rumors surrounding my name cloud your judgment?” His voice carried a casual, cutting cruelty I hadn’t known he possessed. “Break a few vases, insult a few people, raise the occasional racket—it’s such an easy way to be dismissed as the ‘useless third son.’ After that, no one bothers to notice your actions. They just roll their eyes and say, ‘How typical of that punk.’ A character hardly worth remembering.”
The words hung in the air like smoke, sharp and acrid. I shuddered, an uncomfortable heat settling under my skin. Why did those words feel so pointed?
[Error. Unknown Entity Detected.]
“The me you don’t see,” Liang continued, his tone curling like the edges of a burning page, “is far more interesting than someone like you could ever hope to be, Mei Faolang. Yet they brush me aside as a footnote in your story. How convenient it is to blame the ‘trash character’ for every failure. How easy to dismiss your blindness.”
Those words weren’t for her. They were for me.
[Reassessing Scenario…]
This wasn’t the world pushing me down a predetermined route. This was Liang Feng, as present in this body as I was. I could feel him, his annoyance sharpening like a blade against stone. And just like I was given access to his body, it seemed he had access to my mind and memories.
He knew what I’d been thinking about him.
[Rewriting Scenario…]
New Objective: Discover who Liang Feng was before the beginning of Dao of the Divine.
Reward: Plotline: “A burden to bear.”
“What under the celestial skies are you talking about?” the manager growled, his blade pressing so close to my throat that a single twitch would draw blood. But Mei, with a slight wave of her hand, stopped him.
The blade retreated, but the tension in the room didn’t lessen. Mei’s eyes fixed on me, sharp and assessing, as if she were picking apart my very soul.
“Should I assume you’re here on your own accord, or representing your family?” she asked, her voice stripped of the earlier politeness. A mask had fallen away, and for the first time, I saw a glimpse of the real Mei Faolang—the woman I’d admired through the screen for years.
The realization stirred something unexpected in me: annoyance.
[Error. Unknown Entity Detected.]
Liang clicked his tongue, his expression growing lazier, more dismissive, as if she weren’t even worth looking at directly. “You think one is better than the other, but it really isn’t,” he said, his tone that familiar blend of laziness and condescension. Just a brat, a spiteful voice inside me seemed to say, completely disregarding Mei’s presence. No one worth paying attention to. Then came the smirk, sharp enough to cut glass. “If I were here to represent of my family, I might have some control over what happens next. But I don’t. Everything from here on out, Mei Faolang, is because of your inadequacies.”
[Proceeding With New Scenario…]
Trait Activated: Coincidence or Timing?
Sometimes, the world seems too eager to underscore a character’s monologue. Just be sure to never tempt fate by complimenting the weather.
The words had barely left my lips as screams rose in the distance, carried upon a quiet breeze. The acrid scent of fire followed, faint but unmistakable.
It can’t be…
And then it came, the crackling sound of fireworks, like a seal stamped for the chaos to come.
My heart to plummeted.
That wasn’t the sound of celebration. Not to me. It was the prelude of a hundred things that’d gone wrong, turning the night into a canvas of something far more sinister. My mind’s eye snapped to the worst case scenario.
A budding city by the river ablaze. It’s people slaughtered. The tragic back story of a young woman in full swing.
New Objective: Find Nao Chunhua
Before it’s too late, discover the truth behind Liang Feng’s assassination and the downfall of the Gonghe River Pavilion.
Requirement: Mei Faolang must survive.
Reward: Fate Event: Friend or Foe? Mei Faolang.
Underneath the blue screen, a timer flickered into view:
01:00:00…
00:59:59…
Mei was already on her feet, her composure stretched thin. Her earlier veneer of control was gone, replaced with sharp-edged tension. “What’s going on?” she demanded, her voice steady but her eyes searching.
Liang Feng slouched deeper into his chair, the picture of disdainful indifference. If Mei was a taut bowstring, he was a bored cat, batting lazily at a bug. “It seems,” he said, a faint smile playing on his lips, “that things are finally getting interesting.”
Even before those first screams had faded into the distance, the manager—Bi Han—had rushed to the window, his movements quick but precise. Now, standing with his hand stiffly resting on the hilt of his sword, he turned back toward Mei with a grim shake of his head. The regret on his face spoke volumes: he had no answers for her.
“Early celebrants of the Resplendent Harmony Festival?” he tried, but there was no conviction to his words. If anything, they merely caused my heart to sink deeper. Today really was that day: the anniversary of the Heavenly Demon’s fall.
But the night was too bright outside, too alive for just fireworks and festivities. Flames danced across distant rooftops, and the streets were soon filled with panicked voices, scrambling bodies, and confusion.
Mei’s narrowed eyes landed on me.
“As I told you, nothing to do with me,” Liang Feng said, raising his hands in mock surrender. The smirk tugging at his lips betrayed his words, an unmistakable satisfaction curling at their edges. “This is all on you, Mei Faolang.”
It wasn’t just the smirk—it was the way his tone seemed to savor the chaos, like a spark admiring the fire it had lit. I wanted to cringe, to crawl out of this disaster, to do anything other than ride along in his skin like a helpless passenger.
And then, it happened.
Scenario Established. Tutorial Entering Phase Two… Objective: Survive the Resplendent Harmony Festival. Difficulty: Nightmare Granting full control of Liang Feng…
It was as if I’d been shaken awake from a dream. The creeping fog of paralysis—of helplessness—lifted in an instant. I sank back into Liang Feng’s body like a breath that’d been released, his limbs suddenly moving with the precision and immediacy of my own. I flexed my fingers instinctively, relishing the agency, even as dread curled cold fingers around my throat.
The timing couldn’t have been worse.
“Get down!” Bi Han’s voice rang sharp and clear, slicing through the moment’s eerie stillness.
The half-open window shattered. Something tore through it in a streak of black and silver. An arrow, but not like any arrow I’d seen in my world. Its shaft was thick, its payload far too heavy, hissing with the promise of destruction.
A single breath later, the world erupted in flames.