“Is it too much to ask for a decent stallion novel?!”
The shout died in Shen Yuan’s throat, strangled by a sudden, violent coughing fit. His lungs burned, as if he hadn’t drawn a proper breath in days. He gasped, eyes snapping open.
He wasn’t in his room. The ceiling wasn’t the familiar off-white of his apartment, but dark, polished wood, smelling faintly of sandalwood and old paper. Sunlight filtered through gauzy window curtains, dancing in slow, dusty motes.
Shen Yuan tried to sit up, but his body felt heavy, wrong. He stared down at his hands. They were pale, elegant, and completely foreign—the hands of a scholar, not a keyboard warrior.
“What the hell…”
He pushed himself up, the silk robes sliding cool against his skin. He was lying on a bamboo bed in a room that looked like it had been lifted straight from a wuxia set. A low table sat nearby, holding a brush and a stack of papers. A qin rested in the corner.
Panic, cold and sharp, pricked at the back of his neck. He remembered the pain, the darkness, the scrolling text of that trashy novel Proud Immortal Demon Way mocking him in his final moments. He had died. He was sure of it.
So why was he waking up in a period drama?
A sharp, mechanical chime echoed inside his skull, followed by a translucent blue screen flickering into existence directly in his line of sight.
[System Initializing…] [Identity Confirmed: Shen Qingqiu]
Shen Yuan froze. The name hit him like a physical blow.
“Shen Qingqiu?” he whispered, his voice trembling. “The scum villain?”
Memories that weren’t his own began to bleed into his mind. Cang Qiong Mountain Sect. Qing Jing Peak. The disdain of his martial brothers. And Luo Binghe—the white lotus disciple he had tormented, abused, and eventually driven into the abyss.
The original Shen Qingqiu’s fate flashed before him in gruesome high definition. He hadn’t just died; he had been tortured by his own disciple until he was literally reduced to a human stick. A human stick!
A herd of ten thousand grass-mud horses galloped wildly through Shen Yuan’s mind, trampling his sanity into dust.
“No, no, no!” Shen Yuan scrambled off the bed, his legs nearly giving out. He clutched at his chest, heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. “I can’t be Shen Qingqiu! That guy dies in the worst way possible!”
He paced the small room, robes swishing frantically. “It’s not that I don’t want to hug the protagonist’s thigh,” he muttered, running a hand through his long, loose hair. “But the protagonist is a dark, vengeful type! He returns every grievance a thousand-fold! If I so much as look at him wrong, I’m dead meat!”
And why him? Why were all the romantic plot beats meant for the female leads being forced onto him? Why was he, a designated scum villain, expected to constantly throw himself in front of swords and guns for the protagonist’s sake?
Shen Yuan stopped pacing and looked at his reflection in a bronze mirror. The face looking back was cold, beautiful, and arrogant—the very picture of a refined hypocrite.
“...I think I can still save this.”
He took a deep, shuddering breath, forcing his shoulders to relax. Panic wouldn’t help. He knew the plot. He knew the future. That gave him an edge the original Shen Qingqiu never had.
He had to prove something: a scum villain could not only survive, he could live with style.
“System,” he said aloud, testing the word. “What are my options?”